First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Marcy Dermansky is the author of the novels The Red Car, Bad Marie and Twins.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melanie Finn was born in Kenya in 1964.  She spent her childhood largely unsupervised, roaming suburban Nairobi’s remnant woodlands and back roads.  When she was 11, she moved to Connecticut with her mother and stepfather, and later attended New York University, graduating with a BA in journalism.  She is the author of the novels Away From You and The Gloaming. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joshua Mohr is the author of the memoir "Sirens", as well as five novels including "Damascus", which The New York Times called "Beat-poet cool." He’s also written "Fight Song" and "Some Things that Meant the World to Me," one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, as well as "Termite Parade," an Editors’ Choice in The New York Times.  His novel "All This Life" won the Northern California Book Award. He is the founder of Decant Editorial.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Orner is the author of Am I Alone Here? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First Draft interview with Gerrard Conley, author of the memoir Boy Erased. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Akhil Sharma is an Indian-American author and professor of creative writing. His first published novel An Obedient Father won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. His second, Family Life, won the 2015 Folio Prize and 2016 International Dublin Literary Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benjamin Percy is the author of three novels, the most recent among them The Dead Lands, a post apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga. He is also the author of  Red Moon and The Wilding, as well as two books of short stories, Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk and the craft book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anuradha Roy's latest book, Sleeping on Jupiter,  won the DSC Prize for Fiction 2016 and was nominated for the Man Booker prize 2015. She won the Economist Crossword Prize for her second novel, The Folded Earth. Her first novel, An Atlas of Impossible Longing, has been widely translated and was picked as one of the Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post and the Seattle Times. It has been named by World Literature Today as one of the 60 most essential books on modern India and was shortlisted for the Crossword Prize. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Randa Jarrar’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Utne Reader, Salon.com, Guernica, The Rumpus, The Oxford American, Ploughshares, Five Chapters, and others. Her first novel, A Map of Home was published in half a dozen languages & won a Hopwood Award, an Arab-American Book Award, and was named one of the best novels of 2008 by the Barnes and Noble Review. Her new book is called Him, Me, Muhammad Ali. She has received fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, Hedgebrook, and others, and in 2010 was named one of the most gifted writers of Arab origin under the age of 40. She runs RAWI (the Radius of Arab-American Writers) and loves coordinating events and strengthening communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emily Witt is a writer in New York City. She has written for n+1, The New Yorker, The New York Times, GQ, the London Review of Books, and many other places. She has degrees from Brown, Columbia, and Cambridge, and was a Fulbright scholar in Mozambique. Her first book, Future Sex, was published in 2016 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices