At the Ann Arbor Book Festival, FWR’s Jeremiah Chamberlin talks with acclaimed novelist Colson Whitehead about the process of writing his latest book, Sag Harbor, the art of manufacturing genuine nostalgia, and the duality of veering “between the capricious horribleness of the everyday and the absurd beauty of existence.”
Mary Stewart Atwell and Alison Espach talk with short fiction guru Lydia Davis about transitioning from inventing worlds to inverting the real one; writing dream stories; and translating Madame Bovary.
Brian Bartels sits down with Adam Rapp–prolific playwright, musician, director, and novelist–to talk about his latest book, Punkzilla, and the mysterious process by which the words we create are shaped by music.
Lee Thomas talks with Aravind Adiga about neo-realism, myth, being a misfit, and winning the Booker Prize for his debut novel, The White Tiger. Adiga’s next book, a collection of stories called Between the Assassinations, will publish in the United States this June.
Michael Hinken asks Young Lions Fiction Award winner Salvatore Scibona about the story behind his first novel, The End. Scibona emphasizes the value of writing from habit (rather than discipline), discusses his own process, and shares why he recently built a worm farm.
NPR’s “Voice of Books” Alan Cheuse talks to FWR about being a writer, critic, and teacher–and he shares the story behind his latest book, To Catch the Lightning, a novelization of the life and work of photographer Edward Curtis.
Peggy Adler talks to debut novelist Valerie Laken about the inspiration behind her first book and her process in writing it. Dream House, a literary crime novel, tells the story of a young couple whose lives are upended when they discover that the historic home they’ve just bought was once the site of a murder.
Michael Shilling talks about his first novel, his own adventures playing and touring with various bands, and his current project–one he describes as Jane Eyre meets The Wire.
Travis Holland’s first novel, The Archivist’s Story (2007, Dial Press), is set in Stalinist Russia in 1939. The book has been translated into eleven languages and has received numerous accolades, including: a Guardian Readers’ Pick of 2007, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, a Best Fiction of 2007 choice by Metro.co.uk, a Best Book of 2007 by both the Financial Times and Publisher’s Weekly, and the 2008 VCU Cabell First novelist award. He currently lives in Ann Arbor, where he is at work on his next novel. Jeremiah Chamberlin spoke with him for FWR on December 18, 2008.
In his most recent novel, The Count of Concord, Nicholas Delbanco revives a largely forgotten but fascinating historical figure who was, in his day, an international celebrity: renaissance man Count Rumford (1753-1814). Brian Short asks Delbanco about the story behind bringing this character back, as it were, to life–and the experience of picking up a manuscript again after 20 years.
In her debut novel, Preeta Samarasan tells the story of both one ethnic Indian family and the whole country of Malaysia, reminding us that History is the individual people it happens to.
Susannah Felts gets questioned about the line between fiction and autobiography on a regular basis. This speaks, she suggested, to a very real longing in readers to make that distinction. “We have this fascination with memoir,” she said. “We want to connect representations of reality to reality itself. There’s an insatiable need for that.”
