Interview

Alexander Chee: “Community always has a certain amount of struggle.”

By Alexander Chee and Lisa Factora-Borchers October 17, 2022

The 2022 Guernica Benefit honoree on the importance of building literary community

Arts & Culture Lit World

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Hangama Amiri

By Hangama Amiri and Hua Xi September 12, 2022

The textile artist on examining the nature of memory through large-scale fabric installations.

A person reclines on an underground subway platform, reading.

Interview

Olena Rybka: Ukraine’s Literary Identity

By Anna Sergeeva and Olena Rybka August 2, 2022

The editor discusses publishing books in a time of war and working to preserve the Ukrainian language.

Europe Lit World

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Ada Limón

By Ada Limón and Ben Purkert July 18, 2022

The new US poet laureate discusses the myth of individualism, the climate crisis, and what makes a “core poem.”

Interview

Carolyn Chen: “Buddhism has found a new institutional home in the West: the corporation.”

By Judith Hertog and Carolyn Chen July 11, 2022

Silicon Valley is the latest player in a history of Western appropriation of Buddhism.

Religion USA

Interview

Shuang Xuetao: Writing Rouge Street, a Home for Exiles of Chinese Modernity

By Shuang Xuetao and Henry Zhang June 14, 2022

The New Dongbei Literature writer on “pure fiction,” genre novels, and revolutionary slogans.

Asia & Oceania Lit World

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Corey Van Landingham

By Corey Van Landingham and Ben Purkert June 6, 2022

The poet discusses the risks of false comparisons, objectification, and the need for distance.

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Jiha Moon

By Jiha Moon and Hua Xi May 2, 2022

The artist talks about creating vibrant celebrations of Asian identity in her large yellow paintings.

Arts & Culture

Interview

“What is your specific lonely like?”

By Carey Baraka and Okwiri Oduor April 11, 2022

Okwiri Oduor on her debut novel, Things They Lost

Africa Arts & Culture

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Meghan O’Rourke

By Meghan O’Rourke and Ben Purkert March 1, 2022

The memoirist talks about the limitations of “the traditional illness narrative” and what healing really means.

Bodies & Nature

Interview

MAGA Jesus at the Capitol

By April Zhu, Michael Altman, and Jerome Copulsky February 21, 2022

The language of religion, for a moment, made the mob into a team.

Politics Religion

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Hala Alyan

By Ben Purkert and Hala Alyan January 31, 2022

The novelist discusses the strain of translating herself to others, and explains why she enjoys brainstorming more than editing.

Lit World

Left: Book cover of "Hangsaman" by Shirley Jackson. Right: portrait of Shirley Jackson

Interview

Ruth Franklin: Shirley Jackson and the Madness of Mid-Century Womanhood

By Amanda Feinman and Ruth Franklin January 24, 2022

Jackson’s biographer on the author’s fragmented female characters — and her critical renaissance

Gender Lit World

Interview

Mansoor Adayfi: “If you are alive, you still have resistance within you”

Anil Karim Vassanji and Mansoor Adayfi January 10, 2022

“And, at Guantanamo, if you’re alive, you’re also a fucking terrorist.”

Justice

Cover of the novel The Upstairs House, left, and portrait of the author Julia Fine, right

Interview

Julia Fine: Ghosts of Rebel Children’s Book Authors

By Adam Morgan and Julia Fine November 17, 2021

The author of The Upstairs House on postpartum depression, hauntings, and the legacy of Margaret Wise Brown.

Gender Lit World

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Rebecca Donner

By Tana Wojczuk and Rebecca Donner November 2, 2021

The author discusses her family's connection to the Nazi resistance in Germany and writing through historical gaps.

Lit World

Interview

Samantha Rose Hill on Hannah Arendt: “You see the politics on her face”

By Regan Penaluna and Samantha Rose Hill October 25, 2021

Revealing a more personal side of the renowned philosopher, in the archives and on Twitter.

Politics

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Laura Blackett and Eve Gleichman

By Eryn Loeb, Laura Blackett, and Eve Gleichman October 19, 2021

Two fiction writers on how collaborating on a novel changed their friendship.

Lit World

Interview

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson: “As a Black Southern woman, I’m full of dread”

By Elaine H. Kim and Jocelyn Nicole Johnson October 18, 2021

The author of My Monticello on finding humanity in intersecting dystopias.

Race USA

Interview

Shayna Rosendorff: What Lies Beneath

By Vasna Ramasar, Theo Aalders, and Shayna Rosendorff October 11, 2021

Revealing the degradation and extraction that maps conceal.

