Interviews

Lesley Nneka Arimah is the kind of writer that doesn’t mind holding your hand. When you open her work, she will gladly offer her palm, you will gladly take it, and the both of you will (gladly) walk down a familiar street, in a familiar town, on a familiar day. Only when you’re a quarter-mile into this walk and have reached a busy intersection will you look around and notice that something’s . . . off.

Wandering appeals to me enormously. I find it to be regenerative and creatively enriching. Like everything, however, it has its downsides. Belonging somewhere takes time. Forming a community takes time. Wandering can make you an outsider to certain kinds of knowledge—which can be tricky for writing. A lot of my work tends to focus on displaced people, or passers-through, people trying to make sense of settings to which they are fundamentally outsiders, and I suspect this is tied to my own experience of the world.

For a book publisher like Gian—a purveyor of trade make-believe—labeling “narrative” senseless is a paradoxical statement. Like, would Magellan have said it’s silly that water keeps his ship afloat? Gotta believe in the craft that carries you along the medium, don’t you? 

Jordan Castro is the Online Editor for the Tyrant Books magazine and author of the novel The Novelist, forthcoming from Soft Skull Press this year. In true Tyrant fashion, Castro is straightforward, cutting, and a little sarcastic. In this interview, Castro touches on the realities of online publishing and his work with Tyrant.

This fall, at Texas State University, I had the opportunity to sit down with Forrest [Gander] to talk about poetry, translation, and language. What transpired was an intimate discussion about experience, practice, recollection, and the impact of translated literature.

Jamie Kimmel Shelton’s mermaid statue, “Aqua Reina,” is a tribute to the San Marcos River and its diverse, delicate wildlife, complete with arms made of catfish and sunfish for cheeks.

“I have been in love with all things mermaid since I was a very small child. My father and grandfathers were both ship captains and I spent a lot of time on and in the sea. My father passed away when I was young, and is buried at sea. The love of water and the myths and mysteries of the ocean he imparted to me stuck with me strongly through life.”

Independent (or “indie”) bookstores are one of the many gems that emblazon and attract others to a community. Within their facets, they serve the local economy, bolster the small business industry, add flavor to a locality, and bring people together. Amidst the past year’s whirlwind of closures, layoffs, adjusted work environments, and various other impediments that affect how a community gathers and stays together, they thrived.