New Books In Literature

Ellen Doré Watson speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “In Which Raging Weather is a Gift,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. Ellen talks about the importance of letting a poem surprise you as the first draft comes together. She also discusses her thoughts on the revision process, her work translating poetry and prose, and the years she spent running the Smith College Poetry Center. Ellen Doré Watson’s fifth full-length collection is pray me stay eager. Her poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Tin House, Orion, and The New Yorker. She has translated a dozen books from Brazilian Portuguese, including the work of Adelia Prado. Watson served as poetry editor of The Massachusetts Review and director of the Poetry Center at Smith College for decades, and currently offers manuscript editing and workshops online. ­­Read Ellen’s poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/ellen-dore-watson. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and

Today I talked to Karen Heenan about Coming Apart: A Novel of the Great Depression (2022). Ava has always been poor, so she doesn't think the Great Depression will change anything. But when her mother dies and her coal miner husband loses his job, Ava's certainty falters. The last thing she needs is a letter from her estranged sister, asking for the impossible. Claire has everything she could ever want, except the child she promised her husband. When her sister's life falls apart, she reaches out to help - and finds the missing piece of her own marriage. With everything at stake, Ava must choose: give up one child to save the rest or keep the family together and risk losing it all? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern (Melville House 2022) by Rita Zoey Chin is equal parts coming of age, epic travel tale, quest to find a mother who disappeared, and journey of personal discovery. The story begins as Leah Fern is planning to commit suicide. She hears someone banging on her door, which is strange since she has no friends. The visitor is a lawyer who shares a box that sends Leah on the road following clues that she hopes will lead to the mother who abandoned her when she was six, 15 years before. North to Canada and west to the ocean, Leah consumes copious amounts of candy as she surmounts obstacles, learns how to navigate with a piece of magnetite, and recounts her happy carnival life, before her mother, the magician, disappeared. Rita Zoey Chin is the author of the widely praised memoir, Let the Tornado Come. She holds an MFA from the University of Maryland and is the recipient of a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, an Academy of American Poets Award, and a Bread Loaf scholarship. She has taugh

Kristina Marie Darling’s Daylight Has Already Arrived (Black Lawrence Press, 2022) spans six years and countless styles. Motifs and images reappear, but the formal choices are wide-ranging. The poet utilizes prose, analysis of Shakespeare, erasure, and even footnotes to create neither memoir nor mediation, but a deeply intimate perspective on a vast landscape of ideas. Darling creates a sense of urgency without ever sacrificing her delicate, but firm grip on her work. Darling is the author of thirty-six books, which include Look to Your Left: A Feminist Poetics of Spectacle; Stylistic Innovation, Conscious Experience, and the Self in Modernist Women's Poetry; Silence in Contemporary Poetry; Silent Refusal: Essays on Contemporary Feminist Poetry; Angel of the North; and X Marks the Dress: A Registry (co-written with Carol Guess). Hal Coase is a PhD candidate at La Sapienza, University of Rome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://

A. M. Homes most recent book is The Unfolding (Viking, 2022). Her previous work includes, This Book Will Save Your Life, which won the 2013 Orange/Women’s Prize for Fiction, Music For Torching, The End of Alice, In a Country of Mothers, and Jack, as well as the short-story collections, Days of Awe, Things You Should Know and The Safety of Objects, the bestselling memoir, The Mistress’s Daughter along with a travel memoir, Los Angeles: People, Places and The Castle on the Hill, and the artist’s book Appendix A: A.M. Homes has been the recipient of numerous awards including Fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, NYFA, and The Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library, along with the Benjamin Franklin Award, and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis. She was a Co-Executive Producer and Writer on David E. Kelly and Stephen King’s, Mr. Mercedes, Co-Executive Producer and Writer on Falling Water and has created original television pilots

Yan Ge and Jeremy Tiang are both writers who accumulate languages. Sitting down with host Emily Hyde, they discuss their work in and across Chinese and English, but you’ll also hear them on Sichuanese, the dialect of Mandarin spoken in Yan Ge’s native Sichuan province, and on the Queen’s English as it operates in Singapore, where Jeremy grew up. Yan is an acclaimed writer in China, where she began publishing at age 17. She now lives in the UK. Her novel Strange Beasts of China came out in English in 2020, in Jeremy’s translation. Jeremy, in addition to having translated more than 20 books from Chinese, is also a novelist and a playwright currently based in New York City. This conversation roams from cryptozoology to Confucius, from the market for World Literature to the patriarchal structure of language. Yan reads from the “Sacrificial Beasts” chapter of her novel, and Jeremy envies the brevity and compression of her Chinese before reading his own English translation. Throughout this warmhearted conversation,

Part mystery, part thriller, with a splash of cyberpunk, Victor Manibo’s debut novel The Sleepless (Erewhon, 2022) imagines a near-future New York City where a quarter of the population has lost the need for sleep. Ahead of a corporate takeover, investigative journalist Jamie Vega discovers his boss is dead. Driven to discover the truth, Jamie continues to delve deeper, even as his own Sleeplessness spirals out of control. The world feels lived in and the mystery fits snugly within it. With good pacing and fully-realized characters, who bring their own morally ambiguous motivations to the table, The Sleepless keeps you guessing at what the characters could plausibly have done or could do next. Victor Manibo is a speculative fiction writer living in New York City, and his writing is influenced by his experiences as an immigration and civil rights lawyer. As a queer immigrant and a person of color, he also writes about the lives of people with these identities. Brenda Noiseux is a host of New Books in Science F

