MO: Which is a terrible idea, IN THEORY. Nick and I did not meet until July, which if you are a careful mathematician, you will notice is about a year and a half after we went into business together. It worked out beautifully, but I can’t really recommend it as a business strategy. 

 

SA: The site seems to be doing very well and you’ve just brought on Roxane Gay to start a companion site called The Butter. How do you account for that success? 

 

MO: I think we’re successful because we’re talented and we publish great writers and we have a fantastic, overeducated audience that likes to share stupid jokes about art history with their friends.

 

Roxane, that’s another story. That was a gift from some sort of witch-god. Getting Roxane to join us has been nothing but pure, undeserved joy. 

 

SA: You grew up (correct me if I’m wrong) in Illinois in what you’ve described as “a moderately liberal household within a deeply religious environment” — that environment being evangelical Christianity. You then went to a Christian college in southern California and by the end of it were no longer a believer or practicing. What role if any do you think your movement away from belief in God or attending church has had in the formation of the way you see and comment upon the world? 

 

MO: I did, mostly! I was born in LA and lived around southern California until about 8, then finished baking out in Illinois. 

 

I think growing up deeply familiar with Biblical stories and language had a real effect on the way that I write. Who knows about the rest of it, though. There are aspects of Christian white evangelical culture that are very peculiar, and aspects of it that will always feel very familiar to me, that feel like home.