This week’s feature is Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly’s co-authored novel, The Tilted World, which is being released today by William Morrow. Franklin is the New York Times best-selling author of the novel Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010), as well as two previous novels, Hell at the Breach (2003) and Smonk (2006), and a collection of short stories, Poachers (1999). Fennelly is the author of a book of non-fiction, Great with Child: Letters to a Young Mother (2007), three collections of poetry, Unmentionables (2008), Open House (2005), and Tender Hooks (2002), as well as a poetry chapbook, A Different Kind of Hunger (1998). Fennelly and Franklin, who are married, have also collaborated on another project, The Alumni Grill: Volume II, Anthology of Southern Writers (2005), which they co-edited. They teach at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
In his recent FWR interview with Franklin and Fennelly, William Boyle, a former student of the authors, sits down to talk about The Tilted World. The three discuss story origins, historical research, and the dance of literary collaboration (and marriage). In his introduction to the interview, Boyle writes:
I’m still (and will always be) caught up in being their student, so the nature of my questions here is one of inquisitive awe. Something like: How do you make things the way you do? Because I want to learn to make things the Franklin-Fennelly way. I want to create something that swings with heart like this novel does. I want to create something that pulses with tension and feels beautifully epic. The Tilted World put me in mind of Walter Macken’s great Irish Trilogy in its scope. It’s historical fiction that rumbles with fierce energy and walks the line between realistic intensity and allegorical myth-making. It’s also that rarest of things, a collaborative novel without breaks in tone and style, a book that is more than merely a book, a book that is an act of love.
To read the rest of this conversation, check out the full interview.
We’re also happy to announce that we’ll be giving away a copy of The Tilted World to three of our randomly selected Twitter followers. To be eligible for this giveaway (and all future ones), simply click over to Twitter and “follow” us (@fictionwriters).
To all of you who are already fans, thank you!
