First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing

Latest Episodes:

First Draft - Michael Lewis Nov 09, 2026

Show notes

Michael Lewis is the best-selling author of Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short, The Undoing Project, The Fifth Risk, Going Infinite and The Premonition among other titles. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his family. His new book is Blockers: Rebels in the Deep State.

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First Draft - Edwidge Danticat (Returns Again) Nov 02, 2026

Show notes

Edwidge Danticat is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Death, a National Book Critics Circle finalist; Claire of the Sea Light, a New York Times Notable Book; Brother, I’m Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist; The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and Krik? Krak!, also a National Book Award finalist. A Neustadt International Prize for Literature winner and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere. Her new novel Dèy is shortlisted for the National Book Award.

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First Draft - Moshe Sakal Oct 26, 2026

Show notes

Moshe Sakal was born in Tel Aviv into a Jewish-Arab family with roots in Damascus and Cairo. He is the author of six Hebrew novels, including The Diamond Setter and Yolanda. A revised edition of The Diamond Setter was published by Other Press in September 2026. His fiction explores exile, diaspora, queer identity, and the shared Arab-Jewish world before and after 1948. He is a two-time Sapir Prize nominee, Eshkol Prize winner, Fulbright Scholar, and Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa.

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First Draft - Yiyun Li (Returns) Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

Yiyun Li is the author of several works of fiction—Wednesday’s Child; The Book of Goose; Must I Go; Where Reasons End; Kinder Than Solitude; Gold Boy, Emerald Girl; The Vagrants; and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers—and the memoirs Things in Nature Merely Grow and Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many awards, including the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir or Autobiography, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, a PEN/Faulkner Award, a PEN/Malamud Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham–Campbell Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Her new novel is Music Against the Night

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First Draft - T. Geronimo Johnson Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

T. Geronimo Johnson is the bestselling author of Welcome to Braggsville, longlisted for the National Book Award and Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence; and Hold It ’Til It Hurts, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He won the inaugural Joyce Carol Oates Award, the Rome Prize, Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the William Saroyan International Prize, received his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he later taught writing, and has held Stegner and Iowa Arts fellowships. His new novel is The Occidental Book of the Dead.

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First Draft - Robert Kolker Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

Robert Kolker is the author of Hidden Valley Road, an instant #1 New York Times best-seller and selection of Oprah's Book Club that was named a Top Ten Book of the Year by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Slate; one of the year’s best by NPR, the Boston Globe, the New York Post, and Amazon. His previous work includes Lost Girls, also a New York Times best-seller and New York Times Notable Book, and one of Slate’s best nonfiction books of the quarter century. He is a National Magazine Award finalist whose journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine. His new book is called The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia.

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First Draft - Margrét Ann Thors Sep 28, 2026

Show notes

Margrét Ann Thors is a writer based in Reykjavík, Iceland. Originally from Fairfield County, Connecticut, she holds a BA, MA, and MFA from Columbia University and teaches at the University of Iceland. In 2025, she earned her PhD with an emphasis on literature after 9/11. Her creative writing has been published in Glamour, Creative Nonfiction, Ós Pressan, Storychord, and other outlets. Her debut novel is FREYJA.

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First Draft - Sebastian Barry (Returns) Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. The 2018–21 Laureate for Irish Fiction, he is the author of nine novels, five of which have been long- or shortlisted for the Booker Prize, most recently Old God’s Time. His work has won numerous awards in Ireland, the UK, and France, including the Costa Book of the Year Award, the Walter Scott Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In the US, his novels have been recognized by the ALA Carnegie Medal (longlist), the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (shortlist), and the High Plains Book Award (winner). He lives in County Wicklow, Ireland. His new novel is The Newer World.

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First Draft - Elizabeth Alexander Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

Elizabeth Alexander is a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling author, renowned poet, educator, scholar, and cultural advocate. Her memoir, The Light of the World, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award. She composed and recited "Praise Song for the Day" for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration and is currently president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities. Her new work is called Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales.

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First Draft - Roberta Recchia Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

Roberta Rossella Recchia was born in Rome and lived for a time in Lille, France, where she earned a master’s degree in international relations and cultures. She worked for ten years for a big company and then quit office work to devote herself to teaching. She currently teaches English in a high school in Rome. She is passionate about film and literature, especially Russian and French. She lives with her chihuahua, Claudio, in a small town on the coast of Lazio, Italy. Her new novel is All That Is Left of Life.

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