The author of a debut novel about diversity in the workplace on how black people act around white people, embracing her hair, and what’s changed a year after George Floyd’s murderZakiya Dalila Harris was born and raised in Connecticut and is currently based in Brooklyn. Now a full-time writer, she previously worked in book publishing, an experience she draws on in her highly anticipated debut novel, The Other Black Girl, which combines thriller with social satire to tell the story of Nella, the only black employee at a fictional publishing house, until Hazel joins the company. The book charts how the two become frenemies, explores the challenges of surviving in a systemically racist workplace, and was the subject of a 15-way auction prior to publication in the US.What were your own experiences in publishing and how have they played into the book?I worked in publishing for two and a half years. I was an editorial assistant then promoted to assistant editor. I felt fortunate, as a part of me enjoyed editing and I felt I was good at it, but it’s also an exhausting job for an entry-level person in terms of the pay. I was also one of the very few black people in the company – it wasn’t as bad as Nella in the book, but I was the only black woman in editorial in a full-time position for a while. I thought: why does it feel like we’re living in 1955 still, in terms of what we value? Publishing is such a rich, easily spoofable world.Code-switching is the act of switching up how... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-06-05 17:00:15 UTC ]
An excerpt from a debut novel that Booklist calls a "compelling historical thriller." The post ‘The Ventriloquists’: Featured Fiction from E.R. Ramzipoor appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-08-27 19:00:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Kat Cho’s debut novel “Wicked Fox” is a little complicated, but the poignantly rendered family relationships and fantasy drama are worth the ride. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-08-22 23:52:56 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Kat Cho’s debut novel “Wicked Fox” is a little complicated, but the poignantly rendered family relationships and fantasy drama are worth the ride. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-08-22 23:52:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Kat Cho’s debut novel “Wicked Fox” is a little complicated, but the poignantly rendered family relationships and fantasy drama are worth the ride. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-08-22 23:52:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Kat Cho’s debut novel “Wicked Fox” is a little complicated, but the poignantly rendered family relationships and fantasy drama are worth the ride. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor
[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2019-08-22 23:52:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Tope Folarin’s debut novel is all at once a search for identity, an immigrant story, and a bildungsroman. A Particular Kind of Black Man follows Tunde Akintola, a Nigerian American in a small town in Utah. Torn between the culture of his Nigerian parents, and the white Mormon culture of Utah,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-08-21 11:00:12 UTC ]
More news stories like this
John Murray will publish Michelle Gallen's "darkly comic" debut novel set on the Irish border. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-20 14:25:46 UTC ]
More news stories like this
His debut novel ‘A Cosmology of Monsters’ is both a horror novel and a rich love story, told with tenderness and brimming with darkness. The post Shaun Hamill Has a Scary Story to Tell You appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-08-16 10:00:38 UTC ]
More news stories like this
In Téa Obreht’s 2011 debut novel “The Tiger’s Wife,” a young doctor untangles the peculiar circumstances of her grandfather’s recent death. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2019-08-16 09:00:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Coronet has snapped up the “big-hearted” debut novel from journalist Alice O’Keeffe, inspired by her experience of becoming a parent. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-14 11:36:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Novelist of our hearts Toni Morrison died Monday night, her publisher reports, at the age of 88. Morrison won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her best-selling, groundbreaking novel Beloved, and was the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1993. She wrote 11 novels... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-08-08 21:38:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Toni Morrison, giant of American literature and the first black woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, has passed away. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-08-06 14:08:13 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Regina Porter’s debut novel The Travelers includes short chapters, photos, and a compendium of voices—a full cast is listed in the front matter. This includes the Vincents, with patriarch “the man James” and his son Rufus; the Christies, headed by Eddie and Agnes with their daughters Claudia... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-08-05 11:00:57 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Lucy Kissick’s debut novel Plutoshine has won the inaugural Writers & Artists Working-Class Writers’ Prize. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-08-04 19:06:55 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The Amazon review for my debut novel was glowing, including words like “compelling” and “fun.” And then there was this: “If you love historical fiction, you’ll love The Last Book Party.” Say what? How could my novel, which is set during the 1980s—a decade of my own youth—be historical fiction?... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-08-01 11:00:53 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Simon & Schuster UK has pre-empted journalist Caroline Bishop’s "uniquely beautiful" debut novel in a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-31 22:16:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this
A few days ago, Publishers Weekly reported that Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens’ debut novel and the September 2018 pick for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club, topped a million in print sales in 2019. Today, Laura Miller at Slate had a much juicier story about Owens: her... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-30 15:00:24 UTC ]
More news stories like this
The Center for Fiction announced its 2019 First Novel Prize Longlist yesterday. The award is given to the “best debut novel published between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31 of the award year,” and the prize-winning author receives $10,000. Here is the 2019 longlist (featuring many titles from our 2019 Book... Continue reading at The Millions
[ The Millions | 2019-07-25 17:22:45 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Scribe has snapped up Mr B's bookseller Jessica Gaitán Johannesson's debut novel in a two-book deal. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-07-22 18:31:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this
Semicolon—a vibrant new bookstore, community space, and gallery for Chicago’s street art scene—opened its doors on Tuesday with a party and mural unveiling. The store is just one of a handful of woman-owned bookstores in Chicago and its only bookstore owned by a black woman. An author... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-07-12 15:33:15 UTC ]
More news stories like this