Patricia O’Donnell Four young women make their way through groups of people on spread-out towels and blankets. This is the third day of unusually warm weather for June in Maine, and the beach is crowded. They find a spot close to the water, near the line where the sand is wet, and shake out their beach towels. One woman sits cross-legged on her towel in a flowered sundress. Blond hair wisps out from under a floppy straw hat. ...

Ashleigh Eisinger Jessie stands before me, a circus mirror image of the woman I married ten years earlier. Slight and shriveled, the sight of her furthers my longing for the plump blonde that used to laugh with me, that same woman who would not hesitate to shear off her top and slacks before crawling into bed with me on a Saturday afternoon, would let me stroke her skin until we could take it no longer and gave in to all of our desires —...

Chloe N. Clark He was cast as a minor Elf, the one always at the edge of the frame, running into battle or contemplating grave proclamations. His children tried to find him, point him out with ecstatically jabbing fingers, but they were always wrong. Years later at a bit players’ convention he laughed with extra Munchkins, drank to a forgotten Klingon whose name was lost in credits, and signed a couple of notebook pages hastily ripped...

Chloe N. Clark Sometimes he’d write words on blackboards solely because he liked the way chalk dust softened his fingertips, paled them into some color not quite living. Once he ate earth, accidentally almost, it tasted bitter rich like too dark chocolate drenched in coffee grounds or ash. He never drank flames, though he meant to, after a childhood night at the circus when he watched a fire- eater delight the crowd by never dying a...

The author of "Vinegar Hill" and "Good Things I Wish You" sits down to discuss her life and craft.

Ben Evans sits down for a conversation with one of the greatest novelists of our time.

The prolific London-born writer sits down with Ben to discuss his process, style, and latest collection, It's Beginning To Hurt.