Jessica Anya Blau

Jessica Anya Blau's books include The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, Drinking Closer to Home, and The Wonder Bread Summer.

Her new novel is The Trouble with Lexie.

From Blau's Q&A with Caroline Leavitt:

What is it about prep schools that somehow intensifies everything that possibly could happen in our lives?

Maybe it’s that when you take people out of the routines of home, family, parents and neighbors, they open up in a way they don’t usually. People reinvent themselves, recreate themselves and let loose when they’re away from home. You see this sort of group intensity/lunacy in adults when they go to conferences and writing colonies. They work hard, but they also play very hard—everything’s more charged up, your senses are sharper, you’re more engaged in what’s going on around you. Then, if you take that hyper-awareness, that openness, and couple it with hormones, exploration and close living quarters, there’s more drama than can fill a library of books.

Tell us about the writing of this particular book (I always think that each book is a whole different process.) What was different for you here?

Every book terrifies me. I can be overwhelmed with insecurities doubts, second-guesses. I have to continually talk myself into the work—remind myself that the process is what matters. I find great relief in...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Anya Blau's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

Coffee with a Canine: Jessica Anya Blau and Pippa.

The Page 69 Test: The Wonder Bread Summer.

My Book, The Movie: The Wonder Bread Summer.

The Page 69 Test: The Trouble with Lexie.

My Book, The Movie: The Trouble with Lexie.

Writers Read: Jessica Anya Blau.

--Marshal Zeringue

Janine Joseph

Janine Joseph is the author of the new poetry collection, Driving Without a License.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Some of the poems include quotations from politicians, newspaper articles and immigration documents. Why did you decide to include those, and how did you select the material you included?

A: During my senior year of high school, when I found out that I was undocumented, I began scouring places like the Los Angeles Times for articles about immigration and the experiences of other undocumented immigrants in America.

I was looking for community, for a solution. In a way, I was also learning about who I “was” in the eyes and of America—and, to some degree, had internalized this new identity and narrative.

I clipped and saved every article in a hot pink, plastic folder, but I rarely ever had to return to them when writing the poems in Driving without a License. I was writing about my life, after all, and not using the gathered material as research for an imagined character.

The quotations from politicians, newspaper articles, and immigration documents, among others had become a part of me—of the language and dominant narrative that I was...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Mohsin Hamid

Mohsin Hamid is the author of the novels Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. His fiction has been translated into over 30 languages, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, featured on bestseller lists, and adapted for the cinema. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, and the Paris Review, and his essays in the Guardian, the New York Times, and the New York Review of Books. Born in 1971, he has lived about half his life, on and off, in Lahore. He also spent part of his early childhood in California, attended Princeton and Harvard, and worked for a decade as a management consultant in New York and London, mostly part-time.

From Hamid's Q&A with Rumnique Nannar for Nineteen Questions:

How did you start or decide to become a writer?

As a little kid, I was a big reader. I probably started with comic books and children’s stories, and then kept reading throughout my childhood and teens. I’m also quite a fantasist, so I would imagine countries and I loved atlases. I used to imagine little countries where no countries existed, and I was into Dungeons and Dragons as a kid (laughs). All of these things, in a way, were a real absorption into storytelling. When I went to university in the States, Princeton had a wonderful creative writing program with Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison. I remember applying for one of the first creative writing workshops and getting in, and starting to write stories for them. Very quickly I realized that this was what I loved to do. So it was in university for the first time that I thought, I would like to be a professional writer.

You’ve talked about Haruki Murakami’s quote, “Writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity.” How important was walking during your process?

One of the skills that a writer needs to cultivate is...[read on]

Visit Mohsin Hamid's website and Facebook page.

Mohsin Hamid's most influential book.

Mohsin Hamid's 10 favorite books.

The Page 69 Test: The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Writers Read: Mohsin Hamid.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mary-Louise Parker

Mary-Louise Parker is the author of Dear Mr. You, a collection of letters to the men in her life. She is also a Tony-, Emmy-, Obie-, and Golden Globe–winning actor, and has appeared on screen in Weeds, The West Wing, and Angels in America, and onstage in Proof. From her Q&A with Margo Rabb at Slate:

One deeply moving aspect of your book is how you write about the loss of your father. The last letter in the book, “Dear Oyster Picker,” is written to the anonymous man who picked the oysters for your father’s last meal. How did that letter evolve?

