Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Curtis Smith writes about Beasts & Men, out now from Press 53. + I trend toward the packrat-ish. It’s one of my more benign character flaws. I assign inflated emotional values to…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Roxanne Carter writes about her recent books Glamorous Freak (Jaded Ibis) and Beyond This Point Are Monsters
 (Sidebrow). + lately i have been worried about where to start. i struggle with…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Jessica Penner writes about Shaken In The Water, out now from Foxhead Books. + My novel-in-stories, Shaken in the Water, takes place in a little Kansas town and spans three generations…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Scott Garson writes about Is That You, John Wayne?, out April 30 from Queen’s Ferry Press. + It could probably be pointed out that in most things, if I bother to…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Fiona Maazel writes about Woke Up Lonely (Graywolf Press). + When I begin researching a new project, it often seems like what I’m actually doing is researching myself to find out what…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Samuel Sattin writes about “League of Somebodies“http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780985035501, out now from Dark Coast Press. + THE UNAVOIDABLES I remember after finishing the first draft of League of Somebodies (and by draft I…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Amy Sackville writes about Orkney, out now from Counterpoint Press. + My approach to research is scattergun, catholic, greedy; I don’t know what I’m looking for until I find it, and…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Jessica Francis Kane writes about This Close, out now from Graywolf Press. + The stories in my second collection, This Close, represent about nine years of story-writing time. The oldest, “Next…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Roy Kesey writes about Any Deadly Thing (Dzanc Books). + So, say you’re the kind of person who thinks that every fact in your fiction should be actually factual unless you’ve…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Brian Mihok writes about The Quantum Manual of Style (Aqueous Books). + Here are some questions I asked after purchasing and partially reading a book called Cosmology: A Class Manual in the…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Nicole Wolverton shows us around the neighborhood of her novel The Trajectory Of Dreams, out now from Biting Duck Press. + Around ten years ago my husband and I moved from…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Ladette Randolph writes about Haven’s Wake (University of Nebraska Press). + My second novel, Haven’s Wake, is set on an organic farm in eastern Nebraska in July of 2009. Told from…