-
A Woman of Her Time: Tessa Hadley
Stella, the main character of Tessa Hadley’s new novel, "Clever Girl," is an unusual female protagonist in fiction; her intelligence can be destructive and she questions and critiques to a maddening point. Hadley stresses that she is very different from Stella; she’s not as “brave,” as she puts it.
-
Frenchie: Greg Marchand
When Greg Marchand began working in the London restaurant Fifteen, it’s owner, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver dubbed him “Frenchie” because he was the only French person in the kitchen. The name stuck, and now it graces Marchand’s Paris restaurant, as well as his other endeavors: a wine bar, Frenchie to Go, and this April, his first cookbook, "Frenchie," published in the U.S. this April by Artisan.
-
Infinitely Strange Day-to-Day Life: Peter Matthiessen
"In Paradise" might seem to be an odd, perhaps even an offensive, title for a book set in a concentration camp.
-
YA Novelist E. Lockhart’s Sleight of Hand
In E. Lochart's new YA novel, "We Were Liars," something has happened to her narrator, Cady.
-
Finding a Home for ‘Red Light Properties’: Dan Goldman
It’s hard to reach an audience when you’re always one step ahead of it. Graphic novelist Dan Goldman found that out the hard way, as he struggled to market his graphic novel "Red Light Properties," as a webcomic and an e-book, before he finally gave up on his dream of a career in comics.
-
Anticipated Debuts: First Fiction 2014
“Write what you know.” That old adage worked for this spring’s crop of new fiction writers, who draw on their own experience for their literary debuts.
-
First Fiction 2014: Yale Dean Turned Modern Romance Writer - Susan Rieger
Susan Rieger does not have an M.F.A.; rather her first book comes after a successful legal career that included teaching stints at Yale (where she was also a dean) and Harvard. This experience informs The Divorce Papers, an epistolary novel written in memos that PW called “clever and funny” in a starred review. The book will be released in March by Crown.
-
First Fiction 2014: Fame in the Heartland - Nickolas Butler
When Nickolas Butler was attending the University of Iowa’s M.F.A. program, he commuted from the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where his wife and son lived, to Iowa City once a week.
-
First Fiction 2014: A New Spin on an Old Story - Daniel Levine
Daniel Levin’s debut, Hyde (which will be published in March by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and which received a starred review from PW), is a retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Hyde’s perspective.
-
First Fiction 2014: Kenya’s Destiny - Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Zigzagged and constructed out of a thousand detours,” is how Kenya-native Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor describes her trajectory as a writer, which reached another turning point on January 28 with the publication of her novel Dust by Knopf.
-
First Fiction 2014: Bare Knuckles - Mike Harvkey
Is there any place more hopeless than rural Missouri?
-
And Justice for All...Lisa Bloom
In summer 2013, civil rights attorney and legal analyst Lisa Bloom covered the trial of George Zimmerman—who was accused of murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.—for NBC.
-
First Fiction 2014: Three Stories Worth the Risk - Violet Kupersmith
It all started when Violet Kupersmith’s writing mentor, Valerie Martin, sent three stories from her Mt. Holyoke undergraduate senior thesis to agent Molly Friedrich at Friedrich Literary Agency.
-
The Wizard of Omaha: Timothy Schaffert
According to native Nebraskan Timothy Schaffert, his fifth novel, The Swan Gondola (Riverhead, Feb.), which is about star-crossed lovers and is set against the backdrop of the 1898 Omaha World’s Fair, was inspired by The Wizard of Oz.
-
Hollywood in Wartime: Mark Harris
Mark Harris, like all native New Yorkers, talks real estate with zest and rue. He points out the picture window of his 26th-floor apartment on Manhattan’s West Side, the view about to be ruined by construction across the street.
-
Breaking Boundaries: Isabel Allende
After selling 60 million copies of her books, earning 14 honorary degrees, and racking up more than 50 awards, Isabel Allende is trying something new: a blood and guts thriller.
-
Oregon’s Past: Phillip Margolin
Set in 1860s Oregon, Margolin's new novel centers on a freed slave whose daughter is being kept illegally as a slave by a shady, cruel lawyer.
-
A Debut Novel’s Long Road to Publication: Mary Miller
The path to publishing a first novel is a winding one for many authors.
-
Fiction into Fact: Gary Shteyngart
“I can’t stand Russian food,” Gary Shteyngart tells me, wincing politely at my restaurant list.
-
The Leaping Mind: Lorrie Moore
As Lorrie Moore prepares for the publication of her seventh book, the author reflects on her influences, motivations, and publishing in "Seventeen" magazine.
Browse archive by date:
