Recent Features

A Policy Poisoned by Money: An Interview With Greg Palast

By Scott Thill

Magical Things: An Interview with Julianna Baggott

By Nikki Tranter

'If you pay attention to the world around you, you'll see truly magical things.' Julianna Baggott talks about The Anybodies and The Nobodies, her fantasy books for young readers that reveal the path to enlightenment lies in a life spent reading.

Interviews

By Cynthia Fuchs

Folk Explosion: An Interview with Rick Moody

By Anne K. Yoder

'I'm tired of double kick-drumming and death-metal guitar tunings and guys yelling about how much trouble they're having with their girlfriends.' Rick Moody talks to PopMatters about his musical life.

A Kind of Music: Interview with David Mitchell

By Stephen Schenkenberg

'Writing is a kind of music. And I mean that very nearly literally. Or at least, I mean it metaphorically. It's nonetheless a metaphor, which is truer than the obvious. A sentence is a musical phrase that your eyeball can hear. Words are musical notes that, again, your eyeball can hear. Not a sound, but a nuance.' Stephen Schenkenberg talks to David Mitchell.

Lying Liars and the Lawyers Who Love Them: An Interview with Michael Kun

By Daulton Dickey

'No matter how good the story is, the fact that the reader is holding something in his hands that expressly states that it is fiction prevents the reader from getting as involved in the story and the characters as he could otherwise.' PopMatters talks to Michael Kun about lies, truths, death, and Heather Locklear.

You Bring the Jack; They’ll Bring the Coke: Interviews with Craig Davidson and Brett Alexander Savor

By Nikki Tranter

'Once you finish writing a four-page dog fight scene, or a scene where a guy gets his leg chomped off by an incensed killer whale, or one where an old porn star's penis pump explodes ... well, you sort of say to yourself, 'I've effectively eliminated myself from the mainstream.'' Craig Davidson and Brett Alexander Savory want to talk to you about Hell -- real and imagined. (If there's a difference.)

Using Language Against Itself: An Interview with Robbie Conal, ArtBurn

By Scott Thill

All Pasts: Interview with Lance Olsen

By Scott Esposito

'Historians can tell you what happened and on what day it happened and perhaps something about the larger forces that impinged on the happening. But the only fiction writer can offer the why of the happening, what it might have felt like, smelled like, tasted like. By doing so, he or she reminds the world of the fictive underpinnings of all pasts, including those we hold in our own recollections.' Scott Esposito talks to Lance Olsen about Nietzsche's Kisses.

Movies in Her Head: A Minute with Lori A. May

By Leslie Joseph

Lori A. May talks to PopMatters about her new book, her love of crime-time TV, and how CSI has made readers of crime lit so very demanding.

An Interview with Marc Acito

By Daulton Dickey

Marc Acito, a humor columnist, whose syndicated column 'The Gospel According to Marc,' appears in 18 newspapers nationwide.

Killing to be Clever: Alone with Max Barry

By Nikki Tranter

Max Barry has been called this generation's answer to George Orwell. But how bleak is his vision of the future, really? PopMatters books critic Nikki Tranter investigates.

The Baseball Team Who Saved One Another: An Interview with John Albert

By Jodie Janella Horn

'There's nothing subversive about getting a Mohawk and walking around Silver Lake. When I was 16, if you got a tattoo, it was like, 'What the fuck are you doing?' There was nobody doing that. [Now] everyone is covered in tattoos. It means nothing. Dyeing your hair pink means nothing. Putting a metal post through your nose doesn't mean anything.' Jodie Janella Horn talks to John Albert about music, baseball, James Frey, and punk-rock death.

The Right Thing: An Interview with Claire LaZebnik

By Nikki Tranter

Fed up with women's literature creating heroes out of lazy women who lie, cheat and steal to reach the top, Claire LaZebnik decided it was time to take a look at the other side of the coin.

You Don’t Know What You Think You Know: An Interview with Museum of Hoaxes Curator Alex Boese

By Glenn McDonald

'The scams that advertisers, politicians, and the media get away with frustrate me enormously, and I often wonder why people allow themselves to be manipulated so easily.' Glenn McDonald talks to author and Hoax Expert, Alex Boese

Roaring the Truth: An Interview with Steve Almond

By Stephen M. Deusner

'There are people out there cheering for war, treating those deaths like some kind of athletic event. How sick do we have to be that this is not only acceptable, but virtually unchallenged by other politicians or clergy or anyone? And it's artists who have to stand up and be counted. Right now.' Stephen M. Deusner talks to Steve Almond.

Salvation Artist

By Jodie Janella Horn

Dirty Found is on tour. Co-created by Jason Bitner, the magazine celebrates the smuttiest photos, notes, and other paraphernalia left laying about the world. Jodie Janella Horn caught up with Bitner in Los Angeles. 'I'm not an artist,' Bitner tells her. She begs to differ.

Cubicle Comedy: Interview with Pete Flies

By Nikki Tranter

'Success is an act. I think it's funny when people say, 'I could never be an actor,' and it's what we do all the time, in work, relationships, life in general.' Inspired as much by Voltaire's Candide as Mike Judge's Office Space, Pete Flies talks about Memoirs of a Virus Programmer.

Interview with Mara Leveritt

By Nikki Tranter

Nikki Tratner interviews Mara Leveritt, author of Devil's Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three, on the details behind the indictment of three Arkansas boys for a group of gruesome 1993 murders.

PopMatters Book Interview

By Nikki Tranter

You name it, Kevin Murphy saw it in 2001. And lived to tell the tale.