Before me, separated by 600 miles and a glitching video call, is Brandon Taylor. Behind him is his library of books, ensconced on his bookshelves, in a stack on his coffee table, enjoying the late-morning sun pouring in from the windows along their spines. Our conversation has been littered with references to Alexander Chee, Samanta Schweblin, Lauren Groff, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, among others. It takes no time at all for me to know this is a person who loves the written word in its various forms-from the classics to fan-fiction, literary fiction to romance novels. "Beverly Jenkins," he says, "so amazing. What an icon."
We've just been discussing the necessity of kindness one must offer oneself when you're no longer writing in the dark but writing in the public. It's a lesson he learned after the meteoric success of his first novel, Real Life. Published weeks before mass shutdowns in the early months of 2020, he assumed the book would be received quietly. "It's about a scientist in the Midwest; nobody really cares about that," he says. And yet, his modest expectations for his work were to be proved wrong, with the book receiving universal acclaim and reviews in The New Yorker online, Time magazine, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. It was unexpected, at times a dream come true and at other times a discombobulating unreality. And just as all seemed to be settling down, it was announced that Taylor was one of the six authors shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Suddenly, he found himself on British radio several times a week and attending countless Booker Prize events.
Bu hikaye Writer’s Digest dergisinin May - June 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Writer’s Digest dergisinin May - June 2023 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Giriş Yap
Writing for a Warming World - Imagining the overwhelming, the ubiquitous, the world-shattering.
Climate change is one of those topics that can throw novelists—and everyone else—into a fearful and cowering silence. When the earth is losing its familiar shapes and consolations, changing drastically and in unpredictable ways beneath our feet, how can we summon our creative resources to engage in the imaginative world-building required to write a novel that takes on these threats in compelling ways? And how to avoid writing fiction that addresses irreversible climate change without letting our prose get too preachy, overly prescriptive, saturated with despair?
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Even if it's not your thing, you're probably familiar with the term dark academia.
A Do-Over Romance
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Everyday Wonder
How to mine awe from the mundane
From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Unveil the hidden beauty in the facts and transform your nonfiction with the power of wonder.
Childhood: Our Touchstone for Wonder
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Agent Roundup
22 agents share details, about what kind of writing will pique their interest and offer tips for querying writers...