Arts & Culture

Interview

“Why the Afghans Did Not Fight”

By Salar Abdoh and Mohammad Hossein Jafarian October 8, 2021

How American "help" turned the Afghan army into sitting ducks

Asia & Oceania Conflict

The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century by Amia Srinivasan

Interview

Amia Srinivasan: “Feminism is a political practice, not just a set of ideas”

By Regan Penaluna September 28, 2021

The philosopher on sex as a political phenomenon

Gender Sex

Interview

Jamie Roth: “The opportunity for change is fading.”

By Laura Dean September 23, 2021

A federal prisoner released during the pandemic is sent behind back bars—while pregnant.

Gender Justice

Interview

“We’ve been burning for twenty years and more”

By Salar Abdoh and Mohammad Hossein Jafarian September 1, 2021

Perhaps no outsider understands Afghanistan better than Iranian journalist Mohammad Hossein Jafarian. In a series of ongoing exchanges, published here in real time, Jafarian interrogates the nuance and complexity too often elided by outsiders.

Asia & Oceania Conflict

Interview

Rita Dove: “We aren’t lost”

By Rita Dove and Chet’la Sebree August 11, 2021

The former US Poet Laureate’s new collection leans into uncertainty, anger, and the limits of the body.

Lit World

Interview

Maia Szalavitz: “The work you’re doing before you get out of the chaos still counts.”

By Tracie Gardner August 9, 2021

The author discusses her new book on addiction and the history of harm reduction.

Health Justice

Interview

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: “I’m one part of the universe, trying to figure out another part of the universe.”

By Lacy M. Johnson August 2, 2021

On quarks, leptons, and the patriarchy.

Bodies & Nature

Interview

Victoria Law: “We understood that prisons and police would not make us safer.”

By Sabrina Alli July 28, 2021

The longtime activist and author digs into her files to discuss community gardens, home cooking, and myths about harm.

Miscellaneous Files Justice

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Sterling HolyWhiteMountain

By Sterling HolyWhiteMountain and Ben Purkert July 23, 2021

The fiction writer discusses Native art, breakup phone calls, and the line between politics and propaganda.

Lit World

Interview

Rivka Galchen: “What we run away from often determines where and to what we run.”

By Jessi Jezewska Stevens July 12, 2021

The author discusses witch hunts, self-annihilation, and Back to the Future.

Miscellaneous Files Lit World

Interview

Anjali Enjeti: Politics and Possibility

By Jenny Bhatt June 29, 2021

The author talks about the need for structural change in publishing, and why we should all be archivists of our family histories.

Lit World

Interview

Lucile Scott: Mysticism and Resistance

By Amanda Feinman June 25, 2021

The author of An American Covenant discusses the women and queer mystics who influenced American counterculture.

Arts & Culture

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Bianca Stone and Ruth Stone

By Bianca Stone, Ruth Stone, and Ben Purkert June 22, 2021

The poet discusses Emily Dickinson, strip clubs, and grieving over the loss of her grandmother.

Lit World

Interview

AE OSWORTH: “I can, in fact, write 419 pages out of spite.”

By Sarah Madges June 7, 2021

"I will die on this hill, the hill that says: Everything that happens online is real. Online is reality, as much as meatspace."

Gender Lit World

Interview

Luo Fuxing: “The Last of the Shamate”

By Henry Zhang and Luyao Chang June 1, 2021

The strange afterlife of China’s largest working-class subculture

Arts & Culture Asia & Oceania

Interview

In Touch With the Breath of the World

By Wendy Call and Roland Rugero May 19, 2021

Roland Rugero talks about living the literary life in a country of orality, writing across three languages, and upending the Eurocentrism that still decides which African voices get heard.

Africa Lit World

Interview

Elizabeth Miki Brina: “The historical and the personal are intertwined.”

By Elizabeth Lothian May 10, 2021

The author of Speak, Okinawa talks about learning her family history, writing from guilt, and questioning her father’s values.

Race

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Clint Smith

By Clint Smith and Ben Purkert May 3, 2021

The writer and poet talks about novelistic nonfiction and why he thinks of his grandparents as monuments.

Arts & Culture Lit World Race

Interview

S. Kirk Walsh: The Blitz of Grief

By Karen Olsson April 29, 2021

The author of The Elephant of Belfast talks about grief, trauma, and the craft of writing.

Lit World

Interview

Elissa Washuta: “Living inside this empire is all that I will ever have.”

By Hillary Brenhouse April 28, 2021

The essayist on her new book, White Magic, and turning obsession into research.

