Jane Ciabattari

ICYMI here’s my @literaryhub.bsky.social conversation with inventive empathetic author George Saunders re his dazzling new novel Vigil,

Happy launch day to George Saunders! Here’s our @literaryhub.bsky.social conversation about Vigil, revising, finding a novel’s ending, & the afterlife.

ICYMI

A Total Breakdown of All the Easter Eggs | A. S. Hamrah In December 2019, three months before the pandemic, I was standing on a subway platform in Brooklyn when I recognized a prominent older film critic also

“In the publicly traded world of Netflix and the breathless business reporting that follows it around, the growing success of arthouses and revival houses is an inconvenience best ignored.” —A.S. Hamrah

Lauren Rothery on Channeling Hollywood in Her Debut Novel Lauren Rothery’s first novel offers up a trio of captivating voices from the ever-shifting cast of characters that is Hollywood, alternating perspectives in ingenious ways. She shifts between Verit…

@janeciab.bsky.social talks to debut author Lauren Rothery about her novel, Television.

Two books with AI-generated covers have been disqualified from New Zealand’s top book prize. Somewhere on the goofy/sad spectrum in AI slop news, today two novels up for the prestigious Ockham New Zealand Book Award were disqualified on the basis of their AI cover art. Obligate Carnivore, …

“The whole skirmish is obscuring the insides of both collections—which AI covers tend to do. But both authors have been quick to distinguish form from content.”

What Was Literary Twitter? *The Champion* I wish I could say it was close, dear reader, but with 72.6% of the vote, Joyce Carol Oates won our bracket by a wide margin. We sensed that this was coming watching the returns—JCO was putting up …

After six rounds of voting, you’ve finally chosen Literary Twitter’s greatest icon! Congratulations to Joyce Carol Oates.

Iida Turpeinen on Exploring Our Relationship With the Natural World Through Fiction Iida Turpenen’s Beasts of the Sea, translated from the Finnish by David Hackston, is a rare first novel, drawing readers into intimate connection with a little-known species, the Stellar’s sea cow.…

@janeciab.bsky.social talks to Iida Turpenen, the author Of Beasts Of The Sea, about exploring our relationship with the natural world through fiction.

Olivia Laing on Fictionalizing the Murder of Pier Paulo Pasolini Olivia Laing’s innovative first novel Crudo (2018), winner of the James Tait Black Memorial prize, is written from the point of view of Kathy Acker, who Laing called “the acme of the self-inv…

@janeciab.bsky.social talks to Olivia Laing about fictionalizing cinematic icons Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Susan Straight on Chronicling the Impact of COVID-19 in Fiction Sacrament follows in natural progression Susan Straight’s bestselling novel Mecca (2022), which revolves around three characters in that date-growing city in the Coachella Valley, including Johnny …

@janeciab.bsky.social talks to Susan Straight about chronicling COVID in literature: “I stood at the gate and listened to my neighbors and the traveler nurses. Their backpacks were their lives, and their camaraderie.”

The Wayfarer is set in Polynesia 1k years ago, filled with fascinating characters, animals, birds, celestial navigators. Utterly captivating!

The Wayfarer is set in Polynesia 1k years ago, filled with fascinating characters, animals, birds, celestial navigators. Utterly captivating!

Take the guess work out of your submissions. Use our free Small Presses database to find contact information, submission guidelines, representative authors, and more—everything you need to make your submission process simpler. Start exploring: at.pw.org/smallpress

Quan Barry on Writing a Horror Novel Set in Antarctica Quan Barry is an award-winning playwright (and poet) as well as a novelist, skills which show in the virtuosity of the ensemble of characters she has created in The Unveiling. Her primary narrator …

@janeciab.bsky.social talks to award-winning playwright, poet, and novelist Quan Barry about writing a horror story set in Antarctica.

Quan Barry, re her new novel @literaryhub.bsky.social: "...I’m really an instinctual writer. I don’t have a scholarly bone in my body, i.e., nothing in me vibes with literary analysis or criticism. At its heart, my book is a novel about memory." @groveatlantic lithub.com/quan-barry-o...

www.macfound.org/programs/awa...

