Lori Nelson Spielman

Lori Nelson Spielman's new, debut novel is The Life List.

From her Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:
CL: I read that the idea for your novel came from a life list you’d written at age 14. Can you tell us some of the things on your life list?

LNS: I wish I could say my list was comprised of noble pursuits and daring adventures. Truth is, most of my wishes were humble and conventional, like having

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Rebecca Lee

Rebecca Lee's new book is Bobcat and Other Stories.

From her Q & A with Matthew McAlister for Publishers Weekly:Many of these stories focus on the ways we settle our lives into the expectations of others. What is it about settling that interests you?

I love that question. I love even the word “settle.” I used the word “settlers” as the title for the last story in my collection because the word

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Lisa-ann Gershwin

From a Q & A at The Daily Beast with Lisa-ann Gershwin, author of Stung!:
What's your big idea?

Jellyfish, of all strange things, are turning out to be the unexpected and unwanted consequences of human impacts on our oceans. Jellyfish form large populations (called blooms) as a normal part of their life cycle, but our actions in the name of progress are giving them the perfect conditions to do

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Ted Kosmatka

Ted Kosmatka is the author of the novels The Games and the recently released Prophet of Bones.

From Kosmatka's Q & A with Dave Truesdale for The SF Site:Paul Carlsson [the protagonist in Prophet of Bones] is using science as a benign tool to reveal Truth. On the other hand, there is the wealthy but brilliant scientist Martial Johansson who figures darkly in the story in several ways I don't want

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Jennifer Zobair

Jennifer Zobair grew up in Iowa and attended Smith College and Georgetown Law School. She has practiced corporate and immigration law and as a convert to Islam, has been a strong advocate for Muslim women's rights. Zobair lives with her husband and three children outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

Her new novel is Painted Hands.

From the author's Q & A at Drey's Library:drey: Tell us about

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Alafair Burke

Alafair Burke's novels include “two power house series” (Sun-Sentinel) that have earned her a reputation for creating strong, believable, and eminently likable female characters, such as NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher and Portland Deputy District Attorney Samantha Kincaid.

Burke's new novel If You Were Here features former prosecutor turned journalist McKenna Jordan.

From the author's Q & A

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Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Torch and the memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

From Strayed's Q & A with Marjorie Kehe at the Christian Science Monitor:What was the best gift the trail gave you?

The greatest gift was a sense of my own resilience. By that I mean something deeper than what confidence is. When we feel confident I think

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Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker's 2011 book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

From his Q & A with Clint Witchalls at the Independent:Clint Witchalls: You say that, over the centuries, violence has been declining, yet most people would view the last century, with its pogroms, death camps and nuclear bombs, as the most violent century. Why was it not?

Steven Pinker: You can't say that

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Ru Freeman

Ru Freeman's new novel is On Sal Mal Lane.

From her Q & A with Tania James at Fiction Writers Review:Tania James: I suspect your family was a literary one. Was writing encouraged by your parents? What books were you drawn to in your youth?

Ru Freeman: I grew up with the idea that words—read, written, uttered aloud—were important. They were the meat, muscles, bones of persuasion. Everything

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Nan Marino

Nan Marino is the author of Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle & Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me, which received a SCBWI Golden Kite Honor and was featured on the Bank Street Best Books and the New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing.

Her latest book is Hiding Out at the Pancake Palace.

From Marino's Q & A with Brittney Breakey at Author Turf:How did you choose the genre you

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A. X. Ahmad

A.X. Ahmad was raised in India, educated at Vassar College and M.I.T., and has worked internationally as an architect. His short stories have been published in literary magazines, and he’s been listed in Best American Essays. The Caretaker is his first novel, to be followed by Bollywood Taxi next year. He lives in Washington, D.C.

From the author's conversation with Aarti Virani for

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Caroline Leavitt

Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You, which sold to six countries, went into five printings, and was a San Francisco Chronicle Lit Pick, a Costco "Pennie's Pick" and a NAIBA bestseller. Pictures of You is also a USA Today ebook bestseller and is on the Best Books of 2011 List from the San Francisco Chronicle, Providence Journal, Kirkus Reviews and Bookmarks

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George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin's best-selling fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire" is the basis for the HBO series Game of Thrones.

From his Q & A with Charlie Jane Anders for io9:One of the things that strikes me in the recent books is, there'll be a major turning point for a character, and then you realize it's been building for hundreds of pages. Do you always plan these huge events and then find ways

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Matt Bell

Matt Bell’s new, debut novel is In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods.

From his Q & A with Andrew Ervin on the Tin House blog:Andrew Ervin: What impresses me the most about In the House is the immersive experience you’ve created. The first-person voice carries a mythic or timeless quality, and it’s sustained beautifully for hundreds of pages. Tell me how you found that and

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Benjamin Anastas

Broke, his promising literary career evaporated, Benjamin Anastas is hounded by debt collectors as he tries to repair a life ripped apart by the spectacular implosion of his marriage, which ended when his pregnant wife left him for another man. Such is the story Benjamin Anastas recounts in his 2012 memoir, Too Good to Be True.

