Rishi Reddi
Karma and Other Stories [3]

Publisher: Ecco
Editor: Lee Boudreaux
Agent: Maria Massie of Lippincott Massie McQuilkin
Format: Trade paperback original
Pages: 240
Blurbs: Arthur Golden, Kiran Desai, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Judith Guest
Deal: Two books—a collection and a novel

Born in Hyderabad, India, and raised in cities and towns in California, Kansas, Missouri, and West Virginia, Rishi Reddi knew that she wanted to be a writer, but chose at the urging of her family to pursue a professional career first. Now that she has achieved that and more—she's an attorney who practiced environmental law in Massachusetts for ten years as well as being the state's legislative coordinator for Amnesty International USA for two years—Reddi is focusing on her primary passion, and a new literary career.

The stories in her first book are set mostly in the Boston area—near where she lives with her husband and daughter in Brookline—and portray the interconnected lives of the members of an Indian American community confronting cultural pressures of tradition and identity.

What made you switch from environmental law to writing fiction?
I always wrote fiction on my own time, so it wasn't really a switch. What was a key decision for me was to stop practicing law in April 2003; there had been some changes in my office and I had recently been married. My husband and I were living in a place we could afford on one salary, so it suddenly was possible for me to devote myself to finishing the collection.

When did you begin writing Karma and Other Stories?
In the fall of 1996. I wrote in the mornings for an hour or so before I went to my day job. It took me ten years to write the book that way—I wouldn't recommend it.

What was the impetus for it?
I was writing to try to learn more about the craft of fiction, so I was concentrating on short stories that I could workshop. Like most first-time authors, I was dealing with themes that were autobiographical (the Indian family, the immigrant experience), that I knew from childhood experience.

How did it come to be published?
I sent out many, many query letters to agents and got very few bites; I sent the manuscript to the few who asked. Of them, I was lucky enough that three people were interested. I chose Maria Massie as my agent.

What were you doing when you first heard the book was accepted for publication?
I was standing in front of the library in downtown Boston where I do some of my writing, talking to Maria on my cell phone, waiting for my husband to pick me up at the end of the day. As soon as I opened the car door, I yelled out the news to him—I didn't even say hello!

What's your next book about?
It's a novel set in the small Punjabi-Mexican community that existed in Southern California in the 1910s and the 1920s, a time when the United States was enacting stringent anti-immigrant laws.

Any advice for first-time authors?
Persevere through everything: the time it takes to write, the people who condescend, the bad advice, the good advice that you must follow, the effort it takes to get in touch with agents or editors. And always honor the craft, the care required to get it right.

Jeff Hobbs
The Tourists

Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Editor: Terra Chalberg
Agent: David Halpern of the Robbins Office
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 330
Blurbs: Adam Davies, Amanda Filipacchi, Allison Lynn, Ron Carlson
Deal: One book

After graduating from Yale University, Jeff Hobbs moved to New York City, where he became executive director of the African Rainforest Conservancy, a small nonprofit that promotes the conservation of African rain forests through educational programs and community development. Hobbs, though, was an aspiring fiction writer with a newly finished novel manuscript, so when he was introduced to Bret Easton Ellis at a fund-raiser, he mentioned his work, and Ellis offered to take a look. While his response wasn't exactly the one Hobbs was looking for ("The structure, line writing, and dialogue are perfect. But there's something wrong with the tone, a sober quality. I'm not sure what it is, or how to fix it," Ellis wrote), it provided the spark for Hobbs to write something different: his debut novel, The Great Gatsby for the new millennium.

When did you begin writing The Tourists?
I was twenty-three, living alone in New York City, and had just returned from a work trip to Tanzania.

What was the impetus for it?
My older brother had just had his heart broken and concluded over a bunch of beers that the worst thing you can do in a relationship is try to change the other person. The book tries to address that concept.

How did it come to be published?
A year after I finished the book, I was extremely lucky to meet my agent, David Halpern, through a friend of a friend of my wife.

How long did it take him to find a home for the book?
He took care of selling it remarkably fast—about six weeks from the time I signed with him.

