After Ross Benes left Nebraska for New York, he saw with greater clarity the rural-urban divide overtaking the national conversation. I recently spoke with Benes about his book, Rural Rebellion, in which he explores Nebraska’s shifting political landscape to better understand what’s plaguing America while coming to terms with his own past and present.

Zakiya Dalila Harris has written a thriller set in the publishing industry. I know, words you never expect to hear in the same sentence. But her novel, The Other Black Girl, is just that. The idea came to Harris when she was working as an editorial assistant, and then as assistant editor, at one of publishing’s largest houses. She realized that she was one of only two Black women working there. Combine that realization with a love for the movie, Get Out, and you have a thriller set in the publishing industry on your hands.

Who Is Maud Dixon? is a tale of literary identity theft. And that’s about all I can tell you.

When you hear the name “John Green” you might think of him as a Vlogbrother, with his brother Hank. Or you might recall that he wrote the book The Fault in Our Stars, which was made into a movie. Or you might remember that he wrote other books: Turtles All the Way Down, Paper Towns, and An Abundance of Katherines. But my earliest memory of John Green was in April of 2005. He had just published his debut novel for young adults, Looking for Alaska, and I was one of seven booksellers and librarians visiting with John Green at a restaurant in Kansas City.

Joan Silber is the author of nine works of fiction, including Improvement, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

Maggie Shipstead’s novel Great Circle tells the story of two women who lived nearly a century apart—a daredevil aviator and a recently shamed Hollywood actor.

KMUW's Beth Golay visits with Edgar Award-winning Flynn Berry about her new thriller surrounded by the political unrest of Northern Ireland.

Renee Rosen’s books have taken place in Chicago in the 1950s, New York City in the 1960s, at Chess Records during the Civil Rights Movement, and in Chicago during prohibition.

Early Morning Riser is a novel about a woman who moves to a small town in Michigan to teach school and ends up falling in love with the local playboy.

In her timely novel, Kirstin Valdez Quade introduces readers to a family in a small New Mexico town. Beginning and ending in Holy Week, The Five Wounds spans a year in which 33-year-old Amadeo tries to redeem himself, his martyr-ish mother, Yolanda, hides an illness, and his 15-year-old daughter, Angel, becomes an unwed mother who out-matures all characters combined.