Category: my reading life

Interviews, my reading life

Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place

by AdamLeave a Comment on Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place
Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place

Hannah Selinger is the author of the memoir Cellar Rar: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly and a James Beard Award-nominated writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, Eater, Travel + Leisure, Food & Wine, and elsewhere. Now, her debut novel has arrived on bookshelves, bringing her sharp eye for power, class, and human behavior into the world of fiction.

Valley of the Moms is a sharp, twisty thriller set in an affluent Massachusetts suburb where school politics can be as vicious as any crime. When Anna Plummer challenges an exclusionary PTO policy, she inadvertently sets off a chain of events that culminates a year later with her death and her husband’s determination to uncover what really happened. Told through alternating timelines and perspectives, the novel explores grief, privilege, social status, and the secrets that lurk beneath the polished surface of a seemingly idyllic community.

We asked Selinger to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Valley of the Moms by Hannah Selinger is a thriller very much rooted in place” →
Interviews, my reading life

Fancy Meeting You author Louise Marburg wishes she had read Our Bodies, Ourselves as a teenager

by AdamLeave a Comment on Fancy Meeting You author Louise Marburg wishes she had read Our Bodies, Ourselves as a teenager
Fancy Meeting You author Louise Marburg wishes she had read Our Bodies, Ourselves as a teenager

Louise Marburg‘s debut novel, Fancy Meeting You, follows Laura Harrigan, a middle-aged woman whose life is built on a foundation of carefully crafted lies. Depending on the audience, Laura is a psychiatrist, a business consultant, or the mother of Yale-bound twins, but in reality she’s single, childless, underemployed, and spending many of her evenings at a Baltimore dive bar. Over the course of her fiftieth year, Laura navigates awkward family gatherings, questionable romances, and unexpected friendships, forcing her to reckon with who she is beneath the stories she tells. Funny, sharp, and unsentimental, the novel offers a fresh take on midlife reinvention through a heroine who is neither seeking marriage nor motherhood, but her own version of fulfillment.

Marburg is an acclaimed short story writer whose previous collection received reviews in The New York Times and The Washington Post. At age sixty-five, Fancy Meeting You marks her debut novel.

We asked Marburg to answer our recurring My Reading Life series so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Fancy Meeting You author Louise Marburg wishes she had read Our Bodies, Ourselves as a teenager” →
Interviews, my reading life

F. Scott Fitzgerald is Debut Author Haili Blassingame’s Literary Daddy

by AdamLeave a Comment on F. Scott Fitzgerald is Debut Author Haili Blassingame’s Literary Daddy
F. Scott Fitzgerald is Debut Author Haili Blassingame’s Literary Daddy

Haili Blassingame’s debut novel, They All Fall in Love at the End, follows Cat St. Clair, a twenty-four-year-old writer trying to balance an open relationship, artistic ambition, and the chaos of the 2024 election. What begins as a quest for freedom and self-determination spirals into a complicated love triangle involving her boyfriend’s best friend and his girlfriend, forcing Cat to confront the consequences of pursuing everything she wants. Set against a backdrop of political tension and creative uncertainty, the novel explores nonmonogamy, desire, identity, and the challenge of imagining new possibilities for love and liberation.

Blassingame is a producer for NPR’s 1A and has written for publications including The New Republic and The New York Times, where her Modern Love essay “My Choice Isn’t Marriage or Loneliness” went viral. She previously worked on NPR’s Code Switch and Weekend Edition and is pursuing an MFA in creative writing from American University.

We asked Blassingame to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “F. Scott Fitzgerald is Debut Author Haili Blassingame’s Literary Daddy” →
Interviews, my reading life

P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar

by AdamLeave a Comment on P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar
P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar

P.C. Verrone’s debut novel, Rabbit, Fox, Tar, is a fable-like story about a mysterious young Black woman whose arrival in a tightly knit neighborhood threatens to unravel its foundations. When Baby appears in Original Hill and begins a romance with the ambitious Lucius “Lucky” Foote, her presence upends a contentious city council race and intensifies long-simmering tensions over a Black neighborhood destroyed decades earlier to make way for a highway. As Baby becomes entangled in the lives of the community’s residents and begins questioning her origins, the novel explores race, power, belonging, memory, and the stories communities tell about themselves.

Verrone’s work has appeared in FIYAH, PodCastle, Nightmare, and numerous anthologies. He has been a Tin House Resident, a Playwrights’ Center Fellow, and a WNDB Black Creatives Revisions Workshop winner.

We asked Verrone to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped his life and influenced his writing.