From the author's Q & A with Kathy Sweeney for the Observer:Your

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Shohreh Aghdashloo

Shohreh Aghdashloo won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress for HBO's House of Saddam and was the first Iranian actress ever to be nominated for an Academy Award, for her role in House of Sand and Fog. She has starred in the Fox series 24 and has been featured in a number of television shows and films. Born and raised in Tehran, she now lives in Los Angeles. Her new memoir is The

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Patricia Bracewell

Patricia Bracewell grew up in California where she taught literature and composition before embarking upon a writing career.

Her recently released debut novel is Shadow on the Crown.

From the author's Q & A with Nancy Bilyeau at A Bloody Good Read:
NB: For you, what is the line between fiction and fact? Are there fictional characters in Shadow on the Crown?

PB: There are fictional characters

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Susan Bordo

Susan Bordo, Otis A. Singletary Professor in the Humanities at University of Kentucky, is the author of Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, a book that is still widely read and assigned in classes today. During speaking tours for that book, she encountered many young men who asked, "What about us?" The result was The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private

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Emily Anthes

Emily Anthes is a science journalist and author. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Scientific American, Psychology Today, BBC Future, SEED, Discover, Popular Science, Slate, The Boston Globe, and elsewhere. Her new book, Frankenstein’s Cat: Cuddling Up to Biotech’s Brave New Beasts, was published in March 2013 by Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. She is also the

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Karen Brown

Karen Brown is the author of Little Sinners and Other Stories, which was named a Best Book of 2012 by Publishers Weekly, and Pins and Needles: Stories, which was the recipient of AWP’s Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction. Her new novel is The Longings of Wayward Girls.

From Brown's Q & A  with writer Caroline Leavitt:
So much of The Longings of Wayward Girls (great title, by the way) is about

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Michael Pocalyko

Michael Pocalyko's new novel is The Navigator.

From his Q & A with J. N. Duncan at The Big Thrill:You touch on psychological, global-business, and political issues in your story. Which of these do you find most compelling as a writer?

No contest. The psychological issues are the most compelling. Without giving away any spoilers, there is an unusual literary convention that I’ve employed in

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Joanna Hershon

Joanna Hershon is the author of Swimming, The Outside of August, and The German Bride. Her writing has appeared in One Story, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Post Road, the literary anthology Brooklyn Was Mine, and was shortlisted for the 2007 O. Henry Prize Stories.

Her new novel is A Dual Inheritance.

From Hershon's Q & A with Jen Ortiz

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Claire Messud

Claire Messud's new novel is The Woman Upstairs.

From the author's Q & A with Annasue McCleave Wilson for Publishers Weekly:
Your characters struggle to figure out who they are in the face of their families and events over which they have no control. What are we to make of Nora Eldridge, the betrayed middle-aged woman of your new novel? Because she is angry, really angry.

As a writer, I

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A. X. Ahmad

A.X. Ahmad was raised in India, educated at Vassar College and M.I.T., and has worked internationally as an architect. His short stories have been published in literary magazines, and he’s been listed in Best American Essays. The Caretaker is his first novel, to be followed by Bollywood Taxi next year. He lives in Washington, D.C.

From the author's conversation with Shivani Vora for the

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Stephanie Hepburn

From a Q & A with Stephanie Hepburn about her new book, Human Trafficking Around the World: Hidden in Plain Sight:
Question: What made you interested in writing about the topic of human trafficking?

Stephanie Hepburn: I moved to New Orleans in February 2006, not long after Hurricane Katrina. Just like any place in any country that experiences a natural disaster, the infrastructure was disrupted,

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David Abrams

David Abrams, who spent 20 years as an Army journalist, is the author of the acclaimed debut novel Fobbit.

From his Q & A with Deborah Kalb:Q: You served in the U.S. military for 20 years as an Army journalist and the book focuses in part on the military-press relationship. How has that dynamic changed (or remained the same) over the years, especially looking at the period from the Vietnam era

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Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson's new novel is Sparta.

From her Q & A with Jane Ciabattari at The Daily Beast:Why did you choose to write your new novel from the perspective of Conrad, a 26-year-old Marine returning from tours of duty in Ramadi and Haditha?

Six or seven years ago I read an article about our troops in Iraq – how they were being sent out in unarmored vehicles, and being blown up by IEDs, and

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Matthew Specktor

Matthew Specktor is the author of the novels American Dream Machine and That Summertime Sound, as well as a nonfiction book about the motion picture The Sting. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Paris Review, The Believer, Tin House, Black Clock, and Salon.com, among other publications. He is a senior editor and founding member of the Los Angeles Review of Books.

From a Q & A at

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Wenguang Huang

Wenguang Huang is a writer, journalist, and translator whose articles and translations have been published in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Paris Review, and the Christian Science Monitor. He is the author of the memoir The Little Red Guard and the translator for Liao Yiwu’s For a Song and One Hundred Songs, The Corpse Walker, and God Is Red.

His latest book, with Pin Ho, is A

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Bill Cheng

Bill Cheng's new novel is Southern Cross the Dog.

From Cheng's Q & A with Scott Cheshire at The Brooklyn Rail:
Scott Cheshire (Rail): Okay, first, tell me how you came to write this book, and I’m referring specifically to a Chinese-American, born and raised in Bayside, Queens, writing the experience of a young black male in the early 20th century South?

Bill Cheng: Blues, especially country

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