Lit World

Interview

Caleb Azumah Nelson: “The confrontation with myself enabled me to find a brief freedom.”

By Mary Wang April 23, 2021

The author guides us through the tapestry of Black art, music, cinema, and literature that animates his debut novel, Open Water.

Miscellaneous Files Lit World

Interview

Mapping the History of Slavery in New York

By Ada Reso, Maria Robles, and Elsa Eli Waithe April 21, 2021

A group of activists is calling attention to the legacy of slavery encoded in the names of New York City’s streets and neighborhoods through archival research and small-scale interventions.

Memory Loss

Interview

Gina Frangello: Truth and Consequences

By Kelly Thompson April 19, 2021

The author of the memoir Blow Your House Down talks about secrecy, accountability, and resisting happy endings.

Family & Relationships Lit World

Interview

The Secret Spies Keeping Baghdad Safe

By Lindsey Hilsum April 14, 2021

The paradox of counterintelligence is that the best work remains invisible. The Spymaster of Baghdad shines a spotlight on the Iraqis whose espionage saved their city again and again.

Conflict MENA

Interview

When Housing Was a Human Right

By Jennifer Baum April 2, 2021

Two former classmates reconnect to talk about growing up in New York City cooperative housing in the 1970s.

Class Race

Interview

Hot for Epistolary Poetry

By A.E. Osworth March 25, 2021

The editors of We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics on imagination, abundance, and what keep them up at night

Gender

Interview

Melissa Febos: Trailheads of Discomfort

By Sarah Kasbeer March 24, 2021

The author of Girlhood talks about patriarchy, empty consent, and being aware of her feral qualities.

Gender Sex

Interview

Te-Ping Chen: “Every story unfolded as a series of surprises in the writing.”

By Maggie Lange March 23, 2021

The author of Land of Big Numbers talks about interweaving real life with the fantastic to write about today’s China.

Lit World

Interview

Forsyth Harmon: Love and Self-Loathing in Long Island

By Logan Scherer March 22, 2021

The author of the illustrated novel Justine reflects on queer teenage longing, deprivation, and Diet Coke.

Gender

Interview

A Monumental Shift

By Joshua McWhirter, idris brewster, and Glenn Cantave March 15, 2021

A group of artists and creative technologists wield augmented reality to insert women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ icons into the landscape of public memory.

Memory Loss Politics Race

Interview

Patricia Lockwood: “I like the things people on the internet can’t talk about.”

By Mickie Meinhardt March 9, 2021

The author’s debut novel, No One Is Talking About This, is about the internet. Here, she takes us on a virtual tour of the memes that helped her write it.

Miscellaneous Files

Interview

Elizabeth Lo: “Like the dogs, I existed in a limbo where I wasn’t entirely part of human society.”

By Mary Wang March 5, 2021

The director of Stray talks about shooting a film from a dog’s point of view, and what we can learn from de-centering the human gaze.

Miscellaneous Files

Interview

Maurice Chammah: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty

By Ann Neumann January 21, 2021

The author of Let the Lord Sort Them talks about violence, redemption, and culpability in a broken system.

Justice USA

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Lisa Dillman

By Ben Purkert and Lisa Dillman January 13, 2021

The translator on selecting her subjects, discovering the work of Andrés Barba, and the dangers of cultural hegemony.

Arts & Culture Lit World

Interview

Alistair Ian Blyth: Translating Post-Soviet Moldova

By Alicia Kennedy January 7, 2021

Iulian Ciocan’s translator on bringing the Moldovan writer to a global audience.

Lit World

Interview

Barbara Demick: “I want to portray history through the eyes of the people living it.”

By Judith Hertog December 7, 2020

The journalist talks about how humans respond to crisis, reporting on repressive regimes, and why she wanted to write about Tibet.

Asia & Oceania Lit World

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Danez Smith

By Danez Smith and Ben Purkert December 3, 2020

The poet on a hard year for books, getting a rise out of an audience, and “Frankensteining” your archives.

Arts & Culture Lit World

Interview

Alex Ross: Wagner in the Twenty-First Century

By Arya Roshanian November 30, 2020

The New Yorker music critic on the composer’s enduring impact, both good and bad.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Claire Messud: Life Among the Animals

By Madhuri Sastry November 18, 2020

The writer on Camus, COVID-19, and the undoing of our meaningful lives.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Hilton Als: “It’s always so moving to see how art claims us out of a kind of loneliness.”

By Mary Wang November 12, 2020

Using a selection of his favorite cinema excerpts, writer and critic Hilton Als talks about what happens when artists tell the truth.

