FictionMatters

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Shannon Sanders is the author of The Great Wherever (Holt, July 2026) and the linked short story collection Company (Graywolf, 2023), which won the 2024 Los Angeles Ti...

Welcome to the FictionMatters podcast. Today I’m talking about the best books of the year (so far) with my co-host Liz Hein. This year’s reading has been strange for me, but I feel very excited about the books Liz and I are sharing as well as the books we have to look forward to in the back half of the year. As always, I would love to hear your favorite books of the year so far! Drop your favorite...

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Today, I’m joined by Rob Franklin. Rob Franklin is the author of Great Black Hope , which was published in June 2025. A national bestseller, his debut novel was nomina...

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast; this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Today, I’m joined by Nora Lange. Nora’s debut novel Us Fools was awarded the The Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction, named a bes...

Your girls are back! This Olympics was too dramatic to keep our commentary in the group chat so we’re back on mic to debrief it all. We chat through every event sharing our highlights and heartbreaks as well as answering some of your questions along the way. Plus we give some tips on how to keep up with the world of figure skating in between Olympic Games. You can follow Layne Fargo on Instagram a...

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. This is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll talk with writers about reading to learn about their tastes, their habits, and the books that matter to them. Today, I’m joined by Alli Hoff Kosik. Alli is a full-time writer and editor. For seven years, she independently produced and hosted The SSR Podcast . Alli holds an MFA from Temple University and lives in...

The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan have begun. The torch is lit and the figure skating team event is underway. As you may know, I’m a former figure skater, and I love the winter Olympics. And so, I couldn’t resist asking two of my favorite authors and fellow figure skating fans to join me to share our Olympic enthusiasm and give you a little preview of what to watch for. Layne Fargo is the bestsell...

Welcome to Books That Matter. Today, I’m joined by A. Natasha Joukovsky. a. natasha joukovsky is the author of the novels The Portrait of a Mirror and Medium Rare (forthcoming March 2026). Her writing has been published in Literary Hub, The Common, and Still Alive , and she writes the “quite useless” Substack newsletter. Natasha holds a BA in English from the University of Virginia and an MBA from...

Welcome to Books That Matters. Today, I’m joined by Anika Jade Levy. Anika is a writer from Colorado, a founding editor of Forever Magazine , and an instructor in the Writing program at Columbia. Her fiction and reporting have appeared in The Paris Review, Vogue, Playboy, GQ, Interview Magazine , and elsewhere. Her debut novel Flat Earth came out from Catapult in 2025. In today’s episode, Anika an...

This episode needs no introduction. Today Liz and I are share our favorite books of the year--all new releases. This was a weird year in books, but we each managed to come up with lists we feel excited to share and champion before the new year. As always, we hope you’ll let us know about your best books in the Substack comments. If you want to hear Liz and I talking about books all year long, now...

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast. I’m your host Sara Hildreth and this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into a book that matters to them. Today, I’m joined by Jade Chang to talk about the nostalgia of childhood reading, the blurring of genres, and why The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston is a book t...

Welcome to the FictionMatters Podcast; this is Books That Matter. In this series, I’ll speak with writers I admire to learn about their lives as readers and deep dive into the books that matters to them. Today, I’m joined by Rickey Fayne. Rickey’s debut novel The Devil Three Times is currently shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and one of my personal favorite debut novels o...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Fiction Matters podcast. This is Books That Matter, an author interview series where we’ll get to know writers as readers and talk about the books that matter to them. Since this is the first in this new series, I’m going to pause our regular intro to give a little bit of background information on the series and how it came to be and what I’m hoping to do here. So for quite some tim...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit fictionmatters.substack.com It’s time! Liz Hein and I are here with our annual Best Books of the Year (so far) episode and this one is FUN. The literary landscape looks different and 2025, and we are reveling in it. Last year , a few exceptional books dominated the conversation—and both Liz and my favorite books of the year. This year,...

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fictionmatters.substack.com/subscribe

In today’s special podcast episode, I’m joined by independent bookstore owner, podcaster, and debut author Annie B. Jones . Annie has been a favorite follow and a trusted source for book recommendations for me for years and I was thrilled to get the chance to read an early copy of her debut book Ordinary Time: Lessons Learned While Staying Put back in December. In this memoir in essays Annie refle...

I truly can’t believe that I’ve been writing on Substack for five years now! It feels like it was just yesterday that I decided to test the waters on this brand new platform. It’s been five years of slow and steady growth, trying new things, and building community, and I’m so glad you’re along for the ride. I love writing this newsletter even more now than when I first started and I feel so excite...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit fictionmatters.substack.com Hey, readers! Today I’m sharing my October Ranked Reading Recap. In these monthly episodes, I walk you through every book I read in the month prior, ranking every read from least to most favorite. My October books were really solid. They include two backlist Booker nominees that are new favorites, two 2025 re...

Welcome to This Month in Books, a brand new exclusive podcast series for FictionMatters subscribers. In these monthly chats, I’ll be joined by my friend and voracious reader of new releases, Liz Hein . We’ll check in about what’s making news in the literary world and share a handful of books that need to be discussed. In each episode, Liz and I will discuss trends and important happenings in the w...

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Best books season is upon us and I had the pleasure of talking about favorites with reader extraordinaire and recurring FictionMatters contributor, Liz Hein. Today, we each share our top 12 books of the year. We have some significant overlap, but we also each share books that just missed the other's list, that weren't mutually loved, or that the other hadn...

Hey, readers! It’s a Reading in Public first today. I have the pleasure of sharing an extremely fun and impassioned conversation with one of my favorite book people—IN PODCAST FORM!! Traci Thomas is the creator and host of The Stacks Podcast, an incredible podcast doing some of the best and most thoughtful interviews and book discussions on the internet. I asked Traci to join me after she made an...