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…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Sarah Gerkensmeyer reveals the method behind the madness of her new collection What You Are Now Enjoying
 from Autumn House Press. + Here’s the mess I got myself into while conducting…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Melissa Harrison writes about her novel Clay (Bloomsbury Books). + A novel may be meticulously planned and researched, or it may emerge piecemeal from mysterious and invisible depths. There are writers…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Bryan Furuness writes about The Lost Episodes of Revie Bryson from Black Lawrence Press. + Behind the Book: More Books “The ugly fact,” says Cormac McCarthy, “is that books are made…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, Jon Clinch shows us how he developed his new novel The Thief of Auschwitz. + WHAT TO LEAVE IN, WHAT TO LEAVE OUT Bob Seger got it right in “Against 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, Brian Sousa writes about his novel-in-stories Almost Gone (Tagus Press). + There are a lot of ways that I could begin this. Almost Gone almost didn’t make it to the page.…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, David Berridge explores Copenhagen with The Fluxus President (Dark Windows Press). + I was in Copenhagen for the COP15 climate change talks in December 2009 when I began writing The Fluxus…

Our Research Notes series invites authors to describe their research for a recent book, with “research” defined as broadly as they like. This week, JP Smith cracks the seal on his novel Airtight (Thomas & Mercer). + I’m of the opinion that writing fiction is about finding a place we haven’t discovered before, and it’s…