Interview: Ann Morgan Author of The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe
What Ann Morgan learned from a year spent reading a book from every country in the world. Shelf Unbound: You spent all of 2012 reading translated books from 196 countries. How did this project come about? Ann Morgan: A comment from someone on a small blog I wrote in 2011 (ayearofreadingwomen.wordpress.com) got me thinking about […]
Interview: Claudine Dumont Author of Captive
A can’t-put-it-down existential thriller from debut novelist Claudine Dumont. Shelf Unbound: In Captive, a young woman with a dull job who has isolated herself from friends and family and drinks herself to sleep each night is captured from her apartment and wakes up in a sealed room. The setup is a contemporary spin on Sartre’s […]
Interview: Andrés Neuman Author of The Things We Don’t Do
Neuman wryly explores the human condition in this taut collection of short stories. Shelf Unbound: What is your process for creating a story such as “Barefoot,” about a man’s father dying, which is rich with narrative and meaning and emotion but spans barely more than a page? Andrés Neuman: To start with, I’ve always been […]
Interview: Carmen Boullosa Author of Texas: The Great Theft
A new publishing house, Deep Vellum in Dallas, Texas, launches big with Texas: The Great Theft by one of Mexico’s preeminent writers. Shelf Unbound: The story takes place in 1859 in the fictitious Texas-Mexico border town of Bruneville. What interested you in this time and place? Carmen Boullosa: I got to that date and place […]
Interview: Dorthe Nors Author of Karate Chop
Dorthe Nors’ collection of concise, sharply observed short stories delve into human connections both beautiful and disturbing. Each story here is a masterpiece of writing. Shelf Unbound: You are able to condense a novel’s worth of story and character development into your short stories. You’ve also written five novels. How do you approach writing a […]
Interview: John Brandon Author of Further Joy
Quirky, inventive characters populate John Brandon’s first short story collection, from a down-on-his-luck former high school football star to a little league player obsessed with entrepreneurship. Each of the 11 stories is a winner. Shelf Unbound: You’ve written three novels, and this is your first collection of short stories. What does the short story afford you […]
Interview: Eimear McBride Author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
Eimear McBride’s novel is difficult to read but rewards the adventuresome reader with its genius and the heartbreaking story of a troubled young girl with an abusive mother, a disabled brother, and an uncle who molests her. I urge readers to step outside their literary boxes and experience this remarkable book. Shelf Unbound: You begin […]
Interview: Laura Elizabeth Woollett Author of The Wood of Suicides
A schoolgirl’s crush on her male English teacher leads to mutual destructive obsession in this well-drawn, compelling debut novel. Shelf Unbound: Tell us about your main character, Laurel Marks. Laura Elizabeth Woollett:At face value, Laurel is a bright, attractive, modest, and well-behaved seventeen-year-old. Beneath the surface, she is calculating, vain, jealous, and judgmental, particularly toward other women. Beneath […]
Interview: Andrew Ladd Author of What Ends
Winner of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award Series, Andrew Ladd’s debut novel explores the concept of time via the increasingly constricted life of an island-bound family. Shelf Unbound: Your novel follows the life of the McCloud family over three decades as they endure family strife and thedrastically dwindling population of their home of Eilean Flor, a […]
Interview: Amy Schutzer Author of Spheres of Disturbance
Told from the point of view of nine different characters, Spheres of Disturbance explores both life and end-of-life issues with depth and beauty. Schutzer writes with such empathy that she even convincingly evokes the thoughts of a pig. Shelf Unbound: Tell us about the acenter of your novel, Helen, who is dying. Amy Schutzer: Helen […]