Interviews We Published or Which We Recommend
E.B. White: "I hate interviews and do not regard them as a sensible form of activity or a means of enlightenment." Clarion, too, dislikes it— it being the preening flattery which is so often the main stuff of a magazine interview. We hope we do alright by our own interviews, in which our contributors chat with authors and creators in pursuit of greater insight into their aesthetic preferences, writing processes and influences, and so on.
Exemplary interviews in other venues
Vladimir Nabokov: "In these circumstances nobody should ask me to submit to an interview if by "interview" a chat between two normal human beings is implied. It has been tried at least twice in the old days, and once a recording machine was present, and when the tape was rerun and I had finished laughing, I knew that never in my life would I repeat that sort of performance. Nowadays I take every precaution to ensure a dignified beat of the mandarin's fan. The interviewer's questions have to be sent to me in writing, answered by me in writing, and reproduced verbatim. Such are the three absolute conditions."
- Susan Salter Reynolds and Willie Osterweil, in conversation (The New Inquiry, 2012)
- Tim Powers, secret historian, interviewed by Mitch Wagner (2014)
- E. C. Osondu and William Pierce in conversation (2016)
- Saul Bellow and Keith Botsford interviewed by Elon Green (2000)
- Nina Simone interviewed by Lilian Terry (1968)
- Rod Serling interviewed by Mike Wallace (60 Minutes, 1959)
- Rod Serling interviewed by Binny Lum (animated by PBS; 1963/2016)
- Alan Moore interviewed by John Higgs (2015; h/t BoingBoing)
- B. R. Myers interviewed by Sage Stossel (The Atlantic, 2002; see also this essay by Myers attacking "the growing pretentiousness of American literary prose")
- Lauren Groff interviewed by Lauren Groff (Gawker, 2015)
- Daniel Handler (known also as Lemony Snicket) interviewed by Mary Dery (BoingBoing, 2015)
- E. B. White interviewed by George Plimpton & Frank H. Crowther (The Paris Review, 1969)
- Jim Woodring interviewed by Daniel Robert Epstein (Suicide Girls, 2005)
- Jack White interviewed by Conan O'Brien (Serious Jibber-Jabber, 2013)
- David Ferry interviewed by Tess Taylor (Poetry Foundation, 2011)
- Sven Birtkets interviewed by himself, on the occasion of his having just read There Is Simply Too Much to Think About: Collected Nonfiction by Saul Bellow (LARB, 2015)
See also...
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