Interview: Novelist Mark Z. Danielewski

Photo courtesy of the author

[original pub date: October 30, 2011 for LAist]

Novelist Mark Z. Danielewski is frighteningly good at what he does. His books have imparted an international cult following for their courageous and mind-bending subjects, experimental typography, and innovative approaches to story-telling. His first novel, House of Leaves, shook the literary world with its multi-narrative tale about a family that discovers their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. A work ten years in the making, the story imbues horror, suspense, daring uses of font size and page layouts, and boasts a haunting soundtrack by Danielewski’s own sister, singer Poe. 2006 marked the release of the author’s wildly ambitious novel Only Revolutions, an epic poem of two sixteen year old lovers traversing the country by car. The book was a National Book Award finalist—heralded for its inventive format: the book starts from both ends, can be read infinitely (all the way through and back again), and requires one to manually rotate the book while reading.

Interview: Art Spiegelman on MetaMaus

Photo by Micah Cordy

“Things got way too meta,” Art Spiegelman says. The author sits at a table atop the Soho House, smoking a cigarette and awaiting his interview with Bookworm-host, Michael Silverblatt, for the 6th installment of KCRW’sUpClose series. And he’s not kidding. Art Spiegelman is on tour for his latest work, MetaMaus: A Look Inside A Modern Classic, Maus, which is an in-depth look at the making of his novel Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, the Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrated account of the Holocaust. Incidentally, the MetaMaus tour is a kind of postmodern performance: the author is essentially being interviewed about MetaMaus, which is a series of interviews with the author about Maus, which is a book based upon a series of interviews between the author and his father.

*originally published @LAist on October 13, 2011

In LA, Literature Lives. Interview With Tom Lutz, Editor of LARB.

The days of dogging LA book culture might soon (finally!) be behind us thanks to The Los Angeles Review of Books, an ambitious new LA-based literature review journal that’s re-imagining the art of literary critique and propelling it into the 21st century. Digital, sprawling, and fearless, the LARB aims to reinvigorate book discourse by widening the margins of literary coverage and overthrowing the traditional book review format.

Firmly rooted in a city that shares the same decentralized qualities of the Internet, the LARB poses a pretty solid argument on why the world’s next major literary hub ought to be LA. And with national attention from The New Yorker and The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Los Angeles Review of Books might just be right.

Via e-mail interview, editor-in-chief Tom Lutz shed light onto LARB, the future of publishing, and why literature’s new ‘it’ city is likely our own.

Interview With Novelist Sapphire and Bookworm Host Michael Silverblatt

(original pub date: 7/29/11) Last Sunday, local literati convened in the penthouse of the Soho House West Hollywood, and settled into deep-set sofas and velvet armchairs for an evening of intimate conversation with acclaimed author Sapphire and KCRW’s Bookworm host Michael Silverblatt.

Sapphire is the author of several books of poetry and two novels. Her debut novel Push, was made into Lee Daniel’s Academy Award-winning film Precious, and this month marks the release of Sapphire’s newest novel,The Kid, (which picks up where Push left off, told from the vantage point of Precious’ son, Abdul). The event was the fifth installation of KCRW’s UpClose series, which serves to ‘reinvent the art of conversation,’ by providing public radio listeners exclusive access to intimate conversations with cultural icons.

Interview with Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author @ LAist

Photo by Pieter M. Van Hattem/Vistalux

Interview with Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit From the Goon Squad, up @ LAist:

Jennifer Egan is an author who defies. Her fictions often embrace unconventional forms, narratives, and literary styles. She has challenged the essentials of literature, whether by unfurling the stiff structure of the novel or reinvigorating the importance of the chapter as both self-contained unit and cog. And for it, there’s been no shortage of acclaim. Egan’s latest novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, sparked controversy when it won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award and upstaged critic favorite Jonathan Franzen—the news of which brought the L.A. Times trouble when the story of Egan’s win ran alongside a curious feature photo of Franzen. And then last month, the once unassuming A Visit From the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

On Baring David Foster Wallace’s Self-Help Collection

There’s a really fascinating article at The Awl written by Maria Bustillos. It’s sprawling and extremely engaging, but it’s also uncomfortable to read. And I’m not referring to the discussion of DFW’s battle with depression, attempted suicide, and substance abuse problems–all of which glean interest given the nature of DFW’s death. Instead, the most irksome part of the article lies in the analysis of Wallace’s marginalia written within his numerous self-help books; the caliber of which Bustillos describes as “stuff of the best-sellingest, Oprah-level cheesiness and la-la reputation.”

David Foster Wallace Documentary “End Notes”

Audio from David Foster Wallace documentary c/o of BBC. Includes insight into his childhood and interviews with peers Rick Moody, Mark Costello (Wallace’s college roommate), Don DeLillo, Michael Pietsch (editor of Infinite Jest) Bonnie Nadell (Wallace’s editor) and his sister, Amy Wallace.

Tags: audio, david foster wallace, end notes, Literature