Interviews

Interview with Veteran Writers

TIR Staff

Interview with Cole Becher, author of "Charybdis" (43/1)

Interview with Katherine Schifani, author of "Pistol Whip"

Katherine Schifani

In March 2015, TIR intern Erin Marshall interviewed Kate Schifani, whose essay "Pistol Whip" won our 2014 Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans.

EM: Could you discuss why you decided to write about your military experiences?

The Creative Process Interview with Hilary Mantel

By Mia Funk

Hilary Mantel is the two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize for her best-selling novels, Wolf Hall, and its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies—an unprecedented achievement. The Royal Shakespeare Company recently adapted Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies for the stage to colossal critical acclaim and a BBC/Masterpiece six-part adaption of the novels.

The author of fourteen books, including A Place of Greater Safety, Beyond Black, and the memoir Giving up the Ghost, she is currently at work on the third instalment of the Thomas Cromwell Trilogy.

Mantel delivered this year’s Reith Lectures which will be broadcast this month on the BBC.

A micro-interview with Junot Díaz

Melissa Mogollon

Author Junot Díaz, unflinching and unprecedented with his craft, is known for illuminating the U.S. Latinx immigrant experience. A Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer, teacher, essayist, and activist, his writing has made storytelling accessible to communities that did not previously see themselves in literature—as readers, writers, and people.

Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of Drown; The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist.

"From the Workshop to War": An Interview with Janine di Giovanni

Christopher Merrill

When I was reporting on the war in Bosnia, I always read the dispatches of John Burns, Roger Cohen, and Janine di Giovanni, who seemed to me to understand not only the political and military dimension of the unfolding tragedy, but also its human consequences. Each in their own way practiced the working methods of a photographer friend who told me she liked to “get into people’s beer,” that is, to spend time with those she wished to portray. What resulted were intimate photographs of people in extremis; showing their human faces.

Meet the Artist: An Interview with Shaun Tan

Robyn Henderson

Shaun Tan is a children’s book author and illustrator whose work includes The Arrival, Tales from Outer Suburbia, and The Red Tree, among others. Known for his detailed, fantastical drawings and imaginative worlds, Tan has won awards for his fiction, including a Hugo Award and an Academy Award for the short film adaption of his book, The Lost Thing. The Iowa Review published an excerpt of his recent work, The Singing Bones, a collection of sculptures based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, in the Fall 2015 issue. Tan currently resides in Melbourne, Australia, and recently answered some questions via e-mail about his work and process.

TIR: How did you decide which stories you wanted to sculpt for The Singing Bones?