The Fry Pans Aren’t Sufficing (Lavender Ink, 2016), the first story collection by Peyton Burgess, proves that a story about disaster relief can be whimsical and a story about a woman giving birth to a koala can be darkly poignant. …
Interview
Spirits, Hucksters, and Parlor Games: An Interview with Adrian Van Young
Adrian Van Young’s debut novel Shadows in Summerland (ChiZine Publications, 2016) begins with William Mumler, a spirit for photographer, in prison as he is awaiting trial. Mumler has been charged twice, once with fraud for not actually capturing spirits …
Stranger: An Interview with Adam Clay
Close examination may be how poet Adam Clay approaches the world, but his time seems consumed by continual movement. Clay is the author of two previous poetry collections, A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World (2012) and The …
Little Punch Somewhere Soft: An Interview with Barb Johnson
What moves a writer to write? The work is laborious. The pay is meager. And readers are a small, fussbudgety bunch. Gore Vidal said that being a writer is essential to one’s nature—one is born a writer, or not. For …
Alex Mar: Okay, Someone’s Making a Blood Offering
Alex Mar’s new book, Witches of America, is a search for meaning, esoteric and otherwise. She takes her reader on a spiritual cross-country road trip from the Bay Area of California to New Orleans, from the prairies of the …
Margaret Eby: Exploring Towns & Homes of the Southern Literary Canon
Birmingham, Alabama, native Margaret Eby returned South from her adopted home in New York City to write a travelogue about the towns where the stories of the Southern canon take place, as well as the authors who lived and worked …
Not A Rhythm But A Cadence: An Interview with David Ebenbach
We Were The People Who Moved, by David Ebenbach. Tebot Bach, 2015. $16, 95 pages.
We Were The People Who Moved (Tebot Bach 2015) is David Ebenbach’s fifth book and first full-length poetry collection. Concerned with both place …
Christopher Schaberg: Object Lessons
Loyola University New Orleans professor Christopher Schaberg and Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost are co-editors of Object Lessons, an online essay series published by the Atlantic and print book series published by Bloomsbury. Christopher Schaberg answered Room 220’s questions …
What Isn’t Absurd: An Interview with Christopher Robinson and Gavin Kovite, authors of War of the Encyclopaedists
War of the Encyclopaedists, the first novel from writing duo Christopher Robinson and Gavin Kovite, is a coming-of-age roller coaster, an Iraq War novel, a millennial romance, and a buddy flick set to print. Robinson and Kovite toy with …
The Strangest Thing You’ve Ever Eaten: An Interview with Alexandra Kleeman
In Alexandra Kleeman’s newly released debut novel, You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine (Harper Collins, 2015), an algebraically named cast navigates cults, game shows and romance. When the book opens, A’s relationship with her inattentive boyfriend, C, is …