Interviews

10 Questions with LitReactor Instructor and Erotica Writer Rachel Kramer Bussel

October 7th, 2014

For a lot of writers and readers, their knowledge of erotica begins and ends with stuff like cheap bodice-rippers and Fifty Shades of Grey.  The thing is, erotica is a big, diverse genre. And it's a genre I've been wanting to cover in our workshops for a while now—so I was excited when I came across Rachel Kramer Bussel, a seasoned writer, editor, and teacher of erotica.

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10 Questions with 'One Kick' Author Chelsea Cain

September 15th, 2014

Here's something that's a little funny, or maybe a little sad: I come from a crime fiction background and I've never read Chelsea Cain. I've read all her friends—Monica Drake and Chuck Palahniuk and Suzy Vitello and Lidia Yuknavitch—the members of that too-cool Portland literary clique we hear so much about. But Chelsea's work, which is supposed to be in my wheelhouse, eluded me. 

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10 Questions with Benjamin Whitmer

September 4th, 2014

Image via Music Tomes When I was reading Benjamin Whitmer’s debut novel, Pike, the first time, I made a comment on social media how I felt like I needed to take a scalding hot bath and scrub myself with bleach and steel wool to keep reading. I didn’t mean this statement to be an insult, far from it.

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10 Questions with LitReactor Instructor Chloe Caldwell

August 27th, 2014

[Women] is a novella about falling in love with a woman, about loving women, about being a woman. It is a novella about a mother and a daughter. A novella about female friendships that blur the line of romance. A novella about a woman who, after having her first sexual relationship with a woman, goes on a series of (comical) OK Cupid dates with other women. A novella about a woman in her twenties who doesn’t know if she’s gay or straight or bi. A novella about falling in love and having your heart broken and figuring out what to do next.

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My Cats Never Learned to Read: An Interview with Christopher Moore

July 2nd, 2014

Max Booth III: First, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to answer these questions. I heard you recently got married—congratulations! Christopher Moore: Thanks. We’ve been together for 18 years, so it’s not going to represent a monumental change for me. But thanks.

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10 Questions with Megan Abbott

June 17th, 2014

Image via Public Libraries Online I'll be blunt: Megan Abbott is my favorite novelist. 

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10 Questions with Aaron Gwyn

May 20th, 2014

Photo by Angus Lamond I first read Aaron Gwyn in Esquire's gone-too-soon Fiction For Men eZine. His chilling 2nd person short story, "You and Me and the Devil Makes Three", was one of the most innovative and stark pieces of short fiction I’d run across in years. Based solely on the strength of that story, I bought Gwyn’s collection, Dog on the Cross. The book was every bit as striking, albeit the tone and subject matter were far different.

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10 Questions with Jeff VanderMeer

May 6th, 2014

Image: Francesca Myman/Courtesy of Abrams Books Like so many new-to-me authors over the past seven years, I was introduced to the novels of Jeff VanderMeer by longtime friend and editor, Brian Lindenmuth. In 2009, Lindenmuth wrote me letting me know that he'd just mailed me two books, with a note saying I had to read both ASAP. The books were Brian Evenson's short story collection, Fugue States and Finch By VanderMeer. I cracked Finch first.

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10 Questions with Christopher Priest

May 2nd, 2014

Christopher Priest wants to trick you. His stories are multi-layered, steering you through a dark subterranean labyrinth full of twists and pitfalls to an ending you couldn’t imagine, let alone anticipate. The characters you encounter, each brimming with Priest’s trademark breath of life, will attempt to lead you astray at every turn as they methodically reveal their tales.

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10 Questions with 'Made to Break' Author D. Foy

April 7th, 2014

D. Foy is a man running on coffee and willpower. I first met him when he stopped by the LitReactor booth at AWP a month ago, and he has literally been on the road every day since then promoting his first novel, Made to Break. Released in March by Two Dollar Radio, the book, which he refers to as his “old man,” has had a sixteen-year journey to publication.

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