TBR: Angels at the Gate by Sheri Joseph

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

At a remote Southern university in the late 1980s, student Leah Gavin becomes obsessed with a classmate’s unexplained fall from the bell tower, then begins to realize the mystery might implicate people close to her. It’s a literary thriller and heartfelt coming-of-age story with a kick-ass mixtape soundtrack.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

My most enjoyable character, a frat boy named Quinn Cooper, was intended to have only a minor role in the story: a sort-of friend Leah doesn’t trust who has some information to deliver. But he showed up with this outsized personality and rapacious desires and a vestigial conscience, and he just kept demanding more space, until he became my Iago—which, in John Updike’s terminology, is less the villain than the character who pushes all the other characters around. He completely took over the book, in large part because he was so much fun to write. I had the most difficulty with Leah, who is not me but is very often standing in my place, within my emotional experience. So it was hard to keep her vividly and precisely herself.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

The less said about that, the better! My agent sent it out to editors for years, but what happens to most writers who have published a few books without selling any great numbers is that no one not already attached to the writer will read the book. Editors just let the manuscript sit on their desk until they have the pressure of another offer to compel them to pick it up. Even if they do read it and love it, “the numbers” don’t support taking the risk. So I took the book to a wonderful small press, Regal House, which has more freedom to avoid the really destructive business model of bigger publishers and can just publish good books.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

As a teacher of writing, I have a few hundred go-to favorites! Most of them require a whiteboard and a weird approximate drawing of what a story looks like inside my head, just as a starting point. Maybe that’s more instruction than advice. The best advice I’ve ever received about my own work was “Be more forthcoming.” That’s one I’m often repeating to students who overvalue mystery. And my evergreen, bedrock advice is read. Reading is the best teacher. Read widely at the level of quality you hope to achieve in your own work.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I’m with you on that advice! Almost everything I write surprises me because I start from a compelling situation I don’t fully understand, then I write to discover what’s going on. In this book, that included about 80% of the central mystery. Also, most of Leah’s love life and several key friendships got pulled in directions I did not expect. And some of my favorite scenes came from just asking myself a question mid-draft like “What’s Leah’s most intense relationship with a professor?” then writing toward that.

 

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

 

The campus setting, Rockhaven, is very closely based on my alma mater, as will be obvious to anyone who knows and loves Sewanee. I renamed everything only to give myself the smallest room for fiction. My goal was to write a memoir of emotion and place, a novel in which everything is true except all of the characters and all of the events. Rockhaven as a place is so very Sewanee in the 80s that I worry it’s going to be hard for some alums to avoid thinking it’s a code pointing to real people and events. So I’m here to declare that 1) none of this happened and 2) (almost) no one I know is in this book! The exceptions are my late, great professor Douglas Paschall, who is dropped into the book as I remember him with only a name change, and two of our presumably late horses, Jojo and Matchless, who are playing themselves.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

 

Leah is a poor college student and thus fairly obsessed with food. There’s a scene in which she attends a dinner at a professor’s house and eats a whole menu of food that’s new to her (lettuce from a garden! cheese from a goat!). But her true love is the greasy pub food she generally has to watch others eat, like the local delicacy known as the Granger (I kept the Sewanee name for this as well as for our go-to cheap beer, which was literally and meaningfully Falstaff).

 

The Granger

Plain bagel, toasted

½ inch of cream cheese

Bacon, cooked

2 slices of Swiss cheese

Nuke it

 

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READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.sherijoseph.com

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:  https://bookshop.org/p/books/angels-at-the-gate-sheri-joseph/22326772?ean=9781646036530&next=t

 

 

 

 

 

TBR: The Place That Is Coming to Us by J.D. Smith

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

We don’t expect an elevator pitch from a poet, but can you tell us about your work in 2-3 sentences?

 

This collection addresses our troubled relationship with the non-human world, from which we cannot separate ourselves; as others have noted, “Nature bats last.” While this book can be seen as a twenty-first century addendum to the work of Robinson Jeffers, it also records an attempt to view nature—Creation, if you will—through lenses other than those of appetite and ambition.

