It creates a mythic quality to the story.

I love that we understand the girl to be the last human and yet we know her story.

Did any of your children read this version of The Bear? If so, what stood out for them? That this type of relationship to reality–this type of belonging–requires a strength. I love you.” Right when I finished The Bear I thought of my five year-old daughter and couldn’t wait for her to read it when she is a bit older.

I love this note to the reader on your website…”And if I were to imagine a specific reader for The Bear, it would be someone who, upon finishing it, sends the novel to her grown child with a note that says, “Always be this strong.

Can you speak to that choice? What were you hoping to communicate?

The interiority of the characters is lacking in the text, but flourishes in the description of landscape and action.

What writers inspired your stylistic choices in The Bear?.

How present is this idea in your shaping of The Bear?

The origin story of The Bear as I understand it is with bedtime stories with your children…it calls to mind to me the legacy of storytelling, to pass on history, wisdom, morals, and virtues across generations in the container of a story.

When a person new to your work asks you for a thumbnail sketch of your latest work, The Bear, how do you respond?.When you hear the word “contemplative”, how does that moniker relate to you or your work?.You wrote me in response to my invitation to be on the podcast and this sentence stuck out, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the examined life these days, not just as a contemplative endeavor, but even more broadly as the pursuits we take on over the years that shape the imagination, especially literature, poetry, and philosophy.” Can you further unpack that, tell me about that shaping of the imagination and the examined life?.

The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak