Search Results for: jen currin

Boatsman on a Wasted Shore:
An Interview with Peter Mishler

Interviewed by Michelle Lewis In voice, form, and content, Peter Mishler’s Fludde (Sarabande Books, $14.95) is a debut collection that feels driven into existence by the present moment. Selected by Dean Young as winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, Fludde is an empirical and moral interrogation of contemporary American culture but employs […]

Feeding on The Sea-God’s Herb: An Interview with John Domini

by Linda Lappin John Domini’s work has been featured in Paris Review, The New York Times, and numerous other outlets. He is a versatile, genre-crossing author, and has published several books of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry over the course of his prolific career. The organizations that have honored his work include the National Endowment for […]

The Parallel Apartments

Bill Cotter McSweeney's ($25) by Jenn Mar Family history guides Bill Cotter's tragicomic The Parallel Apartments, an infectious, off-kilter novel that might best be described as the aftermath of a domestic drama that has been eaten alive by outsider genres. The Parallel Apartments follows Justine Moppett, a 34-year-old pregnant woman, as she flees an abusive […]

Ed Dorn and William Everson

TWO INTERVIEWS Edward Dorn Edited by Gavin Selerie and Justin Katko Shearsman Books ($17) WILLIAM EVERSON The Light the Shadow Casts Selected Everson Poems and Five Interviews edited and introduced by Clifton Ross Freedom Voices ($14.95) by Patrick James Dunagan Among the dozens of poets represented in Don Allen’s New American Poetry: 1945-1960, Ed Dorn and […]

Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk Rock in the Nation's Capital

Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkins Soft Skull Press ($20) by Steve Burt Between 1979 and 1995, the kids, bands and record labels of greater Washington DC invented—mostly with help, on occasion single-handedly—the following developments in rock music and culture: (1) the early-80s sound of American hardcore (very young, very fast, very loud); (2) the lifestyle […]

Platform

Michel Houellebecq Translated by Frank Wynne Knopf ($25) by Joel Turnipseed If the pure product of America is insanity, what have we gotten from the French—le petite mort and the bitter rant? Michel Houllebecq has again combined the two in Platform, his follow-up to 2000's import, The Elementary Particles. The story starts with the death […]

An Interview with Jeanette Winterson

by Vincent Francone Achieving recognition early as a writer of wild invention—Gore Vidal once called her "the most interesting young writer I've read in twenty years"—Jeanette Winterson earned the respect of many with her novels Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, The Passion, and Sexing the Cherry. Later books divided readers, but her fanatics have become fiercely loyal, […]

THE CLOUD CORPORATION

Timothy Donnelly Wave Books ($16) by Stephen Ross Cloud seeding is a form of weather modification used to alter the type or amount of precipitation that falls from clouds. The procedure works by dispersing substances like silver iodide and dry ice in the sky, either by launching them in a rocket or dropping them from […]

WHY IOWA? BECAUSE . . .

An Essay on the Iowa Writer’s Workshop 75th Anniversary Reunion by Shawn Patrick Doyle In popular culture terms, Iowa seems like a state in need of a publicist. For screenwriters, it’s a fallback hometown for any character who is just a bit too earnest or naïve for her own good. Iowans don’t seem to mind. In […]