Public Lives/Private Lives
LaborMy handwriting is rough, a prisoner’s scriptedletter, the cropped fields and your winter handsfolding into my pockets for lack of gloves.I could go in any direction in this field… More
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
How She Penetrates
According to family lore, there was a great bonfire in which all of Jane’s possessions perished. Her journals, her clothes, her scrapbooks, her books, her typewriter, her school papers,… 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
Realist Fiction
Last night, in a biker bar, I overheard two men discussing what distinguished “realist” fiction from more “experimental” work. Although one shouldn’t generalize, I never expect bikers to be… 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
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
Confessions: An Innocent Life in Communist China
22. Food FantasiesFourteen rolled a couple of cigarettes with the tobacco from the butts I had gleaned, and I watched as Number Six and Number Nine took on the… More
Sidney Offit: Memories of Norman Mailer
My memories of Norman Mailer drift back more than forty years to an evening we shared at one of the PEN cocktail parties. Held at the Pierre Hotel, these… More
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