Essays

Poor Davy! Two Thoroughly Modern Women Discuss David Copperfield

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Rarely do I read a book that leads me to Charles Dickens, especially considering I tend to read either autobiographical fiction or semi-experimental nonfiction written by women. So who is gonna fave my 'David Copperfield' tweets, I guess is my point?!
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The Millions Interview

Resisting Neatness and Symmetry: The Millions Interviews Dana Spiotta

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There is something poignant and beautiful in those fractures in your ordinary life, the moments when you realize that you were mistaken or insufficient or what you did had an unintended consequence. The clarifying and humbling experience of shedding your delusions.
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Essays

The Anxiety of Influence: Children’s Books and Their Grown-Up Counterparts

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Like Franzen's novels, the Berenstain Bear books might meander, reveling in details alternately informative and irrelevant, but ultimately they're straightforward tales about family.
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Essays

Flossing Your Teeth and Reading Dickens: Resolutions for the New Year

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In figuring out my own reading resolutions, I realized how much fun it is to hear about what others plan to read this year.
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Year in Reading

A Year in Reading: Edan Lepucki

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Midway through the book, I thought: These books are so...female. I feel like...I'm sucking on a tampon.
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Lists

There Must Be a German Word for That: Language for Writers and Readers

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There are a host of moments in the life of a writer/reader that require their own special words. I'd settle for acronyms. We can do this, people! Our tribe came up with Franzenfreude, after all.
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Reviews

Beyond Binaries: On ‘Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids’

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I never placed before myself an either/or choice: writing or parenthood. I do think it's possible to love your child unconditionally, and to also care deeply about one's artistic pursuits. They aren't mutually exclusive.
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The Millions Interview

Bodywise and Brainwise: The Millions Interviews Nina MacLaughlin

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There’s something about putting your brain where you hands are that frees up the word-centers of the mind, maybe a bit like meditating.
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Lists

To Be Eaten in Case of Emergency: Inspiration and Comfort for Writers

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I asked a few writers to share what visuals they kept near them while working. Perhaps what they keep near them as they make sentences will inspire you to get writing, too.
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Ask the Writing Teacher

Ask the Writing Teacher: The Third Person

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When I'm struggling with a technical challenge in writing, I bang my head against the wall, write and rewrite and write again, and seek out books that have mastered said challenge.
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Year in Reading

A Year in Reading: Edan Lepucki

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Before my summer publication madness, before I did my reading in airplanes and various Panera locations and cheesy hotel bars, I had one particular experience with a book that filled my soul with fizz and made me feel alive in that way that only reading a great book can.
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Essays

I Just Didn’t Like Her: Notes on Likeability in Fiction

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Lately, I've been thinking: If I were a fictional character, would readers hate me?
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In Person

Murder Goes to Prep School: A Conversation About Tana French’s The Secret Place

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The girls in The Secret Place are very recognizably obnoxious teenagers — to the extent that I thought they were all idiots, and at one point or another I thought all of them capable of murder.
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The Millions Interview

Building Buzz and Finding Readers: A Conversation with My Publicists

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That’s part of the publicist’s job -- to help communicate how each writer’s story and book is unique.
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The Millions Interview

Don’t Ever Do It For the Money: A Conversation with My Agent

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My failure to convince publishers of someone's talent and commercial viability: that's a sustained shitty feeling that comes with no billable hours.
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The Millions Interview

Notes from the Purgatory File: An Interview with Leslie Jamison

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If we see something as fully as possible, in all its flaws and troubles, we can pursue it and embrace it more fully as well — there aren’t secrets or dangers festering under the surface.
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The Millions Interview

Best Coast: ZYZZYVA’s 100th Issue

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It's hard to think of a single mode in American literature and letters that at this point isn't organic to the West Coast: you name it, there's a writer here who has published a work about it.
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Essays

Hug Your Darlings, Give the Moon the Finger: Writers On Delight

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It's miraculous that these little darlings didn't get killed in the rewriting process.
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