MG: I’m working on the first draft of a novel that is about a relationship between a thirty-year-old woman and a seventy-year-old woman (and hopefully some other things! We shall see!). . Here she discusses how the story evolved to its current state and how tragedy makes the bitterest of friends. is a Latinx writer, originally from San Diego. She is the editorial assistant for The Southern Review, an MFA candidate in Fiction at Louisiana State University, and the former editor-in-chief of the New Delta Review. Her work has been supported by the Sundress Academy of the Arts Residency. Rodriguez ..read more

PW: Thanks for asking! I’m steadily revising my short story collection, though most of my writing energy currently is funneled into the third draft of my novel. It’s tentatively titled  is a Latinx writer, originally from San Diego. She is the editorial assistant for  The Southern Review, swamp pink, The Iowa Review, Joyland Magazine an MFA candidate in Fiction at Louisiana State University, and the former editor-in-chief of the  !) But in the first-person, though I could explore PJ further, I didn’t have access to the particularities of TJ’s experience, which felt crucial to th ..read more

‘s annual holiday sale! From December 4 to 15, , to be sent to you or to the recipient of your choice, as well as a 20% discount. Share the gift of Have a wonderful holiday season, and we hope you enjoy our magazine ..read more

MW:I am at work on two novels! One is almost done. It’s called (tentatively) . It’s quite a departure from my previous work, though it still features a character from rural China from the city of Fenyang. Harriet Chu is the main character, and she’s this video game prodigy that comes to the U.S. to merge minds with a supercomputer. The novel is about content-creation culture, immigration, and the origins of consciousness. is the author of the story collection , which won the PEN/Bingham Prize, and the novel . He is an assistant professor of creative writing in the MFA program at the University ..read more

MD: I’ve got several projects I’m working on, including a song biography and a book of short stories. I was recently a Fulbright in Krakow, Poland, and I’ve got some short stories that I want to create out of that experience. I also want to finish a book of stand-alone but connected essays. Those are some of my upcoming projects. by Andrzej Stasiuk. These are linked stories, set in a small town toward the end of the Communist era, about bad tractors and murder and ghosts. Remarkable! Its English translation is out of print, and to read it I had to borrow a copy, then return it. It’s really har ..read more

I hope one of the elements that echoes between “Escapees” and . In this interview Karin discusses fugitive monkeys, gas stations as setting, writing complex characters in fiction, and more. is a current MFA Candidate in Creative Writing at Louisiana State University and former nonfiction editor for is the compassion you mentioned in an earlier question. I wanted the characters in the novel to be able to feel compassion for each other (often not initially, but after they come to know each other), and as a writer, I wanted to delve enough into their backstories and motivations in order for reade ..read more

is pleased to announce this year’s recipients of the Oran Robert Perry Burke Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Literary Translation, as well as the James Olney Award. These annual awards, established and funded by the generous support of donors, are presented to contributors in recognition of an exceptional work that appears in the previous volume year. Our congratulations to the winners! for the poem, “Etymythology,” from our spring 2022 issue ..read more

For a short story, do it blind-folded or with a monkey on your back. For a novel, make it a decathlon, lop off a finger, and age a decade. Either way, the miracle isn’t clearing the bar. It’s that you keep going to the track. yourself skyward, toward an impossibly high bar. Most days you miss—clang, the bar falls. But sometimes you clear it. Then, falling is flying is floating. You sprawl on the mat, make invisible snow angels, your skin shushing on the vinyl. Then, you get up, start again. , and they all slay me. Amy Hempel and Alice Munro, the minimalist and the maximalist, are the first lit ..read more

 mourns the death of longtime contributor and friend Charles Simic (May 9, 1938–January 9, 2023). For the last thirty years, Mr. Simic’s work frequently appeared in the journal. From our winter 2021 issue, here is his poem ..read more

Real people very rarely respond cleanly to things. They bounce off in strange, hard to predict directions. If you try to embrace that element in your character design, I think you arrive at much richer, more fully realized results. of it comes into view. Then I take a step back, and I think about what I want the story to say. After repeating that process a few times, the momentum tends to take over.  is an MFA Candidate at Louisiana State University and former nonfiction editor for by Máirtín Ó Cadhain, or the short fiction of the Irish writer Louise Hegarty. For inspiration in gener ..read more