On The Road with Helen Simpson By Craig Morgan Teicher - 05/29/2007
British short story writer Helen Simpson lives in London. Knopf published her newest collection, In The Driver’s Seat, on this side of the pond. PW talked to Simpson just as she’d arrived on the West Coast of the U.S. for the first time in her life, and talked to her about the Red Sox, "the autobiographical question," and an unlikely boom industry in the U.K. More
An Age Like Our Own by Leonard Picker - 09/01/2008
Maitland follows her acclaimed first novel, The White Room, which drew on her experiences in Nigeria and Belfast, with Company of Liars (Reviews, Aug. 25), set in England during the Black Plague. What led to your interest in medieval England? It was the medieval wall paintings of mythical creatures mixed up with depictions of everyday life, such as angels changing the Christ child’s diape...
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Road Tripping with Miriam Toews by Claire Kirch - 09/01/2008
It seems only fitting that Miriam Toews would drive more than two hours down I-29 from her home in Winnipeg to Grand Forks, N.Dak., to talk up her fourth novel. Aside from the fact that she “loves being on the road more than anything” (she and her three children with husband Neal Rempel often accompanied him on “these long, elaborate, eventful road trips” as he traveled ...
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Girls and Guns by Jordan Foster - 08/25/2008
In Third Strike (Reviews, Aug. 11), U.K. crime writer Zoë Sharp's Charlie Fox, an ex-British soldier turned bodyguard, faces her toughest protection assignment yet: her parents. What inspired you to create such an atypical heroine? Charlie came about because she was someone I wanted to read about, a strong, independent character but not “a guy in nylons.
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The Sinbad of Literature by Louisa Ermelino - 08/25/2008
I've been practicing the pronunciation of Dr. Alaa al Aswany's name for weeks now and by the time we're set to meet at the Cairo Hilton, I'm confident I've got it down. He finds me in the lobby, a big, burly, effusive man, who apologizes for being late, the Cairo traffic impossible. I think about eating in some out-of-the-way foul and falafel joint, but we end up in the hotel's French restauran...
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Short-Order Author by Lynn Andriani - 08/18/2008
Curmudgeonly chef Kenny Shopsin talked about his book, Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin (Reviews, July 21), between shifts at his New York restaurant, Shopsin's General Store. You talk about “the art of staying small” and say you have no desire to oversee a Shopsin's restaurant empire or endorse a line of cookware.
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Investigating Heaven and Hell by Charlene Brusso - 08/18/2008
In The Shadow Pavilion (Reviews, Aug. 4), the fourth urban fantasy-mystery featuring unflappable Detective Inspector Wei Chen, British fantasist Liz Williams blends Chinese folklore, near-future technology and elements of classic police procedurals. What inspired you to create these fanciful settings and characters? It came about from a visit to Hong Kong.
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The Ayatollah Begs to Differ by Parul Sehgal - 08/11/2008
Majd, grandson of an ayatollah and translator for presidents Khatami and Ahmadinejad, plunges into the heart of modern Iran in The Ayatollah Begs to Differ (Reviews, July 21) You translate for Ahmadinejad on occasion. How do you get along with him? Ahmadinejad wants to give the impression to anybody he meets that he is really, particularly Iranian.
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