It's June! Yay for Pride, Father's Day, Juneteenth and Beth Raymer's new novel

Dear Writers,

Happy June! This month, we celebrate Father’s Day 🧔🏽, Queer Pride 🏳️‍🌈 & Liberation 🏳️‍⚧️, Juneteeth ✊🏿 and the beginning of summer. As I write this, the sun is shining, the sky is clear and the air feels sweet. Hopefully, we have sweet days ahead.

This month, we’re thrilled to share a Q&A with Beth Raymer, whose debut novel, Fireworks Every Night, is out June 27. Years ago, I taught writing at Columbia and Beth was one of my students. She was so smart and delightful; her smile lit up the room as she nodded and took notes. In April, Beth sent me a copy of Fireworks Every Night. It’s an exquisitely beautiful and disturbing story about one family’s fight to survive in southern Florida. The protagonist CC’s parents abuse each other and shred their family to pieces. Yet, parts of the book are laugh-out loud funny; CC’s father’s love for her is palpable. I read Fireworks Every Night in three days and could barely put it down. This is one of best books I’ve read about the difficulties of love.

This summer, we’ll also have Q&A’s with Helen Schulman, whose novel, Lucky Dogs is out in June, and Amanda Eyre Ward, author of The Lifeguards.

I just finished Maggie Smith’s memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, and Ann Napolitano’s novel, Hello, Beautiful, both excellent. Are there books you can’t put down by writers you love? Let us know! We’ll see if they’d like to do a Q&A.

Clients Getting Published:

Lisa Greene, Where’s My Knife? (nonfiction, Ordinary and Sacred)

Juicy Reads

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain Gang All Stars, (novel)

Rebecca Makkai, The Plaza (fiction, The New Yorker)

Maile Meloy, O Tannenbaum (fiction, Granta). You can also listen to Meloy read the story here on This American Life

J.R. Moehringer, Notes From Prince Harry’s Ghostwriter (nonfiction, The New Yorker)

Robin Reif, To the Woman Whose Body I Washed (nonfiction, Off Assignment), Oranges (nonfiction, Missouri Review)