About Hesse Phillips
Hesse Phillips’ debut novel, Lightborne, was a 2022 finalist in the Irish Writers Centre’s International Debut Novel Competition and a Historical Fiction Pick of the Year for 2024 in The Times (UK). Hesse’s poetry and short fiction have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. They have appeared as a guest on The 7AM Novelist Podcast and BBC Radio 3’s The Essay, and have written for DeadDarlings and NPR. Hesse was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania but now lives in Spain. They have a PhD in Drama from Tufts University and are a graduate of GrubStreet Boston’s Novel Incubator program.
I identify with Rembrandt in his early self-portrait, The Artist in His Studio. This is pre-socialite Rembrandt, not the velvet-robed, amply mustachioed burgher of his middle period, or the fading ghost with the watery expression of his late self-portraits. In…
You are living the dream. People like your novel-in-progress. Some even love it. You certainly love it, and know deep down that it will always love you back. There’s just one problem: Trusted Reader (who also happens to be a…