“There’s a moment where artists start doing what they do. A good example is Rothko: his early work doesn’t look like Rothko. But then all of a sudden everything looks like a Rothko. I feel like that’s probably true of a lot of writers … at some point maybe you settle into the kind of … Continue reading
Category Archives: Features
Dancing with the Muse in Old Age: A Profile of Priscilla Long
by Alice Lowe
At 79, she proudly claims and defends the word “old.” Further, there are no such things as “senior moments”; we all, at any age, forget where we left our keys or glasses now and then. Continue reading
Q&A with Hilma Wolitzer
by Lisa Peet
“I never think in terms of topics, and I never think in terms of readers. What happens is that, at the risk of sounding like Joan of Arc, I hear a voice in my head that just says the first sentence of the story.” Continue reading
An Excerpt from Joyce Becker Lee’s debut story collection, Casualties
“…Whether you’re a young reader searching for a way forward or an older reader reckoning with a past self who won’t leave you alone, you’re likely to find unexpected insights in Joyce Becker Lee’s emotionally complex and superbly crafted collection.” Continue reading
Q&A with Kimberly Olson Fakih on Little Miseries and Little Graces
by Lisa Peet
“I’m not comforted by happy endings. I’m deeply comforted by always being in the middle of a story. I tell myself, this is the middle, and I hang on to that—I don’t know the ending and I’ve got to see this through.” Continue reading
BEST OF BLOOM: The Years by Annie Ernaux: Memoir of a Generation
By Alice Lowe
I have no frame of reference for Ernaux’s memories of the restrictions and reconstruction of postwar Europe, of the domination of the Catholic Church and attending all-girl convent schools. I’m not yet a part of her collective “we.” But then she describes a photo of herself in 1955, wearing a short-sleeved sweater, polka-dot skirt, and ballerina flats, and I see myself. Continue reading
Beginner’s Mind: Q&A with DJ Lauren Bufferd on the Mixtape Aesthetic
by Lisa Peet
“There’s a part of me that’s all about the accidental find—you go to a museum to see one thing, and then you see something else and you’re amazed by it.” Continue reading