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Jill Eisenstadt and Darcey Steinke on Writing, Motherhood, and Brooklyn
I have known Jill Eisenstadt for nearly 30 years. We met in the early 1990s when we were both young novelists living in a Brooklyn that was not yet a literary mecca. Her first novel From Rockaway,...
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Victor LaValle: Five Books in My Life
What was the first book you fell in love with? The first book I ever loved, like walked around with it and never let it go, was probably Stephen King’s It. First, I’ll admit part of the lure was being...
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Pamela Paul on the Beauty of a Disorganized Bookshelf
Paul Holdengraber talks to New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul about her new book, My Life With Bob, the relationship between authors and readers, library books, backpacking through China,...
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When a Bookseller Tries to Buy a Bookstore
Brad Johnson, a bookseller at Oakland’s Diesel Bookstore, is poised to take over ownership of the store, to be renamed East Bay Booksellers. There are just a few days remaining on the Indiegogo...
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16 Books You Should Read This July
Alissa Nutting, Made for Love Alissa Nutting’s Made for Love has to be this summer’s most heartwarming novel, and that’s saying a lot, given that it involves a man with two sex dolls named Diane and...
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How to Be a Writer on Social Media: Advice from Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee,...
Before social media became the juggernaut it is today, countless authors were skeptical about how it could be, for lack of a better word, useful. Wouldn’t tweeting just be a time-suck? How could...
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Pico Iyer Sits in Silence for 5 Hours Every Morning
In this episode of A Phone Call From Paul, Paul Holdengraber talks to the essayist and novelist Pico Iyer about the attention economy, the LeBron James of literature, Act IV of life, the depth and...
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Announcing the Judges for the 2017 PEN USA Literary Awards
PEN Center USA, the West Coast center of PEN International, is pleased to announce its 2017 Literary Awards judges. The 2017 Literary Awards will be presented at the 27th Annual Literary Awards...
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90 Lines For John Ashbery’s 90th Birthday
We’ll make do, another day, shopping and such, bringing the meat home at night all roseate and gleaming, ready for the frying...
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How a Novel is Like an Orchestra
I met Marcia Butler at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, where I teach each summer. She’d recently sold her memoir, The Skin Above My Knee. We became fast friends and soon realized that in our...
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14 Books to Read this August
Marcel Proust, Letters to His Neighbor, by Lydia Davis (New Directions) It’s August in the countryside where I live and work. I hear, from pre-sunrise through post-cocktail hour, the numbing whine of...
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Wallace Shawn on the Downsides of Civilization
In this episode of A Phone Call From Paul, Paul Holdengraber talks to the playwright Wallace Shawn about his new book, Night Thoughts, the infinite appetites of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, taking...
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Speaking with Novelist-Screenwriters Tom Perrotta and Noah Hawley
Tom Perrotta’s new novel Mrs. Fletcher, out last week Scribner, comes on the heels of June’s series finale of The Leftovers, the HBO adaptation of his 2011 novel which he co-created and wrote with Lost...
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Marlon James Needs Noise to Write (and Other Revelations)
In this episode, Paul Holdengraber talks to the writer Marlon James about why he hates the word inspiration, Joan Didion, staying in the present of a story, why writing is work, and why he can’t write...
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The 2017 Man Booker Shortlist is Here!
The 2017 Man Booker shortlist has been announced: Paul Auster, 4 3 2 1 Listen to Paul Auster discuss James Baldwin, activism, and Donald Trump’s rise to power. Emily Fridlund, History of Wolves Read...
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The Designee
The Boredom What he couldn’t have imagined, even in his bleakest assessments of the future, was the boredom. He’d sat there in the hospital while Jan lay dying, holding her hand after each of the...
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Writing Between Countries and Across Borders: A Conversation
A conversation between Kwame Anthony Appiah, Marlon James, Jamaica Kincaid, Valeria Luiselli, and Colum McCann, moderated by Eric Banks, from issue 20 of PEN America. __________________________________...
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Learning What Love Means
“Do you feel something?” says Gérard. “No, maybe the coffee a little,” I say, while sniffing to get a better idea. “I’m waiting for you outside,” I add as I walk out of the store. We’re spending a week...
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Jesmyn Ward on Ava DuVernay, Reading History, and the Art of the Profile
In this episode of A Phone Call From Paul, Jesmyn Ward talks to Paul Holdengraber about discovering new directions through history, the hard work of profile-writing, and the realities of child prison...
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Opioids and Refugees: Why Not Poetry?
This interview took place in a backyard bar in Oakland, CA, on the afternoon of the eclipse, which was blocked by the morning fog. It has been edited for clarity and concision. * William Brewer: Our...
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