Conversation

VI KHI NAO: On page 20, you wrote, “K says being in love is radical” – what do you think K means by this? LIZ BOWEN: This was taken from…

1 Meeting I have frequented a myriad of gyms for over a decade, and never have I been so immediately struck by another patron as I was by Houdah Abotteen…

Appropriately enough, I finished reading Paul Cohen’s The Glamshack in the middle of a heatwave that temporarily turned Eugene, Oregon into Memphis, Tennessee. My wife and I had traveled to…

Image credit: Oh My Disney Twenty years ago, in the summer of 1997, McDonalds released a series of plastic plates to go with their Happy Meals, plates with the likes…

It would be wise, I think, to keep these introductory comments brief. Steve Erickson’s innovative, eloquent, and downright visionary fiction has been inspiring other storytellers* for over 30 years. His…

Marcus Slease’s latest book, Play Yr Kardz Right, will come out in August with the British small press Dostoyevsky Wannabe. Tim Atkins has called these poems “gentle & generous engagements…

When reading Catherine Theis’ poetry, I’m frequently reminded of Godard’s 1963 film Contempt. As with that movie, Theis is interested in the way in which the classical Greco-Roman world (its…

VI KHI NAO: Your lack of line breaks or your internal line breaks are one of most compelling aspects of this poetry collection. Could you talk about your process with…

VI KHI NAO: What is desire to you? KRISTIN SANDERS: I feel like desire is the force that moves the whole world. It’s one of the only things I’m interested…

Coco and I have been friends for maybe a decade—we don’t remember where we met but this is the nature of the Chicago community (and others, but the one I…

DIEHL: Where did this novel begin for you? SMITH: The plot came to me in a crazy post-partum dream. I was participating in a scenario on an island near Seattle,…

Sarah Gerard’s new collection of essays, Sunshine State, dives into her childhood in Florida, her family history, systemic inequality, trauma, environmental decimation, death and the power of hope. I sat…

Christopher Woodall’s November (Dalkey Archive) is a big book. I knew that going in, and, frankly, its length (just a little  over 700 pages) contributed significantly to its allure. Yet…

I first met Sonya Chung—a multi-talented and multitasking writer, professor, and editor—when she was teaching in the undergraduate creative writing program at Columbia University; I was on a fellowship to…