In our lead interview JW McCormack engages Brian Evenson, whose work has variously been described as belonging to the genres of ‘weird’, ‘dark’, and even ‘literary’ fiction, in a conversation on such topics as ‘solipsism, disembodied heartbeats, religious apostasy and the unspeakable’ We soon learn that his work is, like The White Review, ‘more interested in how we think about narrative than in residing in any one genre’ Considering how one creative discipline might inflect another, Kristin Posehn describes the intervention into two characters’ lives of a sculpture by Charles Ray in ‘Boy with Frog’ We’re also pleased to present ‘No Holds Barred’ by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated by Brian Hagenbuch, which exemplifies the Guatemalan writer’s ability to weave social commentary, domestic drama, and horror into a single story Three poems by Sarah V Schweig conjure a comparably unsettling combination of the mundane and the menacing The German artist Daniel Sinsel, meanwhile, offers up the possibility that painting might allow some ‘respite’ from the rancour engulfing both sides of the Atlantic In a media landscape skewed by the clamorous proliferation of images, Sinsel speaks about reserving a space for ‘secrets’ and the inner logic of ‘sublimated messages and suppressed desire’ The relationship of culture to society, and its interpretation, is also the subject of Izabella Scott’s appraisal of an ambitious exhibition of contemporary Chinese artists in the British countryside; while Jen Kabat’s impressionistic essay on Bristol’s urban architecture considers how the city’s past is embedded in its present We hope you enjoy