The First Book: Veena Dinavahi
Make your own meaning. It sounds cliché, but I’ve come to accept it as a survival skill.
The First Book
23 posts
The First Book column is an interview series where writers discuss the process of publishing their debuts.
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.
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.
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.
The First Book: Zahid Rafiq
There were feelings, images, voices, silences, and there is life, the experience of living. It came from that.
The First Book: Del Sandeen
I’m writing to the reader who loves characters as much as plot, and who understands that horror encompasses much more than just things that go bump in the night.
The First Book: Santiago Jose Sanchez
I was repeatedly drawn to the fractures in my life—the gaps between childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and my relationships with sex, my mother, and my motherland.
The First Book: Melissa Petro
In our culture, motherhood is presumably sanctified, and I thought I’d experience social acceptance beyond anything I’d ever imagined. Instead, I felt under constant surveillance and yet utterly invisible....
The First Book: Yasmin Zaher
If I thought too much about audience, or audiences, I think I would encounter too many opposing demands and the writing would end up average.