Congratulations to the winners and finalists of our 2008 contests!
Check out our 30-Day Writing Regimens! Click here for details.
06.24.08 [ podcast ]
Stephen Dobyns reads a selection of poems, with topics ranging from talking dogs to erotica. [ listen ]
05.30.08 [ podcast ]
Jeanne Leiby reads from her collection, Downriver, and Rick Campbell reads from his collection of poems, Dixmont. [ listen ]
05.17.08 [ podcast ]
Jeanne Leiby, editor of the Southern Review, offers her insight on the submission process. [ listen ]
03.28.08 [ podcast ]
Salman Rushdie talks about craft, language, and hanging out with Bono. [ listen ]
02.27.08 [ podcast ]
Mark Jarman reads from his latest collection of poems. [ listen ]
02.14.08 [ podcast ]
Hal Crowther gives us his insights into Key West and Lee Smith reflects on writing and its relationship to real life. (30mb) [ listen ]
01.25.08 [ podcast ]
Julianna Baggott delivers a scintillating reading ranging from raucous Bode-isms to dark meditations. [ listen ]
01.20.08 [ podcast ]
Listen to Joshilyn Jackson's letter to Penthouse and Karen Abbott's excerpt from her book about madams, prostitutes and mob bosses.
01.13.08 [ webpicks ]
We love the photos and poems posted on u.p.e.s.
01.07.08 [ webpicks ]
The online companion to Opium offers estimated read times for readers in a rush.
12.01.07 [ webpicks ]
We at SER love the macabre, fantastic, and surreal snowglobes of Martin and Muñoz.
11.02.07 [ just released ]
Check out Quinn Dalton's new book, Stories from the Afterlife, just released November 1st. Read a story from her collection here.
11.02.07 [ book picks ]
If you're a foodie who's ever found yourself cooking for one, check out this anthology with its all-star line up—Ann Patchett, Steve Almond, Jonathan Ames, Dan Chaon and many more. Plus a great site where words and food meet and mingle.
If you're longing for gothic, absurdist, twisted, Southern fiction, look no further than Surreal South, a brand-spanking new anthology with work from Joyce Carol Oates, Lee K. Abbott, Ann Pancake, Chris Offutt, George Singleton, and more . . .
10.12.07 [ featured artist ]
"I approach my work as a puppeteer might approach her puppets in that the arrangement of the figures is fascinating to me." The Southeast Review loves the art of Kyla Zoe Luedtke.
10.12.07 [ q & a ]
Josh Kendall, a Senior Editor at Viking Press, spoke to graduate students in the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University. To listen to his sage advice on publishing literary fiction, click here.
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07.05.2008
Quickie Quick Take with Steve Watkins
“All genres are challenging. Just different sorts of challenges, all of which I both fear and enjoy.”
Read how Steve Watkins balances life between writing and his family, what writer he envies most, and his favorite curse word. You’ll laugh out loud. [ read ]
06.24.2008
Antidote to Distraction: An Interview with Ross Gay
“Having the illusion of race a bit more concretely deconstructed on one’s body seems like a privilege. (But, to be clear, race is contested and deconstructed on everyone’s body: black, white, Asian, biracial or whatever.)”
Ross Gay discusses optimism and violence, syntax and sound, Milton and basketball, and the pleasures and purpose of poetry. [ read ]
06.14.2008
Something for the Pain
“I knew I’d feel lame trying to explain that the screaming woman who looked so much like my daughter had made me feel vulnerable and clumsy.”
Paul Austin's essay is an open look into his life as an ER doctor. Read to find out how one particular case hit him close to home. [ read ]
06.06.2008
Interview with Lisa Solod Warren
“Women like to write for women . . . They loved the idea of getting to write about their own personal desires.”
Lisa Solod Warren, writer of fiction and essays and lover of shoes, discloses how her anthology Desire came to be. Read this interview to find out how an idea becomes a book, from finding a publisher to getting writers on board. Also, what kind of child she was and what she had for lunch today. [ read ]
05.30.2008
Interview with Karen Abbott
“Dead people don’t always say what you want them to.”
Karen Abbott talks about how she burrowed through history to write her book Sin in the Second City. Read about the Abbott family lore that inspired her to write the book and learn about “slotty” thinking and why you should avoid it. [ read ]
05.24.2008
Interview with Joshilyn Jackson
“'If you can’t be kind, at least be vague,' I try to apply that quote to life but not while writing.”
Joshilyn Jackson shares with us her slapdash writerly habits and favorite curse word, among other wise and odd Joshilyn-Jackson-isms. [ read ]
05.17.2008
Interview with Rachel Pastan
“. . . I do have a lot of ambition, but I would not describe it as unrelenting. I would describe it, in fact, as relenting ambition ... it’s important to know how to relent.”
We sit down with Rachel Pastan to talk about writing and her new novel, Lady of the Snakes. [ read ]
03.19.2008
Interview with Susanna Sonnenberg
“. . . I was interested in the way memories lodge inside us and become the stories of ourselves... Because this was never going to be an accounting, a report, or even an explanation. It was to be an interior landscape.”
Susanna Sonnenberg talks about the writing process for her critically acclaimed debut memoir, Her Last Death. [ read ]
03.19.2008
Interview with Rick Campbell
“. . . Questioning God, dealing with sickness, raising a child, observing nature—these are normal things and if I do my job as a poet then I can point out what's essential and significant in this everyday life.”
