Maggie Shipstead is the New York Times-bestselling author of the novels Astonish Me and Seating Arrangements, which won the Dylan Thomas Prize and the L.A. Times Book Prize for First Fiction. A third novel, Great Circle, will be published in 2021, with a short story collection to follow. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. A regular contributor to Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, and Departures, Maggie has also been published many other places, including Outside, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, and The Best American Short Stories, and has twice been a National Magazine Award finalist for fiction.
“I know I’m on the right track when I’m terrified for a character”: Maggie Shipstead talks with Lydia Fitzpatrick about her debut novel, Lights All Night Long, as well as where books begin, leaps of imagination, the momentum of a murder mystery plot, and more.
