Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

This week at The Paris Review, we’re thinking about duplicity, about scam artists and liars, about cheating in all forms. Read on for Nathaniel Rich’s 2006 interview with Laura Albert, the woman behind the JT LeRoy hoax; Uzodinma Iweala’s short story “Speak No Evil”; and Alan Davies’s poem “Lies.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.

Being JT LeRoy
By Nathaniel Rich
Issue no. 178 (Fall 2006)

INTERVIEWER

When you were writing, did you feel JT take over in the same way as when you were talking? Did you feel that JT was writing?

ALBERT

No, when I wrote I felt more like it was me trying to craft a story. He’d tell the story and I was the secretary who would take it down and say, OK, thank you, now I’m going to try to turn it into craft. But while I wouldn’t sit there and think of myself as JT, as long as I was writing I didn’t have to be Laura either.

Read More

Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

William Styron.

This week at The Paris Review, we’re celebrating the release of our latest issue with selections from Fall 2019 contributors who have previously appeared in the magazine. Read on for William Styron’s 1999 Art of Fiction interview, Diane Williams’s short story “O Fortuna, Velut Luna,” and Kevin Prufer’s poem “The Adulterer.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.

William Styron, The Art of Fiction No. 156
Issue no. 150 (Spring 1999)

There have been certain scenes in all my works that came to me with such mysterious ease—with the sense of being preordained—that I can only attribute them to the same powerful subconscious process.

Read More

Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

This week at The Paris Review, we’re going back to school. Read on for Elizabeth Bishop’s Art of Poetry interview, Ottessa Moshfegh’s short story “Bettering Myself,” and Melanie Rehak’s poem “Self-Portrait as the Liberal Arts.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door.

Elizabeth Bishop, The Art of Poetry No. 27
Issue no. 80 (Summer 1981)

The word creative drives me crazy. I don’t like to regard it as therapy … It’s true, children sometimes write wonderful things, paint wonderful pictures, but I think they should be discouraged. From everything I’ve read and heard, the number of students in English departments taking literature courses has been falling off enormously. But at the same time the number of people who want to get in the writing classes seems to get bigger and bigger.

Read More

Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

Don DeLillo, ca. 2011. Photo: Thousandrobots.

This week at The Paris Review, we’re celebrating that most late-August phenomenon: humidity, and the ensuing sweat. Read on for Don DeLillo’s Art of Fiction interview, Sheila Kohler’s short story “Cracks,” and Andrew Klavan’s poem “The Pond.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to The Paris Review and read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. Read More

Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

Arthur Miller.

This week, we’re perusing our summer-vacation reads. Read on for Arthur Miller’s Art of Theater interview, J. Jezewska Stevens’s short story “Honeymoon,” and Jacqueline Osherow’s poem “Eight Months Pregnant in July, High Noon, Segesta.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. Read More

Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter.

Jorge Semprún.

This week, The Paris Review is celebrating the simple joys of bicycling. Read on for Jorge Semprún’s Art of Fiction interview, as well as Paulé Bártón’s short story “The Woe Shirt” and Carol Muske-Dukes’s poem “No Hands.”

If you enjoy these free interviews, stories, and poems, why not subscribe to read the entire archive? You’ll also get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. Read More