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John Waters: “I think I am weirdly politically correct”
Not quite two years ago, John Waters, the legendary filmmaker, writer and self-described “filth elder,” had a viral moment (of the good kind)—his 2015 Rhode Island School of Design commencement speech,...
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How to Be a Writer on Social Media: Advice from Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee,...
Before social media became the juggernaut it is today, countless authors were skeptical about how it could be, for lack of a better word, useful. Wouldn’t tweeting just be a time-suck? How could...
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Eat Like Your Favorite Author: Writers on their Signature Sandwiches
The sandwich is the great equalizer. A simple food—two pieces of bread with something in between—that puts everyone on equal footing. Every culture has a version of the sandwich and we all, even...
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The Classes 25 Famous Writers Teach
Plenty of writers teach. Even famous ones. This is a known fact of the universe. After all, academy jobs are notoriously cushy; what you give up in writing time you get back in the form of a steady...
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See It Here First: The Cover for Alexander Chee’s New Essay Collection
Forthcoming from Mariner Books in April 2018, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is an essay collection exploring life, literature, and politics, and how we create ourselves through art. Alexander...
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The Power of Facebook: How Big is Too Big?
In episode three of fiction/non/fiction, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk to The Atlantic‘s Alexis Madrigal and novelist Alexander Chee about Facebook, Russia, dark ads, and how writers are...
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Surviving the Ordinary: Why We Need Memoirs of Regular Lives
I am 100 percent here for a good stranger-than-fiction memoir. Do I want to know how someone escaped a cult, pulled off a heist, or became famous after surviving a freak accident? Absolutely. Send me...
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Alexander Chee on Rereading Ishiguro and Baldwin
Alexander Chee’s new book, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, is available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. What was the first book you fell in love with? The Tombs of Atuan, by Ursula K....
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The Bottomless Generosity of the Writer’s Memoir
When I am struggling to write, there are a few different texts I reach for—old favorites, of course, the pages already soft and dogeared; or the books of writers I wish to emulate, margins peppered...
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Alexander Chee: Don’t Give in to That Feeling of Powerlessness
In this episode of A Phone Call From Paul, Paul Holdengraber reaches Alexander Chee in Italy and asks him about mentors (and mentoring), his favorite Italian writers, virtues great and small, and the...
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On the Dangers of Nostalgia: A 1990s Reading List
There’s such an intense nostalgia for the 1990s right now—in popular culture, in music, in fashion, even in activism. But nostalgia can be dangerous because it replaces the complexity and nuance of...
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Jane Coaston and Alexander Chee on Politics, Storytelling, and the Midterms
In this episode of the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast, reporter Jane Coaston and writer Alexander Chee talk to hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the upcoming midterm elections. To hear...
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How to Grieve For Your Friend and Mentor
On October 31st of this year, Louise DeSalvo—gifted memoirist and biographer, my mentor and beloved friend—passed away in the night. She’d emailed me three days before to let me know she’d reached a...
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Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on AIDS, the Complacent Center-Left, and Higher...
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the guest on this episode of Otherppl. Her new novel Sketchtasy is available from Arsenal Pulp Press. * Described as “startlingly bold and provocative” by Howard Zinn, “a...
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Why Are Writers Particularly Drawn to Tarot?
For several years, tarot has drawn attention at the Association of Writers and Writing Program’s annual conference: the poet Hoa Nguyen, a Griffin Poetry Prize finalist and author of the forthcoming...
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Introducing The House of SpeakEasy Podcast
Hosted by SpeakEasy’s co-founders, Amanda Foreman and Lucas Wittmann, The House of SpeakEasy podcast will feature previously recorded storytelling performances recorded live at their Seriously...
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What Happens When You Treat Writing Like Acting?
Thirteen years ago, on one of those crisp and beautiful autumn days before all weather was the end of the world, Lucy Liu walked into a bagel shop on 6th Avenue. I was seated at a table inside. I was...
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Alexander Chee on the Moment in His Twenties That Changed His Life
This is Thresholds, a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down, disoriented them in their lives, changed them, and changed how and why they wanted...
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Michael Chabon, Alexander Chee, and others will read to benefit Bay Area...
A series of online events will raise money for Bay Area bookstores that have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic—and it begins tonight. The effort, called We Love Bookstores, kicks off with a...
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The 50 Best Contemporary Novels Over 500 Pages
Personally, I find solace in long novels. The good ones always seem to create space for the reader: space to sink and settle, and time to really learn what you’re dealing with, both in terms of...
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