Sarah Manguso is an essayist, memoirist, and now a novelist. She’s written eight books, including 300 Arguments and Ongoingness (links to interviews regarding those books can be found in our archives). Very Cold People is her debut novel. It’s an Amazon Editors’ Pick, a National Indie Bestseller, A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and was named a best book of the year by numerous publications.

Manguso joins Marrie Stone to talk about her decision to write a novel. She discusses setting a book in her childhood town and creating a sense of place and atmosphere. She talks about writing violence as background instead of foreground, as well as writing about shame, class, mothering, and writing about large concepts in intimate and specific ways.

Manguso comes to the podcast from the Miami Book Fair. For more information, visit their website here.

For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website.

(Recorded in October 2022) 

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