Noteworthy debut: a look back

  Looking for some good reading to keep you occupied through the rest of the winter? DEBUT LIT intern and NYU creative writing student Cassandra Rodriguez looks back a few years at Ed Park’s award-winning debut novel.    “Personal Days is a debut novel by Ed Park. It begins as a comical, satirical outlook on [...]

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Author Wendy Lee: Under pressure

The reviews are in, the tour is done, the debut is on the backlist and now everyone is waiting for what a first-time author will do next. The pressure’s on to see if the follow up project will show what kind of staying power a new author might have. How does an author keep their writing momentum going without [...]

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Author Fiona Maazel: It’s a hard knock writing life

DEBUT LIT’s interns are like busy elves this time of year! Well, mostly because of finals and dorm exodus, but Cassandra Rodriguez had time to sneak in an interview with debut author, Fiona Maazel, for our website. Fiona Maazel, author of Last Last Chance, was able to share her own experiences in the publishing world [...]

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Songwriter Rykarda Parasol: Fans and The Tour

Good writing is good writing no matter what form you work in. A well-turned surprising lyric is par for the course for my friend Rykarda Parasol, who is a singer songwriter performer painter artist, you name it! The process of producing, releasing and promoting an album isn’t entirely unlike publishing a book, in that both mean its creator spends [...]

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Author Shannan Rouss: A timeline of rejections

Intern extraordinaire Shannon Mich asked debut author Shannan Rouss, whose short story collection Easy for You came out earlier this year, what her experience with rejection had been. She answered by way of  historical timeline. Shannan Rouss will read at DEBUT LIT: Backstage Pass in San Francisco on Oct. 9  as part of LitQuake: San Francisco’s Literary [...]

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Author Laurie Frankel: Opening debate

When author Laurie Frankel told me she wrote more than a dozen versions of the first chapter of her debut novel, The Atlas of Love, before she and her agent agreed on one, I had to find out how that went. Below is her guest blog about that experience. Laurie Frankel will read with DEBUT LIT in San Francisco on Oct. [...]

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Authors Brooke Berman and Tony DuShane: Rejection sucks

I recently got a brand spankin new rejection email. Even though many other people say nice things about my writing, it still stung to get a ‘Meh’ response from someone. To make myself feel better, I asked trusty NYU intern for DEBUT LIT, Shannon Mich, to poll the recently published authors we work with for their experiences [...]

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Author Matt Stewart: Tweet this!

Author Matt Stewart famously Tweeted his entire first novel, The French Revolution, to the glee of journalists nationwide. I asked him where the idea came from, and below is what he had to say.  Matt Stewart will read with DEBUT LIT at powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn on Sept. 10 as part of the Brooklyn Book Festival’s [...]

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Author Sung J. Woo: What’s it like to choose cover art

DEBUT LIT hosted release parties in New York and San Francisco last year for debut novelist, Sung J. Woo. His book Everything Asian has since been released in paperback. When I saw the new cover, I was surprised. It was radically different in style than the hardcover, so I asked him how that came about. [...]

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Famous debuts

Our trusty interns have been researching some well-known titles that coincidentally are debut books. You may be surprised by which ones were a first shot for some authors. From Hillary: Did you know that The Kite Runner was Afghani author Khaled Hosseini’s first novel? This novel follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of [...]

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