I decided to write a historical novel because I wanted to get completely out of my day-to-day life and contemporary everything—terrorism, the failure of capitalism, modern marriage, childhood and adolescence, politics, racism, climate change, you name it. Did I have…
I haven’t had a chance to binge-watch Luke Cage yet. I’m still binge-watching Smash to take my mind off revising my latest shitty first draft while waiting for my I-hope-it’s-not-shitty-please-let-it-be-final draft from my editor. Life motto: hope for the best, expect the worst….
This summer I got to travel around Asia for two months with a dear old friend—a novelist and playwright, and my best reader. For weeks we’d looked forward to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the massive Hindu temple complex dedicated to…
This spring I nearly declared a moratorium on violent fiction after reading three savage novels: The Orphan Master’s Son, The Sympathizer and A Little Life. Afterward life felt dirty. Basta! After all, the news is horrific: a toddler refugee washes…
You are going to get it wrong. It is as fundamental to the craft as rejection, procrastination and gravity. A pursuit that requires you to put yourself into the heart and brain of another human being will lead you to…
I took a break the past few weeks to finish edits on my novel. I had some guilt about leaving ALL of you without your Friday Feast for a few weeks (hi, Stephanie and Emily and random WordPress denizen). But this…