Emily Choate | writer

Because I haven’t had many personal essays published, I’m extra thrilled to share this new piece! It roams over some holiday ground, prompted by my lifelong pull toward Dylan Thomas’ “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” Here are some lines: “Thomas may depict a holiday world full of snowy adventures and warm abundance, but its ghostly periphery hums with ancient voices, burns with pagan fires. All town-fed children sense the undomesticated forces that may draw them away from the family hearth and spirit them off, lost to the wild winter’s night.” The essay is up today at the ever-festive Chapter 16!

I really enjoyed reviewing Step into the Circle: Writers in Modern Appalachia, which was co-edited by novelist Amy Greene. In this book, Appalachian writers profile each other, and the profiles are augmented by great photography. The result is insightful and generous of spirit. You can read my review today at Chapter 16.

It’s the best kind of challenge to review an ambitious novel. And the best pleasure to review one that you love. My review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ debut novel, The Water Dancer, is up today at the ambitious and lovely Chapter 16. You can read it here.

I’m pleased to share my review of Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s debut novel, Holding On To Nothing. It’s always great to see familiar Appalachian literary tropes made into something fresh. My review is up today at the always-refreshing Chapter 16.

I’m very excited to share a new Q&A I’ve done with the wonderful fiction writer Anne Valente. She’s the author of two novels, Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down and this year’s The Desert Sky Before Us. You can read our Q&A over at Bayou Magazine.

I’m happy to share my review of an engaging debut novel, The Affairs of the Falcóns, by Melissa Rivero. I especially valued this novel’s wonderful protagonist, an undocumented Peruvian-born mother named Ana, who’s struggling to keep her family intact in New York  during the 1990s. My review‘s up today at Chapter 16. 

I’m very excited to share a Q&A I’ve done with Ottessa Moshfegh! Her marvelous novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, went paperback this summer. In the interview, she discusses her relationship to writing, several key elements of this novel, and an intriguing mention of her upcoming novel, which is set for release next spring. The Q&A is up today at the wondrous Chapter 16.