Stumbling Into Being
In this second installment of Writing The Ellipsis, writer Cesar Diaz explores how the process of building and rebuilding his own family narrative led him to discover and understand his voice. You can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Rulebook, Or, A Book of Rules, Broken. Lawrence Lenhart interviewed by...
As part of the series I curate, Breaking the Rules, Lawrence Lenhart was kind enough to answer a vatful of questions I asked him about his forthcoming book, Isolating Transgression, forthcoming from...
View ArticleThank You, Madeline DeFrees—With Love, Renée E. D’Aoust
I met poet Madeline DeFrees—once—in the late Eighties, which was more than a decade after she left the Catholic Congregation of Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. DeFrees taught a writing...
View ArticleInt'l Essayists: Aurvi Sharma on the Body Patchwork, the Text as the Body /...
Awhile ago I was reading Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table (which I just noticed is referred to as a “collection of short stories” / “autobiographical episodes” on his Wikipedia page: weirdness) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March Sadness and the Collaborative Essay
So this March I've been running this project called March Sadness. Well, I'm already oversimplifying: we have been running the project, my wife and I. It's a bracket that we made of the saddest songs...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Truth or Dare: On Imaginative Essays, Genre Transgression, and Shared Voyages
I. It started with Virginia Dare. Like most Americans, I learned about The Lost Colony as a child—in fourth grade social studies class. The mysterious disappearance of the English settlement at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Queer It If You Can”: An Interview with Brian Blanchfield by Jill Talbot
I discovered Brian Blanchfield in January when Ander Monson tweeted a link to his essay, “On Dossiers,” featured in BOMB Magazine. The essay begins with a quote from Roland Barthes, followed by...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Literary Field Guide: A Q&A With Eric Magrane and Chris Cokinos
If field guides and poetry have something in common, perhaps it’s the way the writers of each seem to possess an inexhaustible knowledge, only the barest of which is transferred to the page. The more...
View ArticleThe Uncertainty at the Heart of Things: A Conversation with John D'Agata
Last month, on the occasion of Graywolf Press releasing The Making of the American Essay, the third of John D'Agata's trilogy of provocative essay anthologies (the others being The Next American Essay...
View ArticleBlogging oneself out of an essay, Or blogging oneself out of a life: Avijit...
Did you get confirmation of the Bangkok-Dhaka flight? If so, forward the info to me. This portion of your trip still makes me nervous. MomMother’s language arrives only when I can connect to a...
View ArticleMinnesota Melancholy and Masculinity
Maybe it’s something in the water. That would make sense; Minnesota is water-rich. The Dakota words that form our state’s name are “minni,” which means water, and “sotah,” which means sky-tinted or...
View ArticleWho You Are, Where You Are: Amy Wright on Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder, The Great Clod: Notes and Memoirs on Nature and History in East AsiaBerkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2016Over dinner once, Will Hearst asked his friend Gary Snyder what attracted him to...
View ArticleThose Old-Timey Essays: A Conversation with Patrick Madden
Jacob Eckrich, Associate Creative Nonfiction Editor for The Normal School, talks with essayist Patrick Madden about his new collection Sublime Physick, humor, Montaigne, and the activity we call...
View ArticleU Better Live Now: Perspectives on Prince
Prince’s first album was released the year before I was born and his music permeated my childhood. I don’t remember ever not knowing who he was. 1999, Little Red Corvette, Purple Rain, Raspberry Beret,...
View ArticleAn Anthology of One: Joseph Bradbury on Sonora Review's Essay Contest
I’m thinking a bit about the nature of writing contest, their construction, and their purpose aside from winning a little money and publication. I like working at a journal. I enjoy engaging with other...
View ArticleWriting the Other Half: A Conversation About Creating Nonfiction: Twenty...
Erin Murphy and Jen Hirt are the co-editors behind the nonfiction anthology, Creating Nonfiction: Twenty Essays and Interviews with the Writers, published in 2016 by SUNY Press. As the second in a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An Interview with William Bradley by Jill Talbot
“We are made of cells—the building blocks of life. These tiny fractals contain the information that makes us us. On a microscopic level, we’re all quite similar to each other indeed.” —“Self-Similar,”...
View ArticleIra Sukrungruang: The Soap Box
Ira Sukrungruang and Joy Castro are the guest editors for Brevity Magazine's upcoming special issue on Race/Racism/Racialization. Brevity is looking for flash essays (750 words or fewer) that explore...
View ArticleCritical Read: Natalie Axton on Repositioning Arts Writing
In the spring of 2012 I took a hard look at my so-called writing career. I’d been trying to make it as a freelancer for the past two years and ever since a famous book editor in New York sat me down a...
View ArticleT Clutch Fleischmann: A Ninja Turtle Theory of a Trans Essay
When I was a kid I had a lot of Ninja Turtles, that Ninja Turtle sewer playset, and my sister in her room across the hall had Barbies. I would go across the hall and get the Barbies and they would play...
View Article