Abstract
Jonis Agee is a poet, fiction writer, and professor of English. She earned her PhD in English and Creative Writing from Binghamton University and can claim three of her published titles as New York Times Notable Books. She begins the interview by reading the short story “Listen”, from her collection A .38 Special and a Broken Heart. Agee goes on to discuss how she’d wanted to be a writer from a very young age, but only started writing poetry during her undergraduate studies, and then fiction when she was in her early 30’s. The interview continues with a conversation about the plot, characters and controversy within her first novel, Sweet Eyes, and within her second novel, Strange Angels, and discusses how western culture, and specifically country music and western movies, influenced her novels. Agee ends the interview by reading the short story “Asparagus.”
