Category: Interviews & Excerpts

“Outside the door there is an animal writing my name in the blood of other animals”: William Lessard Interviews Adam Tedesco, Author of Mary Oliver

With the publication of Mary Oliver (Lithic Press, 2019), Adam Tedesco gives us a cycle of poems that places topics like addiction and recovery outside the expected psychological frame. A video artist as well as a poet, Tedesco brings a fluid sense of medium as well as outlook. The result is not Robert Lowell-style confessionalism…
What Could Be Saved, bookmatched novellas and stories excerpt, by Gregory Spatz

Going where most readers have never been—past the workshop door, behind the curtain to the hidden rehearsal space, and into the back room of a pawn shop or dealer’s office, Gregory Spatz’s new book delves deeply into the world of those who build, play, and sell (or steal) violins. This is a realm of obsession,…
An Excerpt from the Novel The Color Inside a Melon by John Domini

A disastrous earthquake has Naples reeling. While the government scrambles to maintain appearances, poverty and anarchy rack the people on Italy’s margins—the illegal immigrants out of Africa, known as the clandestini. One of whom has just been horrifically murdered. Enter Risto, a rare success story: a refugee from Mogadishu, orphaned in his teens, he’s now married…
“On Writing and Self-Publishing”: A Conversation Between Laraine Herring & Jennifer Spiegel

Well, this discussion stemmed from my mixed emotions surrounding my new novel, And So We Die, Having First Slept. It’s been both glorious and, frankly, really hard. As I got to tell Dave Abrams in November, This is the book I wanted to write. How many people get to say that? But, along with this joy,…
“There Will Probably Be Condos”: An Interview with Janalyn Guo by Jason Teal

Kathy Acker once wrote, “YOUR MIND IS A NIGHTMARE THAT HAS BEEN EATING YOU: NOW EAT YOUR MIND.” Lately, I have taken this adage to heart, reading authors for the magazine whose work has embattled my sense of self. Janalyn Guo, author of Our Colony Beyond the City of Ruins, is one such voice who…
“Nowhere to Go from Here”: Rick Henry Chats with Micah Perks

Micah Perks’ latest collection of threaded short stories, True Love and Other Dreams of Miraculous Escape, was published this past fall by Outpost19 to some critical acclaim. She grew up in the eastern Adirondacks and in Vermont, and has the relatively rare experiences of living on a commune in her early years, as well as…
“#MeToo All Over Again”: Gay Degani Interviews Jacqueline Doyle, Author of The Missing Girl

Every story in this short collection, The Missing Girl (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), is strong, evocative, and terrifying. Jacqueline Doyle gives us a prism: eight stories with eight different approaches on the continuing issue of misappropriate, dangerous, and often deadly behavior toward women. Jacqueline Doyle’s flash collection The Missing Girl won the Black River Chapbook Competition at Black…
“How Hazel Tried to Kill the One Good Thing,” an excerpt from the novel Hazel by David Huddle

“What do you think the movie of your life would be?” asks Ms. Hazel Hicks, a proud, articulate woman without vanity. Her nephew, John Roberts, captivated by the mystery of such a uniquely serious person, sets about making the metaphorical movie of her life. What emerges, through found documents, photographs, interviews, and a sequence of…
“The Spark Became Flame”: Nettie Farris Interviews Wade Stevenson

Wade Stevenson’s prior poetry collection, But Darling I Love You!, was published in bilingual edition by Trilce Editions, Barcelona, 1968. John Ashbery also accepted a folio of poems for publication in his review, Art and Literature. This lead to the publication of Ice Cream Parlors in Asia by Tibor de Nagy Editions in New York,…