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Continue reading “Debutiful podcast: Hannah Murray discusses The Make-Believe”Tag: interview
Amy Chozick on With Friends Like You, Cormac McCarthy, and Great Writing
Amy Chozick is a bestselling author, screenwriter, and award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Her debut novel, With Friends Like You, follows a struggling new mother whose obsessive search for her long-lost college roommate draws her into a hidden world of sex work, billionaire escorts, and long-buried secrets. Darkly funny and psychologically sharp, the novel explores friendship, motherhood, identity, and the dangerous line between devotion and obsession.
We asked Chozick to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers can get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.
Continue reading “Amy Chozick on With Friends Like You, Cormac McCarthy, and Great Writing”The Flayed Man Author Chloe Lauter Reveals the Weird Stories That Made Her a Writer
Set against the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas, Chloe Lauter‘s debut novel, The Flayed Man, blends horror, dark fantasy, and family drama into a gripping story of survival and sacrifice. Ellis Karsten spends her days caring for patients in the emergency room and her nights searching for blood to keep her family’s monstrous curse at bay. But when her uncle disappears and her mother’s worsening dementia becomes entangled with terrifying warnings about an ancient creature known as the Flayed Man, Ellis must confront the possibility that the greatest threat to her family is no myth at all.
We asked Lauter to answer our recurring My Reading Life Q&A so readers can get to know the books that shaped her life and influenced her writing.
Continue reading “The Flayed Man Author Chloe Lauter Reveals the Weird Stories That Made Her a Writer”See the cover for Villains by Samantha Neugebauer
Villains, the debut short story collection by Samantha Neugebauer, follows characters searching for purpose, enchantment, and connection across the United States and around the world. Spanning thirteen stories, the collection explores the tensions of self-mythology, social hypocrisy, and shame—often through mother-daughter relationships—as its characters struggle to distinguish what is lasting from what is fleeting, and what is truly meaningful from what has simply become familiar.
Villains will be published on January 26, 2027, by Washington Writers’ Publishing House and is available for preorder now.
Samantha Neugebauer is a lecturer at NYU Washington, DC, and a senior editor at Painted Bride Quarterly. She holds an MFA from Johns Hopkins, an M.S.Ed. from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A. from NYU. Originally from Philadelphia, she spent nearly a decade working abroad and now lives in Washington, DC.
Debutiful is honored to reveal the cover of Villains, designed by Dave Ring, along with a Q&A with Neugebauer about its creation.
Continue reading “See the cover for Villains by Samantha Neugebauer”Roshan Sethi wrote The Simp almost as if he were rewriting Vanity Fair
Roshan Sethi’s debut, The Simp: A Novel Without a Hero, is a Hollywood satire written in conversation with William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. It follows an aspiring actor into an assistant job from hell with a biting sense of humor, a keen point of view on identity politics, and a bit of hope for any artist creating into the void. If anyone could combine such seemingly disparate elements with confidence and control, it’s Sethi. He’s not just a novelist, he’s a director, screenwriter, and practicing oncologist.
The very busy Sethi made time after working on call at his hospital to speak over the phone about the perils of undergrad creative writing workshops, the trouble with The White Lotus season one, and why he almost exclusively reads the classics.
Continue reading “Roshan Sethi wrote The Simp almost as if he were rewriting Vanity Fair”Arielle Hebert and Chelsea Krieg on Poetry, Place, Water, and Friendship
Few people understand a poetry collection better than another poet. We asked Arielle Hebert, author of Bottom Feeders, and Chelsea Krieg, author of Everything Is Water, to chat about their collections and how poetry informs their life.
The two discuss the landscapes that shaped them, the role of water and the natural world in their work, caregiving, motherhood, friendship, and the complicated process of writing toward forgiveness. Their exchange is both an exploration of craft and a testament to the writing communities that sustain poets through every stage of the journey, from first drafts to first books.
Continue reading “Arielle Hebert and Chelsea Krieg on Poetry, Place, Water, and Friendship”Krista Diamond on Close Relationships with Strangers, Parasocial Relationships, and Celebrity Obsession
In her debut novel, Close Relationships with Strangers, Krista Diamond examines the strange intimacies we form with people we’ll never meet. Blending celebrity culture, wildlife photography, and questions of loneliness and commodification, her debut novel asks what it means to watch, to be watched, and to mistake proximity for connection.
I caught up with Diamond via email to discuss parasocial relationships, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, empathy, and writing a character whose greatest obstacle is his inability to truly connect with others.
Continue reading “Krista Diamond on Close Relationships with Strangers, Parasocial Relationships, and Celebrity Obsession”Debutiful Podcast: Shannon Sanders discusses The Great Wherever
Alison Leiby on Identity, Chronic Pain, and Why the Messiest Parts of Life Are Worth Writing About
I’m a Lot, the debut memoir from comedian and writer Alison Leiby, showcases her signature deadpan humor and combines it with sincere reflection to create a memorable memoir-in-essays that unravels the expectations put on modern women. Drenched in wit, her writing unpacks everything from the impact of a near-death experience to the highs of discount shopping, and even the joys of being a “Housewives” stan. Pushing back against the narrow definitions women are told they need to fit into, Leiby embraces the joy of unrepentantly living every one of your identities.
I spoke with Leiby about the complexities of writing a memoir, the pressure to be palatable, and why humor was integral to her essays.
Continue reading “Alison Leiby on Identity, Chronic Pain, and Why the Messiest Parts of Life Are Worth Writing About”Chiara Bullen on D&D, Fantasy Taverns, and Writing Like You Rolled a Nat 20
The Inn at the Foot of Mount Vengeance captures everything that makes a great TTRPG campaign memorable: the camaraderie, improvisation, and delight of telling a story with friends. In her debut novel, Chiara Bullen follows an ambitious historian investigating a legendary mountain where adventurers arrive eager for glory, yet somehow never make the climb. We spoke with Bullen about D&D’s influence on her writing, creating unforgettable fantasy taverns, and why food scenes are always a critical success.
Continue reading “Chiara Bullen on D&D, Fantasy Taverns, and Writing Like You Rolled a Nat 20”