We’re in the midst of a blizzard and the Hungarian Pastry Shop, arguably the Upper West Side’s coziest nook for freelancers and finals-frenzied students, is...
Jesse Sheidlower on profanity, cocktails, and the old practice of new words
On a rainy afternoon in Midtown, I ordered a cup of coffee and waited to meet Jesse Sheidlower, lexicographer and the former editor-at-large of the...
Jeannie Vanasco on writing a memoir, sticking to your vision, and her three-legged cats by Daphne Palasi Andreades
photo cred: Bustle When I read Jeanne Vanasco’s debut memoir, The Glass Eye (Tin House, 2017), the book left me crying on a subway train...
Elif Batuman on breadth, genre, and writing as if you’ve never read
HL Part of what I love in The Idiot is the space you give to passages in which Selin is just grasping for the solidification...
Elif Batuman on Her New (Old) Novel, ‘The Idiot’
Elif Batuman’s The Idiot is a hilarious, poignant, and deviously wise novel, couched in the late-adolescent sensibilities of its narrator, Selin. As a freshman at...
Poetry at the Fringes! Emerging American Poets #1: Jacques Rancourt
By Lucas Gonzalez I first met the poet Jacques Rancourt in San Francisco in 2015. An interesting anecdote about the small and interconnected universe we writer-types live...
Representation Matters. Write Until It Doesn’t. by Fajr Muhammad (Our Word, School of the Arts)
Jia Tolentino and Puja Patel are friends. When you meet them it is easy to see why. Aside from the natural connections—both women of color,...
The ongoing conversation between queer writers: Garth Greenwell, on his new novel: an interview with Marcus Creaghan
What Belongs To You, the debut novel by Garth Greenwell, feels intimate, like a sleek, conspiratorial conversation in the dark. Greenwell, who is also a...
Madelaine Lucas: a conversation with author, poet, dancer, Maggie Nelson
Passion and philosophy are the twin rivers that run through Maggie Nelson’s body of work, most notably in her latest book, The Argonauts—though perhaps she...
I am an accumulator of lots of cheap beautiful things: Dottie Lasky, poet and teacher, interviewed by Tamara MC
Dorothea Lasky is an American poet, born in St. Louis, Missouri on March 27, 1978. She earned her MFA in Poetry from the University of...
Questions of Faith and Writing: The Iowa International Writing Program’s Christopher Merrill interviews Author, former Priest James Carroll
A moral compass is critical to certain kinds of literary endeavors, and no writer illustrates this better in our time than James Carroll, the author...
Alexandra Wolfe on Overcoming Tricky Interviewees; an interview by Erin Hazelton
Alexandra Wolfe writes profiles for the Wall Street Journal. She also pens books and cover stories for Vanity Fair. A personal favorite of mine? She...