Carvell Wallace on Changing Perspective

HydraGT12 hours ago

0 4 1 minute read

This is Thresholds, a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down, disoriented them in their lives, changed them, and changed how and why they wanted to write. Hosted by Jordan Kisner, author of the essay collection Thin Places. Thresholds is a co-production between Black Mountain Institute and Literary Hub

This week, Jordan sits down to talk with Maya Binyam, author of the novel Hangman, about a near-drowning that changed her life.

Maya Binyam: The room that we were staying in which initially had seemed so fantastic –I remember taking pictures of the room when we got there, I couldn’t believe how amazing it was– and then sleeping in that room in the nights that followed, it felt horrifying. When I was in the bed, there was an illusion that the ocean was all around you. The sound of the waves that had initially seemed so calming were suddenly the soundtrack to an ongoing nightmare.

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Maya Binyam is the author of Hangman, which was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and the Dublin Literary Award. She is the recipient of the 2025 Bard Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere. She is an advisory editor of the Paris Review.

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For more Thresholds, visit us at thisisthresholds.com. Original music by Lora-Faye Åshuvud.

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HydraGT12 hours ago

0 4 1 minute read