An online home for the American University Creative Writing MFA community
By Tara Campbell Nnedi Okorafor is a prolific Nigerian-American writer of science-fiction, fantasy and magical realism. With over a dozen books to her credit, and stories in the top sci-fi and fantasy publications around the world, Okorafor is a powerful player in the ever-diversifying world […]
By Amy Trotter In anticipation of her visit to American University’s Visiting Writers Series this Wednesday, Mai Der Vang graciously answered a few questions about her explosive new collection, Afterland, and her involvement in the Hmong writer’s community. AT: Have you been busy […]
By Vince Granata Stephanie Elizondo Griest is the award-winning author of three travel memoirs: Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines; and All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands (2017); as well as the best-selling guidebook […]
By Yohanca Delgado Last Wednesday, we gathered for a cherished AU MFA tradition: an annual faculty reading to benefit the magical 826 DC. Prospective students, current students, alumni, and faculty mingled over wine and cheese before the reading—and few of us could resist the gravitational […]
By Vince Granata In advance of Wednesday’s Visiting Writer event, I had the opportunity to ask Jan Wagner several questions about his new collection of poetry, collaborating with David Keplinger, object studies, the challenge of translation, and dachshunds. Join us on Wednesday to continue the conversation with Wagner […]
By Yohanca Delgado Ahead of tomorrow’s Visiting Writers Event, I had the pleasure of talking on the phone with the charming and gracious Imbolo Mbue about Behold the Dreamers, character development, drafts, and Motorola RZRs. YD: How is all the travel going? Are you working on any […]
By Karan Madhok Behold the Dreamers By Imbolo Mbue 397 pp. Random House. $17 Over a million immigrants a year are granted permanent residence in the United States. They leave behind their families, their homes, their favorite foods, their language, culture, and often, the […]
By Vince Granata I’m not certain I’ve encountered a better description of a magazine than the following: Gargoyle has always been a scallywag magazine, a maverick magazine, a bit too academic for the underground and way too underground for the academics. Gargoyle Magazine, the […]
We don’t know about you, but the staff over here at Café cannot wait to hear Ada Limón read tonight. In preparation for Limón’s visit, editor Yohanca Delgado chatted with her about form, voice, and swimming with Natalie Diaz. CA: You’ve said in […]
By Yohanca Delgado Adrian Nicole LeBlanc’s Random Family is a beautiful, headlong dive into the life of a family in the Bronx from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. LeBlanc immersed herself in the lives of her subjects for eleven years, chronicling the cycles of crime, […]