Flashback to 2019, Gregg Barrios and I welcoming #tommyorange to @bookcritics awards ceremony, when he received the NBCC John Leonard award for best first book for #therethere Today he's honored by the @macarthur.foundation with a MacArthur Fellow grant. More books TK! (Link in comments.)

And how an AI hallucination inspired the newest story in his collection…the last in the book.

The Mother as Antihero Sasha Bonét, the author of “The Waterbearers,” shares four books about mothers who are both incredible and imperfect.

Sasha Bonét, whose new memoir, “The Waterbearers,” traces the lives of her mother and grandmother, discusses four other books that examine complex mothers.

Happy publication day to @angelaflournoy.bsky.social Her beautifully crafted new novel, The Wilderness, ranges from 2008 to 2027, revealing moments from ecstatic & heart breaking, & the value of friendship.

Gary Shteyngart on Channeling a Precocious Child Narrator Vera, the buzzy, brilliant and preternaturally observant ten-year-old central to Gary Shteyngart’s sardonic and profoundly relevant new novel, brings a fresh, necessary perspective to our evolving …

“I think precocious children in fiction can be pretentious. But what are you gonna do? Write about a dumb one?” @janeciab.bsky.social interviews @shteyngart.bsky.social.

Hal Ebbott on Writing a Novel of Male Friendship Hal Ebbott’s extraordinary first novel, Among Friends, opens with a brief prelude in which the two friends, Amos and Emerson, meet in college. It’s August, only athletes have returned. “In the dist…

“Love and toxicity are hardly unfamiliar bedfellows.” Hal Ebbott tells @janeciab.bsky.social about writing a novel of male friendship.

Book covers for MENDING BODIES by Hon Lai-Chu (translated by Jacqueline Leung), HOW WE KNOW OUR TIME TRAVELERS by Anita Felicelli, and THE MAN IN THE BANANA TREES by Marguerite Sheffer

Lovely time at the Bay Area Book Fest. Thanks to @janeciab.bsky.social for hosting and so great to speak with @anitafelicelli.bsky.social, Hon Lai-Chu, and @jacqlyy.bsky.social about spec fic! Check out their weird and wonderful books, HOW WE KNOW OUR TIME TRAVELERS and MENDING BODIES

Poster for the session described in the post: "Stories of Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction" at the Bay Area Book Fest, Hotel Shattuck Plaza, Sunday June 1 at 12:30 pm

Bay Area! I'm going to be IN you May 30-June 3 for the Bay Area Book Festival

On the panel "Stories of Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction" with @anitafelicelli.bsky.social, Hon Lai Chu, @jacqlyy.bsky.social, moderated by @janeciab.bsky.social 12:30 Sunday, June 1

www.baybookfest.org/session/stor...

🌿Please join us this Sat 5/17 @ LitCamp's #reading at Sebastopol's #Litcrawl when 15 #writers-- including me--share short takes on a having a super bad attitude! 5pm, 186 N. Main Street. FREE. It'd be great to see you! 💜

#writer #writing #books

Looking forward to this @baybookfest.bsky.social speculative fiction conversation!

Dear friends, we've launch a change to the way we offer grants to underrepresented writers at @pageonem.bsky.social. I hope you'll read and share with your colleagues and writers. Thanks!

Karen E. Bender on Channeling Contemporary Anxieties Through Speculative Fiction My last Lit Hub conversation with Karen E. Bender was in 2018, just before her collection The New Order was published. She mentioned that she read John Cheever’s short stories in graduate school: “…

“The most interesting fiction, to me, contains this element of strangeness, whether it’s set in the real world or an alternative one.” @janeciab.bsky.social interviews @karenebender.bsky.social.

My @literaryhub.bsky.social conversation with award winning short story author @karenebender.bsky.social re: her new collection, The Words of Dr L and Other Stories, just our from Counterpoint Press.

Congrats @bookcritics.bsky.social poetry finalist @oliverbaezbendorf.bsky.social !