Writing a novel, especially a first novel, can be a long, hard process. A few years ago, I began working on a novel that focuses on a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law and examines the complexities of in-law relationships as well…
Peter Capaldi, who plays the titular lead on Doctor Who at the moment, was asked at a recent convention why he thinks his alien character keeps coming back Earth. Without a pause, the actor replied, “Budgetary reasons.” It was an…
Lori Ostlund’s debut novel After the Parade follows the progress of ESL instructor Aaron Englund as he builds a new life for himself in San Francisco and reflects on a small-town upbringing in Minnesota. Ostlund’s first collection of stories, The…
By Guest Contributor Anjali Mitter Duva. In Rajasthan, a desert state in the northwest of India, many five-year old children have never seen rain. In the winter of 2001, as I prepared for a trip to the fortress city of…
Helen Phillips is the author of the novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat (Henry Holt, August 2015). Her collection And Yet They Were Happy (Leapfrog Press, 2011) was named a notable collection by The Story Prize. She wrote the children’s adventure book Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (Delacorte…
J. Ryan Stradal is the fiction editor of the online magazine The Nervous Breakdown and the acquisitions editor at Unnamed Press in Los Angeles. His debut novel, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, is the story of a young woman with…