writing process

“I know that reality and truth are not always the same thing”: An Interview with Christos Ikonomou

“I know that reality and truth are not always the same thing”: An Interview with Christos Ikonomou

Christos Ikonomou is the author of three short story collections, including Something Will Happen, You’ll See (Archipelago Books, trans. Karen Emmerich, 2016), for which he won the National Short Story Prize. Something Will Happen, You’ll See, a devastating and sparingly written collection of stories about the Greek crisis in working class neighborhoods in Athens, is…

On Building Believable Characters in Fiction
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On Building Believable Characters in Fiction

Before I picked up a copy of Offshore last month, it had been years since I read Penelope Fitzgerald, a British author who didn’t start writing until she was in her sixties. But the characters in this Booker Prize-winning novel caught my attention and I soon became completely emerged in Fitzgerald’s cleverly constructed world. Set…

Episodia 1.7: Lost Novels and Love Triangles

Episodia 1.7: Lost Novels and Love Triangles

Lately I’ve been thinking about beginnings, endings, and that terribly murky time between a writer completing one project and starting another. After recently finishing a memoir, I’ve been itching to write a novel. I have a strong start to a new one—it’s always thrilling to be at the beginning of something, when all you see are possibilities instead of…