Bookworm

Alice Fulton wants to "dirty" lyric poetry by making it bear witness to the grievous geo-politics of the present.

Rae Armantrout's poems apprehend the world as a place charged by the nonexistent supernatural. For her, the eerie thing is that ghosts don't exist.

Pura Lopez-Colomé's poetry, translated by Forrest Gander, envisions the body as a mystically rich reservoir of experience and language.

Aleksandar Hemon takes us though his life from his childhood in Sarajevo -- from the public tragedy of warfare to the private catastrophe of the loss of his child.

Margaret Atwood has embraced the frontiers of online literary culture. She reflects on her exploration of literary innovation and why Hermes is the patron of the new(s).

A novel of multiple voices, motorcycles, and swift zigzags between separate times and places.

David Shields explores the power of the written word in his new book of essays.

Mohsin Hamid mocks the self-help genre in his new novel.

The brazen, satirical stories in Sam Lipsyte's latest book incite reactions that run the gamut from anger to outrage to sheer hilarity.

Set on the Princeton campus in 1905, a penetrating social commentary masquerades as a classic American Gothic.

Ondaatje discusses his turn from concealment to revelation and reflects on the magic of youth.

How did Jess Walter make the leap between his romantic novel, "Beautiful Ruins," and the end-of-the-world sadness of his stories in "We Live in Water?"

The recently named the first poet laureate of the City of Los Angeles reads selections from her new collection and reflects on what it means to be a poet of place today.

Luis Alberto Urrea ("The Hummingbird's Daughter" and "Queen of America") continues to discuss his saga inspired by the life of Teresita Urrea, "the Mexican Joan of Arc."

Luis Alberto Urrea's "Queen of America," completes the two-volume saga that began with "The Hummingbird's Daughter." Both follow the journey of a Mexican curandera...

In this second interview, George Saunders delves further into the dark-comic twists and turns of his recent short story collection. (Part 2 of 2)

Nick Flynn on the strange days on the set of Being Flynn, a film adapted from his personal memoir, and starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano.

Jamaica Kincaid's first novel in ten years is an emotionally bare story about the erosion of a marriage.

George Saunders reflects on writing, "infinitely" revising, and how he finds the voices for his luminous but smudged characters. (Part 1 of 2)

Poet Ange Mlinko reads poems from her forthcoming collection and talks about the way that poetry braids difficulty and pleasure.