Family

Wainwright talks about his tenth studio album, the “anemic” state of pop lyrics, and why Leonard Cohen—not Bob Dylan—should have won the Nobel Prize.

The debut writer on how vignettes became a novel, bodies as objects, and why discomfort is comfortable to read.

The writer on writing about secrets, food as love language, and releasing a debut novel during a pandemic.

On writing secondhand trauma, cycles of behavior, and the loneliness of internalized homophobia.

I like when words fail. It shows we don’t believe / we totally know. Name a plant in a forest // and you think you know it. That name / to a bird or a dog, that sound is a squawk.

A uniquely vile cast of characters, ecological disaster, and a motherless daughter who finds strength in the unexpected.

Mapping personal attachment styles onto art institutions.

The German filmmaker discusses her reductive approach.

The poet’s new collection of essays, Minor Feelings, threads intense friendships, “bad” English, and standup comedy into a meditation on the Asian-American experience.

The writer on creating a legend about her mother, breaking the fourth wall, and Elena Ferrante’s honesty.

The author on her latest novel about family secrets, New Orleans, and characters waiting for their stories to be told.

The boy who is coming home with part of himself missing is the man’s nephew. The man, Silas, receives the news and hangs up the phone, numb. He wants a drink. He doesn’t want a drink. He wants time to move backward.

The writer on her new novel, how Dominicans have shaped New York City’s culture, and creating artistic spaces that are truly liberating.

On his new collection of poetry, I Will Destroy You, the book that emerged from choosing not to write.

The writer on her new collection of seventy-eight stories, lyrical compression, and protecting artistic inner silence.

“I preferred that others not be neglected but found the neglected gender suited me better than the not-neglected genders. I found my neglected gender to have a certain style. A style I like.”

“Some of the best nonfiction is now being written as fiction.” Peter Rock on his new novel, The Night Swimmers.

Laker gold is how Pops describes it. To Little Man, though, that motherfucker is yellow. Canary yellow and dirty. Little Man knows it’s a Westview Public Works truck, even though the WPW tag was zig-zagged over with black spray paint.

The Zambian novelist on using tropes to upend them, the power of mistakes, writing female desire, and more.

Confronting the violent politics of a homeland.