Miscellaneous Files is a series of virtual studio visits that uses images, videos, and other artifacts from writers’ digital devices to understand their practice. Conceived by Mary Wang, each interview provides an intimate look into the artistic process.
***
2021
Patricia Lockwood: “I like the things people on the internet can’t talk about.”
Elizabeth Lo: “Like the dogs, I existed in a limbo where I wasn’t entirely part of human society.”
2020
Laila Lalami: “We have to think about citizenship as a relationship.”
Hilton Als: “It’s always so moving to see how art claims us out of a kind of loneliness.”
Anne Helen Peterson: “What else is there but my ability to work?”
Miscellaneous Files on Racial Justice: Eric Ward, Cat Brooks
Miscellaneous Files on Racial Justice: Sylvana Simons, Rosebell Kagumire, Amanda Adé
Ken Liu: “We get to define the stories we want to be told about us.”
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay: “It is not possible to decolonize the museum without decolonizing the world.”
Namwali Serpell: “I almost always find my errors productive.”
2019
Helen Phillips: “Living with the awareness of the abyss is probably a good thing.”
Wayne Koestenbaum: “I use obscene as a term of praise.”
Binnie Kirshenbaum: “If you think you shouldn’t say something, say it.”
Leanne Shapton: “The mix of proof, shock, and totally crappy images.”
Valeria Luiselli: “There are always fingerprints of the archive in my books.”
Anelise Chen: “Then I changed it to third-person clam, and that was exactly how it was meant to be.”
2018
Jabari Asim: “Narrative can be a form of resistance.”
Ottessa Moshfegh: “Sentimentality is a curse.”