Category: Features

Emily Myles, author of our April Fiction selection, “Sweeps Week,” shares the horror origins of this story, her submission process, and how to get unstuck.   Can you talk a little bit about where your idea from this story originated? What sparked the idea? Or is it something that you had been thinking about for […]

Fiction  A Good Happy Girl by Marissa Higgins – April 2 (Catapult) “A Good Happy Girl offers an unwavering look at a young woman for whom wavering has been a way of life. Higgins’s heroine makes for a compellingly prickly protagonist, an uncertain someone who the reader nonetheless wants so much to hug. This keen-edged […]

FICTION    Fruit of the Dead by Rachel Lyon – March 5 (Scribner Book Company) “Rachel Lyon’s genius, alluring novel is a mythic and modern love story: between mother and daughter, between a young woman and the danger she needs to experience, between her darkest and brightest selves. I read with my heart in my […]

Emma Leokadia Walkiewicz, author of our February fiction selection “The Undressing,” talks about writing in the second person, drafting in one sitting and advice from Annie Dillard.   Can you talk a little bit about where your idea from this story originated? What sparked the idea? Or is it something that you had been thinking […]

Here you are. After writing a book and editing it to the best of your ability, you want to launch it beyond the limits of your computer’s screen. Kudos to you. That’s no small feat. Take a moment to appreciate how far you’ve come.  Now, pump up your confidence, concentration, and stamina before advancing because, […]

Fiction   The Young of Other Animals by Chris Cander – February 1 (Little A) “The Young of Other Animals is chilling, moving, and urgent, one of those books that demands your full attention until you’ve finished the very last page. Chris Cander’s propulsive, beautifully layered prose tackles cycles of violence and the complicated shame […]

Kayleigh Norgord, author of our January fiction selection “The Bimbo Bandit,” talks about writing from a child’s perspective, approaching the work five years late and leaving room for the reader.   Can you talk a little bit about where your idea from this story originated? What sparked the idea? Or is it something that you […]

Fiction    The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan – January 2 (Marysue Rucci Books) “In Vanessa Chan’s spellbinding debut, one woman’s desire to change her destiny shapes the future of a colonized nation. Combining cinematic grandeur with nuanced storytelling, The Storm We Made offers the hidden history that only fiction can reveal: the everyday […]

Amy DeBellis, author of our December fiction selection “Pit Stop,” chats about how long it took her to draft this story, when she knows something is ready to submit, and how the brain is like a sponge.   Can you talk a little bit about where your idea from this story originated? What sparked the […]

Ashley Rubell—Contributor  The Leaving Season: A Memoir In Essays by Kelly McMasters |  WW NORTON The Leaving Season is an intimate collection of essays that simmer in the paradoxes behind life’s simple cravings: love, community, home, family, space — all concepts that felt particularly timely post-pandemic. McMasters has a way with words that had me […]