Category: Interviews & Excerpts

“A Sliver of Mirror”: Memory and Imagination in Sejal Shah’s Fiction Collection How to Make Your Mother Cry

I met Sejal Shah in 2016 when I moved to Rochester, New York, to become the executive director of a literary arts organization. Shah was a beloved teacher there. We quickly developed a friendship and we exchanged numerous phone calls and emails on any number of topics, though usually about books and literature. In many ways, Shah’s story…
“RIPE”: An Excerpt from Ross McMeekin’s Short Story Collection Below the Falls

Two climbers in the North Cascades risk their friendship and lives ascending a frozen waterfall. The girlfriend of a famous comedian in Greenwich Village must decide whether she wants to raise a child in the spotlight of fame. A mysterious Bird of Paradise makes daily overtures to an elderly widow in the frigid Midwest. A…
“Bones Blush Brilliant in the Soft Light”: A Conversation with Virgil Suárez

It’s a couple of months to poetry month as I write this. Back when I was a kid poet reading in secret in my bedroom or, later on, rocking it on the Lower East Side, poetry didn’t have a month. Or, if it did, I didn’t know about it. It would have seemed silly to…
“Our Flaws Can Define Our Growth”: An Interview with Jay Halsey by Gina Tron

Jay Halsey’s poems and prose have been published in several online and print journals and nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net. He was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, and has lived on the Colorado Front Range for the past seventeen years. His photography has been used as cover art for poetry collections and…
Allison Wyss Interviews Farah Ali about Her Debut Novel The River, The Town

Farah Ali’s The River, The Town is a gorgeous first novel about a Pakistani family navigating poverty, drought, and generational trauma. Farah and I spoke on September 27 about climate disaster around the world, how desperate circumstances lead her characters to make unexpected choices, and the idea that it’s not just food and water that’s…
“But the Nightingale”: William Lessard Interviews Diane Seuss

Diane Seuss is the author of six books of poetry. frank: sonnets won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and the PEN/Voelcker Prize. Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Los Angeles Times…
Joanna Pearson Discusses Small in Real Life with Short-Story Author Kelly Sather

Kelly Sather’s collection of nine stories, Small in Real Life, reads with a sure-handedness that belies the fact that this marks her debut. It’s no wonder this book was chosen by guest judge Deesha Philyaw for the 2023 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and has garnered early praise from writers like Garth Greenwell and Yiyun Li. Sather…
Andrew C. Wenaus Discusses The Supply Chain with Aaron Schneider

Aaron Schneider is a queer settler living in London, Ontario. He is the Founding Editor at The /tƐmz/ Review, the Publisher at the chapbook press 845 Press, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing Studies at Western University. His stories have appeared in The Danforth Review, Filling Station, The Ex-Puritan, Hamilton Arts and…
“Openings”: William Lessard Interviews Adeena Karasick & Warren Lehrer

Adeena Karasick is a Canadian poet based in New York. She is also a media artist, cultural theorist, and author of 14 books. Her most recent books include Ærotomania: The Book of Lumenations (Lavender Ink, 2023) and Massaging the Medium: 7 Pechakuchas (The Institute of General Semantics Press, 2022), which was shortlisted for Outstanding Book…