If I could convey one thing to the emerging writers I work with it might be that perfectionism is usually less about being excellent and more about being afraid
I'm working on a lecture on Munro & was just writing about "Friend of My Youth" this morning. I've learned an endless amount from Munro's refusal of clean resolution & her embrace of unfurling possibility. The quiet art of wrestling w/ the big questions.
SO MANY people told me that absolutely no one in publishing wanted a writer's 2nd book to be *another* story collection. & so it is extra moving to read
@kyledillonhertz
's generous consideration of THE ISLE OF YOUTH, recently reissued by
@PicadorUSA
THE PORTAL HAS OPENED. Had the dreamiest book launch at
@greenlightbklyn
last night, with
@mhbertino
&
@hilsaphina
. Today STATE OF PARADISE is officially out in the world.
Kind of amazed at how many hostile emails I've gotten for saying (in an interview) that I can't imagine teaching Munro rn w/out bringing Andrea Skinner into the conversation. Some people are dug into this "separate the art from the artist" business to the point of derangement.
I've been writing more nonfiction this year, & one interesting thing I've noticed is that writing the first paragraph is nearly always the hardest part. It can take me ages but once I have that first graph down I can see the whole thing (with fiction it's the opposite).
Sheila Heti on Alice Munro: "the art of hearing the voice of a fictional person or sensing a fictional world or working for years on some unfathomable creation is, in fact, the opposite of saying something with the opinionated and knowledgeable part of one’s mind."
I think about this nearly every time I read Edward P. Jones and Alice Munro too. And Helen Oyeyemi's stories, which would set a conventional workshop's hair on fire.
I'm reading a collection of Tolstoy novellas rn and he breaks every single rule you're supposed to follow to make a plot 'propulsive' and is riveting and I just want to know when writing became so formulaic and when we can stop
So grateful for this dream of a review! "With exquisite prose, smart lines on every page, a building sense of growing strangeness tinged with dread, and surprises all the way to the end, State of Paradise might be van den Berg's best novel so far...Don't miss it." 🦎
@fsgbooks
@KateDwyer
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace by Patrick Cottrell & Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam & The Orange Eats Creeps Grace Krilanovich. Every year I hope for news of a new Grace Krilanovich novel!
Not the most important thing here, but that boxer who quit, I could tell something was off w/ her mindset when she stopped to have her headgear adjusted. It's the ref's job to notice if something is off w/ the equipment. Fighters are usually too in the zone to notice or care.
I'm not working on fiction right now, so I've been using
#1000wordsofsummer
to draft lectures for a class I'm teaching in the fall & it has been the EXACT roadblock-buster that I needed.
While in FL for book events I had time to swing through the boxing gym I used to go to for some sparring. My old coach (who changed my life!) said he could tell I'd been putting in a lot of work at my new gym, that I looked really solid. Literally my most important review.
so is the “novel a week” university lit seminar style just….not viable/popular anymore? that’s what I did in most of my lit classes in undergrad but I’m seeing it less and less
If you are in the Hudson Valley & want to step away from the internet for a few hours this week I am reallllly excited to be doing these 2 events at 2 of my fave bookstores in the area & with 2 of my fave writers
If you are working on a novel & feel like you are in a wilderness with no exit trails, or all the exit trails are guarded by ravenous bears & giant unmovable boulders, I have got a class for you:
This morning
@ELLEmagazine
shared an exclusive cover reveal for Laura van den Berg's new novel, STATE OF PARADISE! A heart-racing fun house of uncanniness hidden in Florida’s underbelly, from a reality-warping storyteller, coming 7/9.
One funny thing about my dog is there are certain actors he absolutely cannot abide. If he so much as hears Mark Wahlberg's voice he will get up and leave the room.
Truly one of the best life lessons I ever learned ways telling someone “I do not have the capacity to do this right now” is both a kindness to yourself AND the person you’re in conversation with
Utterly incomplete list / just the names flying out of my brain at the moment: Edward P. Jones, Joy Williams, Mariana Enriquez, Borges, Ted Chiang, Amy Hempel, Denis Johnson…
Everyone who's heard me teach, or go on about the reality-tilting stories I adore, have absolutely heard about
@lmvandenberg
So, what an honour to have her introduce, & talk to me about, Ghostroots in
@poetswritersinc
! There might have been tears. <3
From Patrick Cottrell, Whiting Award and Barnes & Noble Discover Award-winning author of SORRY TO DISRUPT THE PEACE, comes this funny, moving, philosophical novel about a trans man haunted by his past. AFTERNOON HOURS OF A HERMIT will be available in Spring 2026.
Hiiii
@BostonGlobe
: "van den Berg skillfully swerves through trauma, mental illness, and memory, shifting from autofiction to thriller. This book feels like a powerful hurricane." (rec by Lauren LeBlanc)
"What what I see in these artists is a polymorphous, metamorphic spirit, and an openness to that spirit. Over time, the spirit moves. How could it not?" Gorgeous conversation between Stacey D’Erasmo &
@mbsycamore
for
@LAReviewofBooks
:
"I wonder if my perfectionist friends out there can see how giving yourself that kind of permission as a gift. The first draft is the one thing that does not have to be right in your life. It only has to exist." from a truly beautiful
@jamiattenberg
Craft Talk today
Aaaaaaand it is super common, even in the same weight class, for one person to have a natural advantage. Reach, strength, speed, reflexes, whatever. That’s where technique and strategy are supposed to come in!
Attention Boston area earthlings! Wildly excited to be in convo with
@mhbertino
at
@HarvardBooks
on TUESDAY 4/23 to discuss her magical & devastating BEAUTYLAND:
Thrilled to see STATE OF PARADISE on here! "The summer’s sweatiest novel is State of Paradise...The author’s inimitable talents shine in this spiky and sinister Floridian fever dream." Thank you so much,
@esquire
&
@adriennemwest
!
