Ten Questions for May-Lee Chai
“I wish it were easier for writers of color who don’t come from moneyed backgrounds to be heard and celebrated.” —May-Lee Chai, author of Useful Phrases for Immigrants
Ten Questions
Read weekly interviews with authors to learn the inside stories of how their books were written, edited, and published; insights into the creative process; the best writing advice they’ve ever heard; and more.
Ten Questions for Rosellen Brown
“What we need to do is make people less certain about their certainties.” —Rosellen Brown, author of The Lake on Fire
Ten Questions for Claire Fuller
“I love getting into the nitty-gritty of a novel, right down to the sentence and the word level.” —Claire Fuller, author of Bitter Orange
Ten Questions for Simon Van Booy
“When you’re writing, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself to you. —Simon Van Booy, author of The Sadness of Beautiful Things
Ten Questions for Christopher Kennedy
“I have three states of being: feeling doubt, manifesting a vague desire to say something that seems important, and writing toward ground zero of that desire.” —Christopher Kennedy, author of Clues From the Animal Kingdom
Ten Questions for Emily Jungmin Yoon
“I find that poems in my head become louder when everything is quiet.” —Emily Jungmin Yoon, author of A Cruelty Special to Our Species
Ten Questions for Melanie Hobson
“I can multitask the hell out of a holiday meal preparation, but when I’m working on a novel it’s all or nothing.” —Melanie Hobson, author of Summer Cannibals
Ten Questions for Sharlene Teo
“To doubt yourself means you’re on to the right thing. I find that reassuring.” —Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti
Ten Questions for Patrick deWitt
“I’m for an industry-wide ban on the blurb.” —Patrick DeWitt, author of French Exit
Ten Questions for J. M. Holmes
“It is a terrifying process to release your literary babies into the world, where anybody can say anything they want about them.” —J. M. Holmes, author of How Are You Going to Save Yourself
Ten Questions for Jos Charles
“In a system that doesn’t value writing, but only the marketing possibility of the writer and the written object, to write is the ‘success’ itself.” —Jos Charles, author of feeld
Ten Questions for Catherine Lacey
“I don’t think beyond the book I’m writing, and I’m always writing one.” —Catherine Lacey, author of Certain American States
Ten Questions for Amitava Kumar
“I write every day and walk every day.” —Amitava Kumar, author of the novel Immigrant, Montana
Ten Questions for Alexia Arthurs
“I’ve gotten messages from people who tell me that they were waiting on a book like mine.” —Alexia Arthurs, author of the story collection How to Love a Jamaican
Ten Questions for Amy Bonnaffons
“I’m coming to believe more and more that the whole body should be engaged in the writing process.”—Amy Bonnaffons, author of the debut story collection The Wrong Heaven
Ten Questions for Keith Gessen
“You can almost always make something better by making it shorter.” —Keith Gessen, author of the novel A Terrible Country
Ten Questions for Jasmine Gibson
“Get in where you fit in, and where you don’t, break it.” —Jasmine Gibson, author of Don’t Let Them See Me Like This
Ten Questions for Lillian Li
“Avoid the word ‘it’ whenever possible. Which is to say, specificity whenever possible.” —Lillian Li, author of the debut novel Number One Chinese Restaurant
Ten Questions for Grady Chambers
“That was the scariest part in making this come together: the endless possible permutations of inclusion, exclusion, order; the fear of endless possibility.” —Grady Chambers, author of the poetry collection North American Stadiums
Ten Questions for Lee Martin
“I’m still amazed by the decisions that get made that can make or break a book before it even hits the shelves.” —Lee Martin, author of the story collection The Mutual UFO Network, published today by Dzanc Books
Ten Questions for Akil Kumarasamy
“There’s no such thing as writer’s block.” —Akil Kumarasamy, author of the debut story collection Half Gods, published today by FSG.
Ten Questions for A. M. Homes
“Write the truth according to the character.” —A. M. Homes, author of the story collection Days of Awe, published today by Viking.