My good friend Josh Russell has just come out with a new book, My Bright Midnight, with LSU Press. I’ve been waiting for this novel for a long time, and once I got my hands on a copy I could not put it down and finished it all in one day. It packs in romance, friendship, [...]
The Wake of Forgiveness by Bruce Machart is one of the books I raved about recently over at The New York Times. The trailer just came out, and it’s like a mini-movie–can’t wait to see this novel make its way in the world. It’s got one of the best horse-racing scenes I’ve ever read. Pre-order now, [...]
I’ve been reading The Only Thing That Counts, the correspondence of Maxwell Perkins and Ernest Hemingway, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. I’ve marked many pages to go back and re-read, but here’s one image I can’t shake. It’s in the preface by Charles Scribner III, where he quotes a speech his own father (Charles Scribner, Jr.) gave [...]
Hello, visitors. I’m heading off grid for the next month or so. No phone, no internet, but hopefully lots of writing. Please feel free to keep sending emails or any questions you might have about The Good Thief. I won’t be able to answer for a while, but I promise to respond when I return.
Every day, I walk over the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. I live about a block away, and have to cross it to get to the studio where I write, and also to the One Story offices over on Third Avenue. The Gowanus was constructed in the 1860s, as a way for factories in Brooklyn to [...]
Since 2007, along with my mentor, author Dani Shapiro, and her husband, the screenwriter Michael Maren, I’ve been organizing a writer’s conference called Sirenland. A beautiful name, but even more beautiful is the spot where it takes place: Le Sirenuse Hotel in Positano, Italy. Our 2010 conference has just ended. Our Sirenlanders have flown back to their [...]
Last week I visited South Carolina for the very first time. I learned their state motto: Dum Spiro Spero (While I breathe, I hope) and their state dance: The Shag. I also gave a reading at Coastal Carolina University and took part in “The Moveable Feast,” a very cool reading series organized by Litchfield Books. [...]
Author Dani Shapiro (who has been a huge mentor for me, and probably one of the best teachers I’ve ever studied with) has a fantastic essay in today’s LA Times, talking about how to edure as a writer today. She starts off by quoting legendary editor & founder of New American Review, Ted Solotaroff: “Solotaroff [...]
People often ask me what I do for research. Well, here’s one example. I have never shot a gun in my life, except for a BB gun at camp when I was a little girl. The idea of them frightens me to death, actually. But I recently started work on a new novel whose main [...]
