Work in Progress

A Roller-Coaster Ride of Violence and Sex Aleksandar Hemon and Sean McDonald Authors & Editors in Conversation

From the title alone, Aleksandar Hemon's new novel, The Making of Zombie Wars, suggests that the author is up to something new and different. And while it's not exactly what you'd call a traditional "zombie novel," Hemon does admit that it could be described as a "roller-coaster ride of violence and sex." Here, he talks to his editor, Sean McDonald, about how he changed up his writing process for this book, even enrolling in a screenwriting workshop; why this book maybe isn't so different from his earlier books; and the challenges of being "funny all the way through." Read on...

Finding a Way Home Mary Costello on the transformation of fact into fiction On Writing

Mary Costello's latest novel, Academy Street, follows Tess Lohan from her girlhood in western Ireland through her relocation to America and her life there, concluding with a moving reencounter with her Irish family after forty years of exile. Here, Costello shares a beautiful meditation on her mother's family home - how its emotional resonances bled into and help inform her novel, and how imagining the lives of her immigrant family gave shape to the life of her protagonist. Read on...

Featured Poems

"Here Come the Drum Majorettes!" James Fenton Selected by Joshua Mehigan

When I first saw James Fenton read onstage, I found myself, midway through this poem, staring at his head with my jaw set and my mouth moronically ajar. I didn't have a mirror, but if I try to imagine my face, I think of footage I saw, once, of confused but amenable teenagers watching Hendrix for the first time from a studio audience. "Holy shit!" I thought. "That is a poet!" I turned to my wife, who was also staring with her mouth open. Other faces in the audience looked much the same. Read on...