First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Lily Tuck is the author of seven novels: Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up; The Woman Who Walked on Water; The Double Life of Liliane, Sisters, Siam, or the Woman Who Shot a Man, which was nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction; and The News from Paraguay, winner of theNational Book Award. She is also the author of the biography Woman of Rome: A Life of Elsa Morante. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker and are collected in Limbo and Other Places I Have Lived. Lily Tuck divides her time between Maine and New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paolo Giordano is an Italian novelist.  His books include The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Like Family, and The Human Body. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claire Messud is the author of six novels and one book of novellas including The Woman Upstairs, When the World Was Steady, THe Last Life, and The Emperor’s Children, which was a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Messud has been awarded Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and children. Her latest novel is called The Burning Girl. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Yoon was born in New York City. His first book, Once the Shore, was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a Best Debut of the Year by National Public Radio. His novel, Snow Hunters, won the 2014 Young Lions Fiction Award.  His new novel is The Mountain. A recipient of a 5 under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, he is currently a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard University along with his wife, the fiction writer Laura van den Berg. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of six works of fiction, including the bestseller The Confessions of Max Tivoli, The Story of a Marriage and his latest novel, Less.  He splits his time between his home in San Francisco and the Santa Maddalena Foundation writer's residency in Tuscany, where he is the Executive Director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dorit Rabinyan was born in Israel to an Iranian-Jewish family. Her first two novels Persian Brides and Strand of A Thousand Pearls were both international best sellers. In 2014 Rabinyan published her third novel, All The Rivers, an immediate best seller in Israel. In January 2016 All the Rivers became the center of a political scandal in Israel when the Ministry of Education banned the book from high school’s curriculum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claire Dederer is the author of Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maile Meloy is the author of the novels Liars and Saints and A Family Daughter and the story collections Half in Love and Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, which was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by the New York Times Book Review and one of the best books of the year by the Los Angeles Times and Amazon.com. She has also written a trilogy for young readers, beginning with The Apothecary, which was a New York Times bestseller and won the 2012 E.B. White Award. Meloy’s short stories have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, and Best American Short Stories 2015. Her new novel for adults is Do Not Become Alarmed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese-born writer whose work, written in English, has received critical acclaim and a high profile for its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. Highlighting the challenges facing Muslims in Europe and “telling the stories of flawed complex characters who struggle to make choices using Muslim logic”, Aboulela’s work explores significant political issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nina McConigley is the author of Cowboys and East Indians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices