In September, the Center for Fiction announced the shortlist for their annual First Novel Prize, judged this year by R. O. Kwon, Kiese Laymon, Jordy Rosenberg, and Danzy Senna. The shortlisted authors will each be awarded $1,000, and the winner, who will be announced in December, will receive $15,000 “in recognition of their contribution to contemporary literature and in support of their ongoing creative career.” In the meantime, Literary Hub caught up with the finalists to ask them a few questions about their reading and writing lives. Here’s what they told us:
Emeline Atwood, author of A Real Animal
What time of day do you work (and why)?
I take notes throughout the day, but six in the morning is best for the sustained work. Unfortunately, this year has been the first in a while where I just can’t seem to get up.
I’ve been trying to work on this, through baby steps. My current tactic: my chihuahua has no trouble getting up at six to pee, and she always taps (slaps) me or Chris on the cheek to let us know. When it’s my cheek, I typically sleepwalk her out the back door, watch her go, and then the two of us get right back into bed where we both fall right back asleep until eight (when she’s ready for breakfast).
The baby step I’ve been working on this week is to just try and stay awake after the dog pees. I’ve told myself: it’s okay to get back into bed with Crackers, as long as I keep my eyes open until the radio turns on at seven. A trick: I’ve put my cooling caffeine under-eye patches on my bedside for immediate application. We also hung a birdfeeder in the window.
Sunrise drives are also a great way to gently reacquaint yourself with those precious early hours, so rich for writing and full of new sights. Chris and I went on one last Wednesday. It yielded a lot of good things: We saw a rooster on a roof, got stopped at a calypsic red light which seemed to never want to let us go, and saw two dogs attached by leash to this guy who had a burly white beard matching the color of one dog and dark brown hair atop his head matching the color of the other.
How do you tackle writer’s block?
As a kid, I really wanted to keep a diary. I envied the strong memories that come from years of diary-ing. But writing down whatever had exactly happened to me in a day never failed to bore me, and within a few sentences I’d yet again find myself abandoning the “facts” to write instead what I wish had happened with my crush by the lockers after first period, not what actually happened.
So, for writer’s block, I suggest writing down what you wish had happened to you yesterday, or what you fear might happen to you tomorrow, or what the future you is getting up to next year or a hundred years from now, or what your younger self might be doing had she never left Koh Tao, had she decided to become an artisanal cheese maker, had she kept those ten kittens she fostered instead of finding them new homes. This helps warm up the imagination; daydreams, nightmares are easy ways in.
Otherwise, invite someone—a friend, a lover, a coworker, your mother—to a place you know well that they’ve never been. Ask them what they see, smell, feel, taste. This helps you experience it anew.
Or: read something, memorize it, transcribe it, recite it. Then write your own passage using its exact syntax but none of the same words. Then tear that up into little pieces, do a couple jumping jacks, and take yourself for a walk.
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
Two pieces of good advice come to mind:
Ira Glass: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners; I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good…And your taste is why your work disappoints you… It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions…It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Le Guin: “People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your literary education?
My family. My dad read aloud to us every night before bed until we were well into middle school—fantasies, mysteries, books of endlessly elaborate and wandering worlds—and there was no one I loved discussing good books with more than my mom. I wanted to read whatever my mom was reading, to grow up to have her taste in books, and to one day write literature that she’d like. My sister and brother and I would also play make-believe games together all the time.
To be a good writer, I believe you must be a good reader. And to be a good reader, you must know how to play make-believe.
What was the first book you fell in love with (and why)?
There was this book about foxes—specifically, fox families, kits—in the nonfiction section of my elementary school’s library. It was too small to belong on a coffee table but was hardcover, had glossy pages and a horizontal landscape. It had more photographs per page (ppp) than any of the other books in the animal section and barely any words. I can’t remember its exact decimal now (599 dot something), but knew it by heart then, and devilishly, after every library period, I used to hide the book by the butterflies in 595 to keep others from finding it and checking it out. I do remember feeling guilty about this, yet still caving in to my hoggish instincts every time.
The two things in books that made my spine tingle the most, when I was a kid, were photographs of wild animals and end rhyme. Robert Frost was the first poet whose collected works I read in full, at seven years old.
Which book(s) do you reread?
