I had my first TV interview while up in Watertown, NY this past weekend. It’s 12 minutes long, and well, I learned a lot about how I might approach it differently next time. Still, I love the questions that Craig Thornton asked me. He made it feel like a real discussion about writing, which made it a lot of fun for me. Here’s the link to the interview. http://www.wwnytv.com/story/35933365/craigs-to-do-list-interview-n-west-moss-author
The Saturday Evening Post has just published my short story, “The Absence of Sound.”
Sometimes I have to remind myself that I’m really writing, it’s such a dream of mine. This publication is a reminder that I AM a writer, no kidding. The editor-in-chief at the Saturday Evening Post has become a friend, and what more would I want than a friend who is such a careful and generous reader? I also love that the photo they chose to use to illustrate the story is of one of the gorgeous lions who sit just outside of the NY Public Library. This whole thing is a dream come true.
I am thrilled to read this review from The Star Tribune of “The Subway Stops at Bryant Park.” They call it a “captivating collection” which is “cinematic.” This pleases me especially because, of course, I can picture these characters perfectly in my own mind, but I can only hope they come across as vividly to my readers.
It’s nice, too, to get a review a full month and a half after the official launch of the book, keeping it alive, so to speak, for the summer at least.
River Teeth is a fine journal dedicated to narrative nonfiction. If you are a writer looking for a home for your nonfiction work, they are respected, and for good reason. Below is a link to a book review that I wrote for them. I got the chance to work with the editor, Thomas Larson, and boy did he do a lot of work to help me shepherd this assignment to completion. Here, then, is my review of Writing Hard Stories.
http://www.riverteethjournal.com/blog/2017/07/01/must-hard-stories-be-so-hard review of Writing Hard Stories
David Ebenbach (who wrote a great short story collection called The Guy We Didn’t Invite to the Orgy) and I got a chance to interview one another about our writing processes for Fiction Writers Review about our 2 short story collections.
David is a good friend who is also an amazing writer, and happens to have a sense of humor. Here we talk about how we feel about our own characters, how we find them and breathe life into them, and what kinds of characters we avoid (spoiler alert – I’m not fond of show-offs).
Liz Martin of American Micro Reviews interviewed me recently about my book. I enjoyed our back-and -forth online and I am very pleased with the results. Liz is obviously a writer herself and asks insightful questions – the kind of questions that I enjoyed pondering. I learned a few things from being interviewed by her, and that’s saying something. Follow this link to read the entire interview: AMRI interview
Well, May has finally arrived. Although the book isn’t set to officially publish until May 16th, books have already started being delivered, and friends have been texting and emailing me, and posting photos of themselves with my book, which is all so sweet.
There are a lot of events coming up in May, including a reading in Garrison, NY on May 11th and the official launch in NYC on May 16th. Check out the Events tab on this site to find out about all of the upcoming events.
I’ve been teaching creative writing at Gotham in NYC and today they kindly published a 500-word excerpt from my book on their website and in their monthly newsletter. You can read the excerpt here. excerpt from “The Absence of Sound”
If you want to do something helpful, a review on Amazon for the book is always great, as is a review on Goodreads, Barnes and Noble or any other site that is carrying the book. On Goodreads you can also recommend the book to a friend if you’d like.
I hope to see a lot of you this summer, and I also hope to get a lot of writing done on my next project. So fasten your seatbelts. Here’s to one crazy month of May.
Here is the link to a lovely new review from Cliff Garstang at “Best New Fiction”. Garstang really picked up on the theme of loss throughout the stories, even more than I had noticed (or intended) myself.
Click here to read Garstang’s review Review from Best New Fiction
I will be reading from “The Subway Stops at Bryant Park” at the following venues during the first half of May 2017. Stay tuned for more events throughout May, June and July.
Thursday, May 11th, 7:00-9:00pm The Desmond-Fish Library, 472 Route 403, Garrison, NY. 845-424-3020
Tuesday, May 16th, 7-9pm Book Launch at Book Culture, 536 West 112th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam). West will read from her book and will then be interviewed by author Marie Myung-Ok Lee. Books will be available for sale and there will be wine. 212-865-1588
Thursday, May 18th, 7-8PM Watchung Books, 54 Fairfield Street, Montclair, NJ. 973-744-7177
For those of you who are following how a small press releases a short story collection, here is what Leapfrog Press has just posted on their blog about the upcoming launch. Leapfrog is a small publisher with an enormous heart. They have been honorable and hard-working every step of the way, and I hope the book does well as much for them as for me.
Click here to read their blog post. https://crossborderjournal.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/n-west-moss-uniquely-illuminating/
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