Continue reading “P.C. Verrone read through all of Toni Morrison while writing Rabbit, Fox, Tar” →
Interviews, my reading life

Paige Lewis, author of Canon, was obsessed with the strangeness and despair of Edgar Allen Poe as a child

by AdamLeave a Comment on Paige Lewis, author of Canon, was obsessed with the strangeness and despair of Edgar Allen Poe as a child
Paige Lewis, author of Canon, was obsessed with the strangeness and despair of Edgar Allen Poe as a child

Canon, the debut novel from poet Paige Lewis, is about two damaged outsiders trying to earn God’s favor in a violent world split between “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys.” Yara, isolated after family rejection and a toxic relationship, is chosen for a divine mission to kill a feared army leader, while Adrena, a prophet desperate for heaven and recognition, pursues her own dangerous vision of heroism. As their paths converge, the novel becomes an irreverent, emotionally charged exploration of faith, destiny, power, and what it means to deserve salvation.

We asked Lewis, who previously released the poetry collection Space Struck and is the coeditor of Another Last Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance, to answer our recurring My Reading Life so readers could get to know the books that shaped their life and influenced their writing.

Continue reading “Paige Lewis, author of Canon, was obsessed with the strangeness and despair of Edgar Allen Poe as a child” →
Interviews, my reading life

Salomé author Leslie Baird loves the Goosebumps that scared her as a child

by AdamLeave a Comment on Salomé author Leslie Baird loves the Goosebumps that scared her as a child
Salomé author Leslie Baird loves the Goosebumps that scared her as a child

In Leslie Baird‘s debut thriller Salomé, an American journalist named Courtney follows a magnetic French woman to a remote town in France, where fascination quickly curdles into paranoia. As Courtney becomes entangled with Salomé’s unsettling family, a mysterious wellness empire, and whispers of a cult obsessed with immortality, she must decide whether she’s uncovering the story that could define her career or walking willingly into something deadly.

Baird currently lives in Europe and received an MFA in fiction from Sewanee, the University of the South.

We asked her to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Salomé author Leslie Baird loves the Goosebumps that scared her as a child” →
Interviews, my reading life

Nerve Damage author Annakeara Stinson’s bed is surrounded by books 

by AdamLeave a Comment on Nerve Damage author Annakeara Stinson’s bed is surrounded by books 
Nerve Damage author Annakeara Stinson’s bed is surrounded by books 

Annakeara Stinson‘s writing has appeared in Bustle, Brooklyn Magazine, The Inquisitive Eater, IndieWire, Paste, and Marie Claire. Her debut novel, Nerve Damage, has been called “witty, sexy and moving” by PEOPLE. In it, Clarice flees New York for Los Angeles after a terrifying breakup spirals into stalking, harassment, and obsession. But when she believes her ex has resurfaced three years later, her search for the truth sends her into an increasingly unstable psychological spiral where paranoia, trauma, and reality begin to collapse into one another.

We asked Stinson to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Nerve Damage author Annakeara Stinson’s bed is surrounded by books “ →
Interviews, my reading life

Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count

by Adam1 Comment on Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count
Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count

Hillary Berhman‘s debut short story collection, Lake Effect, was selected by Lauren Groff as the winner of the 2024 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. In it, characters move through wild landscapes and emotionally fraught relationships as they struggle with isolation, longing, and the complicated ways people try to care for one another. Spanning settings from Seattle to Istanbul, these stories explore intimacy, family, labor, and dislocation in lives shaped as much by emotional distance as by fierce human connection.

We asked Berhman to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Lake Effect author Hillary Behrman has too many book recs to count” →
Interviews, my reading life

Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother

by AdamLeave a Comment on Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother
Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother

Kerri Schlottman is the author of Daytime Moon and Tell Me One Thing. In Daytime Moon, readers meet Isa, an adrift woman who has a gift of premonition and a knack for tarot.

We asked Schlottman to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Kerri Schlottman, author of Daytime Moon, learned to read from Are You My Mother” →
Interviews, my reading life

Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism

by AdamLeave a Comment on Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism
Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism

Sarah Wang’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the London Review of Books, The Nation, The New Republic, Harper’s Bazaar, n+1, and BOMB, among other publications. Now, her debut novel, New Skin, has hit the shelves at bookstores.

Following a mother and daughter trapped in a toxic cycle of love, resentment, and reinvention, New Skin is a scalding, darkly humorous debut novel about plastic surgery addiction and the false promises of the American Dream. When Linli Feng returns home to care for her estranged mother after another botched procedure, she is pulled into the dangerous world of black-market beauty treatments and exploitative reality television, forcing both women to confront the damage that obsession and survival have inflicted on their lives.

We asked Wang to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.

Continue reading “Sarah Wang, author of New Skin, wants you to read Carceral Capitalism” →