Interviews

10 Questions with Owen Laukkanen

March 17th, 2015

Image by Alex Urosevic via National Post I can’t say I’m exactly the biggest fan of traditional thrillers. The fact is, unless I’m being paid to read and review them, I don’t read thrillers. (By the way, if you’re a thriller fan, don’t get your panties in a bunch, because I’m not saying you shouldn’t read them, or that I think they’re bad, they’re just not my cup of coffee.) But there are exceptions.

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10 Questions with Ed Kurtz

March 4th, 2015

Ed Kurtz is a hell of a writer. Last year he asked me to blurb his novella, Freight. I jumped at the chance because, hell, I would get to read it before anyone else! Here's what I ended up saying about the book:  In less sure hands, Freight would be an unending train of grief, but Ed Kurtz has this amazing ability to present the darkest corners of society, and then reveal the good and decent human heart that beats underneath.

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The Black Hood Returns: An Interview with Duane Swierczynski

February 25th, 2015

Denizens of LitReactor should be familiar with Philadelphia’s Duane Swierczynski.

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10 Questions with Richard Lange

February 10th, 2015

The very first eBook I ever bought was Richard Lange’s debut short story collection, Dead Boys. When I bought it, I had just gotten my first iPhone and I wanted a book that would occupy me during the more dead eyed, soulless moments of my job at the time. I thought a short story collection would be a good way to momentarily transport me away from my 2 PM cubicle for a couple of minutes, and wouldn’t distract me too much from work.

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10 Questions with R. P. Lester

February 4th, 2015

One evening, between gentlemanly conversations about the news of the day (arguing about comic book movies), Thuglit editor and bartender extraordinaire Todd Robinson showed me a book he had recently acquired. The opening line: "Let me tell you who the fuck I am." The thing clearly had verve—as well as a gun, a hypodermic needle, and a goat on the cover. It went on my Books I Should At Some Point Read list.

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Ready Writer One: An Interview With Gabe Durham Of Boss Fight Books

January 28th, 2015

I slept on Nintendo sheets. Lots of nights when I was young, when I was lucky and the one set of Nintendo sheets ended up on my bed instead of one of my brothers' beds, I would lay down, and Mario and Link would protect me from all those childhood monsters. The decision as to whether the pillow case would be Zelda-side-up or Mario-side-up was a serious one. Even though it was dark, even though I couldn't see them, even though I was a little too old to have sheets with characters on them, I loved those sheets.

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The Story You Made of Me: An Interview Lidia Yuknavitch about Dismissed Narratives

November 21st, 2014

  We all assign narratives to people. That is a thing humans do, so don't deny it. Some of us may do it more than others, and it takes a conscientious mind to really unpack them. Especially if you write fiction, or hell, even when you read. You guess about how characters would act when they aren't you or aren't based on you. Even if the characters are based you, I am sure there is a stereotype of you somewhere, a stereotype that you think about deep down, something you wish people didn't assume about you.

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10 Questions with LitReactor Instructor and Memoirist Cooper Lee Bombardier

October 29th, 2014

2014 has been an incredible year for trans artists. Many have hailed Janet Mock's bestselling memoir about discovering her identity and Laverne Cox's cover story in Time to be momentous steps forward toward equality. There remains, however, much distance to travel. And here to teach a four-week workshop about digging into identity is Cooper Lee Bombardier.

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10 Questions with Urban Waite

October 22nd, 2014

Image by Sean Hunter What if upon the publication of your first novel, you were compared to Cormac McCarthy? I know, a lot of novelists are compared to the grim Nobelist in waiting, but ask yourself, how would you react? Would you be ecstatic? Or would you feel like it was a burden? Or what if the most widely read and influential novelist of the 20th century praised your work, how would that make you feel?

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10 Questions with LitReactor Instructor and Horror Writer Gemma Files

October 20th, 2014

It's Halloween season—the best time of the year to scare yourself silly. And horror writer Gemma Files is an expert at terrifying prose. She's gone to great lengths to add complexity and literary merit to a sometimes (unfairly) dismissed genre—and we were thrilled to catch up with her for a chat.

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