Interview: Clifford Barnes

QUESTION: What was the spark that made you begin writing in prison? When did it occur?CLIFFORD BARNES:I didn’t begin writing in prison. I wrote as a youngster, not just… More

Interview: Zachary Redfearne

QUESTION: What was the spark that made you begin writing in prison? When did it occur?ZACHARY REDFEARNE: A writing workshop by Naropa University was a big motivational booster.Q: Can… More

The Messiness of Now: A Conversation

Amitava Kumar: There was a man in the nineteenth century who anticipated everything that Ilija was going to do and write, and lived his life accordingly: Richard Francis Burton.… More

Etgar Keret & George Saunders

I was amazed by your stories, by the quality and quantity of imagination, and the unbelievable overflow of ideas. So I wanted to ask a question that’s probably unfair.… More

Inventing the Past: A Conversation

Suddenly, one day, I felt a certain pleasure, and this pleasure was greater than the sorrow of the therapeutic writing that I was doing. Suddenly I recovered my sense… More

Tribute to Norman Mailer

Unlike other literary figures, Mailer was not prone to elite sensibilities in his private or public life. He was not a pragmatist nor an opportunist, nor was he politically… More

Tribute to Norman Mailer

There was the true Norman and the public Norman. I really only knew the true Norman—thank God—because there was a huge difference between the two. More

Tribute to Norman Mailer

I scarcely knew him as a man, but I knew the work made by the man. Reading him when I was twelve—memorizing the obscene lyrics in The Naked and… More