Ten Questions for Shoshana von Blanckensee
“If you put the hours in, the work will work itself out.” —Shoshana von Blanckensee, author of Girls Girls Girls
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Genre: Fiction
Keiichiro Hirano: The Question of Selfhood
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At this Japanese Literature Night event hosted by the Japan Society, Keiichiro Hirano delivers his keynote speech titled “The Question of Selfhood” in which he shares how his upbringing in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka during the eighties and nineties inspired his interest in literature and how he attempts to tackle questions of the individual’s place in modernity through his novels.
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Clam Down
Can a typo inspire a story? In the opening paragraph of Anelise Chen’s memoir, Clam Down: A Metamorphosis (One World, 2025), the narrator recalls a text message from her mother wherein the phrase “calm down” has been transformed, whether through a typo or autocorrect, into “clam down.” This cryptic mistake becomes the premise for a story of metamorphosis and connections, withdrawal and closing up, and family history, as Chen weaves in mollusk science and explores a long-ago period of her father’s retreat from the family. Spend some time observing words and language you see in your daily life from text messages, signage, advertisements, and labels. Select a phrase that has the potential to be interpreted in an open way and leads you into writing a new story, perhaps one that incorporates science, the natural world, and elements of the fantastic.
Where Does Fiction Come From
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In this Jaipur Literature Festival event moderated by Nadini Nair, novelists David Nicholls, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Geetanjali Shree, Jenny Erpenbeck, and Andrew O’Hagan discuss their respective writing processes, as well as how the novel voice can be used to interrogate the histories established by colonial powers.
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Ten Questions for Robert P. Baird
“[Y]ou should write, or at the very least revise, with a reader always in mind.” —Robert P. Baird, author of The Nimbus
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The Life of Chuck
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Watch the trailer for The Life of Chuck, a film adaptation of the novella of the same name by Stephen King. Written and directed by Mike Flanagan, the film stars Tom Hiddleston, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillan, Jacob Tremblay, and Mark Hamill.
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Polly Barton on The Place of Shells
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In this McNally Jackson Books event, Polly Barton reads from her English translation of Mai Ishizawa’s debut novel, The Place of Shells (New Directions, 2025), and talks about her experience researching the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in order to capture the historical, emotional center of Ishizawa’s writing in a conversation with Eliza St. James.
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Conjoining
In the dystopian world of Hon Lai Chu’s novel Mending Bodies (Two Lines Press, 2025), translated from the Chinese by Jacqueline Leung, a Conjoinment Act has been passed by the government wherein people are encouraged to have their bodies surgically joined to another person, creating couples who purportedly become more fulfilled beings while providing improvements for economic and environmental states. The novel’s structure alternates between sections detailing the narrator’s struggles with her own thinking and decision-making around “conjoining” and sections of her dissertation on the program’s history, including case studies and the origins of bodily “conjoinment.” Taking inspiration from this format, create a dystopian premise in which a society’s government has instituted an optional, controversial policy. Write a short story which intersperses bits of fictionalized research within the in-scene action for a touch of surrealism.
Ten Questions for Lucas Schaefer
“A book takes a long time to write, and a long time to publish. So, you know, take a breath!” —Lucas Schaefer, author of The Slip
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Christina Li: The Manor of Dreams
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In this Politics and Prose bookstore event, Christina Li, author of The Manor of Dreams (Avid Reader Press, 2025), talks about her decision to write a family saga with gothic sensibilities and how the Mandarin and Cantonese languages affected her writing process in a conversation with Martha Anne Toll.
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