1. What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? There are a ton of them, far too many to name. I read in order to be influenced, to pick up as many influences as possible. That said, if there’s one influence that has remained consistently strong since early in my writing…

What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? I was really fortunate to have great professors, both as an undergraduate and graduate student at Temple University. They had the most influence because they looked at my writing and then told me what to read. They suggested people like John Hawkes, Patricia…

What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? I enjoy heroic journeys and narratives that somehow get to a character’s bones rather than simply skimming their skin. Most great writers have this uncanny ability, but I always return to three genres for this reading experience since I was a child: Greek…

What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? I feel I have a variety of influences behind my work. Flannery O’Connor and her collected stories have been very formative, as have the collected stories of Vladimir Nabokov, which I used to carry around constantly. I select Flannery for her density, bold…

Yes, this is when I first became enthralled by the mad wives, my eternal reference point; when I began reading the lives of these women often marginalized in the modernist memory project. They have been with me as long as I have tried to write — like ghostly tutors. — Heroines, p.13 In 2012, Semiotext(e)…

What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? Well, I try to work on my own voice. But there are authors who make me excited about what writing can achieve, incredibly talented writers who inspire me to try to be half as good as they are in terms of their command…

What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? When I write I read as much fiction as possible, so the good stuff naturally seeps into my writing. Nothing is original so I’m not worried about what does or doesn’t seep in. For The Canal  I was reading a lot of Heidegger…

What books and/or authors have had the most influence on your writing? Some of the most obvious influences on Kino are probably writers like Thomas Pynchon, Alan Moore, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Mann, my teachers Frederick Barthelme and Mary Robison, my wife Marcy Dermansky — but I’ve also drawn a lot of inspiration from the movies:…

As the next installment in our ongoing, occasional series of roundtable conversations, we’re thrilled to present this conversation between JA Tyler, founder and editor of Mud Luscious Press and four authors whose books MLP is publishing this year: Gregory Sherl, Matt Bell, Ken Sparling, and Robert Kloss. + To begin with, share a little about…

Recently published by PS Books, Stripped, A Collection Of Anonymous Flash (available in paperback and ebook) gathers stories by an impressive list of familiar and emerging writers — including a number of Necessary Fiction contributors — but leaves the bylines out of the book. A year after its release, on February 1, 2013, the author…

Like many writers of a similar age and background, some of my most exciting memories of reading involve Choose Your Own Adventure books and playing/reading Interactive Fiction like Colossal Cave Adventure on my Commodore 64 (and, much later, discovering the more literary projects undertaken by Michael Joyce, Adam Cadre, Emily Short, Andrew Plotkin, and others.…

Recently published by Tiny Hardcore Press, Shut Up/Look Pretty is a new anthology featuring Lauren Becker, Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Michelle Reale and Amber Sparks. To celebrate the release of the book, and these five fine writers, we invited them to have a conversation about the anthology, writing, and whatever came up. Think of it…