Interviews
Long conversations with debut authors about the work, the rejections and the lucky breaks.
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.
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.
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.
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.
4 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
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 readFirst Pages, Every Sunday
The opening page of a new debut, delivered to your inbox once a week.