New Orleans Review

Since 1968

Interview

Jacqueline Woodson

45, Interview by Cassidy Wells

  • Jacqueline Woodson, Photo Credit: Tiffany A. Bloomfield
  • Cassidy Wells

Jacqueline Woodson is the recipient of the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, and the 2018 Children’s Literature Legacy Award. She was the 2018–2019 National Ambassador for Young …

Silas Howard

45, Interview by Zora Jade Khiry

Silas Howard Zora Jade Khiry

The first trans filmmaker ever to direct an episode of Amazon Studio’s Transparent, Silas Howard is an award-winning director and writer with a singular gift for crafting widely untold or underrepresented stories. He served …

Tim Blake Nelson

Interview, Issue 44 by Britton Hansen

Tim Blake Nelson is a prolific actor, writer, director, and producer who has appeared in a wide variety of films such as Lincoln, Holes, The Incredible Hulk, Meet the Fockers, Minority Report, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. His playwriting credits include The Grey Zone and Eye of God, both of which Nelson adapted and directed for the screen. Other directing credits include O, Leaves of Grass, and Anesthesia. Most recently, Nelson’s play Socrates premiered at The Public Theater in the spring of 2019, and he starred in HBO’s Watchmen, which premiered this fall.

Ashley Longshore

Interview, Issue 44 by Kaylie Saidin

New Orleans-based artist Ashley Longshore is best known for her vibrant mixed-media paintings, sculptures, and more, much of which can be found at her self-owned gallery on Magazine Street. From paintings of George Washington in a Supreme hoodie to hand-beaded clutches that feature empowering all-caps phrases, her work has been described as feminist pop-art, akin to that of Andy Warhol. In this interview with New Orleans Review, she talks about American culture, her work with Diane von Furstenberg, and her new coffee table book, Do Not Cook I Do Not Clean I Do Not Fly Commercial (Rizzoli).

Fred Hersch

Interview, Issue 44 by Danley Romero

Fred Hersch is an American jazz pianist and educator. He has performed solo and led his own groups, including the Pocket Orchestra consisting of piano, trumpet, voice, and percussion. He was the first person to play weeklong engagements as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has recorded more than 70 of his jazz compositions. Hersch has been nominated for several Grammy Awards.

The Manifesto Handbook

Interview by Andres Castro

Julian Hanna has read and pored over manifestos for decades. His new book on the subject, The Manifesto Handbook: 95 Theses on an Incendiary Form, will be published by Zero Books in January 2020. From the island of Madeira, …

Mira Ptacin

Interview by Paisleigh Kelley-DeVoe

The author of the acclaimed memoir Poor Your Soul (Soho Press 2016) and The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna (Liveright 2019), Mira Ptacin has written for NPR, Guernica, New York, Tin House, and …

Peg Alford Pursell

Interview by Thea Prieto

In A Girl Goes into the Forest (Dzanc Books, 2019), award-winning author Peg Alford Pursell illuminates the many faces of love and loss in 78 cross-genre stories and fables. Each hybrid flash immerses readers in the complex desires and …

Harold Jaffe

Interview by R. Bennett

Harold Jaffe is the author of 28 books, as well as many shorter works in Best American Short Stories, Chicago Review, Kenyon Review, Paris Review, among other venues. He has won two NEA grants in fiction and two Fulbright …

Sister Helen Prejean

Interview by Mark Yakich

Anti-death penalty advocate and author of Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean is the rock star of nuns. At least that is how I think of her. We met years ago through a personal connection and have been close …