Issue #40

I don’t make notes, and I think if I did I would find so much comfort in them that I wouldn’t write the book.—Ann Patchett, interviewed by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais

How do I integrate what I’ve learned into my own life? How do I make meaning of the experience of living in this world? That’s what I think fiction can help us do.—Julia Alvarez, interviewed by Robert Birnbaum

Being a fiction writer is a search for nuance. It’s this desire to understand all sides.—Edwidge Danticat, interviewed by Sarah Anne Johnson:

I try to reduce the historical element of my work. I focus on human psychology and human experience. I use history only as a context. On the other hand, I have to make the experiences of my characters as concrete and as historical as possible. Only through history can history be conquered. We cannot do anything in a vacuum.—Ha Jin, interviewed by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais