Interview: Penny Guisinger
Penny Guisinger and I met when we each served on the board of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance in the early 2010s, and I became a fan of her nonfiction soon after. Her work captured complex realities of…
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Interview: Porochista Khakpour
In a writing workshop during my undergraduate years in Pakistan, we were asked to share our favorite books and why we liked them. I talked about Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth, and the author’s masterful depiction of diaspora stories, the…
What I Want to Write
By Gemini Wahhaj • After publishing my first novel, I found myself unable to write. I had lost language. I had lived in the US for more than twenty years with some sort of relationship with the writing community.…
Floaters by Kelle Groom
Dark birds fly from my eyes. Disappear. Where do the kittens come from? We don’t have a cat. Just kittens lumped together like a single entity. A litter. In a box a blanket a bag on the passenger seat?…
The Lighthouse Keepers by Jen Colclough
“You’re a highly intelligent individual, and I’m sorry, but you probably know already that intellect and depression often run together.” The school counsellor raises her hand up and down to simulate a wave. “Your thoughts and your moods move…
The Interview by Daniel Frears
1. The day had been long and pleasant and I was dozing off in the early evening to the sound of leaves rustling. The wind would come around the side of the house and blow through the karaka trees…
“Pretend We’re Dead” by Melissa Ragsly
My first job was at a farmstand with a twenty-five-foot papier-mâché witch named Winnie towering over the parking lot. Eyes like a lizard’s with vaginal slit pupils and a boulder of a nose. She enchanted people. Drivers would pull…
Conversations Between Friends: Cynthia Marie Hoffman and Emily Costa
Cynthia Marie Hoffman and Emily Costa are both authors of memoirs about obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Costa’s Until It Feels Right is a diary-style account of intensive three-week therapy for OCD. Hoffman’s Exploding Head is a collection of prose poems…
Interview: Sue William Silverman
More and more, I think about how, at its base, creating art is not a solitary experience but one meant to be shared with friends and like-minded people. In her recent craft book, Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories…
Interview: Grace Loh Prasad
Grace Loh Prasad is a literary sister of mine in many ways. She is a good friend, fellow memoirist, and neighbor. We are both members of The Writers Grotto and The Ruby communities in San Francisco, and alumnae of…