Essays

Published Essays

Fiction Writers Review

An Interview with Joyce Hinnefeld

In Joyce Hinnefeld’s latest short story collection, The Beauty of their Youth (Wolfson Press/Indiana University South Bend), people are haunted by what is not physically present: the past, their youth, clarity, and understanding.

Tor.com

“We Are the Weirdos, Mister: Power, Rage, and Teenage Witches”

“They were representations of female power [...] but they were also cautionary tales about having the gall to think you could wield power without being punished."

Crime Reads

“A Gothic Education, or: How I Learned to Love the Dark”

"Books were the first place I could safely indulge my curiosity, plumb the depths of sensation and madness and even look death in the face."

ALA Conference, 2015

“The Books of My Youth”

“I am a reader. I’m a writer, too, but I came to writing, as Eudora Welty said, “out of a superior devotion to reading.” I don’t remember ever discovering reading; it was always just there, a love fully-formed, something I was lucky enough to be born with."

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The Toast

“Becoming Jessica Fletcher”

“In my mid-twenties I started to joke about it. I told people I wanted to grow up to be Jessica Fletcher..."

Necessary Fiction

“Write What You Remember”

“This book has managed something altogether magical: it has reached into my world at the exact moment I reached into it..."

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Boston Book Festival Blog

"Boston Stories"

“When I came to Boston in 2003, you needed tokens to ride the T.”

Necessary Fiction

“The Uglier the Ugly Stage”

“Revision is an archeological dig and a treasure hunt; it’s the part of the craft where discoveries are made, where the creation has the most potential to surprise its creator...”

Pleiades

“Practical Revision Tools”

“Revision was the first time I took my own work seriously, because I could see just how unserious it was...”

Largehearted Boy

“Book Notes: Bellweather Rhapsody”

“Begin and end with Bjork: that's my motto.”