Leslie Kirk Campbell is the inspiring author of the short fiction collection The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs and the founder of Ripe Fruit Writing in SF. She emphasizes the importance of one’s identity, freedom, and self will through her own personal experiences across her various works. How would you describe yourself as an author? What inspires your creativity and writing style? (LKC): I fell in love with language when I was 9 years old, the way a dancer falls in love ...

Watch Matthew Schmidt's in-depth video interview with Leslie Kirk Campbell. Their conversation focuses on the revision of the titular story from the collection The Man with Eight Pairs of Legs (Sarabande Books, 2022). Schmidt and Campbell chat about the importance of beginnings, middles, and ends of stories, and more. Enjoy! Interview conducted on 10/19/2022. The Interview Series is a production of the Iowa-based arts and education nonprofit 1-Week Critique (1WC), which provides pedagogical resources and editorial support to students and ...

Interview with Leslie A. Lindsay, self-declared Book Nerd. 1. Without responding in complete sentences, what would you say THE MAN WITH EIGHT PAIRS OF LEGS is about? Leslie Kirk Campbell: *BODIES PHYSICALLY MARKED BY MEMORIES: The way our bodies hold our pasts, visibly – bruises, scars, tattoos – and invisibly over a lifetime, or through generations. How this guides us. How this makes us feel as we sit in a chair or walk down the street. *RISKING EVERYTHING TO ESCAPE THE CARDS ...

Leslie Kirk Campbell, winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction talks about her astounding new collection, THE MAN WITH EIGHT PAIRS OF LEGS, longings, settings, and so much more. I always think that writers are haunted into writing their stories, or looking to write their way into an answer for some questions they have. Was it this way for you? I am a writer richer in ideas than in characters. These ideas often arise from a question that ...