The first time I ever spoke to award-winning New Zealand writer Pip Adam was over Zoom. It was 2022, right after my partner and I had signed on to publish The New Animals in the US. The New Animals is a beautifully intense novel, angry, occasionally violent—in a review, Joy Williams calls it “a strange, remorseless, powerful book, leaving the reader drained, angry, and frightened.” Sounds about right, and we wondered what Pip would be like in person.