Women of Letters

Candice’s latest novel achieves what her widely celebrated Substack has consistently delivered: a sharp, nuanced critique of a key cultural moment, rendered with her characteristic verve. The book follows a pop star through her rise to fame in its examination of topics that have long been at the heart of Candice’s work, like how women in public are forced to become theorists of their own image or...

Each month, between interviews, I hop on the mic to share a new episode of The Postscript: a new section of Women of Letters I’ve been working on which features a life update from me + a behind-the-scenes look at my conversations with our recent guests. I talk about what my first month in Croatia has been like (both the good and the bad); how some of my other big moves over the years have gone and...

If you’ve been a longtime reader, you’ll know that two of the subjects I most regularly gravitate towards in my personal reading are books about female friendship and books about the diaspora experience. So you can only imagine my delight at discovering Claire’s debut novel, Wanting , which contends with both. In addition to having been called “Ferrante-like” by the New York Times Book Review , he...

Each month, between interviews, I hop on the mic to share a new episode of The Postscript: a new section of Women of Letters I’ve been working on which features a life update from me + a behind-the-scenes look at my conversations with our recent guests. In this episode, I talk about finally having my tickets to Croatia booked (!) and the search for an apartment, New York Magazine ’s article on how...

With her latest book, Savala has accomplished the rare feat of building on a widely celebrated first book with a second book that—already, in its first month post-publication—is on track to be equally if not more so. ( Ms. Magazine , for example, has proclaimed it a most anticipated feminist book of 2026.) The 12 timely essays of Good Woman: A Reckoning offer a striking blend of cultural commentar...

Victoria’s latest novel is the rare book that is so wide-ranging and lushly articulated that it eludes description. To simply say, for example, that it’s a work of historical fiction about two women painters in 17th-century Amsterdam would be to fail to capture so much of what it also is: an ode to women excelling, against all odds, in their chosen professions; a meditation on who has power and ho...

If you’ve been a longtime reader or listener, you’ll know that this kind of one-on-one is something I haven’t done before. So I’m definitely feeling a little bit nervous in this moment. But I also have a lot of excitement around it, because with this episode we’re launching a new section of Women of Letters called The Postscript. Listen in for a personal note from me, with a behind-the-scenes on o...

The publishing industry occupies a unique space in our cultural landscape: it is ubiquitous in its influence, and yet persistently opaque in its operations. Alia has been working to change that. In addition to representing some of today’s most successful authors as a literary agent, she has also taken on the task of demystifying the world of publishing with her debut book, Take It From Me: An Agen...

With her work on A Reading Life, Petya’s newsletter exemplifies the vibrant literary community that has emerged on Substack. Her writing charts the terrain between casual reader and devoted bibliophile, offering essays on her favourite reads, interviews chronicling the reading lives of fellow book-lovers, and frameworks for cultivating a more sustained reading practice. She views reading as an ant...

Anna Malaika’s latest book, Erased , showcases her characteristic ability to make complex ideas accessible at every level. Building on both her acclaimed first book and viral TED Talk, it examines the far-reaching impacts of patriarchal systems and how our world continues to be structured around them. The book has earned her a second New York Times bestseller designation — along with a host of oth...

With her debut novel, Emily has accomplished the rare feat of writing a book that is timely, incisive, and deeply affecting — all while being the kind of impossible-to-put-down read that audiences dream of finding. The book, along with its author’s Substack, draws on Emily’s years of experience as a woman working in tech to offer cultural commentary that is both intellectually rigorous and emotion...

In her meticulously researched, newly published book, Corinne brings her years of expertise as a Wharton professor and an economist studying gender to answer the age-old question: is it possible for women to have it all? From parenting to partnership to career planning to self-care, she offers a wealth of accessibly articulated and data-rich insight into so many subjects central to women’s lives—i...

Nikkya’s writing in Mama , her first book, is visceral and punctuated in its vulnerability. She recounts each of the emotionally saturated events that frame her memoir with open-hearted precision, including her mother’s incarceration, the adoption of her half-brother, and the experience of falling in love with her now-wife. “We keep the conversation light,” she recalls of visiting her mother in ja...

Among the most compelling memoirs are those that offer a window into experiences so singular they would otherwise remain known to only a fraction of humanity. Literary treasures of this kind are scarce not because extraordinary experiences evade us, but because we so rarely encounter the writer who can transmute those experiences into essential reading. Carrie is one of those writers, and Private...

The only word that can be used to adequately describe Kapka’s work is ‘mesmerizing.’ The effect either of reading her writing or of listening to her speak is one of being swept into what feels like an alternate dimension, where everything is tinged with a kind of numinosity and wonder. To experience the vividness of her perspective once is to seek its repeated encounter — and, fortunately for us,...

I first discovered Jennifer through her Minorities in Publishing podcast, which shines a light on underrepresented professionals in the book publishing world. Its episodes generously offer everything from real-world context on issues like representation to a behind-the-scenes look at the publishing industry to a deep dive into the personal histories of guests. The podcast recently celebrated its 1...

In all my reading, I’ve encountered few works like Marianne’s Intervals . Her book offers a capacious look at life, death, and dying through a chronicling of her mother’s decision to withdraw from life-sustaining treatments. As she describes it, “Intervals are temporary places of rupture and of rest; they are liminal, partial and in-between. … I invite you to bear loose witness — to sit with me, a...

Every so often, you encounter someone who has done so much so well that it becomes difficult to capture the extent of their accomplishments. Mary Jo is one of those people. She’s published nine books of poetry and numerous works of translation, with another — Dante’s Paradiso — forthcoming later this year. Her poems have been selected for inclusion in the Best American Poetry series multiple times...

I consider Elisa to be among the foremost essayists of our time. As someone who is both a poet and an essayist, she writes in a way that few others do. Regular readers of her work will have noticed, for example, how her prose contains both the crystalline logic of well-reasoned argument and the subtle music of verse — how it features, simultaneously, the rational and the rhythmic, marrying thought...

As someone who now, effectively, lives between three different countries, I’ve become increasingly interested in the relationship between space and self. I’m finding that, far from being the passive surroundings onto which we project our experiences of the world, the places in which we conduct our days are, in fact, the very ingredients that determine who we are and how we are able to think. These...

My notes, in preparation for the writing of this introduction, formed a web of densely concentrated insight on the human experience courtesy of Ayşegül’s latest novel, The Anthropologists . The book follows its main character, Asya — a documentary filmmaker — through the kind of rich chronicling of her everyday life that is often offered within the context of anthropological writings. The small, i...

All of us, I think, have had the experience of seeing someone else take credit for something we’ve done. But how many of us can say that our work was used by another person to earn a Nobel Prize? The American novelist, poet, and editor Sanora Babb can, as Iris so brilliantly illuminates in her forthcoming biography, Riding Like the Wind . In Babb’s case, it was John Steinbeck who took credit for h...