To read Jay Halsey’s Barely Half in an Awkward Line is to be immersed in its author’s world and the places and people at their heart — sometimes literally. This book blends terse poetry, haunting prose, and mysterious images, all of which combine to bring the reader into the author’s history and the places closest to them. I spoke with Halsey about the book’s genesis and its new edition — as well as what the deal was with the masked figures that factor prominently into the book’s second half.
In our afternoon reading: an interview with Hillary Leftwich, fiction by Dave Housely, and more.
In our afternoon reading: new writing by Hillary Leftwich, Jeff Jackson and Meghan Lamb in conversation, and more.
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on books by Hillary Leftwich and Colson Whitehead, an interview with Horse Lords, and more.
Aura, the new book from Hillary Leftwich, is a lot of things — a mother’s correspondence with her son, a writer’s origin story, and an at times harrowing account of abuse. It maintains the same formal innovation and structural intricacies that characterized Leftwich’s previous book while also offering a candid look back at its author’s life. Leftwich and I conversed about the process of writing Aura and the act of revisiting the personal histories contained within.
In our afternoon reading: thoughts on Padgett Powell’s essays, an interview with Charlie Jane Anders, and more.
In our morning reading: interviews with Michael J. Seidlinger and Lustmord, new music from Irreversible Entanglements, and more.
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.