Q&A With Ronna Wineberg

by Susan Sechrist

“I was interested in exploring how one’s relationship with Judaism can change over time; what’s viewed as a burden can become an asset or even a longing.” Continue reading →

Secret Lives: Katherine Heiny’s Single, Carefree, Mellow

by Joe Schuster

The truth is, however, that . . . you did not, of course, disappear. You were just continuing to live your life and write—write a lot. It was just that most people did not notice. Continue reading →

BEST OF BLOOM: Quilting Without a Pattern—On Making a First Novel

by Kim Church

When the women of Gee’s Bend sit down to piece a quilt, they don’t wait for a pattern to manifest itself. . . . They have to work quickly because their lives are full of other work—in the fields, in their homes, among their families. Continue reading →

Q&A with Anthony Wallace

“I think you have to find reasons for [writing fiction] that are not external, that have to do with you and your life and your relationship to the world and other people. Part of my relationship to the world is through language and my evolving relationship with language. If I make the right kind of contact with language then I make meaningful contact with the world.” Continue reading →

“A Book is a Machine to Think”: Anthony Wallace’s The Old Priest

by Rob Jacklosky

“It’s funny what you remember. What gets caught there,” the grandmother says to the protagonist of “The Snow Behind the Door.” In Wallace’s stories, literal things are caught in memory, often in the form of images. Continue reading →

Q&A with Alden Jones

The tourist has an ethnocentric point of view—the unchallenged belief that his or her way of thinking is the best way. The “traveler” is more likely to consider another person’s point of view, another culture’s point of view, and to aim for some kind of humanistic way of judging people, actions, customs. If we apply this to writing, the “tourist” is doomed to write bad fiction, because good writing and strong characters require empathy. Continue reading →

Quilting Without a Pattern: On Making a First Novel

by Kim Church

When the women of Gee’s Bend sit down to piece a quilt, they don’t wait for a pattern to manifest itself. They don’t have that luxury. They have to work quickly because their lives are full of other work—in the fields, in their homes, among their families. A skilled quilter works “in the lap,” piecing and stitching as she goes, so that the whole design isn’t revealed until the quilt is done. Continue reading →