I try to read everything again. Summoning Nabokov again, I really believe “one cannot read a book: one can only reread it.” The last books I reread were Chekhov’s collected stories, Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes, and Frank by Diane Seuss.
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
A couple friends and I write together one or two mornings a week at a coffee shop. We meet at seven thirty-ish. Ahead of time, we’ll often exchange a frenzy of texts like, “This time let’s actually write.” But we always just talk. Then we tell each other that talking is writing. Then we say that next time we’ll actually write…
What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
Wherever Nina Lies terrified me when I was thirteen.
What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?
Somewhere along the way, tech people started believing that all of us also agree a touchless experience is a better experience. And that ease is what we’re after, above all else. But friction is what lets us grip onto things, stay in place, be in life, hold onto each other. We need to continue to be not only skeptical but anti- that which encourages us to reduce a series of steps down to a tap, because that tap is almost always hundreds or thousands of miles away from the thing we’re purchasing, securing, paying off, striking down, eliminating. That tap is weightless and detached; we don’t feel it at all. We’ve stopped feeling the things themselves. And our terrifying capacity to dehumanize others only accelerates, at a murderous rate, in a touchless world. We need to be talking more about how we can get back in touch, instead of continuing to let ourselves amorphize and slip and slide—heartlessly and way too quickly—through our lives.
But more directly related to the book: there are readers whose response to a book depends on whether or not they find the characters likable, a designation that’s sent many arrows through many writers’ hearts. What does it mean to be likable, to be easy to like? I see that term as one of an in-group speaking about an out-group: this character is easy to like because they are like me. If they are too unlike me, they are unlikable. “Unlike me,” here, meaning: I don’t have a way to understand or relate to them, they rub me the wrong way. Though a version of affective fallacy, I think the question of likability can be a profound one, because we can then ask, if Lucy is unlikable to you, what about her threatened you, repulsed you, shut you out, scared you, pushed you away, chafed you?
I do hope Lucy, in all her messiness, is not only like all of us, but also not nearly as messy as any of us. Because she’s just someone I made up. She has only a fraction of the complexities that make up all of you. We all contain violence and duplicity. We all keep secrets, and have hidden desires, and make irrational decisions—which is what beautifully distinguishes us, our species, as animals that can dream, can long for things, can imagine ourselves inside other lives and minds and bodies, can tell lies. Recognizing those things in ourselves is how we feel our humanity.
The worst thing for me to hear from a reader is that you found Lucy so uninteresting you weren’t interested in following her to the end. I’d way rather she repulse you than bore you—because then, there’s at least friction, and you hold on.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you do instead?
For the last five years, I’ve worked a nine-to-five marketing job at a software company. It’s a very different occupation from that of “writer,” but it’s what I consider to be my career since it’s what makes me money, gives me a title, and will presumably give me more money and more title the longer I stay. That said, as with any career, it is not soul-making but soul-unmaking, whereas writing is a vocation—something I can’t not do.
It’s common to ask whether writing is one’s hobby or career; I was stuck thinking about it that way for a while. But this question situates writing within that flat capitalist binary: something either makes you money or it doesn’t. Inevitably, I feel tension when my vocation (writing) is asking things of me at the same moment my career (marketing) is; I get caught then between the thing that supports my life and the thing that lets me experience my life (and experience all the hobbies that such a life contains).
That said, I think at some point I wanted to be a doctor. I still sort of want to be a couples therapist. One day, I want to teach literature at a high school or college. I hope that day comes soon.
*
Samantha Josephs, author of Carrying
Who do you most wish would read this book? (your boss, your childhood bully, etc.)
I have two opposite readers that I’m both so excited about. I’m so excited for trans women to find a home in this book. I’ve had some responses already that are truly touching like from Jamie Clayton and Tommy Dorfman who did my launch events, as well as some random DMs. I also get really excited when somebody tells me they got the book for their mom, aunt, grandma, etc. I love imagining these kind unsuspecting women reading the absolutely craziest, weirdest, most disgusting thing they’ve ever read.
What time of day do you work (and why)?
I am not a morning person. I say this and then people who are morning people will suggest having a meeting or doing something at noon. That’s still the morning to me. All of my friends know that if I text them before 9am that something is gravely wrong. A typical locked-in day of writing or editing for me is from noon to six, then evening activities, with sometimes a little writing nightcap from like ten to midnight if there’s something I really need to get out.
