I'm a Writer But

Today, John Milas discusses his new novel, the difference between terror and horror, perception vs. time, working with Roxane Gay, the real Militia House, writing a speculative literary military novel, the nostalgia of 2010, and more!

John Milas is the author of the forthcoming novel THE MILITIA HOUSE (Henry Holt, 2023). He enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age nineteen and subsequently deployed to the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in support of OEF 10.1. He was honorably discharged from active service in 2012.

After his discharge, he earned both his BA and MFA in creative writing. As a student, he studied with writers such as Marianne Boruch, Roxane Gay, Brian Leung, Robert Lopez, Terese Marie Mailhot, Julie Price Pinkerton, Donald Platt, Sharon Solwitz, and others. He is represented by Julia Kardon of HG Literary and Dana Spector of CAA.

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Today, Courtney Zoffness discusses Spilt Milk (memoirs), why pregnancy and early parenthood is a fertile time for creatives (haha see what I did there), moving between fiction and nonfiction, “going long,” working with McSweeney’s, and more! 

Courtney Zoffness is the author of the memoir-in-essays SPILT MILK, out now in paperback. Spilt Milk was named a best debut of the year by BookPage and Refinery29, and a “must-read” by Publishers Weekly and Good Morning America. Also a fiction writer, Zoffness was the second-ever woman to win the Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joined a list of winners that includes Anthony Doerr and Junot Díaz. Other honors include an Emerging Writers Fellowship from The Center for Fiction and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, Guernica, No Tokens, and elsewhere.

Zoffness holds graduate degrees from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She’s taught at a dozen different institutions and delivered readings and talks at venues across the US and abroad. Currently she directs the creative writing program at Drew University. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

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Today, Marisa Crane talks about their debut novel, establishing a world right away, being a “tragically first-person writer,” BookTok, parents reading their children’s books, and more! 

Marisa Crane is the author of the novel I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself. Their stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Passages North, Joyland, The Offing, No Tokens, The Florida Review, TriQuarterly, Lit Hub, Catapult, F(r)iction, and elsewhere. An attendee of the Tin House Workshop and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and an American Short Fiction Merit Fellow, they currently live in San Diego with their wife and child. 

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Today, Ethan Chatagnier discusses his debut novel, bending genres, finding his way to a novel he could complete, doing just enough but not too much research, getting owned by copy editors, and more!  

A Pushcart Prize winner, Ethan Chatagnier’s stories have appeared in the Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, and New England Review, and been listed as notable in The Best American Short Stories. He is the author of the story collection Warnings from the Future and lives in Fresno, California, with his family. His new novel is Singer Distance, a propulsive, genre-bending debut novel that asks: what happens when we discover intelligent life just next door? And what does it really mean to know we’re not alone in the universe? 

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Today, Matthew Vollmer (All of Us Together in the End) talks to us about his new memoir, living and writing in mystery, discovering creative nonfiction, writing about family, writing about the pandemic, and more! 

Matthew Vollmer is the author of two short-story collections—Future Missionaries of America and Gateway to Paradise—as well as three collections of essays—inscriptions for headstones, Permanent Exhibit, and This World Is Not Your Home: Essays, Stories, & Reports. He was the editor of A Book of Uncommon Prayer, which collects invocations from over 60 acclaimed and emerging authors, and served as co-editor of Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts. His work has appeared in venues such as Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, Tin House, Oxford American, The Sun, The Pushcart Prize anthology, and Best American Essays.  He teaches in the MFA program at Virginia Tech, where he is a Professor of English. His next book, All of Us Together in the End, will be published by Hub City Press in April.  

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Today, Lydia Conklin talks to us about their collection RAINBOW RAINBOW, writing humor and joy, Lorrie Moore, deciding to publish their collection before their novel, working with Catapult, and more! 

Lydia Conklin has received a Stegner Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Writing Fulbright in Poland, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a Creative Writing Fellowship from Emory University, work-study and tuition scholarships from Bread Loaf, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Djerassi, the James Merrill House, and elsewhere. Their fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, The Paris Review, One Story, and VQR. They have drawn cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine, and graphic fiction for The Believer, Lenny Letter, and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. They’ve served as the Helen Zell Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan and are currently an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Their story collection, Rainbow Rainbow, was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W Bingham Award and The Story Prize. 

Sign up for Krys Malcolm Belc's online class, Writing Queer Memoir!

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Today, Ling Ma talks to us about her story collection, Bliss Montage, as well as starting from scratch, editing in a postpartum haze, fragrances, and more! 

Ling Ma is a writer hailing from Fujian, Utah, and Kansas. She wrote the novel Severance and, more recently, the story collection Bliss Montage, both published by FSG. She lives in Chicago with her family. 

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Today, Jac Jemc (Empty Theatre) talks to us about the impetus for writing a novel about Empress Sisi and King Ludwig, trimming hundreds of pages as she drafted, using her time wisely, Donald Barthelme, what it feels like to bask in the buzz, and more! 

Jac Jemc is the author of The Grip of It, My Only Wife, A Different Bed Every Time, and the story col- lection False Bingo, which won the Chicago Review of Books Award for fiction, was a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and was long-listed for the Story Prize. She teaches creative writing at the University of California San Diego.  

The full title of Jac's new novel is: Empty Theatre. Or, the Lives of King Ludwig of Bavaria and Empress Sisi of Austria (Queen of Hungary), Cousins, in Their Pursuit of Connection and Beauty Despite the Expectations Placed on Them Because of the Exceptional Good Fortune of Their Status as Beloved National Figures. With Speculation into the Mysterious Nature of Their Deaths. Order it here!

See Jac on tour!

Special end song by Jared Larson!

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Today, Ursula Villarreal-Moura talks to us about her new collection, hating and then learning to love flash fiction, Muriel Spark, how Roberto Bolaño would blurb her forthcoming novel, and more! 

Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling, which was selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness, forthcoming with Celadon Books. A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, the Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. 

Find out more about Alex's new press, Great Place Books, here!

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Today, Kevin Maloney (The Red-Headed Pilgrim) talks to us about fictionalizing his own life, writing about sex, writing a book that was “like On the Road combined with Napoleon Dynamite,” working with Two Dollar Radio, and more! 

Kevin Maloney is the author of The Red-Headed Pilgrim, out now on Two Dollar Radio, Horse Girl Fever, out onCLASH Books in 2024, and Cult of Loretta. 

At times a TJ Maxx associate, grocery clerk, outdoor school instructor, organic farmer, electrician, high school English teacher, and teddy bear salesman, Kevin currently works as a web developer and writer. His stories have appeared in Hobart, Barrelhouse, Green Mountains Review, and a number of other journals and anthologies. 

He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Aubrey. 

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