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 ]
Temim Fruchter’s debut novel centers around a young woman, Shiva, seeking answers about her family’s past after the death of her father. Told in revolving perspectives, between women in Shiva’s family and a mysterious, omniscient narrator, the book explores the interior lives of women,... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-01-24 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In Kaveh Akbar's brilliant debut novel, 'Martyr!', an Iranian American man in addiction recovery becomes obsessed with the concept of martyrdom. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-01-22 11:00:10 UTC ]
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Katherine Min's Korean American debut novel was ignored. After she died in 2019, publishers worked to put out her second novel, 'The Fetishist.' Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-01-18 11:00:57 UTC ]
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The debut novel 'Dead in Long Beach, California,' is a sharp, dazzling turn for Compton-raised author Venita Blackburn, who made her name with lightning-fast fiction. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2024-01-11 11:00:44 UTC ]
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Set in World War II, Vanessa Chan’s utterly gripping debut novel The Storm We Made is the story of an unlikely spy and the consequences of her actions. When Cecily, a bored Malayan housewife in British-colonized Malaya, encounters the charismatic General Fujiwara, she is seduced not only by the... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2024-01-02 12:00:00 UTC ]
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With El Niño slated to drop a warm, wet winter on most of the US in the coming months, everybody’s going to need something good to read while the weather outside is frightful. Engadget’s well-read staff have some suggestions: our favorite books of 2023! We’ve got a phenomenal assortment of... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2023-12-25 16:30:28 UTC ]
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Electric Literature is pleased to reveal the cover of Housemates, the highly-anticipated debut novel by Emma Copley Eisenberg, which will be published by Hogarth on May 28th, 2024. You can pre-order your copy here. When Bernie answers Leah’s ad for a new housemate in Philadelphia, the two find... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-12-21 12:15:00 UTC ]
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“Gray’s idiom may be modern, but it embraces many traditional things; not only autobiographical realism, but low comedy, afterlife fantasy, scattershot satire, nightmarish allegory, self-referential metafiction, tender eroticism, lunatic scholarship and profuse literary borrowings.” —David... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-12-19 09:57:38 UTC ]
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A new volume of the Black feminist’s previously unpublished writing is read in audiobook form by a full cast of Black women. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-12-15 10:00:20 UTC ]
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Where exactly is tech going? Joanne McNeil's debut novel 'Wrong Way' and billionaire Marc Andreessen's 'Techno-Optimist Manifesto' offer some clues. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2023-12-12 11:00:26 UTC ]
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Psychological thriller Eileen is an adaptation of the 2015 debut novel by Ottessa Moshfegh, who often writes about female loners, giving special attention to the parts of her characters that many would consider unbefitting of a leading lady. Continue reading at CBC
[ CBC | 2023-12-08 09:00:00 UTC ]
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Larry Hughes, who began his publishing career as an assistant editor at Pocket Books in 1949 and rose to become chairman of the Hearst Trade Book Group some 40 years later, died on November 14. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2023-11-28 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Farah Ali’s debut novel The River, The Town is a haunting portrait of lives relegated to the margins by capitalism and its resulting byproduct: the inequitable distribution of resources. The world of the novel centers two places, the Town and the City, and the narrative focus, in typical... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-11-20 12:01:00 UTC ]
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The moment I learned that Shilpi Suneja’s debut novel House of Caravans was about Partition, I reached out to see if she would be interested in doing this interview. All four of my grandparents lived through this event in Punjab—the state that was split to create Pakistan days after India gained... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-11-13 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The author of “Mother-Daughter Murder Night” started working on her debut novel during a time of tremendous stress. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-10-26 09:02:09 UTC ]
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Now in its third year, the event stepped up its ambitions and aims not only to spotlight authors but to change audiencesAs a child, Selina Brown had a Saturday routine: her mother would go shopping and leave her at the library, where she would speed her way through novels by Jacqueline Wilson... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2023-10-20 12:55:16 UTC ]
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On March 11, 2022, Molly McGhee shared a resignation letter on Twitter. She was quitting her job as an assistant editor at Tor, despite the fact that her first acquisition, The Atlas Six, had debuted at number three on the New York Times Bestseller List. She cited “systemwide prejudice against... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2023-10-20 11:03:00 UTC ]
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Literary Hub is pleased to reveal the cover for C. Michelle Lindley’s debut novel, The Nude, which will be published by Atria in June. Here’s a little bit about the book from the publisher: A gripping, provocative, and sensual debut novel about an art historian who journeys to a Greek island to... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-10-03 14:00:04 UTC ]
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It occurred at, of all places, a local tapas bar. I was sitting with a group of other Brooklyn moms when someone mentioned that my debut novel was going to be published soon. Everyone congratulated me and asked what the book was about, so I gave them a brief rundown: a group of teenage girls […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2023-09-28 08:55:40 UTC ]
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Eliza Clark’s debut novel was a hit on TikTok. With her next book, “Penance,” she aims for literary longevity over viral success. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2023-09-21 04:01:24 UTC ]
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