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
RUTABAGA. The goal of the first draft is to finish it as fast as possible, not make sure every single line and word is perfect. You’ll waste time doing that because you might realize the entire scene needs to change and you have to delete that word you took twenty minutes picking. When I come to something that I’m stuck on, I write “RUTABAGA.” When I finish, I search “RUTABAGA” and then go back and fill in those cracks. “RUTABAGA” will sometimes be a word, or a paragraph, or even a whole scene. This does not work if you are writing about root vegetables, then you should probably pick, “STORMAGANZA.”
What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers?
I work best with dishes in the sink. I live alone and do not currently have a dishwasher. I don’t procrastinate on writing when I have dishes in the sink because then writing actually gets to feel like procrastination on doing the dishes, a task I absolutely loathe. I can feel the dishes’ presence in the back of my head while I write, pushing me further and further, urging me to write another thousand words so I don’t have to deal with the dirty pile in the sink. And I almost take pride in this. I have far more important things to do than make sure my cutlery is always clear.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
Family Guy. I have learned everything I know about pop culture through the show. I’ve watched it since I was probably six years old as I have older brothers. It’s absolutely hilarious, touching, and complicated. Cutaways are a truly visionary postmodern narrative device. It’s the sitcom’s answer to Proust’s madeleines. I do have a plan for a book with cutaways so stay tuned. And you know what? This whole interview reminds me of the time when…
Which book(s) do you reread?
I am not big on rereading books so the ones that I do reread says a lot about their weight in my life. Beloved I’ve read three times and Detransition, Baby twice. I only really like coming back to a book when I feel enough time has passed and my perspective has greatly changed. Reading Detransition, Baby at various points in my transition totally morphed the way I experienced and understood it. Beloved I first read as a high schooler and it completely blew my mind. Reading it again as an adult, it’s only gotten more mindblowing and impressive. And I am planning on reading it again soon, but I need to get through my library books and new books as they come in first (more on this below).
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
If I showed you how much time I spend on TikTok, you would be terrified. TikTok is entrancing because unlike starting an episode of TV or a movie, you can tell yourself it’s only going to be a two-minute break, that easily becomes a 3 hour break. My TikTok is also educational in some ways, with lots of cooking recommendations and places to eat and things to do and books to read, so I can trick myself into deciding it’s actually helpful.
What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
Find Me, Andre Aciman’s sequel to Call Me By Your Name, had me completely sobbing for like one hundred pages. I was absolutely blubbering while reading it. I really don’t care what anyone says, Elio and Oliver forever. Spoiler but they literally end up together. Argue with the wall.
How do you decide what to read next?
I have Uncut Gems level stress with my Libby and library books. I request one million things but I don’t actually read that fast and then need to sprint to finish everything before it’s overdue or Libby automatically takes it away from me. I keep buying new books, but I never find the time to read them because I don’t have the time pressure. So I read whatever will be taken away from me next.
What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?
I absolutely love tennis. I am a beast on the court. I have so much fun. There is nothing like the feeling of a really good rally. The person I most love playing tennis with is moving away for half a year so if you are in Los Angeles please hit me up. I may or may not have access to my friend’s private apartment courts. I do hope to meet my husband this way.
*
T Kira Madden, author of Whidbey
Who do you most wish would read this book? (your boss, your childhood bully, etc.)
I often wish my dead father were alive to see me publish a book. To read any of them. Other than that, whoever might feel a recognition.
What time of day do you work (and why)?
In my youth I was a night writer. Not possible anymore. Now, on days in which I’m lucky enough to have a stretch of time, I write as early as possible for as long as possible before I need a big meal. After eating, I go blurry. Then it’s all reading and note-taking and movie watching.
How do you tackle writer’s block?
I give myself a prompt that strikes me as exciting, funny, surprising, even if it will result in nothing directly relevant to the text. For example: what would happen if this character had to go to a boring dinner party? Or, rewrite the scene in a single run-on sentence, or in the future tense. Whatever drives my curiosity. Even if there’s nothing “usable,” I’ll learn something new about the soul of the project.
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
Every instructor, editor, friend, my spouse, and absolutely my agent, who tells me when to try it again, that something hasn’t reached my ambitions for it. Normalizing the many drafts over many years has been important. You grow with it, sometimes beyond it or into it, and that’s a good thing.
