The Mystery of Perception: A Conversation with Lynne Tillman

For the first time, Lynne Tillman speaks about her life as a writer and her work in a stunning and candid conversation with writer and critic Taylor Lewandowski featuring an introduction from renowned author and frieze editor and author of MacArthur Park (2017) and Skyland (2020) Andrew Durbin and critical essays from the author of Dog Days (2025) Emily LaBarge and Claire Donato, author of Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts (2023).

In this extended interview, Taylor Lewandowski strings together the many lives and worlds of Lynne Tillman. From her Long Island childhood to her European run-ins with Charles Henri Ford, Simone de Beauvoir, Méret Oppenheim to the importance of her friendships with David Rattray, Craig Owens, Kathy Acker, Paula Fox to her psychoanalytical fiction to her historicizing New York City with Stephen Shore's Factory photographs and Jeannette Watson's Books & Co. to her Madame Realism art criticism, Lynne Tillman has devoted her life to using language as a tool to synthesize the chaos of our world into intricate, fragmented pieces about perception, gender, photography, family, American history, and much more. Her enthusiasm, curiosity, and humor serve as a refreshing model, or as Lynne Tillman would call "image" which has created an alternative path for other writers. As Lynne Tillman says in the interview, "I know myself in relation to others." This conversation with contributions from Andrew Durbin, Emily LaBarge, and Claire Donato is an introduction into the encyclopedic, obsessive mind of Lynne Tillman