Tag: texas

Interviews

A Life of Books with Kelsey McKinney, author of God Spare the Girls

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A Life of Books with Kelsey McKinney, author of God Spare the Girls

Kelsey McKinney is a writer, reporter, and co-owner of Defector.com. She has written cover stories on Olivia Munn, in-depth looks at how a producer created the most dangerous monster of the 21st Century and everything in between.

Her debut novel, God Spare the Girls, is a family drama about two sisters who uncover a disturbing secret about their father. The two handle it very differently and the book follows their family story through mega-churches in Texas to their most intimate moments where everything is questioned.

Debutiful asked McKinney to answer the reoccurring questionnaire A Life of Books so readers can get to know her better.

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Interviews, Podcast

Inside Simon Han’s suburban dreamscape

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Inside Simon Han’s suburban dreamscape

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Simon Han’s debut book Nights When Nothing Happened tells you exactly what the book is about. Except, “nothing happening” is in the eye of the beholder. The novel, about a Chinese immigrant family living in Plano, Texas, is as equally quiet as it is thrilling. The project started as a short story about a young girl who begins sleepwalking that spiraled into one of the best novels of the year.

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Interviews, music

Anjimile gives us beauty and takes nothing in return

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Anjimile gives us beauty and takes nothing in return

Anjimile grew up in a religious household in Houston where he had to go to church every day and suppress who he really was. Teenage independence led to an adulthood struggle with alcohol where he sometimes forgot what songs he wrote until he rediscovered them in rehab.

Those rediscovered songs were a reawakening for Anjimile, who breathed new life into them for his debut album Giver Taker.
After many self-released efforts, Giver Taker is Anjimile’s proper debut to the world. Throughout nine songs clocking in just under half an hour, the Boston-based singer takes listeners on a spiritual emotional journey of addiction, sobriety, and becoming less of an asshole.

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Interviews

Kelli Jo Ford’s crooked path to publishing Crooked Hallelujah

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Kelli Jo Ford’s crooked path to publishing Crooked Hallelujah

Kelli Jo Ford didn’t intend for Crooked Hallelujah to be a novel. At first she was just writing stories about Cherokee women who came to her. After a few stories, she realized they were all interconnected and the women were in the same family. These were stories she had to write.

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Interviews, Podcast

John Fram’s The Bright Lands is the queer, supernatural thriller the world needs right now

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John Fram’s The Bright Lands is the queer, supernatural thriller the world needs right now

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John Fram pulled from his own experiences as an outsider in rural Texas and his obsession with crime novelists like Mary Higgins Clark to create The Bright Lands. The novel is one of the most original takes on modern noir I have ever read. Now living in New York, Fram has written for a variety of publications, including The New York Times and The Atlantic. He recently had an opinion in the Times entitled “How White Crime Writers Justified Police Brutality.”

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Interviews

Bryan Washington’s guide to food in Houston

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Bryan Washington’s guide to food in Houston

Bryan Washington’s debut short story collection Lot is a portrait of his native Houston that reveals the nuances of modern-day struggles in race, socioeconomic status, and sexuality.

I spoke with his at length about the collection for an interview that was published over atThe Millions. However, for this site, I wanted to talk to him about his other big passion: food. We chatted about food in Houston and what everyone should learn how to cook.

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