“Catchpenny is my thirteenth novel. It’s a contemporary fantasy that revels in emotion and fun and outrageousness.”
Tag: playlists
“For nineteen years, I got to be her sister. Here, in her memory, are nineteen songs.”
“One reason I can write about my fears at all is because I lead a boring dad life, I feel safe, and I can reach out to my children and they can reach out to me.”
“…writing a debut novel is always a matter of mining the past—a leave-taking of old selves—and I’d be a poor writer if I couldn’t conjure something of the way music used to make me feel….”
“In some ways, the poems in retribution forthcoming can be read as a kind of coming-of-age narrative specific to a girl in her twenties. The music included here reflects my own musical history—and the way it’s bound up in the ways I thought and think, and the way that’s reproduced in my poems.”
“Music carried me through the long drive from New York City to southern West Virginia, which became a ritual of listening to the same songs, stopping at the same rest stops, meditating, mourning, and trying to stay awake.”
“My book is set in small-town Georgia, with eight of the nine short stories taking place in the same Georgia town called Muscadine.”
“My new novel, An Evening with Birdy O’Day, tracks the sixty year friendship between a musical prodigy and his biggest fan, Roland, so it’s filled with references to classic tracks and beloved singers. Queer divas abound.”
“…it took me months to complete this playlist, as I tried to make a satisfying listen that also told the story of Providence (of sadness, sex, and despair).”
“I always have to have music as I write, but it has to be a particular kind of soundtrack, one that I love, that energizes or moves me, and one that I know my characters would love as well.”