interviews

Anya Yurchyshyn

Anya Yurchyshyn

Anya Yurchyshyn has written for Esquire, Granta, Oprah Magazine, N+1, BuzzFeed, Lenny, Bustle, Refinery29, Two Serious Ladies, Mod Art, Guernica, and elimae, and she is a frequent contributor to NOON. Her story from NOON 2014, “The Director,” was included in Best Small Fictions of 2015. Her memoir, My Dead Parents, was published by Crown in March, 2018. She received her MFA in Fiction from Columbia and has been awarded fellowships by the university as well as The MacDowell Colony. 

Anya Yurchyshyn

Anya Yurchyshyn

Anya Yurchyshyn has written for Esquire, Granta, Oprah Magazine, N+1, BuzzFeed, Lenny, Bustle, Refinery29, Two Serious Ladies, Mod Art, Guernica, and elimae, and she is a frequent contributor to NOON. Her story from NOON 2014, “The Director,” was included in Best Small Fictions of 2015. Her memoir, My Dead Parents, was published by Crown in March, 2018. She received her MFA in Fiction from Columbia and has been awarded fellowships by the university as well as The MacDowell Colony. 

Anya
Yurchyshyn

Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham is a writer and reporter based in Berkeley, California, and the author of The Far Away Brothers. An expert in migration, an educator, and an accomplished journalist, Lauren’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in outlets such as The Guardian, Harper’s, Orion, Guernica, VICE, Pacific Standard, The New Yorker.com and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. She is a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA in writing program and has been awarded fellowships from the Mesa Refuge,  The French American Foundation, The Rotary Foundation, and the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism.

Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham is a writer and reporter based in Berkeley, California, and the author of The Far Away Brothers. An expert in migration, an educator, and an accomplished journalist, Lauren’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in outlets such as The Guardian, Harper’s, Orion, Guernica, VICE, Pacific Standard, The New Yorker.com and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. She is a graduate of the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ MFA in writing program and has been awarded fellowships from the Mesa Refuge,  The French American Foundation, The Rotary Foundation, and the Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism.

Lauren
Markham

Leesa Cross-Smith

Leesa Cross-Smith

Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and writer from Kentucky. She is the author of Whiskey & Ribbons (Hub City Press, 2018), Every Kiss a War (Mojave River Press, 2014), the forthcoming short story collection So We Can Glow ( Grand Central Publishing, 2020) and the forthcoming novel This Close To Okay (Grand Central Publishing, 2021.) Whiskey & Ribbons was longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Leesa Cross-Smith

Leesa Cross-Smith

Leesa Cross-Smith is a homemaker and writer from Kentucky. She is the author of Whiskey & Ribbons (Hub City Press, 2018), Every Kiss a War (Mojave River Press, 2014), the forthcoming short story collection So We Can Glow ( Grand Central Publishing, 2020) and the forthcoming novel This Close To Okay (Grand Central Publishing, 2021.) Whiskey & Ribbons was longlisted for the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Leesa
Cross-Smith

Menno Schilthuizen

Menno Schilthuizen

Menno Schilthuizen is a Dutch ecologist and evolutionary biologist based at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. He obtained his PhD from Leiden University in 1994 on the evolution of land snails from Greece, then did two postdoctoral stints at Wageningen University and from 2000 to 2006 worked as an associate professor at the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Malaysian Borneo, where he still holds a research associateship. He has authored over 100 scientific publications in professional journals such as Trends in Ecology and Evolution, The Journal of Evolutionary Biology, and Nature.

Menno Schilthuizen

Menno Schilthuizen

Menno Schilthuizen is a Dutch ecologist and evolutionary biologist based at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden. He obtained his PhD from Leiden University in 1994 on the evolution of land snails from Greece, then did two postdoctoral stints at Wageningen University and from 2000 to 2006 worked as an associate professor at the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Malaysian Borneo, where he still holds a research associateship. He has authored over 100 scientific publications in professional journals such as Trends in Ecology and Evolution, The Journal of Evolutionary Biology, and Nature.

Menno
Schilthuizen

Michael David Lukas

Michael David Lukas

Michael David Lukas has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a night-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and a waiter at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His first novel The Oracle of Stamboul was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, was published by Spiegel & Grau. He is a recipient of scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, New York State Summer Writers’ Institute, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Elizabeth George Foundation. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University.

Michael David Lukas

Michael David Lukas

Michael David Lukas has been a Fulbright Scholar in Turkey, a night-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and a waiter at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. His first novel The Oracle of Stamboul was a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, was published by Spiegel & Grau. He is a recipient of scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, New York State Summer Writers’ Institute, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Elizabeth George Foundation. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University.

Michael David
Lukas

Tessa Fontaine

Tessa Fontaine

Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editor's pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, an Amazon Editors' Best of the Month featured debut & Amazon Best Books of 2018 (so far), an iBooks favorite, and more.

Tessa Fontaine

Tessa Fontaine

Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editor's pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, an Amazon Editors' Best of the Month featured debut & Amazon Best Books of 2018 (so far), an iBooks favorite, and more.

Tessa
Fontaine

Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels The Hundred-Year House and The Borrower, as well as the short story collection Music for Wartime. Her short fiction won a 2017 Pushcart Prize, and was chosen for The Best American Short Stories for four consecutive years (2008-2011). The recipient of a 2014 NEA fellowship, Makkai is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University, and she is the Artistic Director of Story Studio Chicago. Her novel The Great Believers was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the ALA Carnegie Medal.

Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels The Hundred-Year House and The Borrower, as well as the short story collection Music for Wartime. Her short fiction won a 2017 Pushcart Prize, and was chosen for The Best American Short Stories for four consecutive years (2008-2011). The recipient of a 2014 NEA fellowship, Makkai is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University, and she is the Artistic Director of Story Studio Chicago. Her novel The Great Believers was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the ALA Carnegie Medal.

Rebecca
Makkai

Yrsa Daley-Ward

Yrsa Daley-Ward

Yrsa Daley-Ward is a writer and poet of mixed West Indian and West African heritage. Born to a Jamaican mother and a Nigerian father, Yrsa was raised by her devout Seventh Day Adventist grandparents in the small town of Chorley in the North of England. She splits her time between London and Los Angeles.

Yrsa Daley-Ward

Yrsa Daley-Ward

Yrsa Daley-Ward is a writer and poet of mixed West Indian and West African heritage. Born to a Jamaican mother and a Nigerian father, Yrsa was raised by her devout Seventh Day Adventist grandparents in the small town of Chorley in the North of England. She splits her time between London and Los Angeles.

Yrsa
Daley-Ward