Category: Interviews & Excerpts

“Cabbage Language”: Joseph Riippi Interviews Robert Duncan Gray

[Let’s call this paragraph a professional “full disclosure.” I first met Robert Duncan Gray as a publisher, not a poet (although one could say he had the look of a poet). Gray, alongside Lindsay Allison Ruoff and Riley Michael Parker, founded HOUSEFIRE Books a few years back. In 2011 they had asked me to write…
“I Thought Often of the Hem of a Skirt, Unraveling While Someone Runs, the Thread Creating Its Own Design”: An Interview with Kristina Marie Darling & Carol Guess by Nathan Moore

Here I get the chance to talk to Kristina Marie Darling and Carol Guess about collaboration and their book X Marks the Dress: A Registry, forthcoming from Gold Wake Press in 2014. Our conversation takes place via e-mail over a period of about two weeks. Carol Guess is the author of eleven books: Seeing Dell…
“There’s a Difference between Quirky and QUIRKY, and We Get a Lot of the Latter, Especially”: An Interview with Aaron Burch by Nathan Floom

Aaron Burch teaches writing at the University of Michigan, edits Hobart, and has had stories appear in New York Tyrant, PANK, Barrelhouse, Another Chicago Magazine, and Unsaid. He is the author of How to Take Yourself Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew (PANK, 2010) and How to Predict the Weather (Keyhole Press, 2010). HFR: What is “indie lit,” and who…
“KISS Scared the Living Shit Out of Me Back When I Was a Little Kid—or, More Precisely, It Was Gene Simmons”: An Interview with Joshua Kornreich by Jason Teal

Joshua Kornreich’s characters are oftentimes detectives of the familiar, deconstructing what once passed for the reader’s everyday, in processes just as equally regimented or overlooked. With The Boy Who Killed Caterpillars Kornreich delivers a mystery unlike any other, in his positioning of sentences outside of the traditional paragraph structure. This gives weight not only to the…
“Just in Case There Are Any Odd Little Paste-eating Girls Reading This, I’d Like to Give Them Some Small Ray of Hope”: An Interview with Julie Innis by Robert Vaughan

Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Julie Innis now lives in New York. Her stories and essays have appeared in Post Road, Pindeldyboz, Gargoyle, and The Long Story, among others. She holds a Master’s in English Literature from Ohio University and is currently on staff at One Story as a reader. She is the author of Three…
“Needing It, Getting It, Not Being Satisfied by It, Trying to Learn to Live Without It”: An Interview with Brad Sucks by Jason Teal

Brad Sucks is a musician from Ottawa, Ontario. His back catalog boasts two full-length albums, I Don’t Know What I’m Doing (2003) and Out of It (2008), and he is hard at work mixing a third, Guess Who’s a Mess. Brad is noted not only for his catchy hooks, but also for his employment of open-source music…
“I Can Barely Interrupt a Telemarketer”: An Interview with Chelsea Martin by Kim Stoll

Chelsea Martin “studied” art and writing at California College of the Arts (though she holds no degree because she owes $300 in tuition). Both her first book, Everything Was Fine Until Whatever, and her second, The Really Funny Thing about Apathy, continue to be huge sources of stress, particularly when someone asks her what her…
“If I Were to Write a Book About Tibet”: An Interview with Dinty W. Moore by Nathan Floom

Dinty W. Moore is a professor and director of creative writing at Ohio University and is regularly invited to speak and teach in the U.S. and Europe. In addition to publishing fiction and nonfiction, he has published two books on the art and craft of writing. He has been published in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, Arts…
“The Internet Is Where It’s At”: An Interview with Carson Mell by Joe Martin

Carson Mell is a writer/filmmaker based in Los Angeles, California. His work embraces many mediums, from music videos to Sundance-screened short films, to his two novels Saguaro and The Blue Bourbon Orchestra. With an original voice oozing both cool and humorous, Mell’s work has brought to life unique characters such as a contemplative inter-dimensional traveler, an introspective writer with hotel…