Interviews

Writers and Depression: An Interview with Psychotherapist and Author, Philip Kenney

January 21st, 2013

Writing is an oftentimes lonely calling. As if the rigors and challenges of modern publishing and making a living off one’s writing wasn’t enough, writers often fight many silent and sometimes crippling battles in their minds. So often have we heard the creative-as-depressive or just a little bit “crazy” debate: Do the truly brilliant artists require a bit of mental instability to craft brilliant art? And often the idea of the “crazy” or “mad” artist is romanticized by young writers finding their voice and literary path.

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10 Questions with Joe Biel, Founder of Microcosm Publishing

January 17th, 2013

Joe Biel is a writer, activist, journalist, filmmaker, teacher, and publisher. He founded Microcosm Publishing and the imprint Cantankerous Titles, which have published over 300 titles and sold more than one million "classic format" paper books. He co-founded the Portland Zine Symposium and is the author of Beyond the Music, Make a Zine, and The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting.

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10 Questions with George Saunders

January 8th, 2013

I have a dubious history with the short story collections of George Saunders.

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Steve Niles Creates As He Destroys: A Look At Final Night

December 18th, 2012

I want to say that Steve Niles is the Michael Jackson of horror comics. The Madonna of supernatural graphic literature. The Walter White of comic book writers because he is the one who knocks! But I’m not going to say any of that because Steve Niles has just become the man to end all comparisons. When issue #1 of his new comic book series Final Night released on December 12th, Steve Niles set up the dynamite.

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10 Questions with Thuglit's Todd Robinson

December 12th, 2012

There are a number of polarizing figures in the crime fiction community: Jon and Ruth Jordan of Crimespree magazine, Steve Weddle of Needle: The Magazine of Noir, and, of course, the one and only Big Daddy Thug, Todd Robinson, founder and editor of Thuglit. During its first five year run, Thuglit produced three print anthologies and helped spark the careers of such writers as Stuart Nevillle, Hilary Davidson, Jordan Harper, and Frank Bill.

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10 Questions with Rhonda Hughes

December 11th, 2012

It’s no secret that Portland, Oregon is having a cultural moment. Whether we’re talking home brew or Portlandia or the thriving literary community in this overgrown Pacific Northwest town, you can’t scan a Twitter feed without stumbling across a reference to the Rose City. Since 2002, one of the brightest spots in Portland’s literary horizon has been Hawthorne Books, helmed by the talent magnet, Rhonda Hughes.

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10 Questions With Matthew McBride

December 4th, 2012

Sometimes a book sells you solely on the title. Frank Sinatra in a Blender is one of those books. I mean, c'mon.  Turns out, the prose hits just as hard as the title. The debut novel from Matthew McBride is about St. Louis-based PI Nick Valentine, a wrecking ball with an inhuman tolerance for alcohol and pills. He's investigating a robbery, and like with any badass pulp story, all kinds of stuff goes wrong. Especially for his Yorkshire terrier, Frank Sinatra. 

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10 Questions With Chris F. Holm

November 8th, 2012

By Chris F. Holm's definition, his novels Dead Harvest and The Wrong Goodbye "recast the battle between heaven and hell as Golden Era crime pulp." That's a pretty good way to put it. The books are as hard to define as they are impossible to put down. 

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10 Questions with Sean Beaudoin

November 5th, 2012

Author Sean Beaudoin has thrown a brick through virtually every window in the hallowed and stuffy House of Writing. Although best-known for his string of popular YA novels, Beaudoin has contributed features to scores of magazines, danced the "Lit Journal Shuffle," crop-dusted acres of writing and culture sites, and way, way back in the day, launched his own fanzine, penning defiant late night manifestos to a readership so far out on the fringe that zip-locked baggies full of toenail clippings routinely landed in his mailbox. From more than one person.

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The Fifty Year Sword: An Interview With Mark Z. Danielewski

October 16th, 2012

Midnight approaches on Halloween. Five orphans and an East Texas seamstress at a birthday party sit, captivated by a Story Teller’s tale, and the long, mysterious black box he's set before them. But they're also being held captive by the malicious fate the Story Teller foretells: The Fifty Year Sword.

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