This week, Alex talks to Myriam Lacroix about her novel, How It Works Out, queer fiction, the Canadian literary landscape, love as hunger, and parallel worlds. About Myriam Lacroix: MYRIAM LACROIX was born in Montreal to a Québécois mother and a Moroccan father, and currently lives in Vancouver. She has a BFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and an MFA from Syracuse University, where she was editor in chief of Salt Hill Journal and received the New York Public Humanities Fellowship for creating Out-Front, an LGBTQ+ writing group whose goal was to expand the possibili ..read more

About Cameron Russell: Cameron Russell has spent the last twenty years working as a model for clients including Prada, Calvin Klein, Victoria’s Secret, H&M, Vogue, and Elle. With over forty million views, her TED talk on the power of image is one of the most popular of all time. She is the co-founder of Model Mafia, a collective of hundreds of fashion models striving for a more equitable, just, and sustainable industry. She continues to organize, consult, and speak to transform extractive supply chains and center climate justice. She lives in New York with her family. About How To Make Her ..read more

About Alexander Sammartino: Alexander Sammartino lives in Brooklyn. He received his MFA from Syracuse University. Last Acts is his first novel. About Last Acts: Following a near-death experience, an entrepreneurial father-and-son duo wreak havoc and fend off bankruptcy in this unflinching portrayal of the absurdities of American life. “Hilarious, exceptional.” —Dan Chaon, The New York Times Book Review • “Honest, highwire, virtuosic writing that summons up the world with all its charms and hazards.” —George Saunders Even though his firearms store is failing, things are looking up for David Riz ..read more

About Brontez Purnell: Brontez Purnell is the author of several books, most recently 100 Boyfriends, which won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction, was longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and was named an Editors' Choice by the New York Times Book Review. The recipient of a 2018 Whiting Writers' Award for Fiction and the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Robert Rauschenberg Award, he was named one of the thirty-two Black Male Writers of Our Time by T: The New York Times Style Magazine in 2018 ..read more

About Eliza Barry Callahan: Eliza Barry Callahan is a writer and artist from New York, New York. Shortly after receiving her BA from Columbia, where she studied visual art, art history, and poetry, she returned to the university where she received her MFA in writing (2022). Her writing has been published in frieze, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and BOMB. She also writes, performs, and releases music via Los Angeles-based label, ANTI- Records with a record forthcoming in 2023. About The Hearing Test: A young woman reorients her relationship to the world in the wake of sudden deafness in this ..read more

About Mariah Stovall: Mariah Stovall has written fiction for the anthology Black Punk Now, and for Ninth Letter, Vol 1. Brooklyn, Hobart, the Minola Review, and Joyland; and nonfiction for The Los Angeles Review of Books, Full Stop, Hanif Abdurraqib’s 68to05, The Paris Review, Poets & Writers, and LitHub. I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both is her first novel and 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is her favorite Jawbreaker album. She lives in New Jersey. About I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both: Set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and New York City, I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both is ..read more

About Alexandra Tanner: Alexandra Tanner is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She is a graduate of the MFA program at The New School and the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and The Center for Fiction. Her writing appears in The New York Times Book Review, Gawker, and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. Worry is her first novel. About Worry: Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Nylon, The Millions, and Debutiful! Frances Ha meets No One Is Talking About This in a debut that follows two siblings-turned-roommates navigating an absurd world on the verge of calamity—a Seinfeldian no ..read more

About Sarah Mintz: Sarah Mintz is a graduate of the English MA program at the University of Regina. Her work has been published with Book*Hug Press, JackPine Press, Radiant Press, Apocalypse Confidential, The Sea & Cedar Literary Magazine, and Agnes and True . Find out more at https://smintz.carrd.co/. About Norma: Widowhood and weirdos, online and off, NORMA is so dark it smarts. It’s a terrible freedom to linger unaccounted for. Norma is waking up and cracking up. Decades of marriage, housekeeping, and family responsibility: buried with her husband Hank. Now, she’s free, gorging on an on ..read more

About Rebecca May Johnson: Rebecca May Johnson has published essays, reviews and nonfiction with Granta, Times Literary Supplement and Daunt Books Publishing, among others, and is an editor at the trailblazing food publication Vittles. Small Fires is her first book. About Small Fires: Why do we cook? Is it just to feed ourselves and others? Or is there something more revolutionary going on? In Small Fires, Rebecca May Johnson reinvents cooking -- that simple act of rolling up our sleeves, wielding a knife, spattering red hot sauce on our books -- as a way of experiencing ourselves and the worl ..read more

About Katya Apekin: Katya Apekina is a novelist, screenwriter, and translator. Her debut novel, The Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish, was named a Best Book of 2018 by Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Lithub, and others, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, German, and Italian. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George grant, an Olin Fellowship, the Alena Wilson prize, and a Third Year Fiction Fellowship from Washignton University in St. Louis, where she did her MFA. She has done residences at VCCA, Playa, Ucross, Art Omi: Writing, and Fonda ..read more