Miscellaneous Files

Interview

Sejal Shah: “All my life, I have been biking with brakes on.”

By Kelly Sundberg November 9, 2020

This Is One Way To Dance is a timely collection about identity—where it comes from, what it means (and doesn’t), and what happens when we lose it.

Lit World

Interview

Talia Lavin: Into the Abyss

By Amy Brady November 3, 2020

The journalist discusses her new book on the history and nature of white supremacy in the digital age.

Politics Religion

Interview

Sunisa Manning: Flexibility is Subversive

By Monica Sok November 2, 2020

The author of A Good True Thai talks about political imagination, writing about revolt, and liberating her characters.

Lit World

Interview

Claire Cronin: Blue Light Hauntings

By Maggie Lange October 28, 2020

Horror writer Claire Cronin discusses her new book, the digital uncanny, and how obsession demands a sideways approach.

Lit World

Interview

Anna Bruno: Can Women Win in Literature?

By Maria Kuznetsova October 26, 2020

The writer on “likeable” women, loyal dogs, and the luck of “breaking out.”

Lit World

Interview

Jennifer Hijazi: Climate and the Courts

By Amy Brady October 20, 2020

The climate reporter on what a Justice Amy Coney Barrett would mean for the environment.

Climate & Environment Lit World

Interview

Natalie Diaz and Nathalie Handal: Map of the Next World

By Nathalie Handal and Natalie Diaz October 19, 2020

The two award-winning poets consider borders, both real and figurative, through the lens of their new collections.

Conflict MENA

Interview

Anne Helen Peterson: “What else is there but my ability to work?”

By Mickie Meinhardt October 14, 2020

The journalist and academic on defining the burnout generation—and literally writing the book on it.

Miscellaneous Files

Interview

Destiny O. Birdsong: Infinite Negotiations

By Lily Meyer October 12, 2020

“I like the idea that a poem is a dress that can fit the wearer.”

Lit World

Interview

Sarah Kasbeer: Dissecting the Damage

By Sara Petersen October 5, 2020

A new collection of essays considers the weight of patriarchy and the ordinary traumas of being a woman.

Gender Lit World

Interview

Tiffany McDaniel: Spilling Secrets

By Carissa Chesanek September 28, 2020

The author of Betty talks about using family as the basis for fiction, and why she’s not smiling in her author photo.

Lit World

Interview

Darin Strauss: Beyond Biography

By Michele Filgate September 21, 2020

The writer on blending fiction and memoir, and exploring the nature of celebrity.

Lit World

Interview

Alexis Pauline Gumbs: Everything that Made Us Still Belongs to Us

By Lisa Factora-Borchers September 17, 2020

The writer of a poetic trilogy on listening to ancestral voices, Black feminism, and seeing salvation in marine mammals.

Lit World

Interview

Chana Joffe-Walt: Nice White Parents

By DJ Cashmere September 15, 2020

The producer of the hit podcast talks about how race and power shape public education, and what it will take to create a more equitable system.

Education Race

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Emma McMillan

By Kat Herriman and Emma McMillan September 9, 2020

The painter on frottage, a decorative rebellion, and the destruction of the traditional family unit.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Shruti Swamy: The Intensity of Language

By Alexandra Chang September 4, 2020

The writer on confronting fear on the page, motherhood, and how stories help us make meaning.

Lit World

Interview

Angie Thomas: We Have to Get Uncomfortable

By Freddie Coffey August 25, 2020

The bestselling YA author discusses how young people can make change, how grief shapes activism, and what it would mean to defund the police.

Lit World Race

Interview

Makenna Goodman: Motherhood and Isolation

By Nathan Scott McNamara August 17, 2020

The debut author of the The Shame discusses book hoarding, life in Vermont, and the weight of the past.

Lit World

Interview

Diane Cook: “Our humanity is what makes us so particularly wild.”

By Rachel Heng August 10, 2020

The author reflects on writing the physical world into fiction, what makes someone a “bad mom,” and what a wilderness community has in common with The Office.

Bodies & Nature Lit World

Interview

Hazel Carby: “If it can’t actually cope with the entanglement of all these histories, then to me, it’s useless.”

By Sabrina Alli August 5, 2020

Using archival images across Britain and Jamaica, the writer and academic discusses the knotty colonial histories beneath our everyday soil.

Miscellaneous Files

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

By Ben Purkert and Rachel Eliza Griffiths August 3, 2020

The poet on radical revision, our reflections, and photographing poets.

