account_circle by Derek Alger

One on One

Xu Xi

Issue No. 72 ~ May, 2003

Perhaps the rather skewered focus in the West today on the Chinese-women-as-victim memoirs and dissident writing has limited the appreciation of what comprises Chinese literature.

Thomas Kennedy

Issue No. 72 ~ May, 2003

There, in Julio's Bar, I saw two real writers at a table -- Gordon Weaver and Andre Dubus II. I went up to them and explained that I had my first ever fiction honorarium and would join me in turning it into strong drink? They graciously accepted.

Clark Blaise

Issue No. 72 ~ May, 2003

My interest was in the human or "rational" assertion of control over "time." We had to wrest it away from the religious authorities and once we controlled and coordinated the flow of time, all things became possible in science, the arts, the economy, etc.

Interview with Bruce Gray

Issue No. 65 ~ October, 2002

I love making sculptures. The key is to look at all things, even the most common, and to really appreciate interesting visual stimuli.

Interview with Farai Chideya

Issue No. 58 ~ March, 2002

Five years ago, Farai Chideya founded PopandPolitics.com, an online site reporting on issues ranging from political analysis to hip hop and electronic music, aimed at engaging a younger, more urban audience. She and the site have won a MOBE IT Innovator award and been named …

Interview with Richard Shenkman

Issue No. 56 ~ January, 2002

Clearly, a show covering current events and history wasn't going to be a TV spectacular. But then along came the Internet and it occurred to me -- this might be the perfect vehicle for bringing history into the public square.

Interview with Victor Rangel-Ribeiro

Issue No. 53 ~ October, 2001

Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, born in Goa, India in 1925 when it was still a Portuguese colony, is the author of Tivolem, published by Milkweed Editions in 1999. The novel was awarded the Milkweed National Fiction Prize, and Booklist, the influential journal of the American Library Association, …

Frank Zingrone

Issue No. 52 ~ September, 2001

Frank Zingrone, a respected Canadian communications scholar, explores the paralyzing power of new communication technologies, while offering a way out of an age of computerized chaos in his most recent book, The Media Symplex: At the Edge of Meaning in the Age of Chaos. Zingrone, …

Interview with Kate Sontag

Issue No. 49 ~ June, 2001

Kate Sontag, an accomplished poet who graduated with an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, has won numerous awards and recognition for her poetry. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as Boomer Girls, In Praise of Pedagogy, and The Chester H. Jones …

Interview with Rene Steinke

Issue No. 48 ~ May, 2001

Rene Steinke’s first novel, The Fires, was published by William Morrow in 1999, and the paperback version was published last year by HarperPerrenial. The novel was selected in 1999 by The Austin Chronicles as one of the best books of that year, and film rights …

Peter Filkins

Issue No. 47 ~ April, 2001

Peter Filkins, a poet and translator, has a forthcoming collection of poems, After Homer, due to be published in January by George Braziller Books. Filkins is the author of a book of poems, What She Knew, and his translation of a novel by Alois Hotschnig, …

Interview with Tom Fleming

Issue No. 45 ~ February, 2001

Tom Fleming, author of forty books of fiction and non-fiction, talks to interviewer Derek Alger about breaking into the business and the importance of "veracious imagination."