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31 Posts

Authors / Interviews

Deep Cuts—Larry Watson's Let Him Go

Bailey Hutchinson — 11/11/2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts. In this series, we dive in with some of our authors and discuss the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books.

We’re all about transformative literature here at Milkweed—y’all know that—but this month we got to see a slightly different kind of transformation: Larry Watson’s Let Him Go, a novel we originally published in 2007, transformed into a Focus Features film. What sorts of changes happen between page and screen? How might an author feel seeing a character they wrote find life (literally) in an actor…

Authors / Interviews / Watch & Listen

Deep Cuts: Screen Smiles and World of Wonders

Bailey Hutchinson — 09/28/2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts! In this series, we dive in with some of our authors and discuss the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books. We’re doing things a smidge differently this month—in a moment, I’ll hand the mic over fully to Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who will take us on an audiovisual tour of some favorite featured friends from her new essay collection, World of Wonders.  

But let me gush for just a sec: I admire World of Wonders so much. By moving through the world with an eye…

Authors / Interviews

Deep Cuts—Allison Adair's The Clearing

Bailey Hutchinson — 07/02/2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts. In this series, we’ll be diving in with some of our authors and discussing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books. This time around, I am beyond thrilled to be in conversation with the winner of the 2020 Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, Allison Adair.

Her recently-released poetry collection, The Clearing, is a hypnotic exercise in tangible language that verbs us through reflections on motherhood, on imagination, on desire, on flora and fauna, and more. Her poems ask readers to consider how close language…

Authors / Interviews / Watch & Listen / Poetry & Migration

Deep Cuts: Voice in a Time of Distance

Bailey Hutchinson — 04/09/2020

Hello, friends, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts. In this series, we’ll be diving in with some of our authors and discussing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their books. Oh, and real quick: this is Bailey Hutchinson, and I’m honored to be taking up the curatorial mantle for Julian Randall, the inaugural Milkweed Fellow, who created this series.

Friends, I’m feeling strange, and that’s in no small part because I’ve been alone in my apartment for over three weeks. It’s likely many of you find yourselves in a similar situation: self-isolation, while…

Authors / Editors / Interviews

Deep Cuts—The Making of an Anthology with Erin Sharkey

Julian Randall — 02/19/2020

Hello Milkweed True Believers and Happy February! For this month’s Deep Cuts series we have a special treat for you in the form of a new interview with future Milkweed author and co-founder of the Free Black Dirt collective, Erin Sharkey! This month we take an in-depth look at a forthcoming anthology of Black archival writing as relates to the history of slavery and freedom and migration for Black life here in Minnesota and in the wider country, how we reckon with what she deftly calls “the politics of nature.” It was an honor to sit a spell with Erin’s enormous vision for Blackness, history, the future, and what this anthology can and should mean to us, to all of us!

Authors / Interviews

Deep Cuts—Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo’s Letters from Max: A Poet, A Teacher, A Friendship

Julian Randall — 11/27/2019

Happy December fellow readers, and welcome to another edition of Deep Cuts! In this series I have the privilege of diving in with the author of a compelling Milkweed title and discussing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their book.

This month, we’re highlighting Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo’s collaborative book, Letters from Max: A Poet, A Teacher, A Friendship, which we released in paperback in September. We know this book has had an enormous impact on readers’ lives. Spanning four years of Sarah’s and Max’s lives, Letters from Max explores illness, art, spirituality…

Authors / Editors / Interviews

5 Reasons to Teach This Book—Hearth: A Global Conversation on Community, Identity and Place

Julian Randall — 11/15/2019

Welcome to our second installment of 5 Reasons to Teach This Book! In this new interview series, I’ll be investigating and straight-up admiring some of Milkweed’s titles via conversations with educators, authors and booksellers. Through this dialogue, we’ll expose the nuts-and-bolts of anthology curation and highlight some exciting pedagogical takes that will make your students want to steal this book from you. This month we are featuring Hearth: A Global Conversation on Community, Identity and Place, an anthology co-edited by Susan O’Connor and Annick Smith that we published in paperback this August.

Hearth’s table of contents boasts…

Authors / Interviews / Poetry & Migration

Deep Cuts—Rick Barot's The Galleons

Julian Randall — 10/25/2019

Happy October Milkweed fans and friends! I’d like to introduce the second blog series that I will be curating this year, which we are calling Deep Cuts! In this series I have the privilege of diving in with the author of a compelling Milkweed title and discussing the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the composition and production of their book.

This month, I interviewed the inimitable Rick Barot around his collection of poems The Galleons, forthcoming February 2020. At once intimate and historical, The Galleons articulates both loss and life with always impeccable precision. I’ve been a tremendous…

Authors / Editors / Interviews

5 Reasons to Teach This Book—21|19: Contemporary Poets in the Nineteenth Century Archive

Julian Randall — 09/16/2019

Welcome to 5 Reasons to Teach This Book! In this new interview series, I’ll be investigating and straight-up admiring some of Milkweed’s titles via conversations with educators, authors and booksellers. We’ll get down to the nuts-and-bolts of anthologies as well as some exciting pedagogical takes that will make your students want to steal this book from you. While the title of this series is prescriptive, we hope that your engagement with the dialogue is organic and that you find entry points into the texts that align with your goals as a teacher, reader, writer, or literary advocate.

As the…