Celebrating 15 YearsWith LIAM CALLANAN
Your name: Liam Callanan
Current city or town: Milwaukee
How long have you lived here? 10 years
Ask a Local: Liam Callanan, Milwaukee, WI
June 25, 2015
Interviews
All posts tagged: Interviews
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.
On Redeeming Beauty from the Insatiable Destruction of Man: An Interview with Brian Sholis
March 3, 2015
Interviews
S. TREMAINE NELSON interviews BRIAN SHOLIS
Brian Sholis is Associate Curator of Photography at the Cincinnati Art Museum. He writes about photography, landscapes, and American history, all of which topics are combined in his essay “Our Poor Perishable World,” appearing in Issue 08 of The Common. In this chat with Oregonian S. Tremaine Nelson, Sholis touches on the American West, beauty and destruction, and the similarities between fiction and photography.
Topical Poetry: An Interview with Jonathan Moody
February 3, 2015
Interviews
MELODY NIXON interviews JONATHAN MOODY
Jonathan Moody is a poet and professor. His first full-length collection, The Doomy Poems, deals with time and place through persona poems, and is described by Terrance Hayes as having an “innovative funkiness that transcends the ruckus and heartache of our modern world.” Moody’s second poetry collection, Olympic Butter Gold, won the 2014 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize and will be published in summer this year. His poem “Dear 2Pac” appears in Issue 08 of The Common, and his “Portrait of Hermes as a B-Boy,” “Kleosphobia,” and “Paranoid,” have all been featured at The Common Online. Melody Nixon caught up with Moody this winter, and between New Zealand and Texas they talked poetry activism, politics, Houston skyscrapers, and the “cosmopolitan radiance” of Downtown Pittsburgh.
Ask a Local: Renee Simms, University Place, WA
January 22, 2015
Interviews
With RENEE SIMMS
Name: Renee Simms
Current city: University Place, WA, which is a suburb five minutes outside of Tacoma
How long have you lived here: Since 2011
Better Posture, a Longer Life, and Great Sex: An Interview with Diane Cook
January 6, 2015
Interviews
S. TREMAINE NELSON interviews DIANE COOK
Diane Cook’s debut short-story collection Man V. Nature was recently published by HarperCollins. The New York Times called it a book of “great beauty and strangeness.” Cook is a former producer on NPR’s “This American Life” and a graduate of the Graduate Writing Program at Columbia University. She currently lives in Oakland, California where she is at work on a novel. S. Tremaine Nelson talked with Cook about writing “unnerving” stories, her least favorite author, and the many perks of novel writing.
