Inside this Issue:
- Virgil Suarez
- Annie Finch
- Buddy Wakefield
- Joanna Scott
- Sarah Vap
- Mike Smith
- Eric Puchner
- Josh Goldfaden
- Steve Almond
- Salman Rushdie
- Barry Hannah Tribute
- Ann Patchett
A few years ago the Brooklyn Academy of Music held a Jim Jarmusch retrospective. During a Q&A, an audience member asked the director why he put so much poetry in his films. “I like poets,” Jarmusch answered, “because I know they’re not in it for the money.”
In our first interview this month, Virgil Suarez assures us that it’s true—there’s no money in verse. In the second interview, Annie Finch reads from Calendars, then describes a lunch that’s anything but impoverished. And check out these Q&As with Buddy Wakefield, Joanna Scott, Sarah Vap, Mike Smith, Eric Puchner, Josh Goldfaden and Steve Almond.
We’ve also been digging through our archives, and as the first installment in what “I could write jingles that would sell Tide like you couldn’t believe. I could write bad TV shows.”—Ann Patchett will become a regular feature, we’d like to share three of the great podcasts we found. In the first, Salman Rushdie answers students’ questions and discusses his tenure as editor of Best American Short Stories. In the second, Barry Hannah’s former students (including Bob Shacochis) read from their favorite of the Mississippi writer’s fiction. In the third, Ann Patchett reads from Truth and Beauty and then answers audience questions.
Finally, here are a few places we’ve been visiting this month:
- The Florida Review and Smartish Pace are two great small literary journals.
- Our own Julianna Baggott, aka Bridget Asher, takes The Page 69 Test.
- Opium Magazine publishes the longest story ever written.
- A harsh review is not without repercusions; The Worst Review Ever chronicles the fallout.
Artwork courtesy of Kyla Zoe Luedtke. See more of her work and read about her process here.
