Category: Interviews & Excerpts

“Momentum of Connections”: Erin Flanagan Interviews Augustus Rose

Augustus Rose’s first novel, The Readymade Thief, is a fervent mix of art, deceit, puzzles, subterfuge, coincidence, and meaning, all hung on the fast-paced structure of a thriller. Set in an underground world of deserted aquariums, abandoned buildings, and vacant homes, Lee must decode literal and figurative maps to stay one step ahead of a…
“Difficult People Are Everywhere”: Jennifer Caloyeras Interviewed by December Cuccaro

Jennifer Caloyeras is the author of two young adult fiction books, Urban Falcon and Strays. Unruly Creatures, published by West Virginia University Press, is her debut short story collection. In the collection, Caloyeras explores societal alienation, bodily betrayal, and the poignant search for a true intimacy often found through the safety of substitution. A teen…
“The Me/Not Me Game”: Uzodinma Okehi Talks with Elizabeth Ellen

I shouldn’t just say we’ve all had those moments. Who’s we? And speak for yourself, right? So I can tell you, there’s a part of my life so clouded, fraught with delusion, so much more about my own failings, probably, more than any particular woman, or girl—skip the romance, jump cut right to screaming, howling…
“There’s Another Side to D. Foy, and It’s Absolutely Golden, but Don’t Take My Word for It, Just Listen to My Mother-in-Law”: Susie Burch Interviewed by Jordan A. Rothacker

D. Foy’s first two novels are not light, to say the least. Made to Break (Two Dollar Radio, 2014) and Patricide (Stalking Horse Press, 2016) tackle dysfunctional friendships, betrayal, dysfunctional families, abusive fathers, pre-teen drug use, violence, death, depression, and more violence. However, both received rave reviews and rocketed Foy into indie publishing darling status,…
“Genuine and True”: An Interview with Melissa Fraterrigo by Erin Flanagan

Melissa Fraterrigo’s first novel in stories, Glory Days, captures the desperation and beauty of living in the hardscrabble Midwest. Populated by fathers and daughters, lovers and enemies, the living and the dead, these characters struggle to figure out what they want and how to get it, along with the complicated order of what they need…
“You Never Know What You’ll See”: A Conversation with B.J. Hollars by Ashely Adams

“Once upon a time there lived a bird and then that bird stopped living.” The straight-forward narrative of the Ivory billed woodpecker is the first line B.J. Hollars’ Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds, but this is more than a book about a bird. Hollars leads us through museum collections, Christmas Bird Counts,…
“We’re Still Doing Things Within the Realm of What We’re Fit For”: An Interview with Keith Lesmeister by Linda Michel-Cassidy

Keith Lesmeister’s new collection of short stories, We Could’ve Been Happy Here, investigates the spectacle of the everyday. Set in the Midwest, his characters are relatable because of their wants, their bad choices, their ways of dealing with their lives. Lesmeister’s take is pragmatic, often humorous, and deeply felt. His attention to and honor for…
Short Story Excerpt: “Mitzvah” from Pamela Ryder’s Paradise Field

Interconnected stories depicting the last years of a WWII bomber pilot, his relationship with his daughter as both child and adult, and his drift into infirmity and death. When life dwindles to its irrevocable conclusion, recollections are illuminated, even unto the grave. Such is the narrative of Paradise Field: A Novel in Stories, whose title is…
Fiction: Excerpt of Jorge Armenteros’ Novel The Roar of the River

Following the musical structure of the 17th century fugue, the narrative voices succeed each other until coming together in a polyphonic search for light among the darkness of their origins. Set in a perched village of the French Alps, between a roaring river and the moonlight, a man dressed in a striped tunic seeks encounters…