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Centralized and Off-Center: Talking Fiction and Structure With Gabriel Blackwell

Gabriel Blackwell

Gabriel Blackwell’s fiction rarely treads the same ground twice. He has a particular skill at finding ways to turn the margins of stories and genres into thrilling works on their own, whether that’s cosmic horror or the film Vertigo. The last year has seen the publication of two new collections of Blackwell’s short fiction: Babel and CORRECTIONBabel showcases Blackwell’s writing at its most nimble and at its most structurally innovative, while CORRECTION wrestles with contemporary life in unexpected and jarring ways. Taken together, they’re a welcome return from a talented writer. Blackwell answered a number of questions about the genesis of these stories and how they came together in these two volumes.

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Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 34: Allie Rowbottom)

Allie Rowbottom

ALLIE ROWBOTTOM is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Jell-O Girls. She received her BA from New York University, her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, and her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston. Her work has received scholarships, essay prizes and honorable mentions from Tin HouseInprint, the Best American Essays series, the Florida ReviewThe Bellingham Review, the Black Warrior ReviewThe Southampton Review, and Hunger Mountain. She lives in Los Angeles.

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“Krasznahorkai Was the Biggest Influence For Me In This Project”: An Interview With Anna Heflin

Anna Heflin

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.

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Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 32: Montgomery Maxton)

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.

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Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 30: Henry Hoke)

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. 

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