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Continue reading “Debutiful Podcast: Jaquira Díaz discusses This Is the Only Kingdom”Debutiful Podcast: Jaquira Díaz discusses This Is the Only Kingdom
Tag: debut
See the cover for Paradise Pawn by Meg Richardson
Meg Richardson‘s debut novel, Paradise Pawn, draws on her experiences working at a pawn shop. The writer/translator/cartoonist earned her MFA from Columbia and is releasing her debut novel on July 14, 2026, from Tin House. It is available for pre-order now.
In Paradise Pawn, Richardson follows two best friends who can sell anything. When the girls, Jackie and Kayla, realize that Kayla won’t be able to attend the private school Jackie will due to family money troubles, the two teens hatch an embezzling scheme against the pawn shop where they work alongside their families. What follows is a heist gone wrong, and the fallout the two teens must navigate as their world comes crashing down.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover, designed by Beth Steidle, along with a Q&A with Meg Richardson about its creation.
Continue reading “See the cover for Paradise Pawn by Meg Richardson”Debutiful Podcast: Laura Venita Green discusses Sister Creatures
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Continue reading “Debutiful Podcast: Laura Venita Green discusses Sister Creatures”First Taste: Teresa Dzieglewicz reads from Something SMall of How to See a River
See the cover for The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes by Tatiana Țîbuleac
Tatiana Țîbuleac is an award-winning Moldovan-Romanian author whose novels have been translated into 17 languages. A former journalist and UNICEF staffer, she now lives in Paris. Her latest book, The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes, was translated from Romanian by Monica Cure, a Romanian-American writer, translator, and two-time Fulbright recipient and winner of the 2023 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
This novel, which will be published by Deep Vellum on January 13, 2026, traces Aleksy’s return to the pivotal summer he spent with his mother in rural France, when her revelation of a terminal illness forced them to confront old grief and unspoken tensions. Fourteen years later, through memory and therapy, he revisits those months of fragile reconciliation. Intimate and tender, it explores family, loss, and the difficult work of forgiveness.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover, featuring a painting by Cecilia Omara and design by Jen Blair, along with a Q&A with Țîbuleac and Cure about its creation.
Continue reading “See the cover for The Summer My Mother Had Green Eyes by Tatiana Țîbuleac”12 noteworthy debut books you should read this October
Debutiful’s Adam Vitcavage recommends noteworthy debut books for readers to discover each month.
Continue reading “12 noteworthy debut books you should read this October”E.Y. Zhao on table tennis, wanting more good writing to exist, and her debut novel Underspin
In her debut novel, Underspin, writer E.Y. Zhao brings readers into the table tennis world. In it, we follow a young prodigy who, from the ages of eight to twenty-five, was taking the sport by storm. Until he abandoned the sport and ended up dead. Zhao carefully crafts a coming-of-age that questions the pressures of ambition, the complexities of intimacy, and the haunting cost of greatness.
Prior to writing her debut, Zhao’s work has appeared i The Georgia Review, Electric Lit, and Chicago Review of Books and she hasbeen recognized by the Georgia Review Prose Prize, the Le Baron Russell Briggs Prize, and various Hopwood awards.
We caught up with the writer via email to learn more about Underspin.
Continue reading “E.Y. Zhao on table tennis, wanting more good writing to exist, and her debut novel Underspin”See the cover for Surrender by Jennifer Acker
Jennifer Acker‘s debut book, The Limits of the World, was a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Oprah Daily, the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. Now she’s back with another novel, publishing on April 14, 2026. Surrender follows a seasoned New York PR executive who returns to her family’s struggling Massachusetts farm, where she faces the collapse of her marriage, her husband’s failing health, and her own inexperience as a farmer. As she rediscovers love with a childhood friend, Lucy must navigate the tangled pressures of loyalty, loss, and the uncertain promise of starting over.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover designed by Abby Weintraub, along with a Q&A with Jennifer Acker about how the cover for Surrender was created.
Continue reading “See the cover for Surrender by Jennifer Acker”My Reading Life: Happiness & Love author Zoe Dubno thinks Martin Amis can get boys hooked on reading
In her debut novel, Happiness & Love, Zoe Dubno follows a young woman who, after returning to New York for her former best friend’s funeral, is drawn into a downtown dinner party that spirals into chaos. Prior to releasing her debut novel, her fiction has appeared in Granta and Muumuu House and NY Tyrant. She’s published nonfiction in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, The Nation, Vogue, and BOMB.
We asked Dubno to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers could get to know the books that shaped her life and what influenced her debut novel.
Continue reading “My Reading Life: Happiness & Love author Zoe Dubno thinks Martin Amis can get boys hooked on reading”Aisha Muharrar interviews Aisha Muharrar
In every interview, I like to ask writers, “Is there a question you’d like me to ask?” I’m always surprised by the types of questions they’d want to ask themselves, so I decided to take the idea of the self-interview and give writers some restraints.
One. Use Who/What/When/Where/Why-ish questions.
Two. Have fun.
Today, we have Aisha Muharrar, an Emmy-award-winning writer and producer whose debut novel, Loved One, is out now. Before writing her debut book, she has worked on shows like Hacks, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. In her debut novel, Muharrar follows a woman who travels from Los Angeles to London to recover her late best friend’s belongings and clashes with the guarded woman who refuses to give up his beloved guitar. It’s hilarious and heartwarming, and truly a delight to read.
Let’s turn it over to Aisha Muhrarrar.
Continue reading “Aisha Muharrar interviews Aisha Muharrar”