Laila Lalami » literary life

Wait for the right time. Wait for the right place. Be in awe of your novel’s premise. The best premises in the world still don’t add up to a completed book. Get up from the chair. Tell yourse...

https://lailalalami.com/2014/06/how-not-to-write-a-novel/

Writers write. Those who write finish a manuscript. Those who finish a manuscript want an agent. Those who have an agent want a book deal. Those who have a book deal want an even bigger book deal...

https://lailalalami.com/2014/05/a-grand-unified-theory-of-writers-desires/

Last week, The New Yorker published an essay by Junot Díaz about his experience as a person of color in the Master of Fine Arts program at Cornell University. Of his time in the program, he wrot...

https://lailalalami.com/2014/05/mfa-poc/

The L.A. Times Festival of Books takes place this weekend, on the USC campus. It’s one of my favorite events of the year because I get to spend time with fellow writers, meet readers old and ne...

https://lailalalami.com/2014/04/l-a-times-festival-of-books/

L.A. readers: I will be in conversation with Dinaw Mengestu at the Los Angeles Public Library this week. The occasion is the publication of his new novel, All Our Names, about a young student fro...

https://lailalalami.com/2014/03/in-conversation-with-dinaw-mengestu/