On the podcast, Diverse Voices Book Review, host Hopeton Hay interviews me about The Geography of First Kisses. Our conversation touched on the stories’ themes of love and belonging, fabulist whispers, fact infused into fiction, and how long certain stories take to write. Hopeton and I have known each other since high school in New Orleans, and it’s clear that we both still have a great appreciation for literature. I always love speaking with Hopeton, and I loved this interview! Listen here!
Interviews, an Excerpt, & If My Book!
THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES had a wild arrival into the world on Tuesday, April 11th. Twice-times interviews—one with Deborah Kalb in her Q&A series and another with Ramona Reeves in Bloom—plus an excerpt from the collection’s story “We Are Here Because of A Horse” featured in Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and an appearance in the Monkeybicycle series “If My Book.”
Find out more about the collection from these conversations and celebrations. Links follow to each and every one!
Deborah Kalb’s Q&A with Karin Cecile Davidson
Ramona Reeves’s Bloom Interview: “Memories Called Me to Write” - with Karin Cecile Davidson
Vol.1 Brooklyn feature: An excerpt of The Geography of First Kisses
Monkeybicycle’s “If My Book” Series: TGFK as a lie, a sweater, a field, a fish!
"Words So Odd & Ordered: An Interview with Karin Cecile Davidson" about her story collection The Geography of First Kisses
Margo Orlando Littell interviews me about THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES in Newfound’s final Issue. Questions arise about place, especially “the gravitational pull” of the South; about the language, images, details in the stories; about themes of wanderlust, recklessness, transformation; about origins, approaches, and “the element of carelessness.” And then answers appear, incorporating structural ideas of Americana and patchwork quilts, and including bits and bobs like tractor parts, tornado weather, a flying pig, backroads, coastlines, constellations, quail calls, abuse, near abandonment, a bodiless baby, lost bread, direction, misdirections, miracles, a child’s perspective, things to come.
In the Spring 2017 Newfound issue, I interviewed Margo about her debut story collection EACH VAGABOND BY NAME, and so it is sad and perfect and full circle for her to interview me about my debut story collection as well. Gratitude for all those interviews and for this one in return, especially since GEOGRAPHY is just one-week away from publication.
UNLEASH LIT Review/Interview of THE GEOGRAPHY OF FIRST KISSES
Many thanks to Ashley Holloway of Unleash Lit for her beautiful review of The Geography of First Kisses and for the chance to think and write about this collection in our interview.
She writes in her review:
”Each of the fourteen stories is uniquely tethered to the geography in such a way the characters almost become an extension of place, taking the reader on a journey through the vast landscapes that make up the United States. Not only does the reader travel through the mind’s eye with each page turned, but this also illustrates the depth, skill, and creativity of the author, highlighting their talent for rich descriptions and evocative language.”
Fierce, Funny, Beautiful Debuts: My Two Final Interviews at Newfound
Chaney Kwak
The Surprise of Survival: An Interview with Chaney Kwak
Chaney Kwak’s compelling and beautiful debut book, The Passenger, (Godine, 2021), flies beyond the classifications of memoir, travel reportage, and marine history to something more intense, wry, and personal. Even the book’s subtitle, “How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship,” might lead one to place the story within a category, but seriously, it’s just not that simple. Kwak’s story of surviving an intense storm at sea off one of Norway’s rockiest coastlines aboard the Viking Sky, a cruise liner carrying nearly 1400 passengers, is one that reaches beyond the fury of 65-meter swells and 75-km winds into the calm, genuine understanding of what is worth living for. “The Passenger” uncovers the surprise of survival and the realization of how life might truly be lived.
Arden Levine
Her Portrait in the Poem: An Interview with Arden Levine
Arden Levine’s debut poetry collection, Ladies’ Abecedary (Small Harbor Publishing, 2021), reveals a stunning and surprising alphabet of women. From A to Z, these are women and girls who walk with wide steps through the world; who descend and ascend mountains thick with snow, stepping-stones and stories in each stride; who sit alone in rooms, reading, ready to be transformed; who swim through a slipstream of unforgettable language. This chapbook may appear a slim volume, its cover curious, beautiful, unsettling, but the pages within reveal a population that is as feminine as it is fierce. To read these poems is to be unearthed from the typical landscapes where women have been placed, to be spun around and sent toward “unruly asphalt gardens” and into the sleep of “a chrysalis curve.”