Grief as an Access Point: Writer Alice Elliott Dark on Listening to the Inner Other

Novelist and short story writer Alice Elliott Dark talks with Tess about long-term grief not as something to fix, but as an access point, a thin veil between us and the people we've lost. She shares her creative process, sunrise practice, the quiet art of becoming "receptive" rather than forceful, and why she believes it's okay to simply live inside grief rather than rush to move past it. A gentle, grounding conversation about loss, presence, and staying open to what — or who — is trying to reach us.

Dark's story "In the Gloaming"—which first appeared in The New Yorker thirty years ago—was recently published by Scribner as a standalone book. Her forthcoming novel, Wherever You Are, returns to the same characters in an exploration of long-term grief as a paradoxical connection to deeper aliveness. (Scribner, fall 2027). 

Alice Elliott Dark is the author of the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, and two collections of short stories, In The Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her story, "In the Gloaming," was chosen by John Updike for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of The Century and adapted for film by HBO and Trinity Playhouse (starring Glenn Close, directed by Christopher Reeve). Dark is the recipient of a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a 2026 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is a Professor of English and the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at Rutgers-Newark. 

Find out more about her work here: https://www.aliceelliottdark.com/

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Host: Tess Callahan
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Music (unless otherwise noted above): Christopher Lloyd Clark
Audio Editing: Eric Fischer

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