I am always attracted to situations in which characters have to go above and beyond themselves to do something that they normally wouldn’t do to fill a role they’ve been thrust into.
Not Your Typical Gap Year: An Interview With Pam Mandel
Rachel Rueckert, nonfiction MFA candidate, spoke to travel writer Pam Mandel about her career path and recently released book, The Same River Twice: A Memoir of Dirtbag Backpackers, Bomb Shelters, and Bad Travel, a coming-of-age story about an unconventional, emotionally…
On Intersectional Character Dynamics & Subverting their Tropes: An Interview with Jenny Bhatt
Shalvi J Shah, an MFA candidate in Fiction and Literary Translation and Teaching Fellow at Columbia University, talks to author Jenny Bhatt about craft, cultural stereotypes, her debut short story collection Each of Us Killers, and how far artists go…
Finding Rhythm: An Interview with Avni Doshi
Abhigna Mooraka, Columns Editor for Columbia Journal Issue 59, spoke to author Avni Doshi about her Booker-shortlisted Burnt Sugar, her writing process, and her art history background among other things. Burnt Sugar releases in the United States in January 2021…
A Conversation with Viet Thanh Nguyen
So for better or for worse, COVID has turned out to be an opportune moment. It’s terrible for the entire country, but for a writer, terrible moments can be good because they provide a lot of material to think and…
Translating the Transnational: An Interview with Mike Fu
A discussion with the translator of Stories of the Sahara (Bloomsbury, 2020) on navigating between languages.
You Should Be Paying Attention: An Interview with Lynn Steger Strong
Lynn Steger Strong discusses her second novel Want, a book that explores the complexities of motherhood, lost friendship, and the ways in which we live in, and in spite of, broken systems.
The Strange World of Work: An Interview with Hilary Leichter
…I was thinking about dating in the city and how it can be just like applying to jobs. There are some interesting parallels…
Translation as Activism: An Interview with Rachel Galvin
An interview with Rachel Galvin about wallops, activism, and the future of self-translation.
Art and Seoul: An Interview with Frances Cha
Frances Cha speaks about If I Had Your Face, her debut novel set in South Korea, and about writing, art, pop culture, and women.
Writing Iranian America: An Interview with Porochista Khakpour
In this interview, Jasmine Vojdani speaks with writer Porochista Khakpour about fragmented identity, being Iranian in America, regret, and her new book, The Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity.
On Being A Good Indian: An Interview With Stephen Graham Jones
Max Asher Miller spoke with Stephen Graham Jones about The Only Good Indians, a bloody book with eyes on what it means to navigate Native American identity.