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your literary education?
My graduate school thesis advisor, Suzanne Hoover, who remains my very close friend. She had me study the principles of drama—comedy, tragedy, irony, and so on—read a thousand books and watch even more films, before writing that thesis.
Also, my Pasifika and Indigenous community of writers and storytellers, keepers of mo’olelo, including my ‘ohana and kupuna. I wouldn’t be a writer if my Tūtū didn’t teach me how to write letters on our IBM Selectric. Returning to my Native tongue, ‘ōlelo Hawai’i, has also been most impactful on the way I compose and dream through language.
What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers?
I write almost exclusively sad stories, but I have the time of my life writing them. I always embrace play, absurdity, fun, in the drafting (see above, on prompting). Through revision and cutting hundreds of pages the story grows its teeth.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
The music of Charlie Parker.
What was the first book you fell in love with (and why)?
Charlotte’s Web, and I think my taste and personality still reflect that. A deep appreciation for animal sentience, a love of tragedy, surprise, solidarity in unexpected places. Lifesaving friendships.
Which book(s) do you reread?
Everything by Lynda Barry. And often the short stories of those who made me fall in love with the story-form: Jamaica Kincaid, Joy Williams, Grace Paley, Kenzaburō Ōe, Janet Frame, Isaac Babel, James Baldwin, John Edgar Wideman, Melanie Rae Thon, Amy Hempel, Mark Richard, Jayne Anne Phillips, Julio Cortázar, Denis Johnson, Mary Gaitskill, Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Helen Oyeyemi, Beth Nugent, Christine Schutt, Daniil Kharms, Borges, Saunders, Gogol, Kahakauwila–oh I could go on! I love the short story, and concentrated time spent focused on their tiny sharp architectures is the best thing for my mind and spirit.
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
Dreaming up recipes and writing them down. Reddit “research” holes on topics vaguely related to a project. Googling when others think Joanna Newsom might drop her next album. Speculating on how a magic trick was done that stumped me in a bar 17 years ago.
What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
Baldwin probably gets me crying the most. Especially his endings. The ending of Geek Love tears me up every time. The first time I read Mona Simpson’s story “Lawns,” I knew I’d never be the same or write the same again.
How do you decide what to read next?
During the school year I’m reading the work of my students, or texts that I might recommend to support their goals and projects. I also try to read as many emerging and debut writers as possible; I do my best with galleys.
Summer and winter break I mostly focus on my own work; I read or reread whatever shares some sort of cultural or lexical DNA with my current project. Hoku Pa’a books, I call them; the fixed stars–those that guide.
What’s one book you wish you had read when you were young?
A history textbook that was true.
What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?
No one asks me about poems because I’m not a poet, but I’m often thinking of poems. The stanza I recite most often in my head is from Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole“: In a field / I am the absence / of field. / This is / always the case.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you do instead?
If I didn’t need sleep, I’d probably still be working on film sets. I loved that life when I had the energy for it. I love tedium, framing up something beautiful and strange, teamwork. If I didn’t need sleep, I’d probably also like to be a line cook for the same reasons.
*
Giada Scodellaro, author of Ruins, Child
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
Not advice, but a question I consider often is one asked by Canisia Lubrin to Renee Gladman: “What of the world appears for you in the vision of your craft?”
How do you tackle writer’s block?
A block, like any shift, is an opportunity for quiet or for stillness, to linger, or to practice sitting with absence. That is not to say that absence or stillness is inactive. Writing for me is also about thinking, processing, resting. Otherwise, it is best to move to poetry/movement/the communal, or to find other modes of being, other media, other environments: a film (currently Charles Burnett’s My Brother’s Wedding), a view (the northern pin oak set along the West Side Highway).
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your literary education?
The answer to everything is my mother, Karen Elizabeth Ford. She is the person, the place, the practice. A dancer and writer, she illuminated the possibility of the line, of extension, of the turn, of repetition, of sweat. I attempt continuously to gather her choreographic and linguistic sensibility.
What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers?
The strangeness of my writing routine is reflected in its nonexistence. There is no regularity, no grounding, no particular writing time, or rituals. For me it is mostly about atmosphere and the following of an impulse (when it arrives), something about the gut, a pull, usually linked to an obsession, for example the dip of the collarbone.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
The filmic works of Kathleen Collins/Fronza Woods, the photography of Deana Lawson, Pina Bausch’s restaging of The Rite of Spring, the Penny Hardaway Foamposite, D’Angelo.
