I'm a Writer But

Julie Myerson discusses the immersive structure of her new novel, how her real life influenced her fiction, dealing with intense public backlash and rediscovering her confidence as a writer, Elizabeth Strout, and so much more!

Julie Myerson is the author of ten novels, including the bestselling Something Might Happen and The Stopped Heart, and three works of nonfiction, including Home: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House and The Lost Child. As a critic and columnist, she has written for many newspapers including The Guardian, the FT, Harper’s Bazaar and the New York Times, and she was a regular guest on BBC TV's Newsnight Review. She lives in London with her family.

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Yael Goldstein-Love discusses her time- and genre-bending novel, The Possibilities, trying to put motherhood into words, using quantum mechanics to explain the paradox of parenthood, the way parents birth a child’s mind, mom rage, writing humor, her newest project, and more!

Yael Goldstein-Love is the author of the novels The Passion of Tasha Darsky, described as “showing signs of brooding genius” by The New York Times, and The Possibilities, a speculative thriller about the psychological transition to motherhood. A PEOPLE pick of the week (“a powerful page-turner with deep wisdom”) and Good Morning America recommendation for summer reading (“taps into those primal feelings every nurturer feels — and fears”), The Possibilities grew out of Goldstein-Love’s own rocky transition to motherhood as well as her clinical passion for working with people during this fraught and potentially generative period. Her doctoral dissertation examined how mothers experience their anxiety for the unknown futures of their children.

Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, and Slate, among other places. A graduate of Harvard University and The Wright Institute, she lives with her six-year-old son and a very patient cat in Berkeley, CA.

In another life, she was co-founder and Editorial Director of the literary studio Plympton, which aims to make the digital age a golden age for literature.

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Andrew Porter discusses his new collection, The Disappeared, how his process changes depending on what he’s working on, trying to hold a novel in his head all at once as he’s drafting, moving from writing stories to writing a novel and back again, when and how he thinks about structure, and more!

Andrew Porter is the author of the short story collection The Theory of Light and Matter (Vintage/Penguin Random House), which won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the novel In Between Days (Knopf), which was a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection and an IndieBound “Indie Next” selection, and the short story collection The Disappeared (Knopf), which was recently published in April 2023. Porter’s books have been published in foreign editions in the UK and Australia and translated into numerous languages, including French, Spanish, Dutch, Bulgarian, and Korean.

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Athena Dixon discusses her new book, The Loneliness Files, the cases that inspired the essays, how social media can help and harm the creative process, writing on her phone, being ghosted for writing opportunities, being transparent in the industry, working without an agent, and more!

Born and raised in Northeast Ohio, Athena Dixon is a poet, essayist, and editor. She is the author of the essay collection The Loneliness Files, out now on Tin House, The Incredible Shrinking Woman and No God In This Room, Winner of the Intersectional Midwest Chapbook Contest. Her work also appears in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic and Getting to the Truth: The Practice and Craft of Creative Nonfiction.

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Rachel Cantor discusses her new novel, Half-Life of a Stolen Sister: A Novel of the Brontës, writing a modern take on historical characters, finding her way to the novel’s innovative form, finding a balance in voice and tone, finding a publisher for this book without an agent, and more!

Rachel Cantor is the author of the novels A Highly Unlikely Scenario and Good on Paper. Her short stories have appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, Ninth Letter, and The Kenyon Review, among other publications. She was raised in Rome and Connecticut, and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY.

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In this truly wonderful and enlightening episode, E.J. Koh discusses her debut novel, the magic of dogs, familial relationships, how poetry helped her communicate, magnanimity, how imagination and creativity are essential aspects of apology, her hope for Korea, and more! 

E. J. Koh is the author of the memoir The Magical Language of Others, which won a Washington State Book Award, Pacific Northwest Book Award, Association for Asian American Studies Book Award, and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award. Koh is also the author of the poetry collection A Lesser Love, a Pleiades Press Editors Prize for Poetry Winner. She earned her MFA at Columbia University in New York for Creative Writing and Literary Translation and her PhD at the University of Washington in English Language and Literature studying Korean American literature, history, and film. Koh has received National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, American Literary Translators Association, and Kundiman fellowships. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Her debut novel is The Liberators, out on Tin House November 7, 2023.

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Kathleen Rooney discusses her new novel, which is based on silent film star Colleen Moore and the fairy castle she created, as well as the best kind of weirdos, nailing the unique voice of her protagonist, researching the silent film era, and more!

Kathleen Rooney is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, as well as a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. She teaches in the English Department at DePaul University, and her recent books include the national best-seller Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and the novel Cher Ami and Major Whittlesey.. Where Are the Snows, her latest poetry collection, was chosen by Kazim Ali for the X.J. Kennedy Prize and published by Texas Review Press in Fall 2022. With her sister Beth Rooney, she is the author of the picture book Leaf Town Forever, forthcoming in 2025 from University of Minnesota Press.

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Chloé Caldwell discusses her memoir, The Red Zone, as well as the ambitious decision to center a book around her period/PMDD, periods in pop culture, women’s changing bodies, the euphoria of seeing menstruation depicted realistically, structuring and restructuring her book, and more (about periods)!

Chloé Caldwell is the author of The Red Zone: A Love Story (Soft Skull, 2022) and three more books: the essay collection I’ll Tell You in Person (Coffee House/Emily Books, 2016), the critically acclaimed novella, WOMEN (SF/LD 2014), and Legs Get Led Astray (2012). Orphaned Passages: Notes on Trying will release in 2025 from Graywolf Press.

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Cleo Qian discusses moving between poetry and fiction, the inspiration behind some of the stories in her debut collection, allowing her book to age as she revised, honoring the privacy of writing, and more!

Cleo Qian (she/her) is a fiction writer and poet from California. She received her MFA from NYU. Her work has appeared in over 20 outlets; was a winner of the Zoetrope: All Story Short Fiction Competition; has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, twice longlisted for the DISQUIET Prize, and supported by Sundress Academy for the Arts. By day, she works at a nonprofit and reads self-help articles on how to be happy. Her debut short story collection, LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GO, is out now.

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Eden Robins (Franny Stands Up) discusses her new novel, catharsis in comedy, how being a funny woman is STILL transgressive, the terror of writing the jokes for the book, the intermingling of trauma and pain and humor, Chicago history, and more!

Eden Robins loves novels best, but they take forever so she also writes short stories and self-absorbed essays at places like Catapult, USA Today, LA Review of Books, Apex magazine, Shimmer, and others. Her debut novel When Franny Stands Up was named a best book of 2022 by the Chicago Reader, a best queer book of 2022 by Autostraddle, and Best Book of the Month by Bustle and Buzzfeed. She co-hosts a science podcast called No Such Thing As Boring with an actual scientist and produces a monthly live lit show in Chicago called Tuesday Funk. Previously, she sold sex toys, wrote jokes for Big Pharma, and once did a stand-up comedy set to an audience who didn't boo. She lives in Chicago, has been to the bottom of the ocean, and will never go to space. Find out more scintillating tidbits at monkeythumbs.com and on Twitter and Instagram @edenrobins.

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