I interviewed Uriel Quesada at an uptown coffee shop. Our conversation began the moment I joined Quesada at his table — he’s a dynamic speaker, very animated, excited to talk as much about himself as everything outside of himself. The interview began after a brief chat about his novel, El gato de si mismo, which is … A very nice negotiation: An interview with Uriel Quesada
Alex Mar’s new book, Witches of America, is a search for meaning, esoteric and otherwise. She takes her reader on a spiritual cross-country road trip from the Bay Area of California to New Orleans, from the prairies of the Midwest to woodsy little towns in the Northeast. She introduces us to some of the different … Okay, someone’s making a blood offering: An interview with Alex Mar
Birmingham, Alabama, native Margaret Eby returned South from her adopted home in New York City to write a travelogue about the towns where the stories of the Southern canon take place, as well as the authors who lived and worked in them. The result of her visits to Jackson, Mississippi, Monroeville, Alabama, Oxford, Mississippi, New … I would like to leave just a little bit of messiness: Margaret Eby on exploring towns and homes of the Southern literary canon
Loyola University New Orleans professor Christopher Schaberg and Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost are co-editors of Object Lessons, an online essay series published by the Atlantic and print book series published by Bloomsbury. Christopher Schaberg answered Room 220’s questions about the series and a few of its most recent publications. Schaberg will join fellow Loyola colleague … The Book Series as Tapas Restaurant: Christopher Schaberg on OBJECT LESSONS
Jennifer Steil moved to Yemen in 2006 to be editor-in-chief of the Yemen Observer and later married the British Ambassador to Yemen. Her first book, The Woman Who Fell From The Sky, is a memoir of her time in Yemen. In her new novel, The Ambassador’s Wife, Steil’s protagonist, Miranda, is an artist who moves … I began thinking about the hazards of Western people coming to the Middle East to “free” the women: An Interview with Jennifer Steil
Michael Pitre’s debut novel, Fives and Twenty-fives, delves into a war of endless tedium and Sisyphean roadwork, but there is no boredom. There is only routine, which saves lives, and a fog of death that clouds them. Each day, the soldiers—Pitre joined the Marines in 2002 and was twice deployed to Iraq—find potholes and, in … What you were always trying to avoid was being party to an atrocity: An interview with Michael Pitre
I’ve worked with Brian Boyles since we met at Handsome Willy’s in 2008. We’ve worked City Council DJ Happy Hours, cross-generational panel discussions, yard parties, music festivals, and many, many Saints games. His new book, New Orleans Boom and Blackout: 100 Days in America’s Coolest Hotspot, is a nonfiction account of the 100 days preceding the … Most of the New Orleanians I met were working: An interview with Brian Boyles
Jenn Marie Nunes will publish her first full-length book, AND/OR, this spring with Switchback Books after winning the feminist press’ inaugural Queer Voices contest, judged by Dawn Lundy Martin. Jenn and I both graduated from LSU’s Creative Writing MFA program in 2009. We were each other’s first friends as we tried to navigate the weirdness … If only we didn’t try to be bigger than our hearts with our hearts: An interview with Jenn Marie Nunes
Poets Andy Young and Sara Slaughter met while in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. They will each present their new book at a Happy Hour Salon presented by Room 220 from 6 – 9 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 4, at the Press Street HQ (3718 St. Claude Ave.). Young’s debut collection … Poet dialog: Andy Young and Sara Slaughter interview each other
John Ashbery once said, “I write with experiences in mind, but I don’t write about them, I write out of them.” This approach is not necessarily uncommon among poets or fiction writers, but Ashbery’s phrase returned to me again and again as I read Nobody Is Ever Missing, Catherine Lacey’s debut novel. In it, a … I learned something in the patterns and music in her voice: An interview with Catherine Lacey