Immigration problems, climate issues, dysfunctional families, road barricades, and the division between haves and have nots play a role in this dream-like novel. Set in Wisconsin’s stunning Northwoods, News of the Air (Black Lawrence Press, 2022) by Jill Stukenberg centers on a mother, father, and their teenage daughter, who voice the story from each of their perspectives. The novel opens with a pregnant Allie recalling her divorce, worried about her future, avoiding roadblocks to get to work at a Chicago museum, and frantic because of nearby eco-terrorism. In the next chapter, Allie and her husband Bud are proprietors of a far north rustic resort, and their previously homeschooled daughter Cassie, is about to finish her schooling in the local high school. Then two children show up in a canoe, and there is confusion about who they are and what they’re doing in the Northwoods. Jill Stukenberg’s short stories have appeared in Midwestern Gothic, The Collagist (now The Rupture), Wisconsin People and Ideas magazin

Celeste Ng is the author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts. Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You (2014), was a New York Times bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (2017) was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 Indie Next bestseller, and Amazon's Best Fiction Book of 2017. It was named a best book of the year by over 25 publications, the winner of the Ohioana Award and the Goodreads Readers Choice Award 2017 in Fiction, and has spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list. Little Fires Everywhere has been adapted as a limited series on Hulu, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. She is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors. Recommended Books: Jason Mott, Hell of a Book Gab

Jane Satterfield speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “Letter to Emily Brontë,” which appears in The Common’s spring issue. Jane talks about her longstanding interest in the Brontë sisters, and why this pandemic poem is directed to Emily in particular. She also discusses letter-writing as a structure for poetry, and reads another poem published in The Common, “Totem,” which reflects on a childhood memory through more adult understanding. Jane Satterfield’s most recent book is Apocalypse Mix, which was awarded the Autumn House Poetry Prize selected by David St. John. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship, the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry from Bellingham Review, the Ledbury Poetry Festival Prize, and more. New poetry and essays appear in DIAGRAM, Ecotone, Orion, Literary Matters, The Missouri Review, The Pinch, Tupelo Quarterly, and elsewhere. She is married to poet Ned Balbo and lives in Baltimore, where she is a professor of writing at Loyola Universit

Miss del Río (Graydon House Books, 2022) explores the biography of a real-life actress, Dolores del Río, who became a silent movie star in Hollywood, navigated the transition to talkies, and eventually played a role in the establishment of the film industry in her home country of Mexico. The story plays out against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, which influences the lives of the characters in ways both direct and subtle. Add to all this a dramatic tale of the fictional María Amparo (Mara)—Dolores’s hairdresser, confidante, and wry chronicler—and you have a novel that breaks new ground in interesting ways. The novel opens with Mara late in life, remembering a friend whose commemoration Mara herself is too old and frail to attend. From there, we move back to the outbreak of the Mexican revolution, with Mara a small child being dragged through the streets by her caretaker, a rough woman known as Tía Emi throughout the book. Through Mara’s eyes, we see her first encounter and budding relationship (whethe

Gravity Hill (Madville Publishing 2022) is the story of a small town in Connecticut grappling with the tragic death of three teenage boys. What first appears to be a drunk driving tragedy leads back to a mysterious accident (based on the real Revere Textile Mill Superfund site in Sterling) that has plagued the town for years. The sister of one of the boys nearly spins out of control before embarking on a journey to clear her brother’s name. She questions the presence of someone from the Environmental Protection Agency, finds a hidden toxic waste site, and begins the process of healing everyone who was affected. Susanne Davis is the daughter of a sixth-generation dairy farmer and grew up in Sterling, where her brother still operates the family dairy farm just a couple of miles from Gravity Hill. She has an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a short story collection, The Appointed Hour. Individual stories have been published in American Short Fiction, Notre Dame Review, Clackamas Literary Review, and other

Manga historian Ryan Holmberg introduces the influential alternative manga artist Murasaki Yamada (1948-2009) to English readers through a scholarly translation of Talk to My Back (1981-1984), Yamada’s feminist examination of the fraying of Japan's suburban middle-class dreams. The manga is paired with an extensive essay by Dr. Holmberg, in which he positions Yamada’s oeuvre within the history of alternative manga and Yamada’s manga within her life. Alternative manga is primarily associated with male artists in the United States, but Holmberg illuminates why that came to be and how that image varies from reality through his examination of Yamada’s oeuvre. Talk to My Back (Drawn & Quarterly, 2022) portrays a woman's relationship with her two daughters as they mature and assert their independence, and with her husband, who works late and sees his wife as little more than a domestic servant. While engaging frankly with the compromises of marriage and motherhood, Yamada saves her harshest criticisms for society a

Ship Life: Seven Months of Voluntary Slavery (2022) is written in the form of a diary of a Ukrainian girl who worked as a bar server on an American cruise ship. Day after day, the author recreates from memory the real events of the seven months spent on board, sharing her impressions, discoveries, and experiences. Readers of this diary have the opportunity to visit more than 20 countries in Europe, North and Central America with the author, and most importantly - to learn firsthand what it is - ship life. Nataliya Shpylova-Saeed has a Ph.D. in Slavic languages and literatures (Indiana University, 2022). Her dissertation explores contested memory focusing on Ukraine and Russia. She also holds a Ph.D. in American literature (Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2007). In her dissertation on Richard Brautigan, she focuses on postmodernism in American literature. Currently, she is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Russian and Eurasian program at Colgat

Boubacar Boris Diop is the author of Murambi: The Book of Bones, (Indiana UP, 2016; translated by Fiona McLaughlin), an unforgettable novel of the Rwandan genocide that blends journalistic research with finely drawn characterizations of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. In this episode, Mr. Diop reads from Murambi, translated from French by Fiona McLaughlin, and speaks to Duke professor Sarah Quesada and host Aarthi Vadde about how his work on the novel spurred him to rethink his language of composition. Mr. Diop wrote his first five novels in French, but after Murambi, shifted to Wolof, the most widely spoken language in his home country of Senegal. Asked to describe the difference between writing in French and writing in Wolof, Mr. Diop sums it up memorably: “When I start writing in French, I shut the door; I shut the window…I don’t hear the words I’m writing. When I write in Wolof, I hear every word.” Sarah and Mr. Diop discuss whether translation can be an ally to a Wolof worldview or whether the sou

In Three Muses (Regal House Publishing, 2022) by Martha Toll, John Curtin survives the Holocaust by singing for the entertainment of the kommendant who murdered his family. He’s sent to America, probably by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, to be adopted by a family whose son was killed fighting the war. The nourishment, love, and kindness of his new parents allows him to thrive. Years later, John is forced by Dr Roth to relive the worst moments of his life during therapy he’s required to do as part of his psychiatric training. Meanwhile, after seven-year-old Katherine loses her mother, her aunt enrolls her in ballet classes, never realizing how it will change Katherine’s life. The first thing to change is her name – Boris Yanakov, the director and choreographer, changes her name to the more Russian-sounding Katya Symanova. He seduces Katya and makes her a star, but also controls her every movement. When John sees Katya perform in Paris in 1963, he’s bewitched and can’t stop thinking about her. The next time

Andrew Sean Greer is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of six works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including the Iowa Writers Workshop, been a TODAY show pick, a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, a judge for the National Book Award, and a winner of the California Book Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. He is the recipient of a NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Today we're talking about his new book Less Is Lost (Little Brown, 2022). Books Recommended: A.B. Yehoshua, A Journey to the End of the Millennium Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro as World Literature, is under contract with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwritin

"The dominatrix is the id of American femininity. She says the words that we all wish we could say when we find ourselves frozen in the presence of men. No is principal among them." So writes Chris Belcher, who appeared destined for a life of conventional femininity after she took first place in an infant beauty contest--a minor glory that can follow you around a working-class town of 1,600 people in rural West Virginia. But when she came out as queer, the conservative community that had once celebrated its prettiest baby turned on her. A decade later, living in Los Angeles and trying to stay afloat in the early years of a PhD program, Belcher plunges into the work of a pro domme. Branding herself as LA's Renowned Lesbian Dominatrix, she specializes in male clients who want a domme to make them feel worthless, shameful, and weak--all the abuse regularly heaped upon women for free. A queer woman whom men can trust with the unorthodox sides of their sexualities, Belcher is paid to be the keeper of the fantasies

Courtney Zoffness is the author of Spilt Milk, out now with McSweeney’s, and forthcoming in paperback in September 2022. Spilt Milk was named a best debut of 2021 by BookPage and Refinery29, and a “must-read” by Good Morning America. Also a fiction writer, Zoffness won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joined a list of winners that includes Anthony Doerr and Junot Díaz. Other honors include an Emerging Writers Fellowship from The Center for Fiction and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, Guernica, No Tokens, and other venues, and she had essays listed as “notable” in Best American Essays in2018 and 2019. Zoffness holds graduate degrees from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Arizona, and a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has taught English at a dozen different institutio

Charles Yu won the 2020 National Book Award for Interior Chinatown but some of us became fans a decade earlier, with How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010). That novel brilliantly uses SF conventions to uncover the kind of self-deceptive infilling that we all do every day, the little stories we tell ourselves to make our world seem predictable and safe when it’s anything but. In this crossover episode, which originally aired on Novel Dialogue, where critics and novelists sit down together in peace, He speaks with John and with science-fiction scholar Chris Fan, Assistant Professor at UC Irvine, senior editor and co-founder of Hyphen magazine. The conversation gets quickly into intimate territory: the pockets of safe space and the “small feelings” that families can and cannot provide, and that science fiction can or cannot recreate. Graph paper and old math books get a star turn. Charlie’s time as a lawyer is scrutinized; so too is “acute impostor syndrome” and the everyday feeling of puttin