Interviews Archive
A Joint Interview with Brenda Miller and Julie Marie Wade
The eleven essays that make up Miller and Wade’s new collection emerged through an email correspondence the two writers exchanged over the course of four years—an associative, improvisational game of call-and-response that played out in their inboxes.
“I’ve always been drawn to writing about the body—our physical selves and how they reflect our inner lives”: An Interview with Kat Chow
Kat Chow’s debut memoir is very much about bodies. In it, Chow considers what could have been—not just in her life but in the generations before—particularly as what could have been relates to bodies and the ways in which they betray in life, as well as where they rest
“We all compartmentalize parts of ourselves to an extent”: An Interview with Katie Gutierrez
Katie Gutierrez’s debut is a novel about time. The driving force of the book is Lore, a woman who once led two lives, keeping two families in two cities. Time is the enemy of the secrets Lore is keeping—and also the necessity writers build on.
“People are messy. What does it even mean to be likable?”: An Interview with Kristen Arnett
Much of Kristen Arnett’s second novel is about how we craft our stories to fit our needs, especially when we feel trapped, or frightened.
“What drew me to Lange was her desire to make lives of the unseen seen”: An Interview with Jasmin Darznik
Jasmin Darznik’s second novel, which imagines the early adulthood of the famous photographer Dorothea Lange, tracks the revelation of Lange’s artistic ethos: photography, she comes to accept, is as much about the seer as it is about the seen.
“I absolutely wanted to present an upturned tale of exploration and resource gathering and success”: An Interview with Chang-rae Lee
Chang-rae Lee’s latest novel illuminates the complex economic and cultural exchange between East and West through humorous and often grotesque scenes that question norms of race, money, privilege, and consent.
“I used to think that I had to choose between the page and the musical aspect of it”: An Interview with Kelly Harris-DeBerry
Harris-DeBerry writes about freedom like someone who has felt the word in her mouth for years, felt the shape and sound of it, and has used the instruments of her voice and her page to translate it into something we can all understand.
“I just went with my gut (and shut down my ego) and let the story tell itself”: An Interview with Mira Ptacin
Mira Ptacin’s new book is an exploration of Spiritualism’s history and its place in the current landscape of American faith practices. It also shows us, through the personal story Ptacin includes, how Spiritualism can help those still living and grieving after a loved one has died.
“Sometimes the poems know things that we don’t know ourselves”: An Interview with Jay Deshpande
Recognizing the ephemerality of their wisdoms, Deshpande allows his poems to exist as monuments to themselves, that we might return to them in the future and experience their lessons anew.
“Writing about motherhood provides a great vantage point from which to write about society”: An Interview with Jessamine Chan
The double-sided expectations are the heart of Jessamine Chan’s debut novel. Motherhood is deeply personal and yet easily judged by Instagram followers and the state alike. Chan’s book asks: Can motherhood be measured by the performance of it?