Interviews | Page 17

August Reads: If You Open a Window and Make Love to the World: An Interview with A.L. Kennedy

August 22, 2015 Interviews

For the month of August we are revisiting some of our favorite content from the past year. Publication of new work will resume on September 1.

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A.L. Kennedy was born in Dundee, Scotland. She is the author of 15 books: six novels, six short story collections, and three works of nonfiction. She is a fellow of both theRoyal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature. She writes for publications in the UK and overseas and has a blog with The Guardian Online. In addition to author, she is a dramatist for the stage, radio, TV, and film, and a standup comedian. Her All The Rage—a collection of short stories—was published by Little A Books in spring 2014. Marni Berger and A.L. spoke about the culture of humor, constructing the landscapes of characters’ minds, and what it means to “write to please.”

View from Up High: An Interview with Jacquelyn Pope

August 2, 2015 Interviews

MARNI BERGER interviews JACQUELYN POPE

Jacquelyn Pope is the author of the poetry collection Watermark (Marsh Hawk Press, 2005). Her next book, Hungerpots—translations of the Dutch poet Hester Knibbe—is due out in October from Eyewear Publishing in the UK. Jacquelyn is the recipient of a 2015 National Endowment of the Arts Translation Fellowship and a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Ask a Local: Jaquira Díaz, Miami Beach, FL

July 30, 2015 Interviews

With JAQUIRA DÍAZ

Your name: Jaquira Díaz

Current city or town: Miami Beach, FL

How long have you lived here? I grew up in South Beach, and I’ve been back here (in North Beach) for about a year. But most of my immediate family lives in Miami, and I’ve been leaving and coming back since I was 19.

Putting the War in Plain Sight: An Interview with Sara Nović

July 7, 2015 Interviews

S. TREMAINE NELSON interviews SARA NOVIĆ

Sara Nović’s first book, Girl at War, was published by Random House earlier this year and was immediately well received: described by critics as “outstanding,” “intimate and immense,” The New York Times concluded it is “a brutal novel, but a beautiful one.” American-Croatian Nović recently graduated from the MFA program at Columbia University, where she studied fiction and literary translation. She is the fiction editor at Blunderbuss Magazine and the founder of ReDeafined, as well as an advocate for the Deaf community. S. Tremaine Nelson spoke with Nović in June while she was on a book tour in London.

Ask a Local: Liam Callanan, Milwaukee, WI

June 25, 2015 Interviews

With LIAM CALLANAN

Your name: Liam Callanan

Current city or town: Milwaukee

How long have you lived here? 10 years

Human Paradox: an Interview with Stephen O’Connor

June 16, 2015 Interviews

MELODY NIXON interviews STEPHEN O’CONNOR

Stephen O’Connor is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, the author of four books, a professor of creative writing at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College, and a husband and father. His short stories “Con” and “Double Life” appear in Issues 07 and 03 respectively of The Common. His new novel, Thomas Jefferson Dreams of Sally Hemings, is forthcoming from Viking-Penguin. Melody Nixon talked with O’Connor this month while she was in Norway and he in London. They both endured the rainiest of European springs and the crackling of Skype to talk dreams, the unconscious, and the right/ability of white writers to write across identity lines.

Ask a Local: Janine Joseph, Ogden, UT

May 28, 2015 Interviews

With JANINE JOSEPH

Your name: Janine Joseph

Current city or town: Ogden, UT

How long have you lived here: August 2015 will mark my two-year anniversary here.

Ask a Local: Melissa Kwasny, Jefferson City, MT

April 16, 2015 Interviews

With MELISSA KWASNY

Your Name: Melissa Kwasny

Current city or town: Jefferson City, Montana

How long have you lived here? I live four miles up a dirt road from Jefferson City, a stage stop that has seen better days, hence the unlikely name Jefferson City. It consists of a post office, a bar that closes and reopens depending on the fortunes of a nearby gold mine, and a hall for the volunteer fire department, wherein we vote. I have lived in this particular canyon for 25 years, and in the shade of these particular mountains, on and off, for 40.

Real Life Analogs: An Interview with James Hannaham

April 7, 2015 Interviews

MELODY NIXON interviews JAMES HANNAHAM

James Hannaham is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, an MFA teacher, and the author of the novel God Says No, which was a finalist for a Lambda Book Award and a semifinalist for a VCU First Novelist Award. Hannaham’s work interweaves social critique and strong characterization with robust plot, and he was recently praised by The New York Times for the way he makes “the commonplace spring to life with nothing more than astute observation and precise language.” Melody Nixon met with Hannaham in downtown Manhattan the day before his latest novel, Delicious Foods, was released from Little, Brown and Company. They discussed place, politics, and “racism as a curse.”

Ask a Local: Elizabeth Bradfield, North Truro, MA

March 19, 2015 Interviews

With ELIZABETH BRADFIELD

Your name: Elizabeth Bradfield

Current city or town: North Truro, MA

How long have you lived here: Well, that’s not an easy one. There were a few years in Provincetown and then the five or seven years—depending on how you count two of them—I was connected but away. Perhaps it’s simpler to say that I began belonging to this place 17 years ago.