Interviews Archive

Tess Fragoulis on The Goodtime Girl

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Fragoulis roots her 2012 novel in the Greco-Turkish blues, including lyrics of well-known rebetiko songs that she has translated to transport the reader into the world of Kivelli—who, like many of her fellow refugees, pours herself into music to forget the trauma of losing everything she has known.

Jeannie Vanasco on Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl

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“It’s so important for survivors to choose when they come forward, and to have control over their stories. That’s why I wrote this book. Now, though, my story is a story for others. I’m giving up control, and that’s my decision.”

“I no longer think the driving force of books is to tell everyone that everything will get better”: An Interview with Sarah Rose Etter

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Etter joins a legacy of women writers who depict the horror of women’s experiences.

“Poetry has great work to do”: An Interview with Carolyn Forché

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The poems in Forché’s 1981 collection relate the violence and the normalization of cruelty that she witnessed in El Salvador—a subject she also approaches in her recent memoir—in obliquely crushing, brutal language.

“As a writer, what history or current events do I have permission to write about?”: An Interview with Jihyun Yun

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Weaving together her experiences of womanhood, of her Korean-American heritage, of her place within diaspora, poet Jihyun Yun goes beyond simple dualities, privileging instead what remains irreducible in the face of neat labeling.

“I’ve always been wary of easy answers”: An Interview with Meghan O’Gieblyn

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Regardless of a reader’s background, Meghan O’Gieblyn’s work delves into territory that resonates with us all, shedding light on our current religious climate and on the way religious beliefs influence secular society.

“This is not a time for frivolity or entertainment”: An Interview with Cecille Pineda

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In the thirty-four years since Cecille Pineda’s debut novel was published, she has established herself as a writer and activist with a profound sensitivity to the lives and stories of those living at the world’s margins.

“The writer’s toolbox is for everyone”: An Interview with T Kira Madden

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T Kira Madden’s new memoir is ultimately redemptive—it is a book about growing back from brokenness and finding love after a childhood spent longing for it.

“Men have imagination, but women just have experiences”: An Interview with Rachel Haley Himmelheber

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Rachel Haley Himmelheber’s recent collection is a critique of society’s desire for well-behaved women—her characters riot and fight against the odds, either out of habitual necessity or because putting up a fight is easier than letting your guard down.

“Sometimes you just need to be told about yourself”: An Interview with Erica Dawson

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Heraclitus, the “Weeping Philosopher,” described Sybil as “[a] frenzied mouth [that] utter[s] things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god." Erica Dawson’s remarkable new book describes our tumultuous present with all the tenacity of