 

What boundaries did you break in the writing of this book? Where does that sort of courage come from?

 

Besides breaking through the usual writerly boundaries of self-doubt and procrastination, I claimed new intellectual territory for myself and began to find ways to describe it. In short, I have moved beyond the fraying narrative of endless technological progress fueled by cheap energy. As others have noted, we’re not getting our jetpacks, and that’s just the beginning. We’re in for a bumpy ride, and denial can only make things worse, especially for the vulnerable.

 

Expressing these concerns and publicly grieving for the human and natural world may entail a degree of courage, but I will leave that to others to decide. At any rate, people who share or come to share those concerns should know that they are not alone in having them, and that we are finding a language to address these issues.    

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

 

One version or another of this collection has been circulating for about ten years, so there have been a great many lows—many undoubtedly deserved when the book hadn’t yet taken the right form. There were plenty of flat-out rejections, and the manuscript never placed as a finalist or semi-finalist in a competition. Along the way, though, I did get a couple of rejections with encouraging words, and I kept revising the manuscript.

 

In June of 2024, I finally got the “yes” I was looking for. I had ordered a couple of collections from Broadstone Books and liked their editorial judgment and their attention to the physical quality of their books, so on a whim I sent them the collection. To my surprise and delight editor Larry Moore accepted the manuscript, which roughly fits in the category of ecopoetry and probably nowhere else. For most of that summer, and occasionally since then, I’ve been reminded of the Iron & Wine-Fiona Apple track “All in Good Time.”

 

Since I’m retiring from my day job at the end of September, there will be time to give this book the support I think it deserves.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

At the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 1992, William Matthews told me, “You’re still finding out what you can do. Go home and write your ass off.” I can’t improve on that.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

The poems in this book were written over a span of more than twenty years, so I probably can’t remember all the times I’ve been surprised. A poem’s coming to mind is always unexpected, as are the moments of arriving at a final version after years of being stuck on one or another detail.

 

Compiling and arranging the poems had further unexpected results. The persistence of various themes and perspectives reminded me of how the collection could only have come about after decades of education and experience, with a few major shifts along the way. I was also taken aback by seeing how much I’d been thinking about salamanders.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

The title comes from the last line of “Introit,” the collection’s first poem. The line sets up the collection’s concerns with a strange and troubling world that we do not have to go on great voyages to discover. It is finding us, whether we like it or not, even if our lives take place within a tiny radius. In a changing climate, weather is more unpredictable, and extreme events are occurring more frequently. The ranges of wild plants and animals, and the hardiness zones for agriculture and gardening, are changing accordingly. Whether I look at the Chicago area, where I was born and raised, or Washington, DC, where I went to college and have lived as a working adult since 2000, I no longer see the places I once knew.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

 

Food appears at several points in the book, though most of it is of the kinds consumed by other species and not very appealing to homo sapiens. Scavenging is important, but I can’t do it. The book does, however, include ingredients: sugar, fish, coffee, sea jellies (for the somewhat adventurous), and blue crab, to which I am apparently allergic. My previous books have touched on more appetizing choices, and books to follow will probably do so as well. Even if I can’t provide the rapturous passages of Thomas Wolfe or Jim Harrison, there will be nibbles.

