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“It’s a confusing time to be a teenager in America.” In this Salon interview, Gabriel Bump speaks about the main character of his debut novel, Everywhere You Don’t Belong (Algonquin Books, 2020), an average, quiet teenager growing up in Chicago tackling the social issues around him. For more from Bump, read his installment of Ten Questions.
Agatha Christie’s 1961 novel The Pale Horse has been adapted into a two-part television series written by Sarah Phelps and directed by Leonora Lonsdale. Starring Georgina Campbell, Kaya Scodelario, and Rufus Sewell, the story begins with the murder of a priest soon after hearing a woman’s deathbed confession, and leads to an old pub inhabited by a mysterious trio of women, rumored to be witches.
“I have an obligation to human beings, my characters, so that’s all I care about.” In this PEN International interview, Yiyun Li speaks about the expectation as a Chinese American writer to be a spokesperson for a particular experience, and how she enjoys exploring the interior struggles of her characters. Li won the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for her novel Where Reasons End (Random House, 2020).
“In the morning, the one who is mostly enlightened comes in.” At this Free Library of Philadelphia author event, Jenny Offill reads from her new novel, Weather (Knopf, 2020), and speaks about her writing process and love of libraries. Weather is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“The book mixes elements of their real life and how and why they came to create these worlds, but also mixes up my imaginings of what their world would have been like.” Isabel Greenberg talks about the process of writing and illustrating her graphic novel Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës (Abrams ComicArts, 2020), which incorporates stories written by Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë during their childhood about an imaginary world.
Sally Rooney’s second novel, Normal People (Hogarth, 2019), has been adapted into a Hulu and BBC television miniseries directed by Lenny Abrahamson and Hettie Macdonald. The twelve-episode series stars Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal as two teenagers in Ireland from different backgrounds navigating friendship and romance through the years.
“It’s particularly, specifically, about what it means to be Asian American, which is a subject that I’ve always actually kind of avoided. I’ve always indirectly approached it, but I’ve never directly tackled it.” At Malvern Books, Cathy Park Hong describes her experience writing her first essay collection, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (One World, 2020), featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, and reads “The End of White Innocence” from the book.
“Obsession is uncomfortable. It is almost always something that you would not choose to be obsessed with.” At an event at the New School, Ann Napolitano talks about the importance of paying attention to one’s obsessions and about the inspiration for her third novel, Dear Edward (Dial Press, 2020).
“The rain will eventually come, or not. / Until then, we touch our bodies like wounds…” In this Mellon Foundation video, Natalie Diaz reads the title poem from her forthcoming collection, Postcolonial Love Poem (Graywolf Press, 2020). A Q&A with Diaz by Jacqueline Woodson appears in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
At Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Angela So and Monica Sok read from their work and talk about displacement, what it means to be children of refugees, and the search for home. Sok discusses her debut poetry collection, A Nail the Evening Hangs On (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), in “First” by Rigoberto González in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