What were you doing when you first heard the book was accepted for publication?
Staying with my in-laws in Brooklyn for a month before my wife and I moved to Los Angeles.

Your reaction?
My wife and I went out for a night of heroic drinking and got back to work the next morning.

How was it working with Bret Easton Ellis?
Incredible. He's about as sharp a guy as I've ever known, and to have such a precise thinker point out where the extraneous paragraphs and words were taught me such a great deal about how to think through the process of writing a book—when and where it is necessary to mistrust your own instincts.

Which writers do you count as your literary influences?
Jonathan Franzen, Richard Yates, Toni Morrison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Andre Dubus, Philip Roth.

What's your next book about?
Five sisters whose mother passed away a few years ago. They all end up going home to Worcester, Massachusetts, when they learn their father has gotten engaged.

Any advice for first-time authors?
Work very hard every day. Don't pay attention to "how-to" books. Write in longhand.

Frances Hwang
Transparency: Stories [4]

Publisher: Back Bay Books
Editor: Helen Atsma
Agent: Amy Williams of McCormick & Williams (none at the time of the deal)
Format: Trade paperback original
Pages: 240
Blurb: Liza Ward
Deal: One book

In the very first sentence of her debut collection, Frances Hwang introduces readers to the kinds of themes she threads through the ten stories that follow: "As a young girl, Agnes was often embarrassed of her father." Hwang, who received a Writers' Award from the Rona Jaffe Foundation in 2005—the same honor bestowed on such successful first-timers as Samina Ali and ZZ Packer—writes about immigrants and their American-born children who struggle to break free from authority and customs without betraying a sense of their history and ethnic identity.

Hwang's own parents came to the United States from Taipei, Taiwan, and settled in Fairfax, Virginia, where the author spent her childhood. After graduating from Brown University, Hwang received her MFA at the University of Montana. She now lives in Berkeley, California.

When did you begin writing Transparency?
I started when I was getting my MFA at the University of Montana, but it was only after I graduated that I was able to get some perspective on what I'd written. It was surprising to discover which stories had emotional resonance for me and which seemed derivative. I revised the stories I liked best, and wrote and struggled over new stories. It took me seven years in all to finish the collection.

What was the impetus for it?
When I worked on my collection, I wasn't conscious of an overarching theme connecting the stories together. Only after I had written a handful of stories could I begin to see recurring images and ideas in my work. I chose the title Transparency because my stories center around characters—most of them Chinese immigrants and their American-born children—who don't belong to mainstream society and who lead quiet, seemingly invisible lives.

The impetus to write is always the same for me. A mystery is presented in a character or a situation, and I want to delve deeper and try to understand it. Writing for me is an act of discovery, but at the same time I'm trying to record and preserve what might otherwise be lost. I have a desire to describe what is fleeting and ineffable, to try to grasp moments and sensations that are difficult to put into words.

How did it come to be published?
Michael Mezzo, an editor at Little, Brown at that time, saw my stories in Best New American Voices. He wrote and asked to see more of my work, and I sent him an unfinished manuscript with six stories. About a month later, he offered me a contract. I didn't have an agent, but this seemed like a pleasant dilemma now that I had a publisher.

What were you doing when you first heard the book was accepted for publication?
I was living in Hamilton, New York, and had a creative writing fellowship at Colgate University. Mike Mezzo sent me a brief, mysterious e-mail one morning in May, asking me to call him. I suspected he was going to give me happy news because it would be too awkward and painful to reject me over the telephone.

Which writers do you count as your literary influences?
To name just a few—Virginia Woolf, Anton Chekhov, Alice Munro, Jean Rhys, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield, Joy Williams, and Mary Gaitskill.

What's your next book about?
I'm working on a second collection of stories that explores different voices and multiple points of view. One story is about a pregnant woman who has lived in the United States for several years and returns to Taiwan to meet her in-laws for the first time. Another story is based on my experience as a jury member for a criminal trial in Oakland and is about a man who becomes sexually involved with a minor. It was fascinating and disturbing to see how much a story could change as each witness took the stand.