@fsgbooks
@LiXinWrites
For me, understanding what is fueling the fear has been super helpful, as has shifting away from thinking of fear as something to be overcome but rather as an element we can learn how to move with and through.
Super excited to be teaching this seminar this weekend. We're gonna get into techniques for moving a draft forward, towards its best self, & how to navigate those moments of feeling stuck / overwhelmed.
& it is highly unusual for a fighter to quit on their own like that. Especially at such an elite level. I'm not sure I've ever seen it before? When a fight is stopped it's nearly always a decision made in the corner, by your coach, or by the ref.
I never felt called to be a parent & have been told many times (often by strangers!) that I'll regret the decision (which was never so much a decision as an intrinsic truth). Appreciate seeing the complex & unpredictable landscape of regret explored from a different perspective.
I wrote for
@TIME
about people who regret having children
I've often been told that such regret isn’t possible; for this piece, I interviewed parents who love their kids & who, if they could turn back time, might not choose to be parents again
To mark her sixth novel, the surreal “State of Paradise,” author
@lmvandenberg
joins
@mjcolbert16
to discuss Freud, Florida, and writing speculative fiction for the post-pandemic age 📖
I am DELIGHTED to be offering 2 craft seminars via
@shipman_agency
: 1. on how the heck to end your short story (4/6) and 2. on how the heck to revise your novel (5/18-19).
Actually *my* imaginative energy lives in a place deep within that no other entity has the power to touch but OKAY. There are some wild generalizations happening in this review.
“Everything important started out as mysterious & this mystery was like a great sea you had to be brave enough to cross…You had to withstand a profound sense of wrongness if you ever wanted to get somewhere new.” - ALL FOURS
Also, Munro DGAF about convention. Start a story with a dream? Sure! Answer not one single question raised? Absolutely! Land on a ending that appears (at first glance!) entirely disconnected from the rest of the story? Why not! She exploded my sense of what the form can be & do.
“Fiction and nonfiction together, because the imagination is more amazing that anything in life, and life is more amazing than anything you can make up.” - Shelia Heti, ALPHABET DIARIES
I’m the interlocutor tonight for Leela Corman’s event at The Lynx. On Thursday, I get to host Laura van den Berg there, too. A dazzling week for my brilliant friends and the bookstore. Both ticketed; info at .
Loved getting to write a story for
@esquire
's The Napkin Project, alongside some of my favorite writers. I wrote about the weird magic of traveling with friends.
I'm w/
@Kristen_Arnett
on this one: "...once someone very nicely provides a blurb, please feel free to simply thank them for those kind words...There is no need to provide compensation for this nice favor. And by that, I mean please don’t provide a gift."
I was living in Baltimore & teaching in DC when I was writing my first novel. A few mornings a week I had an hour on the commuter train. I wrote on the ride to DC & sometimes on the way back. + a weekly accountability deadline with a friend who was also working on her first book.
Tell me about how you finished your novel manuscript without ever doing a residency or going on a retreat or taking a sabbatical or ever having more than 3 consecutive hours of free time, because I really need to hear about that please
Back on the road this week for events in Boston & Providence! First up is
@GrubWriters
with Jonathan Escoffery on Weds 8/7. We'll be talking about the writing life & what sustains it
@RPMirabella
I’ve found reverse outlining what I I have to be really helpful—allows me to see gaps and patterns that I hadn’t previously. Also sometimes the only thing is to just press on, put something down—like a temporary bridge to get you to the next place.
Oh my god oh my god oh my god!!! I first heard about this novel two years ago under my mentorship with
@lmvandenberg
through
@PeriplusCollect
, and dear reader, I have been eagerly WAITING for this! Now, I'm dropping everything and reading this asap! Laura hive rise up🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽
Quick update: Kinderhook event is now *sold out* (folks can still come if they're cool with standing) but if you want a CHAIR and AC Oblong Books (Morton Library location) has got you covered!
If you are in the Hudson Valley & want to step away from the internet for a few hours this week I am reallllly excited to be doing these 2 events at 2 of my fave bookstores in the area & with 2 of my fave writers
What I wore. Who I saw.
@lmvandenberg
and
@mhbertino
at Kinderhook Books in upstate NY. A wonderful conversation about State of Paradise in a beautiful setting.
Good god I feel such tenderness toward that last letter writer, as someone has never managed to gracefully navigate meeting my living heroes. Excellent advice as always from
@Kristen_Arnett
.
Took a career assessment test with my sister over the weekend. We were asked to answer questions like “what do you think about all the time” and “what do you never get tired of talking about or researching” and my answer to literally every single question was DOG
Love this description of STATE OF PARADISE (from the great
@KristenIsk
) so much I'm just gonna say this when people ask me what my book is about: "Like your favorite Twilight Zone episode if it had been written by Proust and performed by a troupe of sagacious Floridian kappas."
Tbh one of the reasons I signed up for a boxing tournament this year was to ensure I was absolutely compelled to focus on another "project" beyond publishing a book. Otherwise I find it near impossible!
Friends who have had books come out recently: did you find it nearly impossible to concentrate on anything the week your book came out??? I listened to like 3 hours of an audiobook today and couldn’t tell you anything that happened…at all…
This is the second time I've come by since moving to NY. The first time he said "how did you forget so much so fast" so this was a major improvement lol
I'm really so tired of the narrative that every short story writer must produce a novel in order to sell anything to traditional publishers. I think a lot of mediocre novels we see were written by good short story writers who were told they had to write a novel to break through.
The need to beat Trump—who is obvs a threat to democracy & the absolute worst in every conceivable way—has also been a great excuse for the democratic party to not take chances & to duck taking progressive stances on...so many things!