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Jennifer Gilmore: A PW Profile
If you work in publishing, you probably know Jennifer Gilmore as the former publicity director at Harcourt. She left that job not long after her first novel, Golden Country (Scribner, 2005), was published. Shortly after that, the publishing industry underwent a series of changes, in some ways making it almost unrecognizable to someone who hasn't been paying attention.
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Watching the “Detectives”
In Kira Henehan's debut, Orion, You Came and You Took All My Marbles, a group of detectives may or may not be detectives, and what they may or may not be after is a mystery.
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Q & A with Elisha Cooper
Author of such picture books as Ballpark, Dance!, and Beach, Elisha Cooper has transported young readers to numerous child-pleasing locales. His latest book takes them to yet another. Due from Orchard, Farm follows the workings of a Midwestern farm over the course of a year.
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Howard Cruse Returns with a New Edition of 'Stuck Rubber Baby'
When Howard Cruse's first and only original graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby, was published by DC Comics' Paradox Press imprint in 1995, it garnered great reviews, where it could get them, before it silently slipped away from a world that wasn't quite ready for it.
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Rediscovering One's Self
"I was used to taking care of writers. I've worked with writers my entire life, and I thought I knew how hard it was, but I didn't really know!"
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From Underground to Random House
"I wanted to work with something really organic, the whole way through. I wanted to make that art my own."
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Why I Write
Why do I write? Because nothing makes me feel more alive than when I’m in the field doing research—in this case for a book called Planet Barbecue.
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Q & A with Ricky Gervais
British comedian, actor, and writer Ricky Gervais's Flanimals and More Flanimals, illustrated by Rob Steen, introduced a cast of absurd creatures, which are now taking on additional zany dimension in Flanimals Pop-Up, due from Candlewick. Gervais spoke with Bookshelf about this and his earlier book projects.
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Silver Linings
God of War (Atria, 2008), Silver's breakout novel, was nominated for an L.A. Times Book Award in fiction. Why did she return to the short form for her latest, Alone with You? "I love dealing with the issue of compression in stories, and how to tell a story with as few moves as possible."
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Second City Sins
"Chicago is going to inflict its pain, take its pound of flesh, and tell you about it all day. If you substitute politicians and politics for 'da Bears' and football, you'll have an idea of how the power brokers in this city operate."
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The Hunter Becomes the Prey
"[James Earl] Ray was an evil man, but he was also struggling to figure out his place in the world: reading self-help books, undergoing hypnosis, going to shrinks. Maybe he could have gone clean but for that burning ambition and restlessness."
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PW Talks with Hugh Raffles
"The only way I could get close to insect experience was to find individuals—scientists, cricket-fighting aficionados, crush freaks—who had these really close and particularly intense relationships with insects and try to get inside those relationships."
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PW Talks with Alex Taylor
Native Kentuckian Alex Taylor delves into working-class loss and longing in The Name of the Nearest River, his debut collection.
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PW Talks with Jesse Kellerman
"I began to wonder what life would be like for someone whose only job was to make conversation... the ultimate 'man of inaction.' And from there I came to wonder what it would take to spur such a person to action."
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Why I Write: Frances Mayes
As a child in Fitzgerald, Ga., way back in the middle of the last century (that sounds so archaic), I was struck with the power of the land. Always, I felt the primal potency beneath my black Mary Janes (polished with Vaseline). A tornado might lift me and the bathtub into the sky. Sinkholes swallowed whole houses.
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Q & A with Carrie Jones
Carrie Jones has been spending lots of time with pixies, shape shifters and other fantasy creatures-and it doesn't look like she'll be stopping anytime soon. Her books Need and Captivate, about a smart girl being stalked by a pixie, have struck a chord with readers; both books landed on the New York Times bestseller lists. Now the series could be as many of five books. Jones spoke with Children's Bookshelf about how she became enchanted by pixies, what comes next in the series, and why teen readers need fantasy books right now.
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Q & A with Frank Cottrell Boyce
Q: What inspired you to write this insanely funny and wonderful book?
A: Two things, really. People of my age, we all wanted to go to space. Fly to the moon? That was the dream. So I started with that. And then, my family went away for a year, and when we came back one of my son's friends had had a growth spurt. He was barely recognizable. His mother said something that I actually put in the book. She said, "That's not a growth spurt. That's a mutation." -
Why I Write: Karl Marlantes
Certainly, writing the novel [Matterhorn] was a way of dealing with the wounds of combat, but why would I subject myself to the further wounds all writers receive trying to get published?
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PW Talks with Jo Nesbo
"I actually feel more related to the American hard-boiled crime novel than the Scandinavian crime novel, whatever that is. But since 'Scandinavian crime fiction' seems to have become a trademark for quality, being a Norwegian writer is not a bad starting point."
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