Any advice for first-time authors?
Keep writing and don't be discouraged by rejection. It's a universal writerly experience, suffered by all. So be brave; write as truthfully as you can. There's a quote by Jean Rhys that I love: "All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. And there are trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake."

Phil LaMarche
American Youth [5]

Publisher: Random House
Editor: Daniel Menaker
Agent: Peter Straus of Rogers, Coleridge & White
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 230
Blurbs: Mary Karr, Colm Tóibín, George Saunders, Kate Atkinson, Brian Evenson
Deal: Two novels

With a starred review of his debut novel in Publishers Weekly and a spread in Esquire to welcome him into the fold of published authors, Phil LaMarche is off to a pretty strong start. Set in southern New England, American Youth is a coming-of-age story about a teenager facing a moral dilemma after a fatal shooting accident. Writing in a direct, urgent voice, LaMarche takes on some serious and complicated issues: gun control, urban sprawl, and a new breed of American fascism.

Although he spent time in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Prague in the Czech Republic—thanks to fellowships from Summer Literary Seminars and Western Michigan University's Prague Summer Program—LaMarche, who received his MFA from Syracuse University, has written a novel grounded in the tension and conflict of small-town America.

When did you begin writing American Youth?
I began working on it in the fall of 2001, during my first semester in the Syracuse University MFA program.

What was the impetus for it?
I'd been bringing these stories about delinquent youth to workshop, and someone mentioned that I should try turning them into a novel. I'd made a couple of unsuccessful attempts at a novel prior to that, but I'm a stubborn SOB and couldn't let the form get the best of me, so I decided to have another go at it.

What is your personal position on gun control?
I have a fairly complicated relationship with guns. Like the boy in the novel, I grew up around firearms, receiving my first rifle at the ripe old age of six. There's a long tradition of hunting in my family, and I was raised to see the hunting and butchering of game as a deeply spiritual practice. I was also instilled with a hefty respect for the power of firearms—I've seen what they are capable of, quite literally. Knowing that, I'm always wary of guns ending up in the wrong hands.

How did American Youth come to be published?
I tried to get an earlier draft of it published about three years ago, and it fell flat on its face. I couldn't get anyone, agent or editor, to touch it with a stick. After recovering from that letdown, I worked on it for another two years and decided to test the waters again. A friend suggested that I send it to Peter Straus, and he agreed to represent me. He's in London so we worked with Melanie Jackson in the States. It all happened pretty quickly after that.

What were you doing when you first heard the book was accepted for publication?
I was living at my sister's house, cooking, cleaning, and helping out with her two boys. I was teaching an online fiction workshop for Syracuse University, but to say I was a little down on my luck at that moment might be an apt statement.

Your reaction?
My sister and I took her sons out for ice cream sundaes for dinner. Then I bought my girlfriend an engagement ring on credit.

How was it being photographed for Esquire?
Very, very odd, yet very, very fun. The crew was great to work with and totally professional. It gave me a new respect for that whole line of work.

Which writers do you count as your literary influences?
Faulkner, Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, Padgett Powell, Barry Hannah, James Elroy, and George Saunders and Mary Karr, both of whom I was lucky enough to work with at Syracuse.

What's your next book about?
Another troubled individual—so far.

Any advice for first-time authors?
Keep the faith. Focus on the craft. When my head gets stuck in the marketplace, I get pretty useless as a writer.

Sunshine O'Donnell
Open Me [6]

Publisher: MacAdam/Cage
Editor: Kate Nitze
Agent: Marianne Merola of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.
Format: Hardcover, simultaneous paperback
Pages: 225
Blurbs: Ann Hood, Cheryl Pearl Sucher
Deal: One book

Her name may be bright and cheery, but the premise of her debut novel is rather dark. Mem, the main character in Sunshine O'Donnell's debut novel, Open Me, is the last of the professional mourners—women who are hired to attend funerals and cry. Although the fictional narrative is set in present-day Philadelphia, the so-called wailers have a historical precedent, and O'Donnell blends this fact with fiction to explore themes of mortality, motherhood, and sexuality.

