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I cannot tell you how excited I am to have an interview with Nina MacLaughlin up on The Believer Logger today. Nina has been a role model and inspiration to me since I first met her in spring 2015, right before the debut of her memoir, Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter. It was such a pleasure to talk to Nina about her new book Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung, which was published this past fall by FSG Originals. Thank you to Hayden Bennett at The Believer for his edits and for publishing the interview, and thank you to Nina for letting me ask her a million questions and for giving such thoughtful responses. I hope you enjoy reading the interview as much as I enjoyed doing it. Here’s the opening:

“THESE STORIES HAVE BEEN EXISTING IN ME ALL ALONG, LIKE HOW THEY EXIST IN ALL OF US, WHETHER WE KNOW IT OR NOT.”

Nina MacLaughlin and I went to the same high school, but not at the same time. She graduated nine years ahead of me—long enough that we didn’t overlap as students, but short enough that we shared many of the same teachers and experiences. Nina and I speak a common language—that of two people who both grew up in the suburbs of Boston, who both attended a New England prep school, who both studied a dead language, who both have spent their adult lives in Cambridge, who both love books and plants and art, who are both working writers.

Up until recently, Nina and I also had in common the fact that we both only write nonfiction—she is the author of Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter, a memoir about her decision to leave journalism (Nina wrote for The Boston Phoenix for almost a decade) and pursue carpentry. But I arrive at her Cambridge apartment—located on the first floor of an old brick building, a former Harvard dormitory—to chat with Nina not about writing what she calls “true books,” but about another kind of true writing: fiction.

Nina is the author of Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung, a modern retelling of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, published this fall by FSG Originals. Sure, it’s not nonfiction—but what is this book? A short story collection? A series of vignettes? An epic poem? A historical novel? Fan fiction? I arrive at Nina’s flustered from the extraordinarily hot August day—having walked the fifteen minutes to her apartment from my own, because we are neighbors, too—and also from the fact that talking about fiction is out of my usual comfort zone.

I trip on an uneven floorboard in the vestibule of Nina’s building—the same spot where I tripped entering Nina’s place for a housewarming party several years ago—but I catch myself. Nina and I exchange a sweaty hug, and she welcomes me in, offers a ginger beer, and I take a seat on her couch behind a beautiful wooden coffee table, handmade by Nina from a board from her grandmother’s house. Nina arranges herself in a chair across from me, her legs tucked up under a billowing skirt, and I wonder if we are still part of the same world.

—E.B. Bartels

Read the interview with Nina here.

Also, never forget:

Bojack Horseman (season 5).

The post Interview with Nina MacLaughlin on The Believer Logger! appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Diamond J. Sharp is a poet and essayist from Chicago. She has performed at Chicago’s Stage 773 and her work has been featured on Chicago Public Radio. She has been published in the New York Times Magazine, Vice, Pitchfork, Lenny, PANK, The Offing, Fjords, Winter Tangerine, JoINT Literary, Wellesley Review, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, BLACKBERRY and others. Sharp has been an editorial fellow at The Root, a features editor at Rookie, and a staff writer for Laundry Service. Her essay “Friends for Life” and her interview with Margo Jefferson were recently featured in Tavi Gevinson’s anthology Rookie on Love. A Callaloo fellow, Sharp has also attended the Wright/Hurston workshop, and is a member of the inaugural Poetry Foundation Incubator class. She has a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute. Sharp lives in Brooklyn.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Diamond J. Sharp appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Sarah Dickenson Snyder is poet based in Massachusetts and Vermont. She is the author of The Human Contract (Kelsay Books, 2017) and the chapbook Notes From A Nomad (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Snyder’s poetry and prose have appeared in Bloodroot Literary Magazine, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Comstock Review, Damfino Press, Chautauqua, West Trade Review, The Main Street Rag, and Passager, among other magazines and anthologies. In May of 2016, she was a 30/30 Poet for Tupelo Press, and she has been selected to be part of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. In addition to writing poetry, Snyder worked as an English teacher for thirty-seven years.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Sarah Dickenson Snyder appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Three, wrapped in bags, rest —
while their family hikes through ten
thousand torii.

 ———-

Sannomiya, Kobe

The tiniest pups
for sale! Too bad they cost three
hundred-thousand yen.

That’s like $3,000. Dogs are criminally expensive in Japan.

———-

Takeshita Dori, Harajuku, Tokyo

In Harajuku
everyone is so trendy,
even dogs wear shades.

They’re not regular dogs, they’re cool dogs.

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Japan Edition appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Excellent #dogstalking in Cusco.

 ———-

La Esquina Cafe-Bakery, Ollantaytambo

New friend, café dog,
dines with and then escorts us
to the train station.

Her name was Violeta.

———-

Citadel, Machu Picchu

Friendly pack of pups
welcome us to the Incas’
most famous city.

Photo by Janna Herman.

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Peru Edition appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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Melissa Broder is a poet, essayist, and the writer behind the Twitter account @sosadtoday. She has written an essay collection of the same name, So Sad Today (Grand Central, 2016), and four books of poetry: Last Sext (Tin House, 2016), Scarecrone (Publishing Genius Press, 2014), Meat Heart (Publishing Genius Press, 2012), and When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother (Ampersand Books, 2010). Her first novel, The Pisces, will be published by Hogarth/Crown in 2018. You can read a selection of her poetry here. Broder received her BA from Tufts University and her MFA from City College of New York. By day, she is Director of Media and Special Projects at NewHive. She lives in Venice, California.

The post Non-Fiction by Non-Men: Melissa Broder appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Two humans talking
when the small dog sneezes. Man
stops to say: “Bless you.”

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Part 23 appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Giant retriever
crammed into smallest patch of
shade. It’s too damn hot.

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Part 22 appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

People care more for
pit bull than homeless owners:
“Does he need water?”

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Part 21 appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

Your owner holds you,
her teeth clenching a cup, as
she flies on skateboard.

The post Haiku for a Dog I Don’t Know, Part 20 appeared first on E.B. Bartels.