In a magnificent small city clogged with tourists, a woman considers the roles of fate and illusion in the ever-making of a life.

A writer misses writing, so she finds the only possible antidote.

In this, the first of a series of personal interviews, Jules X speaks with Agnès Madrigal about her writing philosophy, the writer as a witness, and the curious relationship between a writer and her characters.

What happens when a writer wants to tell four stories about four women? She builds a house in which each character rents a space in which to live.

Serendipitously, two writers wrote about the same exhibition at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art—at two different times, in two different ways.

A woman alone in a room sheds one identity for another—the life of a writer.

In this interview, Agnès Madrigal describes some of the subtler nuances of her novel Jess.

A writer dreams that she is writing the first pages of a new book—the dream reveals an unexpected approach to the novel.

Writing in cafés connects a writer to persons in the real world, not just to the characters in her own mind, but how distinct is the difference?

A woman writing in a café contemplates the possibility of an infinity of images and the impossibility of love with a stranger sitting near to her.

This first draft describes two characters trapped inside a story—but do they know it?

Spirits of various types emerge at a lovely restaurant outside of San Francisco.

Is writing fiction about creating one’s own character as a writer of fiction?

A wine bar in Paris serves as the setting for a story, but were any of the characters ever even there?

This story reveals the complexities of a writer projecting characters onto others, as well as the perils of traveling with secrets.

The literary abounds in the pretty Galérie Vivienne in Paris. Alongside an antique bookstore and detective tales, a new story is conceived about lives imagined.

This new story is inspired by a trip on the Paris Métro, where a narrator discovers the city’s detritus and divine.

Stories are mysterious—mysterious and wonderful—especially in the ways that they reveal themselves to a writer.

In this interview, Agnès Madrigal describes how her novel Springtime came into full bloom.

This is a story of two kinds of love, in two living rooms.