Interviews – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Mike Shiflet and Nicholas Rombes On Their ” Lisa 2, v.1.0″ Collaboration

December 19, 2024 No Comments

Lisa 2, v.1.0 cover

This December brings with it the release of two different works titled Lisa 2, v.1.0. The first is a novel by Nicholas Rombes about a playwright working on a new project, the a possibly haunted computer she begins working on, and the surreal occupation of the playwright’s husband. The other is an album by Mike Shiflet designed to act as a soundtrack and companion piece to the book in question. Shiflet and Rombes conversed about their respective works, their collaboration, and — as the saying goes — What It All Means.

Books, Featured, Interviews

Mary B. Sellers on Launching Libre

December 16, 2024 No Comments

Libre issue two

When speculative writer Mary Buchanan Sellers founded Libre in 2024, she didn’t imagine it would become such a success. Originally just a girl and her blog, the magazine now consists of a team of writers and artists, all of whom work to support the magazine’s unique mission. Libre aims to uplift the voices of the mentally ill by publishing fiction, poetry, and visual art by people with mental health issues and their loved ones. In creating the magazine, Mary Buchanan’s talents extend beyond the literary—she designs vibrant graphics that accompany each published prose or poetry piece. The design of the website itself is a celebration: the stylish Libre logo on the homepage is situated above a candy-pink brain and an animated turquoise background. The About Section features a cartoon replication of a frowning Grecian bust, with (comically) the brain popping off the head. With these joyous graphics, Mary Buchanan honors the effervescent qualities of people with mental illness: their quick minds, their ability to create, penning words and pictures that are evidence not of any deficit, but of their capacity for resilience.

Books, Featured, Interviews

Restless Ghosts and Haunted Places: An Interview With Corey Farrenkopf

November 14, 2024 No Comments

Coret Farrenkopf

When I first encountered Corey Farrenkopf online, it was due in part to his literary profile — he’s a writer, an interviewer, and a librarian with a wide-ranging sense of the uncanny. This year brought with it the release of his deubt novel Living in Cemeteries, set in a world similar to our own with one key difference: restless spirits sometimes take revenge on the living for the sins of their ancestors. It’s a wonderfully disquieting book, and we discussed its origins, its evolution, and what’s next for him.

Books, Featured, Interviews

Trash Alchemy & Wasteland Portals: A Conversation with David Leo Rice

November 1, 2024 No Comments

David Leo Rice

At the start of the pandemic, Arundhati Roy, the author who introduced much of my country to the Booker Prize, declared that “historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.” After having lived four years inside this “next world” I wonder if we can say with certainty what kind of a portal 2020 was? Has whatever was supposed to have metamorphosed done so?

Books, Featured, Interviews

J.M. Tyree on Hitchcock, Horror, and “The Haunted Screen”

October 28, 2024 No Comments

J.M. Tyree

There’s a long and storied history of tales of American academics becoming unmoored far from home. J.M. Tyree’s The Haunted Screen is an impressive entry in this literary lineage: its protagonist is dealing with the erosion of his marriage and a the echoes of a past relationship, even as he muses on the influence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. There’s also a possibly malevolent presence lurking in the woods and a sense that several characters know more than they’re letting on; it’s a concentrated dose of heady musings and travels into the uncanny. I spoke with Tyree about writing the book, the ways film can inform literature, and the nature of haunting.

Books, Featured, Interviews

Does the Earth Apologize for Taking Up Space?: Poet Tracy Dimond Speaks on Her Debut Collection

October 15, 2024 No Comments

Tracy Dimond

Poet Tracy Dimond’s debut collection Emotion Industry reads like an array of your funniest friend’s deepest divulgences, purged all at once in the corner booth of a bar–every word long-overdue. What comes out is the wryest examination of the outward through the inward–of pop culture through the lens of undiagnosed chronic illness, of feminine rage through a well-honed sense of humor. And vice versa. And vice versa again…

Books, Featured, Interviews

Kristopher Jansma On Memory, Trauma, and the Making of “Our Narrow Hiding Places”

October 11, 2024 No Comments

Kristopher Jansma

I’ve long been an admirer of Kristopher Jansma’s fiction and the way it blends an empathic view of the world with an abundance of stylistic verve. His new novel Our Narrow Hiding Places explores the complicated history of one family, beginning with the Nazi occupation of Holland and continuing on to the present day. (As an added bonus, Jansma and I grew up in adjoining New Jersey towns.) I spoke with him about his new book’s evolution, the real-life history he drew from when writing it, and his forthcoming nonfiction book Revisionaries.

Books, Featured, Interviews

Getting Audacious With Ryan Chapman

October 9, 2024 No Comments

Ryan Chapman

Reading Ryan Chapman’s fiction involves immersion in very specific milieus — including, for his most recent novel The Audacity, an exclusive gathering of the world’s wealthiest people, a kind of 1% of the 1%. Just before he jets off to one such gathering, protagonist Guy Sarvananthan learns that his wife’s highly-touted startup was not exactly honest with investors about the viability of its business, and that she’s now missing and presumed deceased. What emerges is a heady book of big ideas laced with a comedy of manners that moves with an enticing momentum. I spoke with Chapman about writing The Audacity and the challenges it posed.