The Past As A Place We Can Find: A Conversation with Lincoln Hirn

This episode is our first Past Contributor Conversation (we’re still workshopping the name…), featuring Lincoln Hirn!Lincoln has one story out with us already—Until You Return in Issue Five—and one forthcoming in Issue Seven, as a Finalist in the 2026 Clarissa Dalloway Prize, Carry Me Along.Subscribe nowWe talk about both pieces, as well as Lincoln’s ongoing pursuit of his PhD in American History and how both his academic work in slave narratives and his reading of writers such as Melville, Faulkner, and Morrison have influenced his creative style. As Lincoln puts it on the show, his goal is to “write in a way that is somewhat oceanic,” which is great—and can be seen in both his pieces at L’Esprit.We close off this wonderful conversation with Lincoln reading from the opening of his new story. I hope everyone enjoys this talk, and please do go check out Lincoln’s work on his website and elsewhere—it’s formidable!