First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Hernan Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of two novels translated into thirty-five languages. His first novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and it was the winner of the Saroyan International Prize, the Cabell Award, the Prix Page America, and the New American Voices Award, among other distinctions. Trust, his second novel, received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was a New York Times Bestseller, the winner of the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the Booker Prize, among other nominations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alice Elliott Dark is the author of the novels Fellowship Point and Think of England, and two collections of short stories, In The Gloaming and Naked to the Waist. Her work has appeared in, among others, The New Yorker, Harper's, DoubleTake, Ploughshares, A Public Space, Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O.Henry Awards, and has been translated into many languages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Buoro was born in Nigeria in 1993. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia where he received the Booker Prize Foundation Scholarship. He lives in Norwich, United Kingdom. The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa is his first novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Graver is the author of five novels, including Kantika, which was inspired by her grandmother, Rebecca née Cohen Baruch Levy, who was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Istanbul, and whose life journey took her to Spain, Cuba and New York. Her fourth novel, The End of the Point, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award in Fiction and selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her other novels are Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and Best American Essays. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the memoir Wild Game, which was selected as a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post and is in development as a Netflix film. She founded the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, and currently serves as executive director of Aspen Words, a literary nonprofit and program of the Aspen Institute. She splits her time between Cambridge and Cape Cod, where she lives with her husband and children. Her new novel is Little Monsters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Brafman is the author of the short story collection Bertrand Court and the novels Washing the Dead and Swimming with Ghosts. She taught creative writing at the George Washington University, the New Directions Writing Program, and the Johns Hopkins MA in Writing Program. She founded Yeah Write, a writing coaching business. She lives in the Washington, DC area. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TC Boyle is the author of 30 books of fiction including most recently, Blue Skies, The Harder They Come, The Terranauts, The Relive Box, Outside Looking In, and Talk To Me. He received a Ph.D. degree in Nineteenth Century British Literature from the University of Iowa in 1977, his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1974, and his B.A. in English and History from SUNY Potsdam in 1968. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

T.J. Newman is a former bookseller and flight attendant whose first novel, Falling, became a publishing sensation and debuted at number two on the New York Times bestseller list. The book was named a best book of the year by USA Today, Esquire, and Amazon, among many others, and has been published in more than thirty countries. The book will soon be a major motion picture from Universal Pictures. T.J. lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Drowning is her second novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include of Boss Grady’s Boys, The Steward of Christendom, Our Lady of Sligo, The Pride Parnell Street, and Dallas Sweetman. His novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, Annie Dunne, A Long Long Way, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Secret Scripture, which was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize, On Canaan’s Side, The Temporary Gentleman, Days Without End, A Thousand Moons, and Old God’s Time. He has also published three collections of poetry. He is the recipient of the Irish-America Fund Literary Award, The Christopher Ewart-Biggs Prize, the London Critics Circle Award, The Kerry Group Irish Fiction Prize, and Costa Awards for Best Novel and Book of the Year. He lives in Wicklow with his family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mona Simpson is the best-selling author of Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, Off Keck Road, My Hollywood, and Casebook. Off Keck Road was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Heartland Prize from the Chicago Tribune. She has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is on the faculty at UCLA and also teaches at Bard College. In 2020, she was named publisher of The Paris Review. She lives in Santa Monica, California. Her new novel is called Commitment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices