I tell my students to fall in love with the process—the process of writing, of doing it every day, of making it a habit, a job that doesn’t pay you but matters more than the jobs that do—and that the product will come. I try to teach them to take the long view. Saying “the product will come” is my assent to our economic system, to capitalism, to ego.
Category: Author interviews
Mary Pacifico Curtis and Sybil Baker In Conversation
The authors of Understanding Moonseed and Apparitions chat about their books, inspirations, their settings and the importance of place, process, spirituality, ghosts, magic realism, the impact of covid, and much more.
An Interview with Angélica Lopes
The author of The Curse of the Flores Women talks about her new book and its inspiration, its Brazilian setting of rural Pernambuco, lacemaking, historical fiction, feminism, the differences between writing scripts for movies and TVs and writing novels, research, writing YA and lots more.
An Interview with Jolene Gutierrez
Now fifty—looks 30—Gutiérrez feels like she’s just hitting her stride as an author. I had the chance to sit down in her inviting library, surrounded by books and stained glass, to talk about writing, kids, libraries, and the power and joy of books.
But I Knew: A Conversation with Charles Rammelkamp about See What I Mean?
See What I Mean? is a collection of persona poems and flash pieces that traverse American history, politics, and society through a matter-of-fact diction characteristic of the poetry of witness by Charles Reznikoff. Like Reznikoff’s poetry, Rammelkamp’s poems look at and document the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of race, gender, and class.
An Interview with Author David Dvorkin
“I’m more invigorated artistically now than I have been for decades,” says author David Dvorkin in his soft, lilting English accent. We’re sitting in a quaint coffee shop discussing his new novel, Cage of Bone. The novel, he explains, is a crime thriller with telepathy, psychological components and a science fiction twist.
An interview with Ninety-Day Wonder’s Stephen Davenport
Now ninety-three, he shares his frank recollection of his discomfort, ill-fit, and near disastrous mishaps calling the shots for his ship and crew, many who were tagged the Greatest Generation. He also recounts becoming a newly-wed, and his first years with his sweetheart, Joanna. (Steve and Joanna are now in their 70th year of marriage.)
A Conversation between Mary Pacifico Curtis and Tiffany Troy
Hawk’s Cry by Mary Pacifco Curtis and Dominus by Tiffany Troy are episodic lyric poems that find beauty in the turn of the “pressed, pleated and fine” congregate towards empathy. In this wide-reaching conversation the two poets talk about their work, traditions, empathy, poetry in general and lots more.
An interview with Andy Mozina
Andy Mozina’s latest novel Tandem is a wild ride that explores the psyche of victim and perpetrator as well as the weirdness and malleability of love. It’s at the same time hilarious and morally jarring. In this warm and engaging interview, he speaks with Steve Hughes, writer and publisher of Detroit’s longest-running zine Stupor about his book, and lots more.
An interview with Robbie Couch
New York Times bestselling author Robbie Couch talks with Nick Havey about his latest queer YA romcom, his settings, on baking, why everything is blue, characters and side characters, time loops, mistakes and lots more.