Ted Thompson's one of the very first people I met in Iowa City in the fall of 2009 when my wife and I moved there so that she could attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Knowing Ted has given me a close view of watching someone move from drafting a book to editing it, then to selling it to a publishing house and editing it some more. On Thursday, an adaptation of that book—The Land of Steady Habits—will premiere on Netflix. Adapted and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Nicole Holofcener, the movie ... [READ MORE]
NOTEBOOK
Web Exclusive Interview: Tyler Stoddard Smith
"I aspire to dread . . . " begins June's online short story, "Knausgaard in Space." And with these words, we knew author Tyler Stoddard Smith had nailed the Nordic icon and we were in for something very funny. And boy, did we need it. Here we talk Weird Al, the legendarily awkward meeting between Knausgaard and Jeffrey Eugenides, and the potential hilarity of having no escape. — Erin McReynolds: This story is hysterical; do you have a background in improv or writing parody or ... [READ MORE]
The House in the Woods: An Interview with Jane Delury
In her lush debut, The Balcony, author Jane Delury offers readers wide-angle and macrocosmic glimpses of life in and around a French manor house over the course of more than a century. A novel-in-stories, The Balcony examines the changing fortunes of families who've come and gone over the manor's history, looking both at the occupants of the main house as well as those who've lived in the cottage on the grounds of the estate. Both the fictional village of Benneville and the surrounding woods ... [READ MORE]
Web Exclusive Interview: Nathan Go
In May's Web Exclusive, "The Blind Oracle of Mactan," author Nathan Go takes us to an island in the Philippines, to a fantastical man who just, as it turns out, wants what any of us wants. The prose is light and funny, winding lithely around something that reveals itself to be as profound and enduring a problem as human beings have ever known. Even a human who has lived many, many lifetimes over. We talked with Nathan about how this strange and wonderful story came about. Erin McReynolds: The ... [READ MORE]
Dinosaurs, the Alphabet, and Ten Things to Consider Prior to Submitting a Story for Publication
I. To Begin, a Note about Pleasure A few years ago, the late James Salter was honored at the annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Festival with a prize in Fitzgerald’s name. During his keynote address at the award ceremony, Salter said something that was stupefying in its simplicity: reading, he said, was among the very greatest pleasures in his life. Perhaps that’s not a surprising sentiment for a writer so notably interested in pleasure, especially the pleasures of food, drink, travel, language, and ... [READ MORE]
Strange New City: An Interview with Lucy Tan
Lucy Tan's debut novel What We Were Promised is a deftly constructed multiple-perspective work that tells the story of the Zhen household. After attaining educations and building careers in the United States, Wei and Lina return to Shanghai with their daughter, Karen, where they find themselves a part of a new generation of urban elites. Quite suddenly, Wei is tasked with dramatically expanding his business while Lina finds herself part of an upper-crust previously unimaginable to her. As a ... [READ MORE]