Interviews, Profiles, Reviews, etc.
From Wall Street to the Writer’s Life: an Interview with Bloom Literary Magazine
Leah De Forest and I discuss the transition from a life in finance to a life of letters. Insecurity! Discipline! The life of art and claiming the artist’s identity. Also dogs.
The Story of Making Art: an Interview with A Public Space
I discuss narrative ekphrasis, Toni Morrison’s sentences, the exclamation point, W. G. Sebald’s structures, the pioneers of portraiture (in painting, that is), and more with Brigid Hughes at A Public Space.
Story: Our Conversation with Anne Elliott
Story’s Sarah Hume and I discuss staying motivated, the writer’s community, subversive portraiture, the invisibility of middle age (as a superpower), COVID in fiction and real life, representation and lack thereof, and philosophies of submitting work.
Kennebec Journal: Bushnell on Books
Kennebec Journal / Central Maine Morning Sentinal’s William Bushnell reviews The Artstars: “The stories are all connected with at least one character or event appearing in one story showing up in the next, a thread that links the themes together in a most satisfying manner…These stories are somber, sad and a bit depressing, portraying a variety of artist characters dragging the heavy baggage of personal and professional disappointment…”
Portland Press Herald: How far will artists go to live the creative life?
Nell Beram reviews The Artstars: “That Elliott has based her stories largely in New York City either on the cusp of the year 2000 or just after 9/11 seems exactly right: Her cast surely remembers the art boom of the 1980s and the ensuing bust, and the encroaching millennium and the terrorist attacks are further reminders to her characters that they may not have all the time in the world to make their marks.”
Portland Press Herald: What Maine Writers Read When They Need the Comfort of a Good Book
In time of quarantine due to COVID-19, Maine writers share their comfort books: Richard Russo, Charlotte Agell, Jaed Coffin, Lily King, Samara Cole Doyon, and Anne Elliott.
Anne’s selection is Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, which is a hybrid of memoir and how-to, drawing on Goldberg’s practices of Zen and writing.
Story366
Michael Czyzniejewsi weathers the flu to review “Light Streaming from a Horse’s Ass,” the opening story of The Artstars. Buick-chinned actors, trapeze artists, fruitcake and sausage, and horse adoption on the border between Brooklyn and Queens.
Artstars as Ordinary People
Blogger/poet/novelist Martha Mims reviews The Artstars: “By describing the actions of the main character to the main character, she managed to convey admiration. The narrator is asserting that the process of creating and living with oneself and others is of interest, and might even matter.”
JMWW: We Are All Made of Stars: An Interview with Anne Elliott (by Jen Michalski)
Jen Michalski and I talk about structuring short fiction collections, narrative responsibility, and the evolution of the writing life since we first started out.
Midlife Metamorphosis Podcast
Gennette Detwiler and I talk about big change moments in my midlife, including my decision to leave the finance industry, my decision to move to Maine, going back to creative writing school, and the publication of my first book.
Speaking of Marvels: Interviews About Chapbooks, Novellas, and Books of Assorted Lengths
I talk with William Woolfitt about my favorite novellas, the birth of my novella The Beginning of the End of the Beginning, and ways to get unstuck at the writing desk.
Cat Editors: Anne Elliott and Angus, Ava & Antonio
I talk with Midge Raymond at Ashland Creek Press about the cats, indoors and out, who provide editorial and inspirational help for my fiction.
r.kv.r.y Journal: An Interview with Anne Elliott
I talk with Mary Akers at r.kv.r.y. about the quotidian elements post-terrorism, the impatience of the everyday, the main universal trick of fiction writing, and the blur of visual art and writing.
Short Stories All the Time
Short story blogger Ann Graham reacts to The Beginning of the End of the Beginning: Billy Goats Gruff, corporate art, questioning authority, and being a product of the thing you are questioning.