I think that last letter is the point of the whole book. It’s about a man I’ve never met, yet I felt so grateful toward him. I started reading all these facts about oyster pickers, and I had no idea what they go through. It wasn’t just a literary device—I really do envision this person, and the fantasy of him helped me make sense of life a little bit. The metaphor is that we’re all somehow working for each other in tiny ways, without knowing it.

Motherhood is a significant part of your book as well. You write that after having children, “Romantic love felt silly by comparison.” How did becoming a mother change you?

I wanted to be a mother my whole life, and there are so many fantasies of motherhood I’ve had that have come true—filling...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Thelma Adams

Thelma Adams's new novel is The Last Woman Standing: A Novel of Mrs. Wyatt Earp.

From her Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:

What could be more fascinating than a novel about Mrs. Wyatt Earp? What sparked you to write this extraordinary novel?

A novel can have many origin stories. I saw -- somewhere, somehow, nearly a decade ago -- that Wyatt Earp was buried in a Jewish cemetery (a word I can never spell) in Colma, California. I became obsessed. Was Earp Jewish? No. So why would the famed gunslinger, the hero (or villain) of the Gunfight at the OK Corral be buried in a Jewish cemetery?

The answer was Earp's wife of nearly fifty years: Josephine Sarah Marcus Earp called Josie by some, Sadie by her family. That was the beginning. Here was a knot that I needed to untangle, a question of Jewish identity that intrigued me.

First and foremost I wanted to know who the hell Josie was. Who was this beauty who turned up on a few pages in the many, many books that praised or reviled Wyatt in that 'the man, the myth, the legend' way. Josie did write a memoir that was edited by her descendants, I Married Wyatt Earp. It exists in multiple formats, some truer than others. But all versions are to a certain extent opaque, so far from contemporary memoirs that scratch down to the sticky embarrassing truth like Running with Scissors or Wild.

One goal of Mrs. Earp's memoir was always to restore Wyatt's good name, and by extension Josie's place beside him. Because, in the conventional history of gunfights and border skirmishes, law and order, Republican and Democrat, she only existed at his side on the frontier. And, then, she's often portrayed as a floozy, an actress or dancer, a beautiful opportunist, an exotic, a Jewess. As a historian out of Berkeley, I knew that there were many alternate histories, and the history of women and the poor are not marked by battles won or lost. A social historian has to dig deeper and read between the records in order to discover what these forgotten people were about. Once I heard about Josie, I wanted to dig deeper and discover what made her tick.

One thing I wanted to know was...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Thelma Adams' website.

The Page 69 Test: Playdate.

My Book, The Movie: Playdate.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Livingston

Michael Livingston is the author of The Shards of Heaven. From his Q&A at The Qwillery:

TQ: Who are some of your literary influences? Favorite authors?

Michael: My tastes in literature are really quite diverse, from medieval writers like Chaucer to modern writers like Brandon Sanderson. On my shelf you'll find J.R.R. Tolkien next to Tennyson, Dan Simmons next to Shakespeare, and Parke Godwin next to Gilgamesh. I try to learn something from every author I've read.

TQ: Describe The Shards of Heaven in 140 characters or less.

Michael: It is history and fantasy colliding at the rise of the Roman Empire as Caesar's children fight to control the artifacts of gods old and new.

TQ: Tell us something about The Shards of Heaven that is not found in the book description.

Michael: At its core, this novel is about fashioning a reality from the fog of mythology. I have long been fascinated by the similarities between various legends of the ancient world, and so I tried to find a hidden thread that would bind them all together into a historical adventure that's part Indiana Jones and part Game of Thrones.

As an added bonus...[read on]

My Book, The Movie: The Shards of Heaven.

The Page 69 Test: The Shards of Heaven.

Writers Read: Michael Livingston.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lawrence M. Schoen

Lawrence M. Schoen holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics. He’s also one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Klingon language, and the publisher of a speculative fiction small press, Paper Golem. He’s been a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the Nebula Award. Schoen lives near Philadelphia.

His newest novel is Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard.

From Schoen's Q&A with Jamie Greene at GeekDad:

GeekDad: You have a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics, and you use that background (maybe sometimes unconsciously) to flesh out your characters and fully develop the worlds you create. When it comes to your writing and your academic training, how much does each inform the other? Do they ever conflict?

LS: They’re so intertwined by now it’s hard to see where one ends and the other begins. There’s no conflict because understanding a psychological principle gives insight into the language I use, and the words and style and prosody that I choose in my writing are enhanced by a greater knowledge of how and why such things work as they do.

