Writing Process
Rediscovering a beguiling masterpiece forty years after its publication.
The Restless Souls novelist on reading his reviews, working as a medical equipment tester, and writing responsibly about war and trauma.
A New York City public defender and author of a self-published bestseller returns with his third novel, Lost Empress. Sources range from quantum physics to the gospel.
The author on pushing back against the overly simplistic narrative of addiction.
Writer and vocalist Keckler performs impersonations of obscure larger-than-life personalities he meets. In her first novel, Laing impersonates Kathy Acker.
“All our worst mistakes begin as fiction in our lives.”
The Freshwater author on the ogbanje, Igbo, rejecting gender binaries, and using private journals as creative archives.
The great lost American fragment novel.
The debut novelist of Self-Portrait with Boy on the DUMBO of the 1990s, accidental art, and the importance of being unladylike.
Pathos, swallows, Hölderlin: a sense of the everyday and its interruptions guide the Austrian writer’s “tender prose.”
The writer of The Job of the Wasp on horror, human evil, and writing long sentences.
The novelists on Vietnam, Norman Mailer, and the dragon’s perspective.
The artist talks about the genesis, composition, and execution of a recently completed work.
“To credibly present ecstasy, pure ecstasy, is incredibly difficult. Once upon a time this wasn’t the case. This is what capitalism has done to us all—rendered earnestness—a thing of suspicion and contempt.”
“I don’t consider anything about my writing to be natural.”
Ives discusses chasing false lures, testing the limits of relationships, and what’s been cut from her novel Impossible Views of the World.
“I originally published this in 2007 thinking, Oh this is a fine book, but I will be joined by a whole lot of amputee writers, and they are going to be here any minute. I’m still waiting.”
“There’s often a gap between what we’re trying to say and what we are able to say. Sometimes I’m successful and sometimes I fail. Sometimes it’s painful and sometimes I get into that space where it feels right. That’s the high.”
“Literature is a way of establishing the humanness of others. It’s interested in the relationships between people, between authenticity and truth. That in itself has to make us better disposed to each other.”
“What do you do when you’re born—without your consent—and you find out later that your life was at the cost of someone else’s? That’s how high the stakes can be.”
