On the one hand, it feels a bit extra to catch you up on the praise and press for Ancestor Trouble since my last post in April, but on the other hand it would feel rude not to acknowledge people who put time into saying thoughtful things and asking interesting questions about the book. I am always and forever a Southerner-one-step-removed. If you’re curious, I’ve assembled responses on my News & Media page. At some point, I’ll do a podcast roundup, too. Thank you to all who’ve read the book and taken the time to share their thoughts.
Last spring I wrote a piece for Rob Spillman’s 13 Ways of Looking, and it’s up now at LitHub: 13 Ways of Looking at a Family: Maud Newton on the Imagery of Ancestors (Including Her Own). I’ve loved this visual feast of a series since reading installments from Lauren Groff, Dantiel W. Moniz, and more at its former home over at Pioneer Works. My entry includes work from Fang reliquary artisans, Chagall, medieval scribes, Marie Koo, Susan Maddux, and Michael Aaron Lee, alongside some of my own family photos and documents. And Stonehenge.
I have a couple essays and interviews coming out soon, and I’m excited about those. And last week I had the most wonderful conversation with Geeta Kothari at City of Asylum (an incredibly special place, both a bookstore and a residency refuge for writers living in exile and under thread of persecution), on writing about family. More to come on that, probably in my newsletter. Meanwhile, I’ve tidied up my writing space this weekend and I’m really enjoying getting into writing a novel that isn’t the one I labored over for so long.
Here are my events coming up: