Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Caleb Azumah Nelson: “The confrontation with myself enabled me to find a brief freedom.”

By Mary Wang April 23, 2021

The author guides us through the tapestry of Black art, music, cinema, and literature that animates his debut novel, Open Water.

Miscellaneous Files Interview

Elizabeth Lo: “Like the dogs, I existed in a limbo where I wasn’t entirely part of human society.”

By Mary Wang March 5, 2021

The director of Stray talks about shooting a film from a dog’s point of view, and what we can learn from de-centering the human gaze.

Miscellaneous Files Interview

Hilton Als: “It’s always so moving to see how art claims us out of a kind of loneliness.”

By Mary Wang November 12, 2020

Using a selection of his favorite cinema excerpts, writer and critic Hilton Als talks about what happens when artists tell the truth.

Fashion in Isolation Commentary Arts & Culture

Fashion in Isolation

By Mary Wang June 22, 2020

Considering the sentimental, contradictory, and inescapable relationships we have with what we wear.

Miscellaneous Files Interview

Miscellaneous Files From Racial Justice Activists Around the World

By Mary Wang June 19, 2020

Sylvana Simons, Rosebell Kagumire, and Amanda Adé use their tweets, screenshots, and Instagram videos to discuss how a time of momentous change has transformed their work.

Miscellaneous Files Interview

Miscellaneous Files From Racial Justice Activists in the US

By Mary Wang June 19, 2020

Cat Brooks and Eric Ward use screenshots of Zoom-meetings, resource manuals, and policy proposals to discuss how this time of momentous change has transformed their activism.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Ken Liu: “We get to define the stories we want to be told about us.”

By Mary Wang May 28, 2020

Using photos of his text editors, mapmaking software, and 3D-printed prototypes, the writer talks about technology, myth, and telling stories during a pandemic.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Namwali Serpell: “I almost always find my errors productive.”

By Mary Wang January 21, 2020

Using archival photos, excerpts from language courses, and eBay finds, the author and critic explains how she mines mistakes for discoveries.

SIMA docs Video AmericasEducation

SIMA Docs: Marie’s Dictionary

By Mary Wang September 6, 2019

Marie Wilcox is the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni, one of the roughly 130 endangered Native languages in the United States. This documentary follows her efforts to keep her mother tongue alive.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Helen Phillips: “Living with the awareness of the abyss is probably a good thing.”

By Mary Wang July 19, 2019

The writer discusses why motherhood lends itself perfectly for speculative fiction—and the album that helped her during writing and labor.

Miscellaneous Files Interview

Binnie Kirshenbaum: “If you think you shouldn’t say something, say it.”

By Mary Wang May 13, 2019

Writer Binnie Kirshenbaum shares the drafts of her latest novel, Rabbits for Food, and talks to us about writing unreasonable characters.

SIMA docs Video USA

Presented by SIMA: Hotel USA

By Mary Wang May 6, 2019

This intimate documentary follows a group of refugees as they spend their first night in the United States in a New Jersey roadside motel. Watch here.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Leanne Shapton: “The mix of proof, shock, and totally crappy images.”

By Mary Wang April 12, 2019

Writer and illustrator Leanne Shapton gives us a tour through her studio and shows us her mock layouts, her collection of ghost stories, and the pile of scrapbooks she found on Etsy.

SIMA docs Video Climate & Environment

Presented by SIMA: Sanctuaries of Silence

By Mary Wang April 1, 2019

This virtual reality documentary follows an acoustic ecologist's journey to document noise pollution in one of the quietest places in North America. Watch it here.

SIMA docs Video AmericasClimate & Environment

Presented by SIMA: The Super Salmon

By Mary Wang February 15, 2019

Watch the gorgeously-shot, deliriously-paced documentary that follows an Alaskan salmon on an unlikely journey on "the Mount Everest of rivers," as residents consider the costs and benefits of a mega-dam.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Valeria Luiselli: “There are always fingerprints of the archive in my books.”

By Mary Wang February 12, 2019

The writer opens her archives to reveal maps, recordings, and questionnaires that have fueled her work—including photos that didn’t make it into her new novel.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Anelise Chen: “Then I changed it to third-person clam, and that was exactly how it was meant to be.”

By Mary Wang January 18, 2019

The writer shares a collection of digital fragments that have shaped her practice, including an image depicting cycling exercises, a photo of Kafka’s diaries, and a video of her mother’s first time seeing snow.

SIMA docs Video Justice

Presented by SIMA: The Walls

By Mary Wang December 21, 2018

Watch this month's documentary, in which a prison debate team joins forces with college students to discuss gun control, even though some inmates have landed there precisely for firearm-related crimes.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Jabari Asim: “Narrative can be a form of resistance.”

By Mary Wang December 10, 2018

The writer Jabari Asim on stories as instruments of power, how he places himself in the lineage of African American literature, and how writers of color should navigate an onerous publishing landscape.

SIMA docs Video

SIMA Docs

By Mary Wang November 16, 2018

Our new documentary series, presented by SIMA.

SIMA docs Video

Presented by SIMA: Noise Runs

By Mary Wang November 7, 2018

In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, a group of young Haitians produces a radical newspaper to democratize information and offer hope to the population.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Lit World

Ottessa Moshfegh: “Sentimentality is a curse.”

By Mary Wang November 6, 2018

The writer Ottessa Moshfegh on the line between sensitivity and sentimentality, the universal experience of sadness, and the influence of Nirvana.

Miscellaneous Files Interview Arts & CultureLit World

Olivia Laing: “It turned out to be an exercise in structure, in how to assemble objects in empty space.”

By Mary Wang October 4, 2018

In the first installment of our multimedia interview series, Olivia Laing uses screenshots to explain how the secretarial parts of writing can be both pleasurable and productive.

Miscellaneous Files Art

Miscellaneous Files

By Mary Wang October 4, 2018

Our multimedia interview series.