Megan Miranda picks up the phone, explaining that I’m catching her at the beginning of allergy season, also known as Spring, and we chat about her path from working in biotech to teaching high school science to returning her dream: writing. She grew up in New Jersey, graduated from MIT, and migrated to a small town in North Carolina where she lives with her family. The author of five novels for adults and several books for young adults, Miranda’s methodical plots often balance on the knife edge of science and law, while her atmospheric writing carries with it always a bedroom intimacy. In her latest and most eerie novel, Such a Quiet Place, which of course isn’t quiet at all, Miranda continues to write through the layers of a mystery, creating a prism of suspense, through the themes and characters that steadily return to her.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 49: Sean Kilpatrick)
SEAN KILPATRICK wrote Anatomy Courses (with Blake Butler; Lazy Fascist Press, 2012); Gil the Nihilist: A Sitcom (Lazy Fascist Press, 2013); Sucker June (Lazy Fascist Press, 2015); Thank You, Steel China (Schism [2] Press, 2016), Sir William Forsythe’s Freebase Nuptials: A Screenplay (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2017), and Collected Scripts (11:11 Press, 2021). He has written for Nerve, Fence, Vice, Bomb, Evergreen Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Hobart, New York Tyrant, Exquisite Corpse, Juked, and The Collagist, among several other publications. Check out his podcast.
An Actual Person in a Concrete Interview Situation: Talking Books With Blake Middleton
I am an actual person in a concrete historical situation. So are you, and that guy? Over there? Yep. Same. Look at us. Just some actual people in a concrete historical situation. Seems obvious, but, really, I mean, is it? When’s the last time you thought about being an actual person in a concrete historical situation? Actual stuff – life stuff – situated in some broader context. Your birth and death and the stuff in between. That’s all it is, and you’re doing it. Thanks for spending some of it reading this introduction with me. Let me tell you something.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 48: Bram Riddlebarger)
BRAM RIDDLEBARGER writes, plays music, runs Gob Pile Press, and lives in SE Ohio. His books include Messages from the American Trashcan (Cabal, 2020) and Western Erotica Ho (Trident, 2020).
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 47: Constance Ann Fitzgerald)
CONSTANCE ANN FITZGERALD is the author of Glue (Lazy Fascist Press, 2016) and Trashland A Go-Go (Eraserhead Press, 2011). She currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where her happiness is wholly contingent upon whether or not there is a dog in the room.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 46: Danger Slater)
DANGER SLATER is the Wonderland Award-winning author of several books of horror and bizarro fiction, including Impossible James, Puppet Skin, He Digs a Hole, and I Will Rot Without You. If you wanna know what he’s up to, follow him on Twitter (@Danger_Slater) or just use Google or something.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 45: Kevin Maloney)
KEVIN MALONEY is the author of Cult of Loretta (Lazy Fascist Press, 2015). His fiction has appeared in Hobart, Barrelhouse, The Nervous Breakdown, and a number of other journals and anthologies. He and his wife, Aubrey, live in North Portland.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 44: Jennifer Wortman)
JENNIFER WORTMAN is a National Endowment for the Arts fellow and the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love (Split/Lip Press, 2019). She lives with her family in Colorado, where she serves as associate fiction editor for Colorado Review and teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop.