“On the day we met, she told me she was named after the sexiest country music star alive. And that she knew how to fire a gun. And that she was one hundred percent Cherokee.” In this video, Ashleigh Bryant Phillips reads “Shania” from her debut story collection, Sleepovers (Hub City Press, 2020). Phillips is featured in “First Fiction 2020” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Corinne Manning talks about their debut story collection, We Had No Rules (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020), and the journey to write freely and openly while considering “all the ways in which we might erase ourselves by trying to hit mainstream ideals” in this virtual event for the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center’s 2020 Queer Novel miniseries. Manning is featured in “First Fiction 2020” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

“Don’t be embarrassed by what you like, just be ready to own it.” A Mighty Blaze’s Rachel Barenbaum speaks with Jean Kyoung Frazier about advice for emerging writers and the inspiration for her debut novel, Pizza Girl (Doubleday, 2020). Frazier is featured in “First Fiction 2020” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.