Interviews

Joan Silber Headshot

Moving the Perspective: An Interview with Joan Silber

The first book that I wrote when I was vastly younger than I am now was based on my own family, but the point of view it took was my mother’s, a character, whom I would offer was often at odds with in real life. So I wanted to make that jump as something that writing could do, and I think I got some of that idea from Chekhov, whose writing I loved.

Patricia Smith Headshot

“Can Poetry Hurt Us?”: An Interview with Patricia Smith

I wanted some people that I didn’t personally know either and just thought, well, each one of these people has a mother who may or may not still be with us, who may be forced to still live in the area where they lost their child, someplace that they walk past every day. And they’re out of our hands.

Maya Dobjensky and Tea Obreht Head Shots

The Privacy of Magic: An Interview with Tea Obreht

My writing can’t get away from the space in which it’s possible to commune with the dead, to have a second chance reckoning with those who are gone. I believe in hauntings, but I’m not entirely sure I believe in an afterlife. My writing likes to keep that door open all the time.

Mark Nowak B&W Head Shot

Mark Nowak on Why We Write

If we want our writing to have agency, if we want it to be part of the struggle to make a new and better world, I think it’s important to take a step back and examine our motivations as writers. How does the capitalist system influence the choices we make as writers?