“To say that I had more trouble sleeping while writing the novel is an understatement.” Continue reading »
Category Archives: Debut Authors
On Madness and Consensual Reality: Nicole Wolverton’s The Trajectory of Dreams
by Emily St. John Mandel
Lela has drifted very far from the realm of consensual reality, and the book’s considerable tension arises from the question of just how far she will go. She is heartbreaking, because for the moment at least she is lost. Continue reading »
Audio / Debut Authors / Features / Fiction / Interviews
Women, Smart Alecs, and Fatherhood: An Audio Conversation With Shawn Vestal (Part 2)
In part 2 of this audio conversation, Shawn Vestal talks about cross-gender writing, becoming a father in relation to his writing life, and reads from the story “Gulls.” Continue reading »
Audio / Debut Authors / Features / Fiction / Interviews
Opposition and Faith: An Audio Conversation With Shawn Vestal (Part 1)
In an audio conversation, Shawn Vestal talks about faith and and its dark side, family and late-life blooming; and he reads from the collection’s imaginative and poignant opening story. Continue reading »
Shawn Vestal’s God-Filled Idaho
by Melody Nixon
There is a discomfort in realizing books can still illuminate prejudices you didn’t know you had. Shawn Vestal‘s writing has made it into McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction and Tin House among others – all reliable qualifications – but in his energetic, highly imaginative fiction, Vestal draws heavily on his upbringing in the Mormon faith. Continue reading »
Zora Neale Hurston: Consequences Be Damned
by Edward Porter
As a literary figure Zora Neale Hurston was once the darling of her day, then consigned to the dust bin of history, then raised up again to take her place in the pantheon of American letters. Continue reading »
The Wolf Will See You Now: L. Annette Binder’s Rise
by Jill Kronstadt
Even when death and grief are at their most crippling, small human acts of compassion and mercy counter the ruthlessness of the metaphorical wolf. Continue reading »