Rick Campbell is one of America's finest poets, yet he's also seemingly one of our best kept secrets. His latest collection, Dixmont, is deeply moving and beautifully composed. Justin Anderson corresponded with the much-too-humble Campbell recently. Here are the results of his conversation with the master poet. [ read ]
03.06.2008
Interview with Martha Silano, Author of Blue Positive
“. . . I make mud-pies with language.”
Martha Silano's latest book, Blue Positive, is a linguistic feast of words and images and insights on our contemporary lives, and, especially, motherhood and childhood, and always language-hood. We are delighted to bring you this interview for an up close and personal look into her work. [ read ]
02.27.08
Erin Murphy's "Theory of Dislocation"
“There's nothing like being told you can't do something to make you want to do it all day long, is there? When Billy Collins says poets should never write about cicadas, doesn't that just make you want to write a seventeen-part poem about them (one section for each year of the molting process)?”
 In addition, Erin Murphy discusses the influence of Evil Knievel and the art of the 23½ hour poet in this Q & A. [ read ]
02.17.08
Maurice Manning’s Bedside Table: Books, Music, and Neighbors
“Down the road from my house is an old family graveyard. One of the graves there is for a woman whose first name was America. Even though I live in the middle of nowhere, sometimes it feels like I live in the center of it all.”
 See what Maurice Manning is reading and listening to, and how he finds new topics for his poetry. [ read ]
01.30.08
A Gringo Like Jennifer L. Knox
“Animal House... is running 24-7 on the Cable Station in My Soul...” and “I love sword swallowers and carny people, but I don’t want to read like they perform—I want to read in their voices.”
 Eavesdrop on a conversation with the wildly unpredictable Jennifer L. Knox to connect the dots between these Knox-isms. [ read ]
01.25.08
A Conversation with Norman Minnick
“I suffer rejection... And I suffered the book. I suffer the whole process. None of this comes easy to me... I especially suffered the waiting.”
 Norman Minnick sits down with SER to talk about his debut, To Taste the Water, and the art of suffering. [ read ]
01.20.08
Quinn Dalton Talks Tips on the Craft of the Short Story
“We all understand that terrible tension between what we know is right and what we feel capable of doing. It is a story we all live.”
 SER catches up with Quinn Dalton, master storyteller, shortly after the publication of her latest collection, Stories from the Afterlife, which George Singleton has compared to work of Richard Ford and Raymond Carver, calling her stories "lyrical, complete, stunning, and unforgettable." [ read ]
01.13.08
Drive-By Interview with Enid Shomer
“My only ritual is to sit at my desk.”
 Take a gander at this quick-take interview with Enid Shomer, the esteemed poet who, come to find out, could have also been a messy collage artist and/or fabulous women’s shoe designer. [ read ]
01.07.08
Amy Knox Brown—and her great, brand-spanking new debut!
“Instantly the story came to mind; of course Custer’s last fling would occur the night before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, wouldn’t it? And I used the story to explain certain facts, such as why Custer (who was known for his long hair) had short hair when he was found dead after the battle. I love taking an historical incident and mixing in some speculation (or lies).”
 Eavesdrop on Amy Knox Bown as she talks about Miller and Paine cinnamon rolls served in the store’s tearoom, Charlie Starkweather's killing spree, the delight of Major Taters, and, of course, the writing life. [ read ]
12.14.07
Laurie Foos: The Greatest Fabulist You May Not Yet Know
“It's interesting that both hair and feet have appeared numerous times in my work, though I'm not entirely sure why. I can say that I find feet, in general, and most men's feet, in particular, quite unattractive, but I would not say I'm at all obsessed or phobic about them.”
 The darkly comic and tragic Laurie Foos shares her thoughts on Kafka, Ionesco, and feet, as well as insights into her novel, Before Elvis There Was Nothing. [ read ]
12.08.07
SER chats with Paul Ruffin
“It is much harder to write a good short story than a novel. Every word in a short story has to be right, every element has to fit—you don’t have room for rambling. A good short story is written with the same kind of passion you have when you write a poem—it’s intensity, as opposed to duration.”
 We talk with Paul Ruffin about writing, the South, and his latest short story collection, Jesus in the Mist. [ read ]
12.01.07
Interview with Jim Lo Scalzo
“I think the most difficult thing about writing a memoir is standing naked before your peers. In my case it isn't a pretty picture: the aggression, the reproductive issues, the cheating in college. And my failure to become a player in the pantheon of shooters. But then I can't imagine it would be a pretty picture for anyone.”
 Jim Lo Scalzo, photographer for U.S. News & World Report, talks about his memoir, Evidence of My Existence. [ read ]
11.02.07
John Fried Goes to the Movies
“In August 1980 my father took me to see a movie I probably shouldn't have seen. There was sex in showers and sex in taxi cabs. Angie Dickinson was slashed to death in an elevator. And Michael Caine dressed up as a nurse.”
 John Fried's epiphany in a dark theater and how he uses it for writing. [ read ]
11.02.07
Interview with Matthew Zapruder
“I'm afraid of time, because it takes me farther from people in the past from whom I have separated, and closer to the moments when I will inevitably have to part from or be parted from everyone I love.”
 Matthew Zapruder shares his ideas about the poet's craft and his own approach to technique and content. [ read ]
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