Letters From Alex
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I’d Like You to Meet Jacob

I’ve met so many unforgettable people in my years at Gotham I can’t remember them all. I’ll discuss one of them here because a documentary about him was recently released. It’s called Jacob and you’ll find it on Amazon Video. It’s fascinating, fun, and I’m a featured player, so lots of reasons to watch.

The person’s name is Jacob M. Appel. He used to teach fiction for Gotham, and he’s a prolific writer, having published countless short stories, several novels, not to mention plays, essays, and poems. But that’s not all.  Continue reading “I’d Like You to Meet Jacob”

Letters From Kelly
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Rejecting Rejection

“The world is in turmoil—everybody is thinking about politics; nobody is thinking about memoir.”

That is just one of the many discouraging things editors and agents told Teresa Wong in late 2016 when she was trying to sell Dear Scarlet, her graphic memoir published this spring.

She also heard: no one wanted to read a book about post-partum depression; no one wanted to read a graphic memoir; and no one wanted to read a graphic memoir about post-partum depression.  Continue reading “Rejecting Rejection”

Letters From Alex
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A Story’s Chemistry

What’s the secret of success for a story? That’s the mystery I tried to solve when I interviewed Weike Wang this past weekend at the Gotham Writers Conference. The answer may vary depending on the story, but I hoped to find insight that would be useful to other writers.

Weike released her novel Chemistry in 2017. She got written up and reviewed in all the good places (New York Times, New Yorker, etc.). The novel won a Whiting Award for emerging writers and the PEN/Hemingway award for debut novels (awards that have been won by the likes of Jhumpa Lahiri and David Foster Wallace). Most importantly, lots of people read and loved her novel.  Continue reading “A Story’s Chemistry”