Paul Beatty is the author of two books of poetry and four novels, including The Sellout (2015), for which he became the first American author to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2016. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College. Since graduating MFA, Beatty has built a career in writing that has traversed genres of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction alike. Through unrivaled observation and understanding of both place and identity, the characters and worlds he builds are …
This interview took place on September 30th, 2020. Piñata Theory by Alan Chazaro won the 2018 Hudson Prize and is available through Black Lawrence Press. Alan is also the author of This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album, an adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, a columnist at Palette Poetry, and raising money for NBA arena workers during Covid-19. We linked up through zoom and kicked off the interview talking about baseball and basketball—their respective playoffs and the …
we’re driving through Northern California headed to the Purim spiel and it’s almost spring. The way spring marches into California makes everything look stupidly beautiful. I’m reading this book called SoundMachine and your sister calls from the east to ask which brand of toilet paper to buy during quarantine. In fact I can’t remember exactly what she is asking because I am too busy trying not to meddle in anyone’s business. Stand 5 or 6 feet away, they say, no shaking hands or hugging. When you …
I woke up to fog this morning. So thick, we couldn’t see the cars from the front door. This wouldn’t be so strange if I were still in San Francisco, but I’m not. The air grew so smokey at the end of August that I was afraid to make the short journey from my rented bedroom to nearby Glen Canyon. The stillness drove me insane. The fact that my shut-tight room was still inundated with the scent of fire and plastic melting against bone did not help. So, I flew back to my parents’ home and my brother …
Suppose these streets were yours, and mine: what would it profit us? I take up my small space, my paltry plot, and clutch the deadbolt on my gate, whispering “Thank God.” I could do much worse than stewing in safety, stirring around my apartment all through daylight and ladling into bed each night. I am not a survivor—I just keep on waking up. Wouldn’t I be mad to invite the out-there into these walls... I can watch you (and me in some other world; body) anytime, taking back these streets for a …
Only after speaking with Elena Passarello for an hour do I remember that in an earlier incarnation she was an actor. Perhaps that’s why she’s so at ease being interviewed. She seems to possess none of the stilted seriousness that so many writers like to put on when talking about their work. Tellingly, her show business past is given all the attention of a footnote in her first essay collection Let Me Clear My Throat—a scientifically girded exploration into the oddities and impacts of the …