Writing
I am a graduate of Columbia University's undergraduate writing program, winning the Seymour Brick Memorial Prize in Playwriting, 2007. While I pursued urban policy as a career, I never stopped writing - I simply could not. My debut novel, The Hope and Anchor, was picked up by Unbound, a London-based publisher with an innovative new model: they are modernizing subscription publishing - a model used by Samuel Johnson and Mark Twain, among others - to champion new authors on whom traditional publishing houses might not take a risk. Unbound authors crowdfund pre-orders of their books to measure demand and ameliorate risk, and when they reach their targets, full production begins and the books become available in stores and online. Everybody who pledges will have their name credited on the list of funders within the book. Unbound has only been on the scene for a few years, but is punching above its weight, with several award-winners and nominees - including one title longlisted for the Booker Prize!
I turned down an offer of traditional agent representation to sign with Unbound, because I believe that the publishing industry needs to innovate just as music has. Roughly three-quarters of debut literary novels like mine never earn any money for the "Big 5" publishers, making those publishers reluctant to take risks on people who may write exquisitely but not shift hundreds of thousands of copies. Unbound is flying the flag for literature and I'm proud to sail this ship.
In The Hope and Anchor, the disappearance of her girlfriend forces an ambitious but unfulfilled young woman to confront just how little she really knows about life, love, and the city where she expected she would be somebody. It's my love letter to an overlooked corner of West London, and an exploration of the dramas of ordinary people whose pasts are built into the bedrock of the city itself.
Click here for my blog, where I write about whatever issues cross my mind - from the writing process itself, to current events, to how ridiculously much I miss London, to how it feels to drop out of a doctoral program...if I feel it, I write about it!
I turned down an offer of traditional agent representation to sign with Unbound, because I believe that the publishing industry needs to innovate just as music has. Roughly three-quarters of debut literary novels like mine never earn any money for the "Big 5" publishers, making those publishers reluctant to take risks on people who may write exquisitely but not shift hundreds of thousands of copies. Unbound is flying the flag for literature and I'm proud to sail this ship.
In The Hope and Anchor, the disappearance of her girlfriend forces an ambitious but unfulfilled young woman to confront just how little she really knows about life, love, and the city where she expected she would be somebody. It's my love letter to an overlooked corner of West London, and an exploration of the dramas of ordinary people whose pasts are built into the bedrock of the city itself.
Click here for my blog, where I write about whatever issues cross my mind - from the writing process itself, to current events, to how ridiculously much I miss London, to how it feels to drop out of a doctoral program...if I feel it, I write about it!