I recently reviewed A Spy in the Ruins, by Christopher Bernard. I talk with him about the novel’s genesis, the writing process, and the need to maintain autonomy in public art. Continue reading The Christopher Bernard Interview
I recently reviewed Joan Frank’s Make It Stay, a story of love and loss set in North California wine country. In the interview, we talk about the writing process, unreliable narrators, and the volatility of literary taste. Continue reading An Interview with Joan Frank
Back in May, I reviewed The Duke Don’t Dance, by Richard Sharp. It is a historical novel focusing on the lives of several men and women from the Silent Generation. In this interview, I ask Mr. Sharp about the burdens of speaking for a generation, plausible deniability, the writing process, and his favorite writers. Continue reading An Interview with Richard Sharp
The Driftless Area Review interviews Isaac Goldman, author of “Isaac: a modern fable,” to discuss folklore, favorite writers, boxing, and why you shouldn’t try to sell the Tonight Show a joke. Continue reading An Interview with Ivan Goldman
What inspired you to write The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Super Girl? I was working on a paper in graduate school when I started reading a pair of books called The Steel Drug and Cocaine Changes. As the titles suggest, they were about cocaine, and they included case studies of people who had used and abused cocaine. Some of them were very compelling, but due to the nature of the books, the stories were also very fragmentary. With The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl I wanted to flesh out some of the details in a … Continue reading An Interview with Marc Schuster
Why is Alfred Buber an important character for modern readers? Alfred Buber’s story is a riff off several things: isolation, male loneliness, a feeling some of us may have that for others life is richer, more sensual, more rewarding than it ever will be for us. Buber is frozen by that feeling, by the sense that he is a spectator at his own life, shut out of any chance at love, at being wanted, at feeling full and satisfied. He mistakes these feelings, I think, for desire, and I believe many men do this: conflate loneliness with desire, as if … Continue reading An Interview with David Schmahmann, author of The Double Life of Alfred Buber
West Coast author Mary Kennedy Eastham has been quite busy lately. Her book of poetry, the Shadow of a Dog I Can’t Forget, was one of my first review copies I received. I talked with her via an email interview. Here is what she had to say about her recent projects, the art of writing, her love of dogs, and her favorite writers. WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR CREATIVE PROJECTS? I am trying so hard to finish my novel NIGHT SURFING. Writing a novel is very different from writing a short story or writing a poem. There are so many more … Continue reading Interview with Author Mary Kennedy Eastham
Chad Faries is the author of The Book of Knowledge and his forthcoming memoir Drive Me Out of My Mind. Chad’s Midwestern upbringing and international experiences give his poetry a unique perspective. His brand of poetry possesses a singular combination of the humbly playful and historically engaged. In the words of publisher Lisa Flowers, founder of Vulgar Marsala Press, “his work [is like ] a trip through Disney through the eyes of Woody Guthrie through the eyes of Ezra Pound, like an ever-overlapping pair of bifocals.” Chad answered my questions I emailed to him. What are some of your current projects? … Continue reading Interview with author Chad Faries
Can you explain why you named your press Vulgar Marsala? We’re named for an image in DH Lawrence’s “Medlars and Sorb Apples”, from his seminal/groundbreaking collection “Birds, Beasts, and Flowers”. I toyed with an assortment of names that encompassed a lot of literary and mythological and film references, etc, but ultimately this one stuck…more intuitively/impulsively than intellectually. It’s an eye-catching name…maybe an amusingly misleading one, until you know what its axe is (some have even assumed it’s some kind of sex publication /site, what with the word “vulgar”). What attracted you to the work of Chad Faries? I’ve described his … Continue reading An Interview with Lisa Flowers, Founder of Vulgar Marsala Press
The Permanent Press is a small publisher based in Sag Harbor, New York. With high standards and a small staff, the Permanent Press possesses both the longevity and critical acclaim usually associated with larger publishers. Martin and Judy Shepard approach the business of publishing with small print runs and putting out only a dozen new titles every year. Unlike the mainstream conglomerates, the Permanent Press is more of an artisan than an agent of mass production. Martin Shepard, co-founder of the Permanent Press I had the opportunity to ask Martin Shepard, co-founder of Permanent Press, some questions about the book … Continue reading Interview with Martin Shepard, co-founder of the Permanent Press
The Driftless Area Review 