My interview with my good friend, fellow Midwesterner, & USC cohort, Bonnie Nadzam, is now up at Lit Pub and I have to say, it was absolutely one of the most interesting, intelligent, & culturally relevant talks I’ve had with anyone in a long time, in person or via email. Until we can kick it at a local café in LA, this conversation will have to do. On a rainy day, it almost feels enough.
Los Angeles Review of Books Interview for CLS&OE
I talked with my talented, generous, and smart friend and fellow fiction writer, classmate, colleague, and Midwesterner writer in exile, Bryan Hurt about a ton of shit: Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments, grad school, living and studying in LA, workshop at USC, exploring the counterfactual reality of Los Angeles, nostalgia, mixed-race identity in the Midwest, writing from the outside, the role and mission of experimental writing, and the value of pyrotechnical syntax on the page, among other things, for the Los Angeles Review of Books. If you have a second, please read this interview, which will definitely be one of the most interesting ones you’ll read this month. I promise.
Two Interviews for Two Versions of the World
In the past couple weeks, I’ve done a bunch of interviews—all of which I loved, all of them for different reasons—and the ones I did with Gauraa at No Contact Magazine and with Peter at ZYZZYVA are very close to my heart. My interview in ZYZZYVA was a joy because Peter was a smart and insightful reader who noticed things I really wanted readers to notice, like for example, that “Sola’s Asterisk” is in the middle of the collection because that short story is essentially the heart of this collection in so many ways, both as microcosm and macrostructure. Beyond that, I love and respect ZYZZYVA so much, so having an interview in that journal about my debut short story collection is a huge fucking deal for me. And my interview in No Contact was a joy because Gauraa brought critical and cultural theory into a really smart conversation while focusing exactly where I wanted her to, the discussion of small presses, BIPOC identity and characterization, nonlinearity, and a sustained conversation about the interludes in this book. Beyond that, I loved the medium for our interview done completely with Instagram DMs. So, I got to enjoy both old school and new school interviews using different media while have some dope conversations in the process. Life is good!
Juked Interview for Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments
I had a fantastic conversation with the talented and astute writer, Ashley Farmer, about my short story collection, Counterfactual Love Stories & Other Experiments over at Juked. If you have a moment, it’s an engaging read I think.
Interview on KUCI about NRA Rhetoric and The Culture of Violence
Kaitlyn Davisio, an undergraduate radio journalist, DJ, and social justice advocate at the University of California Irvine, asked me to do a short interview with her on KUCI about the NRA.
Read MoreMy Dual Interview with Karen Tei Yamashita and Celeste Ng Published in Ploughshares
The Western canon has no objective nomination process, which is why it is both axiomatic and controversial. Literature written by (and often for) white writers is still treated as classic, crucial, and central to our literary archive, codifying a clear but tacit anglonormativity. But why have APIA voices been erased from the so-called “Great Books” for so long, and how should APIA writers respond to this longstanding erasure?
Read MoreMeet your APIA Ploughshares Blogger for 2017
I got the great news recently that I'll be blogging for Ploughshares for 2017, focusing on APIA literature, gender constructions, and video games as literature, among other things.
Interview with Bryan Hurt Published in Full Stop
My Interview with the hilarious and talented fiction writer Bryan Hurt (who is both a friend and a classmate of mine from SC) was published today at Full Stop. In some ways, it's less of an interview (which tends to be stuffy, formal, and intellectually demonstrative in like an annoying way) and more of a playful conversation I could easily have had with Bryan one random night at a swanky wine bar or something in DTLA. As far as "interviews" go, this one has a great flow to it I think.