First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Naeem Murr, a dual US and UK citizen, is the author of four novels: The Boy, a New York Times Notable Book; The Genius of the Sea; and The Perfect Man, which was awarded The Commonwealth WritersʼPrize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.  His new novel is Every Exit Brings You Home. He is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Among his awards are a Pushcart Prize, a Lannan Residency Fellowship, a PEN Beyond Margins Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in Chicago and teaches at Northwestern University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ada Limón is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, which was a finalist for the Griffin Prize; The Carrying, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. She is the author of two picture books and was the editor of the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World. She served as the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrea Mara is a number one international bestselling Irish author. Several of her books have been shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year awards.  Someone in the Attic was her U.S. debut and her novel All Her Fault was adapted into a television series on Peacock.  Her new novel It Should Have Been You is her newest novel.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Philip Schultz, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and founder of The Writers Studio, reflects on mortality, memory, and revisiting long-held drafts. He discusses choosing a title, finishing an old poem, the central role of his mother, influences like Elizabeth Bishop, and how aging and place shaped his new collection. Short readings and stories about early life and obsessive drafting punctuate the conversation.

Tayari Jones is the author of four novels including An American Marriage, which was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction Aspen Words Literary Prize and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries.  Her other works include Leaving Atlanta, Silver Sparrow, and The Untelling. Her new novel is Kin. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the award-winning short story collection Corpus Christi, the novels We Burn Daylight and Remember Me Like This and the editor of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His short stories have been published in anthologized in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best; The O. Henry Prize Stories and The Best American Short Stories. His work has been widely translated and appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, The Paris Review, The New York Times Magazine and Virginia Quarterly Review. He is the Director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. His new short story collection is Encounters with Unexpected Animals. 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

R.L. Maizes is the author of A Complete Fiction. Her debut novel, Other People’s Pets, won the 2021 Colorado Book Award in Fiction and was a Library Journal Best Debut of Summer/Fall 2020. She also is the author of the short story collection, We Love Anderson Cooper. Her short stories have aired on National Public Radio and can be found in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading and in The Best Small Fictions 2020. Maizes’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, O Magazine, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and have aired on NPR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Guterson is the author of thirteen books, including the PEN/Faulkner Award winner Snow Falling on Cedars, which was made into a major motion picture, translated into twenty–five languages, and has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His new novel is Evelyn in Transit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ann Packer, novelist known for intimate moral dilemmas in relationships, discusses the real-life seed for a novel about a dying wife and the choice to have her women friends care for her. She explains switching to the husband’s point of view, how that request forces his self-discovery, and why pacing, drafting speed, and sincerity shaped the book.