Which book(s) do you reread?
Many, many, there occasionally isn’t time to arrive at the new offerings. Returning always to the collected works of Lucille Clifton, June Jordan, Dionne Brand.
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
Moving toward sound, curating a playlist. The latest is an exploration and collection of artists yapping/talking on a track, or the gift of gab. It includes Bobby Womack, Charles Stepney, Linda Sharrock, Dru Hill, Mavis Staples, Camp Lo, among others.
What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
I move often/easily toward laughter/tears (usually in tandem). Some of the catalysts: Lara Mimosa Montes’ The Time of the Novel, Ama Codjoe’s Bluest Nude, Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, Bob Kaufman’s The Ancient Rain, Marie NDiaye’s Self Portrait in Green, and Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989.
How do you decide what to read next?
One work leading into another, so pursuing the season, meeting a mood, meeting the moment, for me it’s mostly about timing/coincidences. A character referencing a book in a film, or leaving the opportunity to stumble upon a thing.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you do instead?
There is nothing else, I would return quietly, inevitably, boundlessly to the line.
*
Avigayl Sharp, author of Offseason
What time of day do you work (and why)?
In the mornings. I don’t seem to have a mind in the afternoons, at least not until I’m very deep into a project. Then I become grandiose and expansive and can write at any time of day.
How do you tackle writer’s block?
I have no talent for tackling—so I mostly try to be sneaky and sidle around things. I do tend to believe there are reasons for blocks, however obscure they might be. I try to understand why it is I don’t want to write, and to look at this with interest instead of revulsion and terror. And I try not to become too caught up in the pleasures of wailing about my misfortune.
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
I am suspicious of advice, perhaps because I secretly long for it and am always seeking some omniscient authority to tell me what to do? I think it was frightening and important to me when I realized that you can only be what you are, as a writer and otherwise. Of course, you also don’t ever really know what you are, or what you might be. Which is good.
While typing this out I suddenly thought, I would love to say I am the kind of writer who keeps a huge physical thesaurus on my desk, and then I could advise everyone to buy one. I don’t have one, but it seems like a great idea. I will order one right now.
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your literary education?
Sigmund Freud.
What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers?
Perhaps readers imagine that I am very nutty. Surprise! I am boring. My writing routine tends to be repetitive and structured. I am fond of that Flaubert quote: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.” Though if I had a violent and original life that fed and sustained my work, I surely would find this quote, and those who reference it, irritating.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
The films of Mike Leigh teach me how to live. Michael Haneke’s adaptation of The Piano Teacher gives me courage.
What was the first book you fell in love with (and why)?
I liked Little Bear, “Birthday Soup.” A story in which a bear makes a soup, for his birthday.
Which book(s) do you reread?
Many, especially as I have a terrible memory, which is sometimes spooky and sometimes a delight—in that rereading is never a bore. I am generally addicted to the repetition of known pleasures, so I have to watch it, actually. I have recently reread: Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach, Gwendolyn Brooks’s Maud Martha, stories by Kafka and Chekhov and Jane Bowles, Middlemarch…
The last line of Chekhov’s “Gusev” almost always makes me cry.
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
I had the impulse to lie here, but I will tell the truth: doing the dishes while watching the BBC’s Father Brown series. During which time I lose all interest in writing and care only about soap, and the kindly priest who is also a detective.
How do you decide what to read next?
Rabidly and incoherently! Like I am choosing candy. I am very pleasure-seeking and itchy and excitable as a reader. Right now I am making my way through Penelope Fitzgerald’s novels. (I wish I had written The Beginning of Spring.) I read a yearly volume of Proust. When I’m working on a project, my reading tends to narrow and I feel I am trying to find the secret book that will DO something to me. Something so awesome. Something that is bound to transform me into the person who can write the book I have to write.
*
Ankur Thakkar, author of Blow Yourself Up
What time of day do you work (and why)?
In Chuck Klosterman’s introduction to Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, he describes how the morning brain is different from the evening because he wakes up like a blank slate, but by the evening he’s reconstructed the universe and is able to make these associative leaps. This is why I write in the morning. I want to be a newborn babe to the world and to construct the world on the page.
