The First Book
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The First Book: Carrie R. Moore
“I’m writing for readers who love emotional resonance. I’m not writing to teach anyone anything about race or history; instead, my book is for readers who want to see Black people living their lives. My ideal readers can also make…
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The First Book: Sam Sussman
“It’s easy to think that when writing from life, the story is intuitive. That was not my experience. Life is not literature. I had to look carefully at what I had written and ask, “Am I writing this because it…
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The First Book: Mariah Rigg
“Rejection can sometimes open doors to new ways of telling stories, comparison will only stagnate your writing. It will turn you away from the work that you need to create, the work that is entirely yours, and have you trying…
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The First Book: Eliana Ramage
‘You will write other novels…’ I find it affirming because (1) it quiets the worry that the first book has to say or hold everything, which no book can or should, (2) the word write.”
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The First Book: Addie E. Citchens
This book took around 6 months of actual writing time and about 13 years of living and maturing.”
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The First Book: Tennessee Hill
The process of querying agents was filled with no’s that, though sad, each felt like a gentle push in the right direction towards my eventual agent Elizabeth Pratt. Once Elizabeth and I teamed up, everything happened rapidly. She did so…
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The First Book: Daniel Tam-Claiborne
I began writing Transplants in earnest in 2019 during the last semester of my MFA program. I had the truly great fortune of working with Lauren Groff who, when given the option between helping me touch up my existing short…
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The First Book: Veena Dinavahi
Make your own meaning. It sounds cliché, but I’ve come to accept it as a survival skill.
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The First Book: Emily J. Smith
I wanted to explore how all these small indignities pile up for women over time and what an attempt at revenge might look like.
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The First Book: Eduardo Martínez-Leyva
Without realizing it, in those years when I wasn’t actively writing, I reflected, processed, grieved, and learned to be kind to myself.
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The First Book: Karissa Chen
Despite the many periods of self-doubt I had, the stretches where I felt I would never write anything good again—I would always eventually return to my desk, because I wouldn’t let myself give up.
