I first came to Katharine Coldiron’s work on the pages of LARB, where I quickly fell in love with her critical eye. She is the kind of analytical writer I wish I could be: searingly sharp in observation, deeply persuasive in an inconspicuous way, and also incredibly funny. It was only sometime later I came to her fiction and began to understand that these techniques are the foundation of all her work. Coldiron writes about human failure and human strangeness and human longing in ways that ask us to pay closer attention. Her critical-creative oeuvre disturbs the status quo not just through unconventional plot turns and lines of argumentation, but also through exquisitely rendered detail that estranges us to what we thought we already knew and understood.

I first met Katharine Coldiron when she conducted a brief interview with me. Since then, our paths have crossed at conferences, and is our punishment for living in a modern age, social media. Since our introduction, I’ve grown to know Coldiron as a skilled writer and critic who is capable of moving between genres and styles with savvy flair and cutting edges. Her book Cerimonials is a breathtaking lyric novella following two young lovers with style and bite. Her books on film, Junk Film and Plan 9 from Outer Space are clever and offer smart insights. With her latest book, Wire Mothers, Coldiron presents us with a handful of tightly written short stories probing bad things—bad parents, bad choices, and bad feelings. As I’ve done with all of Coldiron’s writing, I read the collection in what felt like a heartbeat. Coldiron was kind enough to take a few moments from her busy schedule to chat about craft, broken things, and the homes we can’t seem to shake.