Nayantara Roy discusses her debut novel, The Magnificent Ruins, new genres, divorce novels, the essay that inspired the novel, the problematic choices her main character made, allowing her main character to choose neither love interest, finding the right agent, breaking all the rules of a debut novel, working in television, and so much more!

Nayantara Roy is the author of the debut novel, The Magnificent Ruins. In 2018, she won the Rick DeMarinis Prize for her short story, 8C. Her plays have been performed in India and the UK and she is currently at work on her second novel, Sisters Of A Halved Heart.

Tara is also a television executive at STARZ/Lionsgate, where she oversees the acquisition and creative development of original scripted television series. Originally from India, Tara lives in Los Angeles with too many plants.

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Author Sara Levine (The Hitch, forthcoming from Roxane Gay Books) has chosen as her 90s Book Club topic the elusive writer Jane Shapiro, author of After Moondog and The Dangerous Husband. After going down many rabbit holes, Sara found Jane’s agent, we emailed them, and Jane agreed to join us on the podcast! Jane discusses her career, publishing in the 90s, new work, Donald Antrim, and where she’s been all this time. 

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Nora Lange discusses her debut novel, Us Fools (Two Dollar Radio), finding absurd moments to celebrate if by “celebrate” we mean “awaken,” passing anxieties down to our children, writing about the 80s farm crisis, research, committing and recommitting to the project of her novel despite life upheavals, and so much more!

Nora Lange's writing has appeared in BOMB, Hazlitt, Joyland, American Short Fiction, Denver Quarterly, HTMLGiant, LIT, The Fairy Tale Review, and elsewhere. Her project Dailyness was longlisted for the 2014 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers. She has received fellowships from Brown University and is a fellow at USC’s Los Angeles Institute of the Humanities. An earlier iteration of her novel was shortlisted for The Novel Prize in 2020, a prize to recognize and publish novels that explore and expand the possibilities of the form. She comes from a long line of Midwestern farmers and lives in Los Angeles with her family. Us Fools is her first novel.

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Richard Mirabella discusses his debut novel, Brother and Sister Enter the Forest, as well as sibling dynamics, the deft forward motion of the novel, the influence of Throwing Muses’ album Purgatory/Paradise on the structure of the novel, writing “skeletal drafts,” fairy tales, Rachel Glaser fandom, and more!

Richard Mirabella is a writer and civil servant living in Upstate New York. His stories have appeared in Story Magazine, American Short Fiction, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere. He's the author of the novel Brother & Sister Enter the Forest, a New York Times Editors' Choice and Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction.

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Welcome to IAWB Presents 90s Book Club, a special podcast from I’m a Writer But (where writers discuss their work, their lives, their other work, the stuff that takes up any free time they have, all the stuff they’re not able to get to, and the ways in which any of us get anything done) in which Lindsay Hunter is joined by a variety of her favorite freaks to talk about influential moments from the 90s.      

Today, Chelsea Bieker (MADWOMAN) discusses Sleeping with the Enemy–both the novel and the film–and its influence on her as she wrote her newest novel. 

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Acamea Deadwiler discusses her debut memoir, Daddy’s Little Stranger, along with writing about her childhood self, writing trauma while maintaining humor, lending grace and complexity to her family members, the nature of memory, Gary, Indiana, and so much more!

Acamea Deadwiler is a memoirist and essayist who received critical acclaim from Publishers Weekly for her book, Single That. She has been featured by the New York Post, Cosmopolitan, Bustle, and the FOX television network, among other media outlets. Acamea is also a TEDx speaker. Currently residing in Nevada, she holds a master's degree from Valparaiso University and is a fellow in the MFA program at Randolph College.

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Alisa Alering discusses their debut novel, Smothermoss, growing up on a farm, writerly trickery, place, southern Pennsylvania, how unlimited access to the outdoors as a child influenced their writing, what time means to a mountain, the energy of the natural world, the real-life tragedy that features in the novel, setting the novel in the 1980s, starting the novel as a collage, and so much more!

Alisa Alering grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania and now lives in Arizona. After attending Clarion West, their short fiction has been published in Fireside, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Podcastle, and Cast of Wonders, among others, and been recognized by the Calvino Prize. A former librarian and science/technology reporter, they teach fiction workshops at the Highlights Foundation.

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Lindsay is joined by Ryan Bradford as they discuss the weird but forgotten horror anthology, Grim Prairie Tales, starring James Earl Jones's wig, James Earl Jones, and Brad Dourif.

Ryan Bradford is a writer and web editor at San Diego City Beat. His writing can be found in vice, paperdarts, and monkeybicycle. He’s also the rummer for the band Forest Grove. He’s also a huge horror fan and a teacher, and you can find him on his Substack, at @awkwardsd. 

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Joanna Pearson discusses her debut novel, Bright and Tender Dark, as well as branding, homesteading online, Tressie McMillan Cottom, the weirdness of Threads and Goodreads, eerie vibes, using murdered-girl tropes while subverting them, unresolved creepiness in the novel, Rachel Monroe fandom, and more!

Joanna Pearson’s debut novel, BRIGHT AND TENDER DARK (Bloomsbury, 2024), is an Indie Next Pick and an Amazon Editors’ Pick. Her second story collection, NOW YOU KNOW IT ALL (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021), was chosen by Edward P. Jones for the 2021 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and named a finalist for the Virginia Literary Awards. Her first story collection, EVERY HUMAN LOVE (Acre Books, 2019) was a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, and the Foreword INDIES Awards. Her stories have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery and Suspense, The Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and many other places. Joanna has received fellowships supporting her fiction from MacDowell, VCCA, South Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the North Carolina Arts Council/Durham Arts Council. She holds an MFA in poetry from the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and an MD from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Originally from western North Carolina, she now lives with her husband and two daughters near Chapel Hill, where she works as a psychiatrist.

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Barrie Miskin discusses her debut memoir, Hell Gate Bridge, motherhood, depression, how the book began as a form as therapy, writing a fast draft, working with Sarah Perry and Elizabeth Ellen, literary talismans, plumbing dark places as she wrote, hiring a publicist, and more!

Barrie Miskin is the author of HELL GATE BRIDGE: A Memoir of Motherhood, Madness and Hope, out today! from Woodhall Press. Barrie's writing has appeared in Hobart, Narratively, Expat Press, and elsewhere.

Her interviews can be found in Write or Die Magazine, where she is a staff writer. Barrie is also a public school teacher in Queens, New York, where she lives with her husband and daughter.

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Emma Copley Eisenberg discusses her debut novel, Housemates, Philadelphia, BODIES, the spectrum of Ottessa Moshfegh to Grace Paley, structure, road trips, the historical figures who inspired the novel, and more!

Emma Copley Eisenberg is the author of the novel Housemates and the narrative nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, which was named a New York Times Notable Book and was nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Award, among other honors. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, McSweeney’s, VQR, American Short Fiction, and other publications. Raised in New York City, she lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.

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