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Nayantara Roy discusses her debut novel, The Magnificent Ruins, new genres, divorce novels, the essay that inspired the novel, the problematic choices her main character made, allowing her main character to choose neither love interest, finding the right agent, breaking all the rules of a debut novel, working in television, and so much more!
Nayantara Roy is the author of the debut novel, The Magnificent Ruins. In 2018, she won the Rick DeMarinis Prize for her short story, 8C. Her plays have been performed in India and the UK and she is currently at work on her second novel, Sisters Of A Halved Heart.
Tara is also a television executive at STARZ/Lionsgate, where she oversees the acquisition and creative development of original scripted television series. Originally from India, Tara lives in Los Angeles with too many plants.
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Author Sara Levine (The Hitch, forthcoming from Roxane Gay Books) has chosen as her 90s Book Club topic the elusive writer Jane Shapiro, author of After Moondog and The Dangerous Husband. After going down many rabbit holes, Sara found Jane’s agent, we emailed them, and Jane agreed to join us on the podcast! Jane discusses her career, publishing in the 90s, new work, Donald Antrim, and where she’s been all this time.
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Nora Lange discusses her debut novel, Us Fools (Two Dollar Radio), finding absurd moments to celebrate if by “celebrate” we mean “awaken,” passing anxieties down to our children, writing about the 80s farm crisis, research, committing and recommitting to the project of her novel despite life upheavals, and so much more!
Nora Lange's writing has appeared in BOMB, Hazlitt, Joyland, American Short Fiction, Denver Quarterly, HTMLGiant, LIT, The Fairy Tale Review, and elsewhere. Her project Dailyness was longlisted for the 2014 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers. She has received fellowships from Brown University and is a fellow at USC’s Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities. An earlier iteration of her novel was shortlisted for The Novel Prize in 2020, a prize to recognize and publish novels that explore and expand the possibilities of the form. She comes from a long line of Midwestern farmers and lives in Los Angeles with her family. Us Fools is her first novel.
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Richard Mirabella discusses his debut novel, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest, as well as sibling dynamics, the deft forward motion of the novel, the influence of Throwing Muses’ album Purgatory/Paradise on the structure of the novel, writing “skeletal drafts,” fairy tales, Rachel Glaser fandom, and more!
Richard Mirabella is a writer and civil servant living in Upstate New York. His stories have appeared in Story Magazine, American Short Fiction, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. He's the author of the novel Brother & Sister Enter the Forest, a New York Times Editors' Choice and Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.
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Welcome to IAWB Presents 90s Book Club, a special podcast from I’m a Writer But (where writers discuss their work, their lives, their other work, the stuff that takes up any free time they have, all the stuff they’re not able to get to, and the ways in which any of us get anything done) in which Lindsay Hunter is joined by a variety of her favorite freaks to talk about influential moments from the 90s.
Today, Chelsea Bieker (MADWOMAN) discusses Sleeping with the Enemy–both the novel and the film–and its influence on her as she wrote her newest novel.
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Acamea Deadwiler discusses her debut memoir, Daddy’s Little Stranger, along with writing about her childhood self, writing trauma while maintaining humor, lending grace and complexity to her family members, the nature of memory, Gary, Indiana, and so much more!
Acamea Deadwiler is a memoirist and essayist who received critical acclaim from Publishers Weekly for her book, Single That. She has been featured by the New York Post, Cosmopolitan, Bustle, and the FOX television network, among other media outlets. Acamea is also a TEDx speaker. Currently residing in Nevada, she holds a master's degree from Valparaiso University and is a fellow in the MFA program at Randolph College.
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Alisa Alering discusses their debut novel, Smothermoss, growing up on a farm, writerly trickery, place, southern Pennsylvania, how unlimited access to the outdoors as a child influenced their writing, what time means to a mountain, the energy of the natural world, the real-life tragedy that features in the novel, setting the novel in the 1980s, starting the novel as a collage, and so much more!
Alisa Alering grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and now lives in Arizona. After attending Clarion West, their short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognized by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, they teach fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation.
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Lindsay is joined by Ryan Bradford as they discuss the weird but forgotten horror anthology, Grim Prairie Tales, starring James Earl Jones's wig, James Earl Jones, and Brad Dourif.