Lit World

Interview

Porochista Khakpour: I’ve Become Uninterested in Darkness

By Ann Tashi Slater July 21, 2020

Porochista Khakpour’s Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity tells a deeply moving—and often startling—story of being brown-skinned in America.

Lit World Race

Interview

Rebecca Kauffman: We have the same survivalist impulses that animals do

By Pete Tosiello July 14, 2020

The author on class, the ensemble novel, and the complexity of the human heart

Class Family & Relationships

Interview

Garth Greenwell: Incredibly Vulnerable Beings

By Liv Lansdale July 2, 2020

"Art is about plunging oneself into the abyss."

Lit World

Interview

Megha Majumdar: What Will You Surrender?

By Madhuri Sastry June 26, 2020

The novelist discusses the politics of silence, questioning your idols, and the accumulation of shame.

Arts & Culture Lit World

Interview

Miscellaneous Files From Racial Justice Activists Around the World

By Mary Wang June 19, 2020

Sylvana Simons, Rosebell Kagumire, and Amanda Adé use their tweets, screenshots, and Instagram videos to discuss how a time of momentous change has transformed their work.

Miscellaneous Files

Interview

Miscellaneous Files From Racial Justice Activists in the US

By Mary Wang June 19, 2020

Cat Brooks and Eric Ward use screenshots of Zoom-meetings, resource manuals, and policy proposals to discuss how this time of momentous change has transformed their activism.

Miscellaneous Files

Interview

Ira Shor: Liberating Education

By DJ Cashmere June 17, 2020

"They’re on strike against an institution which has subordinated them, underestimated them, and undereducated them."

Education

Interview

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio: DREAMer memoirs have their purpose. But that’s not what I set out to write.

By Lucas Iberico Lozada June 10, 2020

The writer on taking control of her narrative, her telepathic connection to Stephen Miller, and the army of mutants.

Lit World

Interview

How Three School Social Workers Do Their Jobs in a Pandemic

By DJ Cashmere June 9, 2020

“Kids with more resources are adjusting well. Others have collapsed into themselves.”

Education

Interview

Ken Liu: “We get to define the stories we want to be told about us.”

By Mary Wang May 28, 2020

Using photos of his text editors, mapmaking software, and 3D-printed prototypes, the writer talks about technology, myth, and telling stories during a pandemic.

Miscellaneous Files Lit World

Interview

Meredith Talusan: I’m Not Brave

By A.E. Osworth May 27, 2020

The writer and editor on resisting the expectations for minority voices, her French-inflected prose, and the complications that make life worthwhile.

Gender Lit World Race

Interview

Stephanie Danler: Empowered by Choice

By Elizabeth Lothian May 14, 2020

The novelist and memoirist discusses generational trauma, developing compassion for oneself, and feeling empowered by choice.

Lit World

Back Draft Interview

Back Draft: Miranda Popkey

By Kate Dwyer and Miranda Popkey May 5, 2020

The novelist discusses the shape of a narrative, and the value of retyping.

Arts & Culture Lit World

Interview

Maisy Card: “There is this hazy quality to my family history that no amount of research can clarify.”

By Mickie Meinhardt April 28, 2020

The author unpacks the archival finds and emotional reckonings behind a novel that took her 12 years to write.

Miscellaneous Files Lit World

Interview

Cathy Park Hong: I’m So Sick of the Fact That It’s Not Changing

By Sejal Shah April 17, 2020

The poet and critic on “coalitional writing,” upending the avant-garde, and Asian American identities.

History Race

Interview

Beth Alvarado: Grieving in Dreams

By Kimi Eisele April 1, 2020

Two writers discuss the “apocalyptic imagination,” finding connection through loss, and the liminality and fragility of the borderlands.

Interview

Mark Bibbins and Paul Lisicky: Sooner or Later

By Paul Lisicky and Mark Bibbins March 20, 2020

The two writers and friends discuss the uses and abuses of nostalgia, cynicism, and trauma porn—and how their new books reflect their experiences of the AIDS crisis.

Lit World

Interview

Meaghan Winter: Progressives Can’t Give Up on the States

By Spencer Green March 16, 2020

The political journalist on the timidity of liberal foundations, the peril of ignoring local reporting, and whether organizers have succeeded where party politics has failed.

Government Politics

Interview

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay: “It is not possible to decolonize the museum without decolonizing the world.”

By Sabrina Alli March 12, 2020

The political theorist argues that those whose worlds have been destroyed by five centuries of imperialism have the right to live near the objects that have been plundered from their culture.

Miscellaneous Files Lit World