Interviews

In Conversation: Alex Segura and Joe Clifford on PI Fiction, Flawed Characters and Fighting Your Demons

May 9th, 2018

Writing is a solitary, lonely process—don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. But, if like me, you write a series, you know that once a year or so you’ll get to pop your head up and promote your work. That can be anxiety-inducing, but it can also be fun. In the process, you often meet other writers who share the same literal shelf space. Sometimes, you meet writers who share your headspace and seem to be interested in tackling the kind of stories you aim to spotlight in your own work.

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Owen Laukkanen on Boats, Trains, Dogs, and His Latest Novel 'Gale Force'

May 8th, 2018

Who knew deep-sea salvage could be so fascinating? It's a subject I knew absolutely nothing about, until I read Gale Force. Besides learning a lot about what happens when a big boat carrying a lot of stuff goes ass-up in the water, it becomes clear that this world is a very fertile setting for action-packed storytelling.

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Sunshine Noir: An Interview with Jeffery Hess, author of 'Tushhog'

May 7th, 2018

Jeffery Hess’ Tushhog, a follow-up to his 2016 debut novel Beachhead, hits shelves today and is, as expected, all dive bars and attitude, all sweat and blood and sand. Tushhog continues the adventures of Scotland Ross, a Navy-prison parolee making his way on the West Coast of Florida in the 1980s and trying, without much success, to keep his head down, his nose clean and have a shot at maybe just a little bit of happiness in a life otherwise filled with hard knocks.

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Laying Down the Law with Jeff Noon

April 11th, 2018

Last August saw the release of A Man of Shadows, Jeff Noon's first novel to feature down-on-his-luck private eye John Nyquist. Now, less than a year later, The Body Library comes nipping at its heels. In this psychedelic sequel, our protagonist awakes in a room next to a dead body, an event that triggers a murder investigation set in a city infected by story.

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Elle Nash On Writing As A Parent, Tom Spanbauer's Basement, and Her New Novel 'Animals Eat Each Other'

April 3rd, 2018

The first page of Animals Eat Each Other knocked me on my ass. I was not surprised, as this was not the first time Elle Nash had knocked me on my ass. 

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Howling from the Mountains: An Interview with Taylor Brown

March 15th, 2018

Gods of Howl Mountain, the third novel by acclaimed and all-around-awesome author Taylor Brown, hits shelves today. And what better way to celebrate than to take a moment to read up on whiskey, snake handlers, and writing-gritty-from-the-gut with the man himself? I was lucky enough to get a sneak peek at Gods of Howl Mountain— a dark, lyrical story of deep love and deeper secrets in 1950s North Carolina— and even luckier to have a chance to sit down with Taylor Brown and pick the mind of a master.

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LitReactor Instructor Joshua Isard on Creative Writing, Getting an MFA, and the Long View

March 12th, 2018

You are the Director of Arcadia University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing. Are you yourself the product of an MFA program? Yes, I am. I graduated form the University of Edinburgh program in 2003. It’s not an accident that I take my own MFA students to Scotland every year. How did that shape you as a writer? And did it prepare you for the harsh realities of the publishing industry?

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Mini-Interviews with the 'Tragedy Queens' Authors

March 8th, 2018

Tragedy Queens: Stories Inspired by Lana Del Rey & Sylvia Plath is a new anthology coming out from CLASH Books. It is distinctive in that it is filled with predominantly female voices. This is no accident. The book's editor, Leza Cantoral, had the goal from the start of creating an anthology that would represent powerful feminine voices. She chose two muses that had served her well in her own writings for this task. In the spirit of representing female voices, here is Leza herself, telling the story of how this anthology came to be:

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Tiffany Scandal on 'Nasty!', A Collection Of Essays From Fierce Women

January 19th, 2018

From body positivity to sexual empowerment to overcoming adversity and beyond, Nasty! is a collection of bold essays and recollections from King Shot Press, written by fierce women who are not ashamed of who they are or what they do. And it kicks ass.

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Interview: Literary Agent Mark Gottlieb

December 18th, 2017

Bio: Mark Gottlieb has ranked #1 among Agents on Publishers Marketplace in Overall Deals and other individual categories. Using that same initiative and insight for identifying talented writers, he is actively building his own client list of authors. Mark is excited to work directly with authors, helping to manage and grow their careers with all of the unique resources that are available at book publishing’s leading literary agency, Trident Media Group.

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