Search Results for: interview

Taking the Slow Road: An Interview with Author Katherine Heiny

Longreads Pick

She published a short story in The New Yorker in 1992, then seemed to all but disappear. How author Katherine Heiny took her sweet time on the path toward publishing her new story collection.

Source: Longreads
Published: Feb 3, 2015
Length: 14 minutes (3,683 words)

Taking the Slow Road: An Interview with Author Katherine Heiny

Photo by Leila Barbaro

Sari Botton | Longreads | February 2015 | 14 minutes (3,683 words)

 

 

Ed. note: Katherine Heiny will be in conversation with Sari Botton at McNally Jackson in New York on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 7 p.m.

* * *

In the fall of 1992, I found myself very much affected by “How to Give the Wrong Impression,” a short story in the September 21 issue of The New Yorker about a twentysomething psych grad student who’s trying hard to seem satisfied keeping things platonic between her and her handsome roommate.

To begin with, I had a lot in common with the protagonist, more than I’d have wanted to admit at the time. I was in my twenties, too—27 to be exact—newly divorced from the second person I’d ever so much as dated, and most importantly, I was very busy trying to seem satisfied keeping things platonic with a rakish “friend.” I didn’t just recognize that young woman, I was her at that moment in my life. Read more…

Finding Stories in Familiar Territory: An Interview With Miranda July

Longreads Pick

We spoke recently by phone about her relationship with her characters, the evolution of her work, and where her novel came from.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jan 22, 2015
Length: 14 minutes (3,540 words)

Finding Stories in Familiar Territory: An Interview With Miranda July

Photo: Todd Cole

Jessica Gross | Longreads | January 2015 | 14 minutes (3,540 words)

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Miranda July’s films, sculptures, books, and performance art pieces share not only a very particular, off-kilter aesthetic, but also a deep concern with human connection. An example of this can be found in her 2011 film, The Future, in which a couple navigates their relationships with each other, with their soon-to-be-adopted cat, and with their individual selves. July procrastinated on writing the film by visiting and interviewing people who’d listed items in the Pennysaver. That detour facilitated the screenwriting process—The Future ended up featuring one of the sellers she’d met—and formed the basis of another project, the book It Chooses You. July’s new app, Somebody, approaches human connection from a different angle: It delivers text messages to their intended recipients via the nearest Somebody-using stranger.

July’s debut novel, The First Bad Man, centers on Cheryl, a forty-something woman hampered by compulsive thoughts and behaviors, a psychosomatic throat condition, and loneliness. She lusts after a man she’s met through work, and is constantly visited by the soul of a baby she had a strong connection with in childhood. Cheryl lives alone—until Clee, her boss’s blond, curvy daughter, comes to stay. Their relationship enters violent and erotic terrain, and rearranges Cheryl’s literal and internal worlds. We spoke recently by phone about her relationship with her characters, the evolution of her work, and where her novel came from. Read more…

Interview: Motown’s Chief Engineer

Longreads Pick

Russ Terrana, who worked on songs like The Jackson 5’s “ABC” and Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours,” reflects on what made Berry Gordy’s music label such a creative force.

Author: Rob Bisel
Source: Tape Op
Published: Jan 19, 2015
Length: 19 minutes (4,797 words)

Interview: Former ‘Matilda’ Star Mara Wilson on Leaving Hollywood and Becoming a Writer

Longreads Pick

“It’s very hard to be a perfectionist growing up in the film world. It reinforces all of your worst fears about perfection and doing things right.”

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 26, 2014
Length: 15 minutes (3,798 words)

Interview: Former ‘Matilda’ Star Mara Wilson on Leaving Hollywood and Becoming a Writer

Adele Oliveira | Longreads | Nov. 2014 | 15 minutes (3,798 words)

In 1994, when she was seven years old, Mara Wilson appeared on The Today Show with Katie Couric to promote a remake of Miracle on 34th Street, in which she starred.

Right away, it’s easy to see why Wilson, who’s also known for her work in Mrs. Doubtfire and Matilda, is a successful and endearing child actor. She wears a red-checked gingham shirt underneath a wooly red cardigan, and her feet stick straight off the armchair on which she sits, too short to reach the ground. Wilson is missing teeth, and despite lisping, her diction is perfect and she’s polite and sincere with Couric, who mispronounces Wilson’s first name. Couric asks Wilson if she’d like to be like Natalie Wood someday—Wood played Wilson’s role in the original 1947 version of Miracle on 34th Street. Wood started acting as a child, and in Couric’s words, grew up to be “a very famous, well-known, talented actress.”

Wilson hesitates, and you can see her thinking as she wrinkles her nose. “I don’t know,” she shrugs. “I might not want to be an actress all of my life.” Wilson says she wants to be a “script writer” and that while she hasn’t yet written down any of her stories, “I have a lot of them in my head.”

Read more…

It’s Time to Stop Saying ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’: Interview with Jonestown Author Julia Scheeres

Longreads Pick

“As you’d imagine, the phrase offends survivors. It reduces a mass tragedy to the level of banality. Jonestown residents didn’t willingly drink poison—they were forced to do so. Jones gave them a choice: drink cyanide or be shot to death by armed guards. Living was not an alternative.”

Source: Longreads
Published: Nov 18, 2014
Length: 5 minutes (1,350 words)

It’s Time to Stop Saying ‘Drink the Kool-Aid’: Interview with Jonestown Author Julia Scheeres

Children in Jonestown

Mark Armstrong | Longreads | November 18, 2014 | 5 minutes (1,301 words)

 
Thirty-six years ago, on Nov. 18, 1978, a charismatic preacher from San Francisco named Jim Jones led his followers into one of the most horrific massacres in American history. More than 900 people—including 303 children—were slaughtered, in a place called Jonestown. It was a community first built as a socialist utopia for parishioners from the Peoples Temple. But Jones had other plans, planting the seeds of “revolutionary suicide” that ended with mass cyanide poisoning.

I spoke with Julia Scheeres, author of the book A Thousand Lives and our latest Longreads Exclusive, “Escape from Jonestown,” about the newly public home movies from inside and how the phrase “drink the Kool-Aid” became a terrible reminder for its survivors. Read more…

Interview: Dionne Osborne, the Vocal Coach Who Changed Drake’s Style

Longreads Pick

Osborne, who’s been working with Drake for more than four years, on what it’s like to work with the star—and what it takes to properly care for one’s voice while on tour.

Source: Jezebel
Published: Nov 18, 2014
Length: 19 minutes (4,814 words)