Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Melissa Yancy writes about Dog Years, winner of the 2016 Drue Heinz Literature Prize from University of Pittsburgh Press. + During the ten years that most of the stories in Dog…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Tim Weed writes about A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing from Green Writers Press. + Some fiction writers start with concept or character. I start with place. Not place…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Christopher Kang writes about When He Sprang From His Bed, Staggered Backward, And Fell Dead, We Clung Together With Faint Hearts, And Mutely Questioned Each Other from Green Mountains Review Books.…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Kenny Mooney writes about The Gift Garden. + Origins: The idea for the book came pretty much fully formed, at least in a loose sense. I basically woke up one day…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Lindsey Drager writes about The Lost Daughter Collective from Dzanc Books. + Two Stories Telling Each Other: On the Liminal I am taking the assignment of offering my research notes quite…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Annie Hartnett writes about Rabbit Cake from Tin House. + I was twenty-six that summer, which is young by nearly everyone’s standards, but there was one job I was too old…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Leyna Krow writes about I’m Fine, But You Appear To Be Sinking from Featherproof Books. + People often want to know if the snakes are real. They seem to worry less…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, William Walsh writes about Forty-four American Boys from Outpost19. + A Boys Club Many years ago, I took one of my freshman comp classes to the library for a field trip.…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Juan Martinez writes about Best Worst Americans from Small Beer Press. + Necessary Photobombs The short stories in Best Worst American draw from, among other places, a flotsam of visual arcana…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Tom McAllister writes about The Young Widower’s Handbook from Algonquin Books. + When people ask how my wife feels about my having written a book about a young man’s wife dying,…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Laura Ellen Scott writes about The Mean Bone in Her Body from Pandamoon Publishing. + The Mean Bone in Her Body is my most intentional mystery novel, the first of the…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their process for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Ruth Gilligan writes about Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan from Tin House. + They say that you should “write what you know”. And then they say it again. So for…