First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Rebecca Watson is the author of the novel little scratch. She writes for publications including the Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Granta. In 2018 she was short-listed for the White Review Short Story Prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Szalay is the author of five works of fiction: Spring, The Innocent, London and the South-East, for which he was awarded the Betty Trask and Geoffrey Faber Memorial prizes, and All That Man Is, for which he was awarded the Gordon Burn prize and Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, and Turbulence, winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. Szalay was born in Canada, grew up in London, and now lives in Budapest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Geye is the author of the award winning novels, Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, and Wintering, winner of the Minnesota Book Award. He currently teaches the year-long Novel Writing Project at the Loft Literary Center. Born and raised in Minneapolis, he continues to live there with his family. His new novel is called Northernmost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cherie Dimaline is a member of the Georgian Bay Metis Community in Ontario who has published 5 books. Her 2017 book, The Marrow Thieves, won the Governor General’s Award and the prestigious Kirkus Prize for Young Readers, was a finalist for the White Pine Award, and was the fan favourite for CBC’s 2018 Canada Reads. Her new book is Empire of Wild. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Margot Livesey is a writer and teacher. Her first book, published in 1986, was a collection of stories called Learning By Heart. Since then Margot has published eight novels: Homework, Criminals, The Missing World, Eva Moves the Furniture, Banishing Verona, The House on For tune Street, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Mercury, and The Boy in the Field. The Hidden Machinery, a collection of essays on writing, was published by Tin House Books in 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

R.L. Maizes is the author of the short story collection We Love Anderson Cooper and the novel Other People's Pets. Her essays have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and have aired on NPR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benjamin Nugent is the author of the short story collection Fraternity. He is the winner of The Paris Review’s 2019 Terry Southern Prize. His stories have been published in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and The Unprofessionals: New American Writing from the Paris Review. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ursula Hegi is the author of The Patron Saint of Pregnant Girls, The Worst Thing I've Done, Sacred Time, Hotel of the Saints, The Vision of Emma Blau, Tearing the Silence, Salt Dancers, Stones from the River, Floating in My Mother's Palm, Unearned Pleasures and Other Stories, Intrusions, and Trudi & Pia. She teaches writing at Stonybrook's Southhampton Campus and she is the recipient of more than thirty grants and awards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of How to Pronounce Knife. Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Granta, NOON, The Believer, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, and O. Henry Prize Stories 2019. She is the author of four books of poetry, Cluster, Light, Found and Small Arguments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Bowdler is the author of Is Rape a Crime? Michelle is a recipient of a 2017 Barbara Deming Memorial Award for non-fiction and has been a Fellow at Ragdale and MacDowell Colony. She has been published in the New York Times and in the anthologies The Anatomy of Silence and We Rise to Resist: Voices from a New Era in Women’s Political Action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices