Michael Colbert loves horror films (his favorites are Candyman and Silence of the Lambs) and coffee (his favorites are Ethiopian and Costa Rican). He’s an MFA candidate in fiction at UNC Wilmington, and his writing appears or is forthcoming in Gulf Coast, Atlas Obscura, and Barrelhouse, among others.
Eckleburg: What captures your interest most in your work, now, as a reader of your work?
Michael Colbert: I love stories about rabbit holes where the character’s obsession starts to influence the storytelling, stories that really believe in what worries their protagonists.
Eckleburg: What are you working on now?
Michael Colbert: Currently, I’m at work on a novel about two friends who, during a summer working at a coffee shop, fall into overlapping love and friendship triangles. In terms of nonfiction, I’m interested in writing about pop culture and horror film, and I have an essay coming out soon about Lizzie Borden.
Eckleburg: Who and what are your artistic influences?
Michael Colbert: My favorite writers are Laura van den Berg, Jia Tolentino, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Jeffrey Eugenides. I think a lot about Trick Mirror and Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams; I love nonfiction that really digs into an idea and mucks around in it. I find inspiration in film as well. The aesthetics and storytelling of The Favourite have been on my mind for a long time, and I watch a lot of horror films. I’m interested in writing that straddles literary and speculative genres, like the work of Carmen Maria Machado and Lesley Nneka Arimah.
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