Realism Seems So Much Harder: A Conversation with James Sutter
Matthew Simmons (@matthewjsimmons)
A few months back, I got the opportunity to (once again) indulge the teenage... more
A few months back, I got the opportunity to (once again) indulge the teenage... more
let’s start with my most pressing question, one you haven’t answered IRL: WHY DID YOU TURN DOWN BRAD LISTI?
And here comes this very small girl – this fairly attractive small girl – getting real thug with me suddenly. Suddenly thug. This petite white girl getting suddenly thug. And she physically pushed me saying “Wrong fucking pile!” She was angry about this pile.
Shane Jones’s Crystal Eaters begins as a countdown. The chapter numbers start at 40 and irregularly... more
Sean Kilpatrick: If you and I could be said to exist outside ye old literary camps, and I think our flags remain hygienic... more
Following his debut collection, Rabbit Punches (Low Fidelity Press, 2006), Neighbors of Nothing (Dzanc, 2013) marks Jason... more
Jenny Offill is the author of Last Things, and most recently, Dept. of Speculation. In the words of Michael... more
Once I was cool, things would be easy. I’d know how to put on eyeliner correctly. I’d know what music to like. I‘d... more
But almost everyone is better to party with than writers. Like cops. Cops have way better stories than writers do.
Rauan has died before now. This revelation was not something divulged one evening when the blood had cooled and certain admissions... more
We need to leave room for bad days. But we also need to be brave enough to call people out. More understanding. Less fear. If I had a gospel, this is what I would preach—the gospel of tender rage. It’s not the same as punk rock, but it’s close.
Jim Ruland talks with J. Ryan Stradal about his new collaborative book Giving The Finger, the memoirs of Bering Sea... more
Mary Miller gets inside heads. I mean this in a non-creepy, invasive way, of course. It's a gift—some writers do... more
This one's massive. We're just going to get right into it.
Kyle, our friend, is the author of the new collection,... more
Benjamin Percy is the author most recently of the novel Red Moon (out this month in paperback), as well as... more
Here we collect a bunch of answers from the interviews we ran in 2013 that we think might serve you as inspiration and writerly... more
Delaney Nolan is the newest kid on the block. The one everyone whispers... more
Gabriel Blackwell’s been busy. In the past two... more
1. Prayer, according to the Encyclopedia of Occult and Parapsychology, is a “means for humans to make contact... more
Writers in M.F.A. programs assume, and are often told, that teaching means time away from... more
Hobart: We’ve seen each other at the last couple Mission Creek festivals in Iowa City, and it was there that we got to... more
As a writer, what draws me to wrestlers, superheroes, etc is probably what you pointed out, that when we first encounter them, they are overtly flat characters, cardboard. So I have a chance, even an obligation, to dig in and root around and find the human, expose him or her. Once we see someone else not as a caricature but a person, we can reflect off them, compare ourselves to them, feel empathy or disdain or any of the myriad of human reactions that matter. But we can’t just shrug and go, “Ah, janitor.”
You know him. You love him. He's Gabe Durham. His new book is FUN CAMP and it's a ball.
It's a... more
B.J. Hollars has no problem crossing literary boundaries. In his short... more
Bryan Furuness is a writer whose presence has long loomed large here at Hobart. He’s published work in the... more
"I didn't want to ever be outside of this moment. I knew at some point I would look at the picture I'd just taken and feel an overwhelming sense of loss. I thought as long as we could manage to stay inside this particular hotel room, to avoid our phones and every person with whom we'd ever come into contact, we would continue to feel whole. We were revolutionaries, goddamnit. These were our accumulation of beautiful moments. Before the world fractured us. I don't expect you to understand how I became Brad Pitt in that moment, how we all just flew along down the highway. Bandits. Ex-patriots. In love with this countryside, if not this country. Paper Moon. The Last Picture Show. All of this shot in black and white. Only the final scene in color."
FOUR NEW ESSAYS BY CHLOE CALDWELL! Plus the original essays that made you fall in love with Chloe!
Jason Phoebe Rusch is a queer writer from the Chicago suburbs. His full-length debut Dualities explores gender and patriarchy from the perspective of a man who was socialized and is currently still read as a woman. He is interested in complication and nuance and messy human failing, his own and that of others.