Stephanie Powell Watts mesmerized readers with 2011’s We Are Taking Only What We Need, her award-winning debut collection of short stories. She continues her exploration into modern humanity with No One is Coming to Save Us. The novel, like her short story collection, is set in post-Jim Crow era North Carolina. Her characters’ desires purposefully echo the ones from F. Scott Fizgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby. The parallels between the two works themes are obvious, but do not go into […]
“Good Fiction Involves a Kind of Magic”: An Interview With Alice Adams
In Alice Adams’ debut novel, Invincible Summer, the author introduces readers to four friends as they embark on their life after college. It’s a synopsis we’ve heard before, but Adams provides such realism in her dynamic characters that this book offers both a breezy read as well as one that challenges all who come across it. The author spent a decade in banking before writing this stand out debut about realizing we’re already in the good old days before it’s […]
“I’m a Great Believer in Trusting the Writing Process”: An Interview With Deena Goldstone
Deena Goldstone spent the majority of her professional career as a screenwriter until she released a book of short stories in 2014. Now the writer has written Surprise Me, a deeply profound debut novel about the complicated relationship between an aspiring writer and a reclusive mentor. Surprise Me’s synopsis might sound like a typical trope used over and over in literature, but what Goldstone does exceedingly well is use her incredible prose to help make the two main characters – Isabelle […]
East Meets West Meets Tennis: An Interview with J.R. Thornton
J.R. Thornton’s debut novel Beautiful Country was first published in China in 2013. The plot is loosely based on Thornton’s own biography: a young American teenager moves to China with his family, plays tennis, and learns how different life can be around the globe. There are differences here and there, but what Thornton does extremely well is portray the raw honesty of growing up in a foreign land. I spoke with the author just before the American release of his […]
“What It Turned Into Was Really Specific”: Molly Prentiss on “Tuesday Nights in 1980”
Molly Prentiss just released a book she spent seven years writing, re-writing, and changing completely before the final version became Tuesday Nights in 1980. The novel is about Raul, James, and Lucy’s lives on, you guessed it, Tuesday nights in 1980. While the novel sounds like it would be a very typical plot about a group of friends. However, Prentiss’ prose and thematic prowess helped propel this debut to one of the most talked about books of the year. The […]
Literature In and On the Aftermath of Violence: An Interview With Karan Mahajan
Karan Mahajan’s second novel, The Association of Small Bombs, is as newsworthy and timely as any book released this year. Published on the same day of the bombings in Brussels, The Association… tells the story of a “small” bombing and the emotional and physically effects that stay with the people involved in the decades to come. As Mahajan will tell you though, there is no such thing as a small bomb. Every terrorist attack leaves deep scars, but the author […]
Writing Through Grief, Unreliable Narrators, and Unlikely Structures: An Interview With Kristopher Jansma
Kristopher Jansma’s debut novel The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards was called a mix between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Wed Anderson. The writer continues his literary prowess with his follow up, the deeply poignant and personal Why We Came to the City. Based in part on his experience with his younger sister passing from cancer in the prime of her life, the novel explores the reality of the disease as well as what friendship means and how it changes over time. […]