Dear Wags,

For years now, I’ve interviewed writers and moderated panels for big audiences of book lovers. I’ve been put on the spot in those forums myself.

People always ask if I get nervous.

Truth is, I don’t. Sure, I’m a little anxious beforehand, but once I start talking I feel right at home. Last Friday, I made myself queasy.

I was one five authors who gave readings as part of the LIVE! series at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Claude Olson chose work from an anthology called Awakenings; Thea Brown selected poetry from her chapbook, Loner Forensics; Shannon Sanders treated us to a short story from the collection Company; Jamila Minnicks treated the crowd to a passage from her novel Moonrise Over New Jessup. Naturally, they were were all wonderful.

The reasonable thing to do would have been to read an excerpt from my memoir, Life B. But something in me rebelled. Instead, I decided to give folks a bit of an unfinished novel I’ve been working on forever— it’s about a military family, set from the early 1970s to the present. Nobody came to hear that.

So, I was nervous. Really nervous. The only other time I’d read a little from this manuscript was in a writing group seven years ago. A sane individual would stick to the book she’d actually published. What on earth was I thinking?

The Writer’s Center, an amazing institution, really packs them in for these things. Every seat was filled. By daring strangers to listen to something a little experimental, I risked falling flat on my face.

I was anxious when they called me over to the microphone. That fear hung with me from the first sentence to the last. But somehow, I made it through. When it was finally over, I got a nice round of applause. I’m pretty sure my compatriots got a more enthusiastic reception, but that’s OK. What’s creative life without risk?

A member of the audience told me how much she’d enjoyed it. So did one of the other guest authors. Which was great, truly. But if there’s one thing I hope BookWag gives you, it’s the gumption to dare. Take that creative leap, and see what happens. Those stomach butterflies are your reward. I’m fairly certain every single book I’ve recommended caused its author to curl up in ball a few times. Thank goodness they were courageous.

Do let’s join them.

Yours Ever,

BKP

The Future by Naomi Alderman

Alderman’s The Power imagined a world where young women held all the cards (it was adapted into a Prime miniseries starring Toni Collette). Her latest is another clever inversion of hierarchies. This time out, two brilliant women, one American and the other refugee from a fallen Hong Kong, turn the tables on feckless tech bros and change the world. It’s a nightmare vision of the near future, in which the planet is divided between billionaires (whom she skewers magnificently) and bunker dwellers. Alderman clearly understands how much those two camps intersect. The Future may not be as electrifying as her debut but it makes for terrific and relevant suspense.

The Liberators by E. J. Koh

Koh’s debut is a gorgeously rendered portrait of a Korean immigrant family in 1980s Los Angeles. There as many layers in the novel’s plot as there are in the cover design motif. At the heart of them is Insuk, a woman who comes into her own after an arranged marriage and early motherhood. Episodes in her life are interspersed with episodes from Korean history American readers may not know, including the country’s ordeal during World War II, General Chun Doo-hwan’s imposition of martial law, and the Gwangju Massacre. In the process, Koh delicately unpacks the generational trauma immigrants carry with them to new lands.

The Night Parade by Jami Nakamura Lin

The subtitle —“A Speculative Memoir”— perfectly sets up Nakamura Lin’s moving account of how bipolar disorder distorts her psyche and family. After she found her way to stability, the author felt other stories mental illness didn’t match her experience. Instead, she found solace and insight from the folklore of Japan, Taiwan, and Okinawa. She likens her own demons as yōkai — supernatural creatures who antagonize human beings. Illustrations by Cori Nakamura Lin, the author’s sister, capture the limbo those in the grips of irrational episodes feel trapped in.

The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez

One of the key characters in Nunez’s award-wining novel The Friend was a dog. Her follow-up stars a macaw named Eureka. The parrot’s flaky birdsitter takes off, leaving her owners in the lurch. The story’s narrator — a middle aged writer named Sigrid Nunez — steps in to help. But then the original birdsitter returns, and the pandemic traps the whole crew in lockdown. Not everybody can pull this sort of auto-fiction off, but Nunez knows how to bring poetry to mundane details of real lives. When the writer, a vegan college student, and the plucky avian get acquainted, the results aren’t merely funny (though Nunez is hilarious), they’re quite touching.

The Happy Couple by Naoise Dolan

What happens to a marriage plot when neither half of a couple really wants to get hitched? Celine and Luke’s wedding is underway when the narrative is interrupted by noisy interior monologues from the bride, groom, best man, a bridesmaid, and one of the guests. Celine, a pianist, is being pushed to the altar by her family, but she wonders if she ought to reject tradition and live out her days solo as an “art monster.” Meanwhile, Luke’s erotic imagination is consumed with somebody else. Will they fulfill expectations and say I do, or go their separate ways? There’s a third option on the table, which involves leveling with one another. Dolan is keeps you guessing all the way through.