Author Lydi Conklin sets up camp in “Songs of No Provenance”

Lydi Conklin’s first novel, Songs of No Provenance, was published earlier this month, and tells the story of Joan, a disgraced New York musician seeking reinvention by teaching songwriting at a teen writing camp in rural Virginia. Conklin is also the author of Rainbow Rainbow, a story collection that was long-listed for The Story Prize […]

On multiracial identity and the temporary insanity of writing

Danzy Senna’s latest novel, Colored Television, tells the story of Jane, a novelist and tenure-track professor, and her husband Lenny, a painter and teacher at a Los Angeles art school that’s described as “a white hipster playground.” As a self-identified mulatto woman married to a Black man, Jane is abundantly aware of issues of race […]

Science fiction and the stories we tell

Lincoln Michel’s new novel, Metallic Realms, is a skillful send-up of science fiction fandom and writing group dynamics, set in contemporary Brooklyn. Crafted as a book within a book, readers meet the members of a sci-fi writing group known as Orb 4 who are struggling to get along, pay rent, and work on a series […]

Tempting titles to seek out on Independent Bookstore Day

Independent Bookstore Day is on Saturday, April 26, and it offers the perfect excuse to stop by Charlottesville-area bookshops to find a title or two to enjoy amidst these tumultuous times. For inspiration, local booksellers share their reading recommendations below.—Sarah Lawson 2nd Act Books  Charlie Newman-Johnson, manager The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell “The plot, […]

New memoir cultivates reverence for our fellow animals 

In her book, Moonlight Elk: One Woman’s Hunt for Food and Freedom, Christie Green writes: “When the days are distilled into life and death moments and attuned to tiny toenail prints in the soil and subtle wind shifts, my old identities pale.” A sensuous exploration of the animal world and our place within it, Green’s […]

Ed Park explores metafiction and the nature of reality

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park is a complex kaleidoscope of a book that explores Korean history and diasporic identity, the nature of reality and dreams, and the drive (and dry spells) that are inherent in creative and political work.  The book offers an imagined history that overlaps with […]

Science, fact, and fiction

Terry Thorsen is a self-described technologist and co-founder of ChartIQ, a Charlottesville-based charting provider for the financial services industry. Seeking to apply his experience from the tech sector to more creative endeavors, Thorsen recently wrote The Germans Have a Word for It, a speculative fiction novel that will be published this month. His debut book […]

H. G. Dierdorff explores the personal and the perilous

When University of Virginia creative writing MFA alumnus H. G. Dierdorff’s debut poetry collection was published in December 2024, the timeliness of its themes of climate collapse and human connection was undeniable. However, these first weeks of 2025 made it all the more relevant, as Richmond, Virginia’s water crisis and the Los Angeles fires reminded […]

An author’s experiment to see what grows

In Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop, Paula Whyman recounts her attempts to restore the ecosystem of a mountain that she and her husband bought. “I’ve been working on the mountain restoration for nearly four years now, since we bought the land in early 2021,” says Whyman. “I started work […]

Six books I didn’t read in 2024

Earlier this fall, I had COVID and, among its other health impacts, one bears mentioning here: For a time, I lost the ability to read. That is, I couldn’t read anything longer than a sentence without losing the rest of the day to a blinding headache. As a fervid reader, this was crushing. I spent […]