First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

R.O. Kwon’s first novel is called The Incendiaries. She is a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vice, BuzzFeed, Noon, Time, Electric Literature, Playboy, San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cai Emmons is the author of the novels Weather Woman, His Mother's Son, and The Stylist. Emmons has taught at various colleges and universities, including the University of Southern California. Since 2002 she has been teaching fiction and screenwriting at the University of Oregon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Stone’s new novel, Hungry Ghost Theater, was published by WTAW Press in October 2018. Her first novel is called The True Sources of the Nile. She teaches creative writing for the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and Stanford Continuing Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Karen Bender is the author of short story collections The New Order and Refund, the novels A Town of Empty Rooms and Like Normal People and is co-editor of the anthology Choice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christina Dalcher is the author of VOX. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Mason is a physician and author of The Piano Tuner, A Far Country, and The Winter Soldier.  He is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry, and his research and teaching interests include the subjective experience of mental illness and the influence of literature, history, and culture on the practice of medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beth Macy is a journalist and author.  Her latest book, Dopesick, focuses on one of America's epicenters for the opioid crisis.  The book follows distressed communities in Central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs.  Her other books include Factory Man and Truevine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matthew Thomas's New York Times-bestselling novel We Are Not Ourselves was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the John Gardner Fiction Book Award; longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and the Folio Prize; named a Notable Book of the year by the New York Times; named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Apple, and others; and named one of Janet Maslin’s ten favorite books of the year in the New York Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Marcus is the author of five books of fiction: The Age of Wire and String, Notable American Women, The Flame Alphabet, Leaving the Sea, and Notes from the Fog. His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Granta, The Paris Review, Conjunctions, Bomb, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He is the editor of The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories and New American Stories. Since 2000 he has taught on the faculty at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bernice McFadden is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels including Sugar, Loving Donovan, Nowhere Is a Place, The Warmest December, Gathering of Waters (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and one of the 100 Notable Books of 2012), Glorious, and The Book of Harlan (winner of a 2017 American Book Award and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Fiction). She is a four-time Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist, as well as the recipient of three awards from the BCALA. Praise Song for the Butterflies is her latest novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices