Who’s Afraid of Ottessa Moshfegh?
Review // by Lucia Senesi Ottessa Moshfegh’s latest novel, Lapvona, is an allegorical tale of power dynamics and…
Easy Beauty by Chloé Cooper Jones
For Chloé Cooper Jones, author of the memoir Easy Beauty, life is an endless experience of being studied by others. Peers debate the value of her life, strangers stop and stare, and doctors announced that she will never have a normal life.
“Make that space for yourself”: An Interview with Kristine Langley Mahler
"When I remember a place or an object or a person, I remember how they became an inextricable part of me."
“Looking at like the same moon”: A Conversation with Matt Hsu
"It's not just about the words, but it's also about how you put the words onto the paper."
“The truths that only live in your mind”: An Interview with Sara Streeter
"How does someone process and grieve being separated from their entire biological family — by distance, language, and culture? What does that feel like?"
“Your story matters”: An Interview with Mary Ann O’Gorman
We live in a world with so many distractions, but syntax, getting the words to work together to form a new thing, pulls me out of the chaos and keeps me coming back.
“There is still time”: An Interview with Laetitia Keok
"I return to the page because it has always felt like the most natural thing to do, and because it is most often the only thing I know to do."
“Writers retreat, party of one”: An Interview with Theresa Okokon
"Sometimes I will write a draft just to push through something and get it out, and then I'll let it sit for months on end and come back to it."
“Individual versus collective grief”: A Conversation with Shlagha Borah
"When we are on the receiving end of news, there is a lack of transparency, and that actually gives birth to indifference. How do I feel about someone when I don't even know their name?"
“A process of discovery”: An Interview with Alexa Doran
I think storytelling is a trauma response. You live in a world that crushes you, so you try to build a world that snowglobes you out of there.
“The Dazzle-out”: A Conversation with Maria Picone
“There are poems that teach us how to read in such a manner as to eclipse our normal perceptions, our normal state of being. That's something that I think is really powerful about the hybrid form: you can portray things not just through words but through presentation.”
“Following the words”: An Interview with Mordecai Martin
"When I'm inspired, there gets to be a hot feeling behind my eyes, and I need to get it out."
“The uncomfortable discomfort”: A Conversation with Sara Lynne Puotinen
Sara Lynne Puotinen lives in south Minneapolis, near the Mississippi River Gorge, where she reads and writes and…
“The want to tell a story”: An Interview with Helena Pantsis
"I have a never-ending stream of narratives in my mind that I have to get out and refine into something worth reading."
“Creating a Bridge”: A Conversation with Raina K. Puels
As much as I do love a tidy ending, I love something with no resolution, and I try to do that in my own work as much as possible.
“Embracing time and space”: An Interview with Ryleigh Wann
"My motivation to return to the page is the belief that poetry is magic."
“What else is possible?”: An Interview with Rebecca van Laer
"Eventually, it became clear that this is really a love story — as much as what it means to love and accept oneself as it is about romantic love with another person."
“When the rest of the world says no”: An Interview with Beth Kephart
"My number one ambition, always, is to create a community in which competition is banished (there shall be no "best") and personal growth is celebrated. Within such a trusting, open, can-I-say-loving environment, extraordinary things unfold."
Maafa by Harmony Holiday
"Hives become hidden, and we feel the sensation of endlessly tumbling through language, through its aural folds, its dimensional chronologies, and its perpetual limitations."
“At a certain point, you have to let the story go”: An Interview with Deirdre Danklin
"I’m always interested in how relationships grow and change over time, especially long-term friendships that start in childhood."
Eating Lightbulbs and Other Essays by Steve Fellner
"Episodic yet easy on the eyes, Eating Lightbulbs could as easily be consumed slowly, steadily, and over a longer period of time as it could be read in one fell swoop . . . but perhaps that depends on one’s appetite for broken glass."
“That initial spark”: An Interview with Amanda Paige Inman
"I hope my work will inspire readers to think of how the mistreatment of nature leaks into our day-to-day lives. I want people to think of how patterns in our personal lives echo patterns that occur in the natural world."
“Hope and possibility”: An Interview with Allegra Hyde
"Environmental activism must, in my opinion, go hand-in-hand with social justice efforts; it must be integrated into the project of dismantling power structures and in service of creating more equitable societies."
