Interviews

Every Moment I'm Awake The Further I'm Away: Dream Analysis With Steve Erickson

January 31st, 2012

This marks an anniversary of sorts for me. It was a little over four years ago that I hatched a scheme to score myself an ARC of the latest novel from one of my favorite authors. Said scheme involved pretensions to journalism and pretty much launched my dubious career as an internet writer. The author was American surrealist, Steve Erickson, and the book was a love letter to cinema entitled Zeroville.

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Jim Zubkavich on Skullkickers and Creator-Owned Comics

January 19th, 2012

Looking back on all the comics I've read, the ones that stick with me the longest are always the less mainstream books. I'm still a fan of Batman, The Avengers, X-Men and more, but it's the little guys and creator-owned titles where creativity seems to truly flourish. Writers who don't have to adhere to the history that came before them.

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An Interview with William Gay

December 20th, 2011

Five years ago when I first started sending out my writing, I began to correspond with a small group of writers from the Midwest and Southern regions of the United States who were just starting to dip their toes into publishing as well. Among these novice authors were shared quite a few common influences, such as Cormac McCarthy and Daniel Woodrell, both of whom walked a thin line between genre and contemporary fiction. There were also two novelists who I was completely unfamiliar with that were constantly mentioned as must read authors.

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Growing Up in the Company of Books - The Life of Mark Richard

November 16th, 2011

Anyone who has read The Ice At The Bottom of the World knows what they are getting into when they pick up House of Prayer No. 2 – the latest book by Mark Richard, which happens to be a challenging and engaging memoir written in the second person. That's right, a memoir in the second person. But what else would you expect from the man who has given us such gems as: Long-legged stretches of bone-white light come kicking through the treetops of the tallest shortleaf pines, ripping limbs and splitting crowns. Or: From out of the hangar comes a coo and flutter of pigeon reposition but nothing ever feathered flies. The man can craft a sentence. And anyone who is hailed by both Chuck Palahniuk and Amy Hempel as one of the greatest short story writers ever deserves, at the very least, a read. In my case, a featherless flight. I flew to Los Angeles, where he now resides with his wife and three boys, to talk about the memoir, his past, and why he writes what he writes. I was surprised by what I found. Pleasantly so.

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Solving The Puzzle of Sex and Violence With Dennis Cooper

November 3rd, 2011

It was a good friend of mine who introduced me to the work of Dennis Cooper. "So-and-so lent me this book. I think you'd really like it, if you don't mind a little hardcore gay sex."

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A Conversation with Chuck Klosterman

November 1st, 2011

Author Chuck Klosterman is a man of many talents and many jobs: journalist, essayist, critic, sports podcast co-host, and most recently, novelist. The Visible Man is his second foray into fiction, following the release of Downtown Owl in 2008.

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Chuck Palahniuk Finds Hell in an Author's Suite

October 18th, 2011

Any excuse to go to Portland is a good excuse.  It has beautiful weather (this day was a sunny 73 degrees), great restaurants (I recommend the chicken fried sweetbreads at Merriwether's), Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, and Powell's - the best bookstore ever.

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A Conversation with Daniel Woodrell

October 5th, 2011

Is it cliché to say that Daniel Woodrell is “criminally” underrated as a novelist? Most likely it is, but it, in fact, describes the iconic Arkansas novelist best. Over the last thirty-five years Woodrell has slowly but surely carved out his niche in the landscape of American literature by chronicling the travails of the new American working class and the hard bitten men and women of the Ozarks.

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