Posts From Author: Month: January 2019

Seriously Questioning…John Wray

John Wray is the author of the critically acclaimed novels The Lost Time Accidents, Lowboy, The Right Hand of Sleep, Canaan’s Tongue, and most recently, Godsend. He was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists in 2007. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Brooklyn and Mexico City. On January 15, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, Secrets and Lies, alongside Lauretta Charlton, Nora Krug, and Carl Zimmer. We spoke to John ahead of the show. What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? My earliest memory involving reading was gawking in amazement at the tower of orange-spined Penguin classics on my mom’s bedside table. She immigrated to the US from Austria, and she taught herself English by reading Penguin Classics. Which is pretty badass, in my opinion. What is your favorite line from your current work? “Dear Teacher, here I am now, where you said I’d never be.” What is your favorite first line of a novel? “They threw me off the hay truck about noon.” (from The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain) What advice would you give to aspiring writers? Don’t turn your nose up at porn! […]
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Seriously Questioning…Nora Krug

Nora Krug is a German-American author and illustrator. Krug is a recipient of fellowships from Fulbright, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, the Maurice Sendak Foundation, and the German Academic Exchange Service. Her visual memoir Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home, about WWII and her own German family history, was chosen as a New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2018, as one of The Guardian’s 50 Biggest Books of Autumn 2018 and Best Books of 2018, as an NPR Book of the Year 2018, as one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Memoirs of 2018, and as one of Time Magazine’s 8 Must-Read Books you May Have Missed in 2018. On January 15, she will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, Secrets and Lies, alongside Lauretta Charlton, John Wray, and Carl Zimmer. We spoke to Nora ahead of the show. What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? I remember being read The Grimms’ Fairy Tales by my parents. The one that most stuck with me was “Godfather Death,” about a physician’s pact with the devil. The most memorable moment is when Death takes the physician to a cavern filled with candles of different heights representing the […]
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