“Bewitched by the process”: An Interview with S.S. Mandani
S.S. Mandani runs a coffee shop and writes in New York City. He studied fiction at the University…
“Dig into the why”: An Interview with Caitlin Barasch
"I don't think any writer can bring sufficient energy to a project if they don’t know what they’re passionate about or what they most want to say."
“A Glimpse Into What Could Be”: An Interview with Chloe N. Clark
"My authority is that I often know I’m not an authority, which means I’m usually asking something in poems."
“Stark true experiences”: An Interview with Hannah Grieco
"The more of these unusual pieces I wrote, the more I wanted to write, and the more I wanted to read from other parents."
“Contextualize the missing pieces”: An Interview with Kimberly Rooney 高小荣
"Sometimes it takes months to return to a piece because I need time to become the version of myself who knows how the piece ends. It might be a new life experience or friendship — or temporal distance from an experience or relationship ending — that helps contextualize the missing pieces, and I love the process of discovery that comes with writing."
The Boy with a Bird in His Chest by Emme Lund
"Protagonist Owen grows up hiding the most intimate, tender, and evolved relationship of his young life under his T-shirts: a talking java finch named Gail."
“Looping back”: An Interview with Kari Flickinger
"A lot of times we writers create these beautiful pieces that highlight trauma, and then we share that work, and we live in those trauma-tinged words, and it feels immense."
“Make the space”: An Interview with Kay E. Bancroft
Kay E. Bancroft (they/them) is a queer non-binary poet, educator, editor, and reviewer from Cincinnati, OH. They hold…
“A poem is never done”: An Interview with Caleb Nichols
Caleb Nichols (he/they) is a writer from California, occupying Tilhini, the Place of the Full Moon, the unceded…
“Turning the tragedy into a tale”: An Interview with Rachel A.G. Gilman
Rachel A.G. Gilman’s work has been published in journals throughout the U.S., U.K., and Australia. She is the…
“Rely on instinct”: An Interview with Beth Meko
Beth Meko grew up in north central West Virginia and currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her short fiction…
“Write a thousand beginnings”: An Interview with Carli Cutchin
Carli Cutchin is a writer, critic, and hot springs aficionado based in Berkeley, California. Her works has appeared…
“Opaque memories, reconstructed through fabrication”: An Interview with Renato Barucco
Renato is an American writer in Brooklyn, New York. His work has appeared in Fiction International, Ellipsis Zine, Not One of…
“Truth commingles in sound”: An Interview with Aaron Landsman
Aaron Landsman is an artist-in-residence at Abrons Arts Center on New York City’s Lower East Side. Upcoming and…
“Time really is the best editor”: An Interview with Jennifer Fliss
Jennifer Fliss (she/her) is a Seattle-based writer whose writing has appeared in F(r)iction, The Rumpus, No Tokens, and…
“I am a fan of silence”: An Interview with Lydia Kim
Lydia Kim has had an essay appear at Catapult, a postcard at HAD, a fable in Ursa Minor, and a rant…
“Let’s stash our coats somewhere and go find the snack table”: An Interview with Lindsey Pharr
Lindsey Pharr (she/her) is a Mississippi native living in a cabin in the woods outside of Marshall, North…
“Get weird! Then get weirder”: An Interview with Katie McMorris
Katie McMorris is a writer and dancer. She lives and teaches in Oklahoma. Click here to read Katie’s…
“Treat writing as a priority:” An Interview with Lindy Biller
Lindy Biller lives in Wisconsin with her husband and two kids. Her fiction has recently appeared at Chestnut Review, X-R-A-Y, Superfroot…
“Start with truth”: An Interview with Massoud Hayoun
Massoud Hayoun is a journalist based in Los Angeles. He wrote a decolonial memoir of his grandparents and…
“Clear the slate”: An Interview with H.E. Fisher
H.E. Fisher is a multi-genre writer whose work appears or is forthcoming in Indianapolis Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, Canary, Poetica…
“Always be observing”: An Interview with Eric Scot Tryon
Eric Scot Tryon is a writer from Northern California. His work has appeared in Glimmer Train, Willow Springs, Monkeybicycle, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, trampset, Berkeley…
Urban and Historic Women
In a time and place where movements were restricted, I took to pounding the streets of the city that birthed me.