 

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READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR:  www.jdsmithwriter.com

 

ORDER A COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR YOUR TBR STACK: https://www.broadstonebooks.com/shop/p/the-place-that-is-coming-to-us-poetry-by-j-d-smith

~~~~Note: Use discount code POETS24 for 20% off!~~~~

 

READ A POEM FROM THIS BOOK, “Dream with Policy”: https://www.harvardreview.org/content/dream-with-policy/

 

SUBSTACK: https://jdsmith3.substack.com/

 

 

TBR: The Belles by Lacey N. Dunham

Established in 2018, TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books.

 

 

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

 

Deena Williams is an outsider with a secretive past who will risk everything—including her life—to fit in. 

At secluded Bellerton College, Deena is desperate to join a powerful clique of wealthy girls anointed the Belles. She’s welcomed into their group with the gift of a black velvet ribbon, and the comfortable life she’s always dreamed of is within reach. 

But Bellerton hides a sinister history, and soon Deena is caught in a web of secrets, lies, and dangerous games in this chilling Southern gothic dark academia debut mashup of THE SECRET HISTORY, BUNNY, and HEATHERS.

 

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

 

I loved writing so many of my characters, it’s hard to pick! Ada May was a character who conjured herself, which is appropriate to her character’s genteel sinisterness. I hadn’t originally envisioned her in the book, but she quickly became the foil to my protagonist, Deena, and with her presence the book became a better, more interesting story. I also loved writing Fred, an iconoclastic young woman who is utterly unapologetic about who she is. Fred might be my favorite character in the novel.

 

Mary’s character was more challenging to write than I expected. I knew her background and her role in the story’s plot, but figuring out how to put her on the page while revealing the bits of mystery surrounding her at the right moments was difficult.

 

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

Publishing is a journey of highs and lows! I’m very lucky and privileged to have landed with an editor, the terrific Laura Brown, who understood my vision of the book and worked with me to elevate it to the greatest version of itself. And Atria has been terrific, the whole team there has been wonderful to work with.

 

One aspect of the publishing journey that isn’t talked about as much as the agent query process is the submission process. Writers are immensely focused on getting an agent—an important thing, especially if you’re interested in publishing with Big 5 and prestige indie presses like Graywolf or Algonquin—but for every book an agent has sold, they have five books from clients whose died on submission. I was, again, very lucky that this didn’t happen to The Belles—but it could have!

 

I think it’s important for writers to know that the journey doesn’t stop with getting an agent. There are no guarantees in this business. The journey continues for a long time beyond the agent, and it’s an emotionally challenging and difficult journey with no security at any point. Your book, and your career, face numerous hurdles every step of the way. And again with the next book. And again beyond that.

 

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

 

Stay connected to your creativity. The writing is yours; publishing is a business, and it’s a brutal one. There’s so much romanticization around book publishing. I encourage writers to stay grounded. Write for you, first and foremost. Not towards trends. Not towards what you think you “should” be writing. Not to the critics in your head. Not to the readers in your head. Write for you.

 

Then, worry about all the other stuff later. It becomes all-consuming and gets in the way of the creative work.

 

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

 

I have a drawer novel that I labored over for a decade. That novel was a book I wrote out of shoulds. It was not a book I wrote out of my own interests or obsessions, though I didn’t recognize it at the time. When I decided to write The Belles, I had two rules for myself, and the first one was that I wanted to write a book I would enjoy reading. A book that was wholly composed of things I love. What surprised me most was how much I enjoyed the actual writing process of The Belles once I followed my own obsessions, tastes, and interests rather than someone else’s ideas of a book.

 

How did you find the title of your book?

 

I’m terrible at titles! I think most writers are. The working title for The Belles was awful for a long time. I can’t remember when I decided on The Belles, but it’s perfect. It’s a title that references the group, and the consequences of conformity are a major theme in the book. The novel is set in Virginia, and the word “belles” is evocative of Southern Belles, a deeply complicated heritage that the young women in my book would be emerging from. The word “belles” also means “beauty” in French, and toxic white femininity is one of the core themes of my novel.

 

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book?

 

The young women of Bellerton College love drinking sweet iced tea on the shaded porches of their dormitories. I personally can’t stand sweet tea—I drink unsweetened tea only.

 

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READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: www.laceyndunham.com

 

READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Belles/Lacey-N-Dunham/9781668084861

 

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-belles-lacey-n-dunham/22287589?ean=9781668084861&next=t

 

SUBSTACK: laceyndunham.substack.com