“The French really know how to legitimize an endeavor.” Amidst a busy semester teaching at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, literary wunderkind Karen Russell takes some time to talk to me about her new novella, Sleep Donation, out now from Atavist Books. VS: Having been a fan of yours, then student, now friend, I felt like I was pretty up-to-date on your ouvre. I’d read your novel, both story collections, and last I heard you were at work on another novel about, I don’t know, something Western … [Read more...] about Karen Russell Donates Her Sleep
Vincent Scarpa
On Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus
For all intents and purposes, Leaving the Sea is Ben Marcus’s first “true” short story collection. Arriving almost twenty years after his debut, The Age of Wire and String, the stories demonstrate an impressive and almost un-stomachable ability to jump from one style to the next, yet they're watermarked with voices so uniquely Marcus's own. When I had the chance to speak with him over the phone, I fanboyed-out about this dexterity and acuity, his stylistic hopscotching. “In some ways,” he said, … [Read more...] about On Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus
Along for the Ride: At the Waffle House with Mary Miller
The table at which I wait for Mary Miller in a Waffle House off US-183 in Austin is disappointingly well-kept. It’s my first experience with a Waffle House, so I expected and hoped for a table with spilled sugar crystals, the surface sticky with syrup. That the table has been recently wiped clean is briefly, marginally disappointing, and I feel slightly robbed of the desired authenticity. What I believe is the authentic Waffle House experience is how Mary Miller depicts it in the first few pages … [Read more...] about Along for the Ride: At the Waffle House with Mary Miller