I met Mary Miller last fall at the Lost in the Letters Festival in Atlanta. I’d made a point of seeing her read* because my friend Alex Gallo-Brown had told me she was one of his favorite writers. When I’d heard Mary was from Mississippi like me, I’d been doubly intrigued.
I interviewed Mary for the Nervous Breakdown about her novel, the Last Days of California, which follows a fundamentalist Christian family racing the rapture to California. We discussed fantasizing about fundamentalism, writing realistically about teenage sex, and why Miller can’t quit Mississippi, among other things.
*Scott McClanahan also read that night and Roxane Gay gave a craft talk- triple score!