Interviews
Long conversations with debut authors about the work, the rejections and the lucky breaks.
Irene Spiegel Krasniansky's Under Rembrandt's Watchful Eye Follows Rembrandt's Daughter and a Girl Growing Up in 1990s Los Angeles
Her debut is a dual-timeline novel about two women three centuries apart, linked by art, legacy and the question of whether a soul carries on. It is rooted in history, she says, but it is no history lesson.
5 min read
Zoilita Grant on Self-Hypnosis at Sixteen, Old Beliefs and Change Your Mind and Change Your Life
In written answers, the Hypnotic Coach explains how losing 150 pounds through self-hypnosis as a teenager shaped her guide to letting go of the past, and why an old belief is not a permanent truth.
5 min read
Zoilita Grant on Menopause, Hypnosis and Meeting the Next Chapter With Confidence
In written answers, Zoilita Grant explains why she treats menopause as a whole-person transition and how her book presents hypnosis as a complement to good medical care.
4 min read
Zoilita Grant on Dream Symbols, a 27-Year Recurring Dream and The Secret Life of Your Dreams
In written answers, Zoilita Grant talks about the recurring dream that ran through 27 years of her life, a dream in Egypt after her husband's death, and why she wants readers to put down the dream dictionary.
5 min read
Listen. Beatrice Lang on the Locked-Room Mystery She Set at a Winter Swim Club
In Episode 14 of The RedSquibble Podcast, Beatrice Lang talks cold water, changing huts, and why the best clue in The Undertow Club is a wet towel. Runtime 48 minutes.
More Conversations
Priya Venkataraman Built Her Debut Thriller Around a Real Coastal Flood Model
A working hydrologist in Norfolk, Virginia, Venkataraman ran a storm surge scenario hour by hour and wrote Low Tide Protocol to its clock. She talks about physics as a villain, the table her editor cut, and the person at the end of every forecast.
By Noor Haddad · September 23, 2026 · 4 min read
Jonah Adebayo-Reyes Spent Four Years in the Archives to Bring Harlem's Last Lamplighters Back to Life
A former Bronx history teacher found a single photograph of a man on a ladder and built a 412-page novel around him. We talked about ledgers, gaslight, and everything the records leave out.
By Julian Hart · September 23, 2026 · 4 min read
How a Greenhouse Love Story Found Its Readers One Bookstore at a Time
Imani Clarke's Glasshouse Summer arrived in June with little fanfare. Then a bookseller in Durham started pressing it into customers' hands, and the readers took it from there.
By Marcus Bell · September 21, 2026 · 4 min read
A Retired Machinist Published His First Novel at 67. He Says He Was Right on Time
Colin Mercer spent forty years in machine shops before a community college night class changed his retirement. His debut, The Last Good Summer on Arden Lane, is on the 2026 RedSquibble Debut Shortlist.
By Noor Haddad · September 22, 2026 · 4 min readListen. Beatrice Lang on the Locked-Room Mystery She Set at a Winter Swim Club
In Episode 14 of The RedSquibble Podcast, Beatrice Lang talks cold water, changing huts, and why the best clue in The Undertow Club is a wet towel. Runtime 48 minutes.
By Tessa Quinn · September 23, 2026 · 4 min read
Kai Nakamura-Holt on Readbacks, Loneliness and Writing a Novel With No One to Blame
The former Portland air traffic controller behind Orbit of the Lesser Moons talks about leaving the tower, the letters that shaped Hesper Station, and the saboteur who was written into an early draft and then quietly removed.
By Elena Voss · September 20, 2026 · 4 min read
Rosa Delacroix-Vance on Hive Politics, an 812-Page Draft and What Bees Know About Plot
The Asheville beekeeper behind Iron & Honey explains the three factions of Vell, the scalpel her editor brought to her first draft, and the quiet bee behavior that became the engine of her 496-page debut.
By Marcus Bell · September 18, 2026 · 4 min read
Hannah Birch on Blisters, Borrowed Beds and Learning to Lay a Hedge
The author of Fieldwork talks about why she refused to write a day-by-day walking book, the strangers who fed her across England and Wales, and the hedge she finally laid with her own hands.
By Noor Haddad · September 16, 2026 · 5 min read
Samuel Okafor on Lagos, His Father's Exercise Books and the Man Who Wrote His Novel With Him
The Houston CPA behind Ledger of Quiet Things talks about the two years in Lagos that gave him his setting, the hardware shop where he learned to keep accounts, and what his hero Emeka taught him about letting the books go unbalanced.
By Julian Hart · September 14, 2026 · 4 min read
Delia Montrose on Two Voices, One River and the Night She Almost Turned Back
The author of What the River Kept talks about writing her father's log beside her own, the storm that nearly ended her trip in Arkansas, and why she never sent the manuscript to a single agent.
By Marcus Bell · September 12, 2026 · 5 min read
A Hospice Nurse Wrote Her First Novel on Night Shifts Over Eleven Years. Now Readers Can't Stop Passing It Around
Mara Ellison drafted The Salt Orchard before dawn in a hospice break room in Tenney Harbor, Maine. Forty agents said no. One editor said yes in a single afternoon.
By Julian Hart · September 24, 2026 · 6 min read
From Accounting Ledgers to Literary Fiction. Why Samuel Okafor Kept His Day Job
The Houston CPA wrote Ledger of Quiet Things one hour at a time, before dawn and before the office. He has no plans to quit.
By Marcus Bell · September 26, 2026 · 4 min read
Rosa Delacroix-Vance Drew the Map Before She Wrote a Single Chapter
The Asheville beekeeper spent more than a year charting the kingdom of Vell in pencil before any of its people spoke. The result is Iron & Honey, a 496-page fantasy in which the bees choose the queen.
By Marcus Bell · September 24, 2026 · 4 min read
Hannah Birch Walked 900 Miles of Field Margins to Write Fieldwork
A former agricultural surveyor spent 97 days walking the edges of farms in England and Wales. Her linked essays are about the strips of land most people never look at twice.
By Julian Hart · September 26, 2026 · 4 min readSign Up for First Pages, Our Weekly Newsletter
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