A more personal author description than usual: I recently learned that fiction writer Melissa Bank passed away last August. (When I recorded the intro to this rerun, I thought it had been longer. My apologies.) I loved Melissa Bank’s fiction, her light touch. Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing was wonderful, as was The Wonder Spot. When I was in NYC, Melissa and I would meet for coffee or lunch. I loved her writing and her entire vibe.

Melissa Bank won the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction and taught at Stony Brook University. When The Wonder Spot came out, I asked her to talk about how to write a novel. She said, “I don’t know how to write a novel.” What she knew how to do, she was, was write stories. Stories became chapters and chapters become a book, she said.

Melissa died from lung cancer on August 2, 2022. She was 61 years old.

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(Recorded on January 25, 2023) 

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Co-Host: Marrie Stone
Music and sound design: Travis Barrett