Already an award-winning poet, essayist, and teacher—she runs experiential workshops in creative writing, visual art, and quantum physics for children in schools throughout Pennsylvania, as well as a mobile-classroom program she founded in 1994—O'Donnell has added novelist to her resumé with a unique tale about crying that spans six thousand years.

What's the story behind the name Sunshine?
I was born in 1971 and my parents were hippies. After I was born, my parents hung a banner in the hospital room that said Good Day Sunshine! and had an astrologer come out to do my chart. You'd be surprised by how many of us there are, people in their thirties with names like Sunshine, Garden, Power, Autumn, who are constantly besieged with the question, "Is that your real name?" It definitely dates us. It was a tough name to have in the suburbs during the '80s, and I still think it's pretty silly, but I could never bring myself to change it. Today my students love calling me Miss Sunshine, and I don't mind at all when they do.

When did you begin writing Open Me?
I started in the fall of 1999, but I wasn't able to really sit down and seam it all together until I quit my job as a newspaper reporter in 2000. It had become impossible to spend all day producing easily digestible copy at a fifth-grade reading level and then come home and write anything of value. I had to make a major career change, a huge leap of faith that has turned out to be one of the best choices I've ever made. Once I didn't have to write for anyone but myself, the original version of the book, titled "The Salt Garden," took about six months to complete.

How did you learn about professional mourners?
I know I had heard of them before, but it wasn't until I read Tom Lutz's amazing nonfiction book Crying that I remembered that these women had existed. They're only briefly mentioned in Crying—in fact, they're only briefly mentioned everywhere I researched—but I found myself wondering what kind of training you would have to endure to be a really good professional mourner, how a mourner could become known as the best in her field, what it would be like to have that kind of profession now, in America. There were so many literary possibilities—it was like a plot and character smorgasbord.

How did it come to be published?
It took me longer to write my literary agency query letter than it did to write the book! I knew I had to seduce an agent within the first couple of lines or I would end up in the slush pile, so I spent months crafting that letter. My top two dream agencies responded positively, and I really jumped through hoops for a while in order to secure Marianne Merola at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents. Marianne is tough and fabulous—honest, incredibly professional, and clearly someone who loves literature.

What were you doing when you first heard the book was accepted for publication?
I don't remember! The negotiation process took so long that between "I think we have an offer" and "I'm sending you the contracts," the fantasy I'd had since I was five years old about answering the phone and hearing, "We'd love to publish your book!" had disintegrated. Really, the jumping-up-and-down moment happened in the elevator right after Marianne agreed to represent me.

Which writers do you count as your literary influences?
The authors who have amazed me the most are Margaret Atwood, Sherman Alexie, Ann Beattie, Charles Bukowski, Italo Calvino, Michael Cunningham, Milan Kundera, Ian McEwan, Pablo Neruda, Sylvia Plath, Jeanette Winterson, and Virginia Woolf. I was also really awed by The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

What's your next book about
It's called "All Flesh Is Sunlight." It's about an alien who has been sent to Earth to write a report about the human race and make a recommendation on whether or not to try to engage with our species (he decides almost immediately that the answer is no). He must live within a human body and fuse with the brain in that body, so the things he finds most distasteful about humanity—motivation via urges and pleasure, self-absorption, fear of death, the enslavement and murder of other species, compulsive thinking—become the very things that he has a hard time separating from by the end of his weeklong stay.

Any advice for first-time authors?
Yes: Do it! I'm thirty-six now and I've been waiting and working for this my entire life—I had always thought I would publish my first book when I was much younger, but what I understand now is that it's persistence that gets you where you need to go. It's not necessarily the most talented people who see their furtive desires come to fruition. It's just that there are those who do and those who bullshit about doing. So do it. And then keep doing it, because art is subjective. It's also a business, so you'll have to rap your knuckles on a few (dozen) doors before one opens. Then you'll have to shove your foot into the doorway so they can't slam it closed on you.