First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Susan Minot is an award-winning novelist, short-story writer, poet, and screenwriter. Her first novel, Monkeys, was published in a dozen countries and won the Prix Femina Étranger in France. Her novel Evening was a worldwide best seller and became a major motion picture. She received her MFA from Columbia University and lives with her daughter in New York City and on an island off the coast of Maine.  Her new story collection is called Why I Don’t Write: And  Other Stories.

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Bryan Washington is the author of the short story collection Lot and the novel Memorial. He is a National Book Award 5 Under 35 honoree.  He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Buzzfeed, Vulture, The Paris Review, and GQamong others.  He lives in Houston.  Memorial was nominated for The Center for Fiction’s 2020 First Novel Prize.

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Ken Bonert was born in South Africa and is the grandson of Lithuanian immigrants. His debut novel The Lion Seeker won both the 2013 National Jewish Book Award for Outstanding Debut Fiction and the 2013 Edward Lewis Wallant Award. His fiction has appeared in McSweeney's, Grain and the Fiddlehead. His journalism has appeared in the Globe and Mail and other publications. He lives in Toronto.

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Bill Clegg is a literary agent in New York and the author of the bestselling memoirs Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man and Ninety Days. His first novel, Did You Ever Have a Family, hit the New York Times bestseller list and was longlisted for the National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. His new novel is called The End of the Day.

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Claire Messud is the author of six works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers The Emperor’s Children and The Burning Girl, and a book of essays, Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Debra Spark is the author of five books of fiction, two collections of short stories, one anthology, and two works of nonfiction. Her most recent books are the novel Unknown Caller, the short story collection The Pretty Girl, and a second book of essays on fiction writing, And Then Something Happened. She teaches fiction at Colby College and at the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.

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Rebecca Watson is the author of the novel little scratch. She writes for publications including the Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Granta. In 2018 she was short-listed for the White Review Short Story Prize.

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David Szalay is the author of five works of fiction: Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, for which he was awarded the Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes, and All That Man Is, for which he was awarded the Gordon Burn prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, and Turbulence, winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Szalay was born in Canada, grew up in London, and now lives in Budapest.

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Peter Geye is the author of the award winning novels, Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, and Wintering, winner of the Minnesota Book Award. He currently teaches the year-long Novel Writing Project at the Loft Literary Center. Born and raised in Minneapolis, he continues to live there with his family. His new novel is called Northernmost.

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Cherie Dimaline is a member of the Georgian Bay Metis Community in Ontario who has published 5 books. Her 2017 book, The Marrow Thieves, won the Governor General’s Award and the prestigious Kirkus Prize for Young Readers, was a finalist for the White Pine Award, and was the fan favourite for CBC’s 2018 Canada Reads. Her new book is Empire of Wild.

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