Challenge and Celebration: An Interview with Rebecca Fishow
A lot of time, the "magic" is a manifestation of a feeling.
Ending in Laughter: On Grief & Trauma
At the end, there’s no answer, but ending in laughter and nostalgia leaves room for hope.
Paradise Block by Alice Ash
Ash’s stories begin as the Grenfell news story did: with a fire.
Where Systems Touch: The Self in Ecopoetry
So here I am attempting to name a thing I love, knowing full well I may not.
Magnolia Canopy Otherworld by Erin Carlyle
In Magnolia Canopy Otherworld, the debut collection from Erin Carlyle, this biblical origin story is both confirmed and upended.
Something Unseen Building: An Interview with Kelsey Ipsen
More than anything else, it is this natural ear for sounds that makes Kelsey’s fiction stand out; her characters and their movements are given form by it.
How These Words Lean on You: An Interview with Ben Purkert
The kind of ending that Purkert is in love with, is that most important part of a successful poem: the audible click of a final line.
Structure in Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World
Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World is a deceptively slim novel. Alternately referenced as narco-noir, myth, epic, and border story, the novel manages to fluidly traverse genres and structural layers in a mere 107-pages.
White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia by Kiki Petrasino
If you are Black and American, then you too might have a story similar to mine. A story whose blood origin begins with more questions than documented truth.
Searching for Symmetry: Ramifications by Daniel Saldaña París
In a house on a street in Colonia Educación in Mexico City on a Tuesday around midday, a mother makes the decision to leave her husband and children and never return, an action that leaves a distinct mark on the family members’ lives, like the crease left on a folded piece of origami paper.
Second-Hand
It was through second-hand books that I learned how to read for myself.
A Relief and a Horror
We’re better equipped now than perhaps ever before to empathize with and examine how Jackson conveys the Blackwoods’ sense of isolation, both social and physical, from their community.
Trace: An Interview with Melanie Figg
Melanie Figg’s new full-length poetry collection Trace gives voice to family, feminism, and individual history through the lens of art.
Echoes of The Three Marias in the #MeToo Movement
By delving into historic literature, readers and writers can gain a deeper understanding of current day issues and subjects, important in providing invaluable background and context, along with a wider perspective to inform current opinion and work.
Some Days Are Better Than Ours: A Collection of Tragedies by Barbara Byar
Barbara Byar’s collection, Some Days Are Better Than Ours: A Collection of Tragedies, rages against normality, a feat that hits close to home in the COVID-19 era.
Best Small Fictions Roundtable: Part 4
Jennifer Fliss and Jennifer Todhunter discuss grief, parenting, resilience, and catharsis.
Best Small Fictions Roundtable: Part 3
Cathy Ulrich and Chaya Bhuvaneswar discuss finding a story's pulse, finding time to write, and engaging in community.
Best Small Fictions Roundtable: Part 2
Michele Finn Johnson and Tommy Dean discuss saving characters, hearing voices, and giving back to the literary community.
Best Small Fictions Roundtable: Part 1
Tara Isabel Zambrano and Christopher Allen discuss expanding The Moment in flash fiction, stirring the bubbling pot of character, and knowing when a draft is done.
Ways We Vanish: A Conversation with Todd Dillard
The map of human life isn’t a line, and I wanted to show that here. Life can look like a phone call coming from your chest, a door in the middle of the woods, a moon that, for a time, sings, and then is never heard again.
Dear David
You are not cold nor are you hot. You are, in fact, just perfect.
Crossing the Line: When and How to Write about Family
When family members are the subject of creative nonfiction, is their privacy unfairly infringed upon? Who has the right to tell a particular story? What is the point of sharing personal stories?
An Archipelago of Truths: The Island Dwellers by Jen Silverman
In intimate, first-person narration, The Island Dwellers reads like a series of private letters addressed to our hidden selves.
Dear David
In which Sir David Attenborough speaks of rejection, finding one's voice, and the importance of fighting to be seen.
Dear David
Dear David: An Advice Column by Yael Van Der Wouden In which Sir David Attenborough speaks to the…
Dear David
When dolphins die they call out their own name. They do this to make sure their family is close––they do this to remind their near ones: this is who I am. I am here now. I have known joy.