Aleksandar Hemon and Myla Goldberg both published their debut books in the spring of 2000 to overwhelming critical acclaim. While the books -- The Question of Bruno and Bee Season, respectively -- are very different books, they are both works of fiction that, each in its own way, are very much about language itself.

On the occasion of the publication of Hemon's second book, Nowhere Man, Hemon and Goldberg exchanged emails about the issues and questions that plague and inspire them as writer: Why write at all? What's the problem with American literature today? Should you "Write what you know"? And much more.

Nowhere Man is a book as much about language as The Question of Bruno is — in the New York Times Book Review, Gary Shteyngart wrote of Nowhere Man, "The bottom line is that Hemon can't write a boring sentence." But it is also the story of one man, the charming and elusive Jozef Pronek, finding his way through the world.

Myla Goldberg's Bee Season is the story of one little girl finding her own way through the world, including but by no means limited to the world of spelling bees. Her next book, Wickett's Remedy, as she describes in this conversation, involves a much wider canvass.

And there's more and more — read on. You can also read excerpts here from Bee Season, The Question of Bruno and Nowhere Man — and even more, including two adventures of Jozef Pronek not included in Nowhere Man, at aleksandarhemon.com.