How do you tackle writer’s block?
I owe this to Rebecca Makkai, who taught me that there is all kinds of writing that isn’t writing at all. Going on walks, visiting a museum, or even staring blankly out of a window; if you keep a project close to you, you’re always working on it. One of her previous classes distilled this lesson into the slogan “touch it every day,” which understandably resulted in a novelty t-shirt order.
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
Never sleep on interiority. It’s the novel’s competitive advantage over every other art form.
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your literary education?
All of my flowers to my elementary school teacher Mrs. Christie. We would listen to an ambient song and draw whatever we’d imagined, then write little vignettes. I wrote my first short story for her in fourth grade, centered around a bargain shoe store in New Jersey. The store is still there but the story is lost to history. I do remember writing that the aisles smelled like undigested beans, so I’ve always been drawn to sensory details.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
Kid A, which I haven’t listened to in exactly twenty years. Music is a portal to my past, and I’m saving it for when I need it most.
What was the first book you fell in love with (and why)?
The Mahabharata. I first encountered the great Indian epic as a graphic novel and have read almost every adaptation there is. I reference the story in Blow Yourself Up and one of my main characters is named after the emo warrior-prince, Arjun. There is an old superstition that keeping a copy of the book in your house will tear your family apart. I’d love to try adapting it someday.
Which book(s) do you reread?
Oblivion by David Foster Wallace, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Bluets by Maggie Nelson.
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
Reading novels of course.
What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid made me understand that the relationship I was in at the time was over.
How do you decide what to read next?
Through a solemn practice known in my home as the Conclave. Potential next reads are stacked next to a freshly-pulled Americano. Wisps of steam float upward and I sample the first pages of each book until my heart feels a pull.
*
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of The Four Wives and Five Deaths of Richard Milford
Who do you most wish would read this book? (your boss, your childhood bully, etc.)
I’d like everyone who’s ever wished for revenge–and held back, or acted on it–to read this novel.
What time of day do you work (and why)?
I often sleep really poorly or have issues with chronic pain, so getting up early and writing to birdsong is not an option for me. I write best from the late morning to late afternoon. I try to treat my writing like a 9-5, though it’s more like a noon to 6.
How do you tackle writer’s block?
I think what we call writer’s block is really just fear or analysis paralysis stemming from perfectionism. When I’m struggling with those things, I try to draft in a different document and remind myself to return to a sense of playfulness and experimentation. That usually ushers in some level of inspiration.
What’s the best or worst writing advice you’ve ever received?
I plead the fifth on the worst advice. The best advice has really been to treat writing as play as much as possible and to do low-stakes writing often and repetitively so that you don’t fear a blank page. The latter idea comes from a book called Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day, by Joan Bolker, which I read in grad school.
Who is the person, or what is the place or practice that had the most significant impact on your literary education?
I think the idea of spite has had the most impact on my writing practice–no joke. But both of my parents are retired educators, and sometimes as punishment, my mom would make me complete exercises from Warriner’s English Grammar. It backfired on her, because I loved doing them.
What part of your writing routine do you think would surprise your readers?
I write to music videos, almost exclusively Billie Eilish, though there’s some Paramore mixed in.
Which non-literary piece of culture—film, tv show, painting, song—could you not imagine your life without?
Degrassi–all iterations–and Billie Eilish
What was the first book you fell in love with (and why)?
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. All of the Fudge books made me want to write humor, and my cat is named Fudge in the character’s honor.
Which book(s) do you reread?
Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole series, Sula, and Song of Solomon.
What is your favorite way to procrastinate when you are meant to be working?
Planning elaborate choreography or taking dance breaks.
What book has elicited the most intense emotional reaction from you (made you laugh, cry, be angry)?
Danzy Senna’s work, especially her short story “Admission” and her novel New People, another book I’ve reread. I love the way she’s mastered the gutpunch/ punchline ending.
How do you decide what to read next?
Vibes and recommendations from friends whose taste I share.
What’s one book you wish you had read when you were young?
I wish ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere had come out when I was younger than I was when I first read it.
What do you always want to talk about in interviews but never get to?
Maybe how much I wanted to be a comedian when I was a kid and my failed year as class clown.
If you weren’t a writer, what would you do instead?
I can’t imagine a life without writing at its center, but I originally thought I’d become a family court judge.