Danielle Lazarin’s debut story collection Back Talk (Penguin Books, 2018) features women grappling with what they—often deliberately—leave unsaid and displays the intricacies of the desires and rages that live inside those silences. Hailed as “beautifully crafted” by the New York Times, Back Talk is a story collection that lingers long after a first read, not only for its beautiful prose and unforgettable characters but for its quiet, powerful tensions. Here, Lazarin discusses her title story, … [Read more...] about The Internal Conversation Is Constant: An Interview with Danielle Lazarin
writing
Bourbon and Milk: Response Training
I sit at my desk at home in my New Jersey suburb, writing poems about gun violence, and I hear police sirens. My first thought is that there is a shooter at my daughters’ high school three blocks away. Since the Newtown massacre, police presence, sirens, and lockdowns are a feature of my daughters’ lives. Kids accept this new reality. My girls tell me that they are used to being told to “shelter in place”—which means there is no active danger—and they often can decode when a “lockdown drill” … [Read more...] about Bourbon and Milk: Response Training
Putting Emotion into Language: A Conversation with Polly Rosenwaike
In her artfully constructed debut collection, Look How Happy I’m Making You, Polly Rosenwaike presents stories about motherhood, pregnancy, and the range of emotions that surround becoming—or not becoming—a parent. Rosenwaike expertly explores anticipation and excitement, loss and longing in twelve stories, which Kirkus calls “An exquisite collection that is candid, compassionate, and emotionally complex.” Here, Rosenwaike talks about her technique for capturing emotion on the page, writing what … [Read more...] about Putting Emotion into Language: A Conversation with Polly Rosenwaike
Against Arguments: An Interview with Esmé Weijun Wang
Esmé Weijun Wang is the author of the novel The Border of Paradise and the best-selling essay collection The Collected Schizophrenias, published in January. Called “riveting” by NPR and “mind-expanding” by the New York Times Book Review, The Collected Schizophrenias offers an intimate and rigorously nuanced exploration of the myriad meanings of schizophrenia—cultural, sociomedical, and personal. In this interview, we talk structure, subjectivity, and liminality. — Jennifer duBois: Can you talk … [Read more...] about Against Arguments: An Interview with Esmé Weijun Wang
Web Exclusive Interview: Amy Stuber
Amy Stuber's flash fiction story "I'm on the Side of the Wildebeest" distills a familiar modern dilemma into a crystallized moment. On a road trip, a mother contemplates a very different childhood for her kids than the one she had—one in which technology, the constant deluge of information, and the threat to the planet create anxieties that are harder to escape. But despite these anxieties (or maybe because of them) we feel the sweet gratitude for a moment that is good, one we know will become a … [Read more...] about Web Exclusive Interview: Amy Stuber
Video Games, Trash TV, and Death Metal Music: An Interview with Jennifer duBois
Jennifer duBois, author of the acclaimed novels Cartwheel and A Partial History of Lost Causes, has a new novel that was published last week: The Spectators. LitHub lists it as one of the “Most Anticipated Books of 2019,” and Booklist calls is “brilliantly conceived” and “utterly unforgettable.” An excerpt from The Spectators was published in Issue 63 of American Short Fiction. In this interview, we dig into the genesis of duBois’s latest novel, its structural challenges, and what nineties talk … [Read more...] about Video Games, Trash TV, and Death Metal Music: An Interview with Jennifer duBois