The very best stories have the ability to render the reader thrilled, understood, comforted. They promote growth and challenge us to closely examine our values. Chauna Craig’s debut story collection, A Widow’s Guide to Edible Mushrooms (Press 53, 2017), is just the place to find such stories. Here Craig delves deep into the realm of…

I first met Susan Muaddi Darraj at an MLA convention in Philadelphia, where she was speaking on an editor’s panel on publishing. Sometime after that I ran into her again, this time at the AWP conference, where she was signing copies of her linked short story collection Inheritance of Exile: Stories from South Philly (University…

James Tadd Adcox’s writing has appeared in Granta, TriQuarterly, The Literary Review, PANK, Barrelhouse, Mid-American Review, and Another Chicago Magazine, among many other places. He is the author of The Map of the System of Human Knowledge (Tiny Hardcore, 2012), Does Not Love (Curbside Splendor, 2014), and Repetition (Cobalt Press, 2016). In addition to being…

I met Joseph Scapellato fifteen years ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin through mutual friends in Marquette University’s theater department. We bonded over fiction and writing. Since then we have kept in touch, meeting up now-and-again to swap manuscripts over coffee or beer, sharing advice and book recommendations. Scapellato now teaches at Bucknell University and has published…

If you haven’t run across Amina Gautier’s fiction yet, I feel safe in saying that you will. She’s the author of three award-winning short story collections, At-Risk, Now We Will Be Happy, and most recently, The Loss of All Lost Things, and continues to publish new work in a wide variety of literary journals. A…

Margot Livesey grew up in the Scottish Highlands, at a boys’ private school where her father taught. Her mother was the school nurse, but passed away when she was very young. After her formal education was finished, Livesey spent much of her twenties “working in shops and restaurants and learning to write.” She published her…

For decades, Americans’ relationship with truth — or even simply, fact — has grown increasingly elastic. Philosophical theses about the nature of perspective, hyper-specialization in the professions creating an emotional distance between us and the very goods and services that compose a typical life, the polarizing aesthetics of 21st century journalism — all have eroded…

Photo: Deborah TreismanJohn Freeman’s writing and criticism have appeared in many publications across the world. He served as Editor-in-Chief at Granta and was president of the National Book Critics Circle. His most recent project is Freeman’s, a themed biannual literary anthology-meets-journal. The second issue, Freeman’s: Family, is available now. Freeman’s main aim is bringing in…

What motivations shape a critic’s decisions to write about the books they defend and those they dismiss? And what are the ethical or moral dimensions of those decisions? Beyond mere conflicts of interest, what lines do they draw for themselves in their work? Are there personal forces or experiences that affect their preferences about what…

Photo Andy Vernon-Jones Helen Phillips grew up in Colorado and moved east for college and graduate school. A writer and professor, she is also an avid walker and mother of two. Her writing blends elements of the literary, the fantastical, and the mundane into complex stories that challenge notions of what is usual and question…

The Three Lives of Jonathan Force (Fomite Press, February 2016) is a big novel, one that tells the story of one man’s life from beginning to end, a project that took you decades to complete. Over the years, you’ve published portions as single short stories and a volume of linked stories. You considered publishing Jonathan’s…

Like the characters in Hard Toward Home (Press 53, May 2016), his debut short fiction collection, C. D. Albin lives in the Ozarks, a place that can have an almost mystical hold on the hearts of its people, despite the hardships that life there can bring. Albin tells the stories of people who know this…