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Interview

Three Questions for Katie Wudel

Claire Harlan-Orsi interviews the PS Spring 2012 Contributor on her short story, "Bad Aim," and other writing matters

Katie Wudel’s short fiction and essays have appeared in Tin House, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The Rumpus, Monkeybicycle, and other publications. A recent writer in residence at Hedgebrook, Katie has taught creative writing at San Francisco’s School of the Arts and the University of Nebraska-Omaha Writer’s Workshop. Her story “Tongueless” was listed among Wigleaf’s Top [Very] Short Fictions of 2011. You can find out more about Katie by visiting www.katiewudel.com.

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You use third person point of view, but Harry's unique (acerbic, vocal) way of seeing things really comes through in the narration. How did you decide on this perspective, and how did you develop Harry's voice?

Seven Questions for Sigrid Nunez

PS Web Editor Theodore Wheeler interviews the accomplished prose stylist about judgmental sisters, the importance of solitude to writers, and other topics.
Sigrid Nunez

Sigrid Nunez is the author of six novels, including The Last of Her Kind and, most recently, Salvation City. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Her story “Worried Sisters” appears in the Spring 2012 issue of Prairie Schooner.

Charles Baxter on Politics and Fiction

To accompany Air Schooner's new Super Tuesday podcast focusing on politics and the American literary landscape and featuring interviews with Nikki Giovanni and Cynthia Hogue, PS senior reader Bob Fuglei interviewed Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love, Saul and Patsy, and Shadow Play, among many other novels, story collections, and works of criticism and craft commentary. Fuglei and Baxter discuss the influence of figures such as Nixon, Bachmann, and Gingrich on contemporary literary discourse, as well as question of politics and the MFA.*

Prairie Schooner Interview: Susan Blackwell Ramsey

Marianne Kunkel interviews Susan Blackwell Ramsey, winner of the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize for Poetry.
Susan Blackwell Ramsey

One of the many things I admire about A Mind Like This is its broad historical spectrum. Some poems profile 19th-century authors while others incorporate aspects of contemporary life such as the phrases “I downloaded a favorite song” and “wind / that bitchslapped me.” What is gained by letting cutting-edge, colloquial diction into your poems?

A reader who continues to the next line? English is in a constant thrash, and trying to hang onto its tail can make for a fine ride as long as you have friends who will occasionally look over their glasses at you and say "No. Just ... no."

The Karen Brown Interview

(Interviewed by Theodore Wheeler.)
Karen Brown

Karen Brown received the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction for her book Little Sinners and Other Stories, which is forthcoming from the University of Nebraska Press. Her first collection of short stories, Pins and Needles, received AWP’s Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction and, in 2007, was published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Her work has appeared twice in the PEN/O.

P(rivate)S(paces) w/ Micheal O'Siadhail

in which Prairie Schooner contributors give us a glimpse into their writing spaces and sensibilities.
Micheal O'Siadhail

Micheal O’Siadhail's thirteen collections of poetry include Tongues, Globe, Love Life, The Gossamer Wall: Poems in Witness to the Holocaust, and Poems 1975-1995. He has been awarded an Irish American Cultural Institute Prize and a Toonder Prize, and he was shortlisted for the Wingate Jewish Quarterly Prize. He has been a lecturer at Trinity College, Dublin, and a professor at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. His poem "Conversation with Goethe" appears in our current issue.

Name three things of particular significance on your writing desk at the moment.

I have on my desk a book which traces the origin of Japanese characters and how pictographs combine in various ways to form complex ideographs. These signs fascinate me and in my latest book Tongues I devoted a whole section to meditating on them.

An Interview with Nuala Ní Chonchúir

Nuala Ní Chonchúir, as interviewed by Theodore Wheeler.
Nuala Ni Chonchuir

Born in Dublin in 1970, Nuala Ní Chonchúir lives in Galway county. Her début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. Her third short story collection Nude (Salt, 2009)) was shortlisted for the UK’s Edge Hill Prize. Her second short story collection To The World of Men, Welcome has just been re-issued by Arlen House in an expanded paperback edition.

P(rivate)S(paces) w/ Mary O'Donnell

in which Prairie Schooner contributors give us a glimpse into their writing spaces and sensibilities.
P(rivate)S(paces) w/ Mary O'Donnell

Mary O’Donnell has published six collections of poetry, most recently The Ark Builders (Arc Publications). She has also written three novels and two short-story collections, has won prizes in the V.S. Pritchett Competition and was the overall winner of the 2010 Fish International Short Story Competition. She is guest poet in the National University of Ireland-Maynooth in the creative writing program. Her poems "Sea Life in St. Mark's Square" and "Baby Boy, Quaryat al Beri" appear in the forthcoming Winter 2011 issue of Prairie Schooner, aka the Ireland Issue. (Subscribers should see the issue in their mailboxes soon!)

Name three things on your writing desk at the moment.

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