What does it mean to create a new artistic form? Anna Heflin did just that with her new album, The Redundancy of the Angelic: An Interluding Play. She describes the work, which blends music and text, as having been inspired by “spiders, apocalyptic angels and my encounters in Los Angeles.” The result is a challenging, immersive work that draws on a host of disparate influences. We spoke about its genesis and her own multidisciplinary pursuits via email.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 33: Garielle Lutz)
GARIELLE LUTZ’s newest book is Worsted (Short Flight/Long Drive Books, 2021). Previous books include The Complete Gary Lutz (Tyrant Books) and The Gotham Grammarian (Calamari Archive).
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 32: Montgomery Maxton)
MONTGOMERY MAXTON is a poet, writer, photographer, and mixed-media artist. Born and raised in Cincinnati, his photography has appeared on NationalGeographic.com, among other outlets, and his poetry published on numerous websites and in various print anthologies. He is the author of the poetry collections This Beautiful Bizarre (2010), Champagne (2016), and New and Selected Poems: 1999-2018. He released a graphic novel, The Manhattan Man, in 2018. In 2021 he’ll release his short novel, Moonlight on the Sunshine Roses, which he wrote in 2009, as well as his fourth poetry collection, Shipwreck. He lives in New York City.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 31: Michael Seymour Blake)
MICHAEL SEYMOUR BLAKE is a writer/illustrator living and working in New York City, where he can often be seen talking to stranger’s dogs, hanging out at cafes, and generally looking lost. He hosts the Tell Michael podcast.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 30: Henry Hoke)
HENRY HOKE is the author of The Groundhog Forever (WTAW Press, 2021), the story collection Genevieves (Subito Press, 2017), and The Book of Endless Sleepovers (Civil Coping Mechanisms/The Accomplices, 2016). Recent work appears in The Offing, Electric Literature, Hobart, Carve, and the Catapult anthology Tiny Crimes. He co-created the performance series Enter>text [enter-text.com] in Los Angeles, and has curated events at the &Now Festival, Machine Project, the Neutra VDL House, and the Poetic Research Bureau. His play, At Sundown, premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and his short film, Taking Shape, screened on HBO. Sticker, a memoir, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons. He lives in Brooklyn.
Where Time Loops and Film School Collide: Talking “The Groundhog Forever” With Henry Hoke
Henry Hoke’s new novel The Groundhog Forever tells the story of two film students who find themselves stuck in a time loop on a day when they attend a screening of Groundhog Day. Out of that high concept comes a thoughtful, unpredictable book about life in early-2000s NYC, identity, and art. Of personal interest is the fact that Hoke and I are both graduates of NYU’s film program, and reading this book brought back a host of memories. In advance of Hoke’s book launch at Community Bookstore this evening, we chatted about film school and all things literary.
Original Titles, Field Hockey, and Witchcraft: An Interview With Quan Barry
Reading Quan Barry’s We Ride Upon Sticks, it’s easy to lose yourself in the novel’s genius concept: a group of high school field hockey players in 1980s Massachusetts become obsessed with the Salem Witch Trials and begin to explore witchcraft in their own way. But there’s a lot more going on here, including Barry’s impressive use of a collective voice and a structure that accentuates the novel’s themes even more. The result is a novel that encompasses a huge swath of life experiences, all the while telling a unique and multifaceted story. I spoke with Barry about the novel, its reception, and what’s next for her.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 29: Hillary Leftwich)
HILLARY LEFTWICH is the author of Ghosts Are Just Strangers Who Know How to Knock (Civil Coping Mechanisms/The Accomplices, 2019), which was voted one of Entropy’s “Best Fiction Books of 2019.” Her next book, Aura, will be published by Future Tense Books in 2022. She currently teaches writing in Denver, Colorado.