Dylan Landis

Dylan Landis is the author of a debut novel, Rainey Royal, and a linked story collection, Normal People Don't Live Like This. Her work has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2014, the New York Times, Tin House, BOMB and elsewhere. She lives in New York.

From her Q & A with Jennifer Smeth at Book-alicious Mama:

In your first book, Normal People Don’t Live Like This, we see the characters Rainey and Leah. What made you decide to continue on with these characters in Rainey Royal, and make a whole book dedicated to Rainey?

Rainey appears in only the first two stories of Normal People Don’t Live Like This—in “Jazz,” her father’s best friend has pinned her to the ground in the dark, in Central Park, and in “Fire,” she’s a bully, and there’s a causal link, of course. And then she disappears from the book, because it’s really about Leah Levinson, who’s obsessed with science and stealing and fast girls, and whose mother is starving herself. Readers asked me, What happened to Rainey; will she get her own book? I found she was still alive to me.

If someone hasn’t read Normal People Don’t Live Like This, will they “miss” a connection with Rainey?

Rainey Royal builds on Normal People Don’t Live Like This, but it’s complete unto itself.

What was the inspiration for Rainey Royal?

Being teased, on the one hand, and being a bad girl myself on the other, and having a lifelong fascination with the tough girls. They always seemed to...[read on]

Visit Dylan Landis's website.

Writers Read: Dylan Landis (November 2009).

The Page 69 Test: Rainey Royal.

--Marshal Zeringue