Ryan Bradford is a writer and web editor at San Diego City Beat. His writing can be found in vice, paperdarts, and monkeybicycle. He’s also the rummer for the band Forest Grove. He’s also a huge horror fan and a teacher, and you can find him on his Substack, at @awkwardsd.
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Joanna Pearson discusses her debut novel, Bright and Tender Dark, as well as branding, homesteading online, Tressie McMillan Cottom, the weirdness of Threads and Goodreads, eerie vibes, using murdered-girl tropes while subverting them, unresolved creepiness in the novel, Rachel Monroe fandom, and more!
Joanna Pearson’s debut novel, BRIGHT AND TENDER DARK (Bloomsbury, 2024), is an Indie Next Pick and an Amazon Editors’ Pick. Her second story collection, NOW YOU KNOW IT ALL (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), was chosen by Edward P. Jones for the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and named a finalist for the Virginia Literary Awards. Her first story collection, EVERY HUMAN LOVE (Acre Books, 2019) was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, and the Foreword INDIES Awards. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, The Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and many other places. Joanna has received fellowships supporting her fiction from MacDowell, VCCA, South Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the North Carolina Arts Council/Durham Arts Council. She holds an MFA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and an MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Originally from western North Carolina, she now lives with her husband and two daughters near Chapel Hill, where she works as a psychiatrist.
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Barrie Miskin discusses her debut memoir, Hell Gate Bridge, motherhood, depression, how the book began as a form as therapy, writing a fast draft, working with Sarah Perry and Elizabeth Ellen, literary talismans, plumbing dark places as she wrote, hiring a publicist, and more!
Barrie Miskin is the author of HELL GATE BRIDGE: A Memoir of Motherhood, Madness and Hope, out today! from Woodhall Press. Barrie's writing has appeared in Hobart, Narratively, Expat Press, and elsewhere.
Her interviews can be found in Write or Die Magazine, where she is a staff writer. Barrie is also a public school teacher in Queens, New York, where she lives with her husband and daughter.
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Emma Copley Eisenberg discusses her debut novel, Housemates, Philadelphia, BODIES, the spectrum of Ottessa Moshfegh to Grace Paley, structure, road trips, the historical figures who inspired the novel, and more!
Emma Copley Eisenberg is the author of the novel Housemates and the narrative nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Award, among other honors. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, McSweeney’s, VQR, American Short Fiction, and other publications. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.
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Craig Willse discusses his debut novel, Providence, as well as writing family systems, grief, the many times he rewrote the book, layering in tension, rewarding the reader with sex, the danger of projection, and more!
Craig Willse is a teacher and freelance editor living in Los Angeles. A 2021 Lambda Literary Fellow, Craig has recent work in HAD, Joyland, and Fence. His first novel, Providence, is out now from Union Square. He is also the author of The Value of Homelessness (University of Minnesota Press) and has a PhD in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center.
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Today, live from Exile in Bookville in Chicago, Shze-Hui Tjoa discusses her debut memoir, The Story Game, as well as excavating her childhood from buried trauma, crafting her sister into a listener character in the book, pushing past profound dissatisfaction, the submission process, making space for being corny, and more! Plus audience questions!
Shze-Hui Tjoa is a writer from Singapore who lives in the UK. Her debut, The Story Game (Tin House Books, 2024), is a genre-bending memoir about using storytelling to overcome the memory lapses of c-PTSD and recover personal identity.
Shze-Hui writes about and beyond herself - and is particularly interested in creative nonfiction that challenges formal conventions to speak the deepest possible truth to power. She has upcoming interviews or features in BOMB Magazine, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, The Millions, Poets & Writers magazine, Between the Covers podcast, and elsewhere. Her work has been listed as notable in three successive issues of The Best American Essays (2021-23).
Shze-Hui is currently a nonfiction editor at Sundog Lit, where she works to uplift writers from different backgrounds and bring them into conversation. Her career has received support from the Tin House Summer Workshop (USA), Ceriph Mentorship Programme (Singapore), Disquiet International (Portugal), and VONA Voices (USA), among other organizations.
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Morgan Talty live-comments on his own Goodreads review, then discusses his debut novel, Fire Exit, as well as why he enjoys interacting with his online reviewers, the expectations people bring to indigenous fiction, being an objective reader of his own work, building emotion around an idea, balancing darkness with tenderness, Alice Munro, writing from the perspective of a white man, and more!
