Posts From Author: Month: September 2019
Seriously Questioning…Torrey Maldonado
Torrey Maldonado is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Tight and Secret Saturdays. He is a teacher in Brooklyn, New York, where he was born and raised. His books reflect his students’ and his experiences. On September 17, he will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, No Sleep Till, alongside William Dalrymple, Nicole Dennis-Benn, and Helen Phillips. What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? Imagine me as a little Afro’d boy chef. Picture me as that boy tasting food then thinking, “This is good. Let me try to make it on my own” or “This could taste better if . . .” Now picture me as a little boy sampling comic books and early childhood books that way. I read as if I were food-tasting. Then I’d go write or draw thinking, “That comic or story was good. Let me see if I can redo it with my spin on it” or “Maybe if that story looked like this, then it might be better . . .” Where’d that habit come from? My mom. With one tiny question, she conditioned me to get into a big habit with reading and writing. After I read, she’d ask, “How could it […]
Read MoreSeriously Questioning…Helen Phillips
Helen Phillips is the author of, most recently, the novel The Need. Her collection Some Possible Solutions received the 2017 John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat, a New York Times Notable Book of 2015, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Her collection And Yet They Were Happy was named a notable collection by The Story Prize. Helen has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and the Italo Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction, and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Tin House, and on Selected Shorts. On September 17, she will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, No Sleep Till, alongside William Dalrymple, Nicole Dennis-Benn, and Torrey Maldonado. What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? I remember being ferociously jealous when I was about four years old and would watch my parents reading novels or the newspaper. I wanted to know what it was about those markings on the page that so absorbed them. What is your favorite line from your current work? I don’t know if it’s my favorite line, but I’m attached to […]
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