Blog

Jennifer Cody Epstein

Remembering a Fallen Writer — With Her Own Book

In December of 2017, my good friend and writing colleague Sarah Coleman passed away mere days before the finished versions of her luminous novel The Realist came out. Below is a piece I wrote for Publishers Weekly about how our writing group tried to pick up the mantle. Kafka described writing as “utter solitude, the descent into the cold (...)

The Deplorable Within Us

Here is a piece I wrote for McSweeney’s recently, exploring the origins of my latest novel and the eerie, increasing resonance I felt writing it after 2016: My forthcoming novel Wunderland evolved from an impulse to explore a history that — at first — seemed comfortably removed from my own. I’d long been fascinated by Nazi Germany, not so (...)

Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Art of Subversion

Last January, I wrote a guest post for my late friend Sarah Coleman’s fantastic photography/literature blog The Literate Lens. Its themes seem strikingly relevant today, so I thought it was worth reposting. In the run-up to the presidential election last November, few of Donald Trump’s proposals sparked quite as much alarm as his idea for a Muslim “registry.” The idea (...)

Thoughts from a Great Book Club Discussion

In part because writing is such a solitary endeavor, one of the things I really love is connecting with book groups who have chosen one of my novels and hearing their thoughts on and reactions to it. Last week I had a particularly interesting and thought-provoking chat with one of the groups that entered my quarterly book group drawing (...)

“Gods” Wins APALA Honor Award!

I was thrilled to learn that The Gods of Heavenly Punishment won the honor award for fiction in the 2014 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature (APAAL)!. The Asian/Pacific American Librar- ians Association (APALA) is an affiliate of the American Library Association, and the AAAL awards promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage and are given in five categories, based on literary and artistic merit. Just (...)

Remembering a Fallen Writer — With Her Own Book
In December of 2017, my good friend and writing colleague Sarah Coleman passed away mere days before the finished versions of her luminous novel The Realist came out. Below is a piece I wrote for Publishers Weekly about how our writing group tried to pick up the mantle. Kafka described writing as “utter solitude, the descent into the cold (...)
The Deplorable Within Us
Here is a piece I wrote for McSweeney’s recently, exploring the origins of my latest novel and the eerie, increasing resonance I felt writing it after 2016: My forthcoming novel Wunderland evolved from an impulse to explore a history that — at first — seemed comfortably removed from my own. I’d long been fascinated by Nazi Germany, not so (...)
Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Art of Subversion
Last January, I wrote a guest post for my late friend Sarah Coleman’s fantastic photography/literature blog The Literate Lens. Its themes seem strikingly relevant today, so I thought it was worth reposting. In the run-up to the presidential election last November, few of Donald Trump’s proposals sparked quite as much alarm as his idea for a Muslim “registry.” The idea (...)