GeekDad: The bit of your author bio that really jumps out is not your doctorate but that you’re “one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Klingon language.” So I have to ask: have you read Shakespeare in the original Klingon?

LS: Not just read it, but published it! One of the things I’m proudest of in my more than two decades leading the Klingon Language Institute is...[read on]

Visit Lawrence M. Schoen's website and Twitter perch.

Writers Read: Lawrence M. Schoen.

Coffee with a Canine: Lawrence M. Schoen & Gej.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jo Perry

Jo Perry earned a Ph.D. in English, taught college literature and writing, produced and wrote episodic television, and has published articles, book reviews, and poetry. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist Thomas Perry. They have two adult children. Their three cats and two dogs are rescues.

Perry is the author of the novels  Dead Is Better and Dead is Best.

From her Q & A with Sarah Hardy:

Hi Jo and many thanks for joining me on my blog today. The Charlie & Rose Investigate series, where did the idea come from?

Hi to you, Sarah. It’s a pleasure to be with you today.

As for the source of Charlie and Rose, I wish I knew what it was. When I began the first book, Dead Is Better, I heard Charlie’s voice in my head, had a strong feeling for Rose and an intuition of where the plot would go. I had been thinking about death, about cruelty, had found a dog who changed me, and then after a long period of subconscious percolating, I felt compelled to write and the novel took shape.

You start each chapter with a quote about death, where did you find all the quotes and how long did you spend choosing and finding them?

There are two reasons for the quotations that open each chapter: First, to enlarge the mediation on death beyond Charlie. Second, they give the reader a break from Charlie’s voice and his point of view. A first-person narrative can become claustrophobic and I don’t want that. As for finding them, often they find me or I do searches and save the ones I think are pertinent, clever, wise, sardonic, or provocative or are from writers I admire. If anyone has a favourite death quote...[read on]

Visit Jo Perry's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Jo Perry & Lola and Lucy.

My Book, The Movie: Dead is Better.

The Page 69 Test: Dead is Better.

My Book, The Movie: Dead is Best.

--Marshal Zeringue

Geoffrey Kabaservice

Geoffrey Kabaservice is the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party.

From his Q & A with Isaac Chotiner at Slate:

How has Trump’s takeover of the party changed the way you think about the GOP, assuming you did not predict this, because nobody did?

Yeah, I certainly was not Nostradamus. On the other hand, there are some parallels to the party’s history. The parallel a lot of people have been mentioning is Barry Goldwater in 1964. Goldwater’s seizure of the nomination was as unexpected back in those days as Trump’s was this year. Part of the reason is that Goldwater’s conservatism was not seen as the dominant strain in the party. It frankly had seemed to be an isolated or perhaps even marginal aspect of Republicanism.

I think you are right that Trump is as ideologically surprising as Goldwater, but he seems more surprising in terms of personality and background. Goldwater was a senator; Trump’s personality seems more shocking.

Yes and no. Think back to 1964.

I can’t think back that far, but go on.

Yes, of course, well, neither of us can. Just as Goldwater was poised to win the nomination after he defeated Nelson Rockefeller in the California primary, he voted against the Civil Rights Act. In so doing, he really took away the glory the party deserved for supporting the act. Republicans had voted for it in greater numbers than Democrats had. [Editor’s note: Because of their congressional majority, more Democrats than Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act, but a higher percentage of Republicans did so.]* Goldwater, having done that, given that he was the party’s presumptive nominee, really threatened to change the identity of the party. And that was in some ways how it played out. Although Eisenhower had received something like 40 percent of the black vote in 1956, and even Richard Nixon had received a third in 1960, with Goldwater it plummeted to 4 to 6 percent...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Shawna Yang Ryan

Shawna Yang Ryan's latest novel is Green Island.

From her Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for your main character and her family, and why is she an unnamed narrator?

A: I struggled through multiple drafts with different narrative voices. Ultimately, I narrowed down the time frame for the book, and then it was easier to envision a character who could move through that time period.

For a long time, I was set on having a more male-centric book, but I found the father-daughter relationship very poignant, especially from the POV of a woman yearning for a better relationship with her father.

I was so consumed inside her head, I didn’t feel that I could go outside her and give her a name, some way that others identify her. And then when the book was done, I’d known her so long this way that no name seemed right. I also like the metaphorical resonances with being unnamed and Taiwan’s own issues over...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Shawna Yang Ryan's website.

The Page 69 Test: Water Ghosts.

--Marshal Zeringue