Excerpt: Man and Wife by Katie Chase
About the Book: This bracing, intelligent debut tackles the strangeness of growing up, the joys and difficulties of breaking away from family, and our sometime absurd or downright dangerous rites of passage. The girls and women in these stories come up against the rules and roles that give shape to their worlds. As marriages are […]
Interview: Amy Gustine Author of You Should Pity Us Instead
Sarabande Books http://sarabandebooks.org Buzzfeedcalled You Should Pity Us Instead one of the “most exciting new books of 2016.” We totally concur. Shelf Unbound: These stories are intense and gut-wrenching, frequently looking at failed familial love. What interests you in writing about this subject? Amy Gustine: Maybe I’m not a romantic by nature. I have never […]
Interview: Callan Wink Author of Dog Run Moon: Short Stories
Random House http://penguinrandomhouse.com Following in the steps of Richard Ford and Annie Proulx, Wink is the American West’s newest star storyteller. Shelf Unbound: The title story, “Dog Run Moon,” was published by the New Yorker when you were at the University of Wyoming working on your MFA. Did this early accolade make you more serious […]
Interview: Tara Ison Author of Ball Stories
Soft Skull Press http://softskull.com “Tara Ison’s stories locate the pleasure in pain, the victory in betrayal, the beauty in depravity—they walk the line between love and debasement.” —Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star Shelf Unbound: What’s the starting point for your stories, such as the title story in which a woman sets strict emotional boundaries […]
Interview: The Dance of the Moon by Pari Spolter
Shelf Unbound: You say that Newton’s and Einstein’s theories of space and time are mutually exclusive and you have proposed a new lunar theory. What’s a layman’s description of your theory? Pari Spolter: Equating the gravitational force with the quantity or density of inert matter is incorrect. The correct interpretation of Kepler’s third law is: […]
Interview: Owen Thomas Author of The Lion Trees
Shelf Unbound: What interested you in writing a novel about a family? Owen Thomas: Setting the action for a novel in a family context helps to make the story instantly relevant and relatable to the reader. I also find that a well-drawn set of family relationships presents both a good microcosm of society at large […]
Interview: James Mulhern Author of Molly Bonamici
Shelf Unbound: Your main character Molly is a quirky original, deemed by a faith healer as an “Angel of Death.” How did you come up with this character? James Mulhern: Molly is a derivative of Moll, from Daniel Defoe’s novel Moll Flanders, one of the first novels published in English. I was inspired by her […]
Interview: J. Arthur Moore Author of Journey Into Darkness: a story in four parts
Shelf Unbound: What fueled your interest in the Civil War? J. Arthur Moore: When I was in high school my parents got a monthly magazine, Saturday Evening Post. The April 30, 1960, issue carried a story by Ray Bradbury, “Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” I had been to Gettysburg and was aware of the war but […]
Interview: Kaylin McFarren Author of Banished Threads
Shelf Unbound: Your main characters Rachel Lyons and Chase Cohen try to solve the mystery of the theft of a valuable collection of paintings from her uncle’s art gallery. Having owned your own gallery for several years you know this world well. Has this plot line been in your head since you were in the […]
Interview: J. Joseph Kazden Author of TotIs
Shelf Unbound: You came to an epiphany in 2012, which inspired this book. What can you tell us about the epiphany? Joseph Kazden: I have been exploring the nature of knowledge and human perception since I was a boy. At 12 or 13, while walking home from school, and following the yellow traffic line down […]