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation. His debut short story collection, Night of the Living Rez, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the American Academy of Arts & Letters Sue Kaufman Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the New England Book Award, the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Honor, and was a Finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Prize, and The Story Prize. His writing has appeared in The Georgia Review, Granta, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. Talty is an assistant professor of English in Creative Writing and Native American and Contemporary Literature at the University of Maine, Orono, and he is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing as well as the Institute of American Indian Arts. He lives in Levant, Maine.
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We're live from the beautiful Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago at Lindsay's favorite bookstore, Exile in Bookville! Kimberly King Parsons talks about her debut novel, We Were the Universe, a mother’s right to disassociate, drugs, horny moms, “a quick squirt,” her painstaking sentence-making, Garielle Lutz, her favorite music, deserving her novel’s ending and more! Plus audience questions!
Kimberly King Parsons is the author of the forthcoming novel We Were the Universe and the short story collection Black Light, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Story Prize. A recipient of fellowships from Yaddo and Columbia University, Parsons won the 2020 National Magazine Award for “Foxes,” a story published in The Paris Review. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her partner and children.
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Ferdia Lennon discusses the historical background of his debut novel, Glorious Exploits, skepticism and the divine, reading the classics, coming back to writing, using contemporary Irish dialect to write a novel set in the Peloponnesian War, and more!
Ferdia Lennon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. His short stories have appeared in publications such as the Irish Times and the Stinging Fly. In 2019 and 2021, he received Literature Bursary Awards from the Arts Council of Ireland. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norwich with his wife and son. Glorious Exploits is his debut novel.
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Lucas Mann discusses his essay collection, Attachments, as well as Brad Pitt, being a dad but not a dumb dad, intentions vs. writing, fooling himself into writing, the usefulness of delusion, writing as excavation, Dr. Becky, his bookstore in Providence, Riffraff, and more!
Lucas Mann is the author of the new collection, Attachments: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances, as well as Captive Audience: On Love and Reality Television, Lord Fear: A Memoir, and Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere. He teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and lives in Providence, RI with his family, where they own Riffraff Bookstore and Bar.
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Temim Fruchter discusses her debut novel, City of Laughter, the Jewish folklore and queer joy that informed it, the circular/non-linear structure to be found in Jewish folklore and in her novel, writing in different timelines and generations, hosting Pete’s Reading Series, ultrafemme queerness, and more!
Temim Fruchter is a queer nonbinary anti-Zionist Jewish writer who lives in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland, and is the recipient of fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, Vermont Studio Center, and a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award. She is co-host of Pete’s Reading Series in Brooklyn. Her debut novel, CITY OF LAUGHTER, a New York Times Editors’ Pick, is out now on Grove Atlantic.
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Alexandra Tanner talks about her debut novel, WORRY, along with sibling dynamics, current slang (we don’t know what it is), allowing for characters to have free will, writing a harsh yet recognizable mother character, editing a “fragmentary, formless book” into the shape it has today, Amy Klobuchar (IYKYK), the nihilism in her favorite narratives, and more!
Alexandra Tanner is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor. She is a graduate of the MFA program at The New School and the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and The Center for Fiction. Her writing appears in The New York Times Book Review, Gawker, and Jewish Currents, among other outlets. Worry is her first novel.
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Amy Shearn discusses her new novel, Dear Edna Sloane, as well as unplugging, being a woman writer of a certain age, the notion of creating content vs. making art, working with an indie press vs. a bigger publisher, her “saucy” upcoming novel, and more!
Amy Shearn is the award-winning author of the novels Unseen City, The Mermaid of Brooklyn, and How Far Is the Ocean From Here, as well as two forthcoming novels. She has worked as an editor at Medium, JSTOR, Conde Nast, and other organizations, and has taught creative writing at NYU, Sackett Street Writers Workshop, Gotham Writers Workshops, Catapult, Story Studio Chicago, The Resort LIC, and the Yale Writers' Workshop. Amy's work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times Modern Love column, Slate, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Coastal Living. Amy has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, and lives in Brooklyn with her two children. You can find her at amyshearnwrites.com or @amyshearn.
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