Mallory Smart is a Chicago-based writer who works as Editor-in-Chief for Maudlin House. She also talks about music and literature on the Textual Healing podcast, and drinks a lot of coffee.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 14: Adam Gnade)
ADAM GNADE (pronounced “guh nah dee”) lives on the Ruby Teeth Homestead and writes a series of novels and audio cassettes of prose that share characters and plotlines in the name of creating a fictional universe that will serve as a “history of the time in which I lived.” His latest book, Float Me Away, Floodwaters, was issued on January 5, 2021, as a collaborative release by Justin Pearson’s (the Locust, Dead Cross, Planet B) record label Three One G and Bread & Roses Press. Gnade also owns and operates Hello America Stereo Cassette, a record label releasing audio recordings of authors’ stories, poems, and books, some backed by music, others not. The label, launched in January 2021, recently celebrated its first release: a tape of poems by Jared Thomas Friend (backed by music from Margot Erlandson and Death Ribbons).
“Still, My Basic Instinct is to Run”: A Conversation Between Elizabeth A.I. Powell and Dana Roeser
What happens when two poets whose acclaimed work spans numerous themes and images meet? Elizabeth A.I. Powell, author of Atomizer and Dana Roeser, author of All Transparent Things Need Thundershirts convened to discuss American culture, feminism, spirituality, God, online dating, authoritarianism, olfactory art, Personism, and poetry.
Fearless and Loving Near Las Vegas: A Review of Lisa Carver’s “The Pahrump Report”
There is a moment in her new book The Pahrump Report, when Lisa Carver responds to a question about her occupation by answering: “I am a writer.” Yet in that moment, the word “writer” struck me as a lacking descriptor for all that Carver does in creating a written work of art.
The book chronicles a dizzying three-year period of Carver’s life, as she moves across the country with her husband, builds a home, gets divorced, rents an apartment, falls in love, gets betrayed, tries doing stand-up comedy, visits a brothel and has several other Pahrumpian adventures. It’s a piece that most exemplifies Carver’s skill for not just making a living from writing, but more importantly, making her writing from living.
Currents, an Interview Series with Brian Alan Ellis (Episode 13: Troy James Weaver)
TROY JAMES WEAVER is the author of Visions (Broken River, 2015), Witchita Stories (Future Tense, 2015), Marigold (King Shot, 2016), Temporal (Disorder Press, 2018), and Selected Stories (Apocalypse Party, 2020). He lives in Wichita, Kansas, with his wife and dogs.
Keith Rosson on the Uncanny Fiction of “Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons”
Keith Rosson is equally at home writing about the trials and tribulations found in everyday life as he is the bizarre and uncanny. His characters range from a once-beloved painter fallen on hard times to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on a team-building retreat; one of the things that makes his work so compelling is that he finds the same empathy for both. I spoke with Rosson on the occasion of the release of his new collection, Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons, about his distinctive approach to fiction.
Jeff Jackson on Julian Calendar’s Visceral, Conceptual Rock Sound
Jeff Jackson is the author of Destroy All Monsters, a heady yet visceral take on rock music, violence, and the nature of communities. Jeff Jackson also plays music in Julian Calendar, a postpunk band whose music could also be described as heady yet visceral. Since 2017, the group has released 5 records, including 4 EPs in the Crimson Static series.As an admirer of Jackson’s work in both spheres, I reached out to him about discussing the evolution of his foray into music, and how it’s affected his writing.
Literary Dialogues, Murder, and Reclamation: A Review of “Fhilosofhy of the Encounter”
After strangling his wife, sociologist Hélène Rytmann, in their Paris apartment, Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser authored a memoir depicting the episode. The Future Lasts Forever was published in 1992. Almost three decades later, artist Tatiana Istomina tackles the narrative from the perspective of Rytmann. Her Fhilosofhy of the Encounter is ostensibly by Rytmann (Istomina is listed as the editor)—a Rytmann descending with a pen and a pair of scissors upon her husband’s book.