It’s astonishing to me that that is not something that is provided.
#Reviews girls of the golden west how to
How do you just not work and write a book? And the second thing was, I think for any writer, especially if you don’t go to an MFA program - well actually I know a lot of writers who go to MFA programs who don’t receive a lot of guidance on the career stuff, on how to become a writer, how to build a career. What had been daunting about it was one, just the finances.
I started writing in 2009 and I’d say probably around like 2014, I let myself fantasize that writing a book would be possible. SS: So how did this novel come into being? How was it born? There was that element of I don’t really know how this done and then - because I’d been writing about books and doing things like book reviews - I was like where do I get off doing this, after so long reading other books and being very picky about whether I liked them or not? Now I’m like wow, I was such an asshole. The encouraging thing is that pretty much anyone writing a first novel is unprepared. Lydia Kiesling: It feels very new and strange. Shanthi Sekaran: As editor of The Millions, you’ve been very engaged with the literary world, but this is your first novel. I spoke with Lydia Kiesling about juggling writing and motherhood, the difference being an editor and a writer, and the danger of nostalgia. What follows are days of disoriented single motherhood, as Daphne realizes that the classic road trip, the great American escape, isn’t quite the same with a toddler in tow.
Fed up with the petty wranglings of her academic workplace, Daphne packs her car and her 18-month-old, Honey, and heads back her family’s home in the rural, forgotten reaches of northeastern California. Though I’d never met Kiesling, I knew her work as editor of The Millions, and had been following the reviews of The Golden State, her debut novel about Daphne Nilson, a young mother in San Francisco whose Turkish husband is stuck abroad, trapped in an immigration nightmare.