First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
by Mitzi Rapkin
First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, non-fiction, essay, and poetry writers. First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing highlights the voices of writers as they discuss their work, their craft, and the literary arts. This weekly show hosted by Mitzi Rapkin is a celebration of creative writing and the individuals who are dedicated to bringing their carefully chosen words to print as well as the impact writers have on the world we live in.
Episodes
-
First Draft - Michael Lewis
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. Support this…
more -
First Draft - Edwidge Danticat (Returns Again)
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...
-
First Draft - Moshe Sakal
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…
more -
First Draft - Yiyun Li (Returns)
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…
more -
First Draft - T. Geronimo Johnson
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.…
more -
First Draft - Robert Kolker
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,...
-
First Draft - Margrét Ann Thors
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...
-
First Draft - Sebastian Barry (Returns)
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…
more -
First Draft - Elizabeth Alexander
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...
-
First Draft - Roberta Recchia
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...
-
First Draft - James Salter
James Salter grew up in New York City and was a career officer and Air Force pilot until his mid-thirties, when the success of his first novel, The Hunters(1957), led to a fulltime writing career. Salter’s potent, lyrical prose has earned him acclaim from critics, readers, and fellow novelists.…
more -
First Draft - Jess Row
Jess Row is the author of the novels The New Earth and Your Face in Mine as well as a collection of essays, White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination. His short story collections include The Train to Lo Wu, Nobody Ever Gets Lost and the newly published Storyknife. His fiction has...
-
First Draft - Richard Russo
Richard Russo is the author of 11 novels, including most recently, Under the Falls, Somebody’s Fool, Chances Are . . . , Everybody’s Fool, and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which, like Nobody’s...
-
First Draft - Michael Cunningham (Returns Again)
Michael Cunningham is a novelist, screenwriter, and educator. His novel The Hours received the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1999. He has taught at Columbia University and Brooklyn College. He is currently a professor in the practice at Yale University. His new book is...
-
First Draft - Rachel Eliza Griffiths (Returns)
Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet, multimedia artist, memoirist and novelist. Her literary and visual work has been widely published in magazines, journals, and anthologies, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poets and Writers, and Best American Poetry, among others. Some of her poetry...
-
First Draft - Kevin Powers
Kevin Powers’ books, including The Yellow Birds, A Line in the Sand, A Shout in the Ruins and poetry collection Letter Composed During a Lull in the Fighting, have been translated into more than a dozen languages. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award and a recipient of the...
-
First Draft - Laura Dave
Laura Dave is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me, Eight Hundred Grapes and six other novels. Her books have been published in thirty-nine languages and have been chosen by Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club, Indie Next, Book of the Month Club, The Richard and Judy…
more -
First Draft - Emeline Atwood
Emeline Atwood graduated from the Michener Center for Writers in 2023. She writes fiction and poetry and is a recipient of the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize, the Louis Begley Prize, the Roger Conant Hatch Prize for Lyric Poetry, and the Le Baron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize. She lives in Austin, Texas....
-
First Draft - Emily Rapp Black
Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir; The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor’s Pick, and a finalist for the PEN-USA Award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor’s Pick; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. Emily Rapp Black has received...
-
First Draft - Ben Fountain (Returns Again)
Ben Fountain’s work has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the PEN-Cerulli Award for Excellence in Sports...
-
First Draft - Zinzi Clemmons
Zinzi Clemmons was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. Her debut novel, What We Lose was named “Debut Novel of the Year” by Vogue, and received praise from the Atlantic, the Guardian, the New York Times, The New Yorker, and others. What We Lose was a finalist...
-
First Draft - Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki is a novelist, filmmaker, and Zen Buddhist priest. Her new short story collection is called The Typing Lady and Other Fictions. Her novels — My Year of Meats , All Over Creation, A Tale for the Time Being, and The Book of Form and Emptiness — have been translated and published in over...
-
First Draft - Emma Straub
Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of seven books for adults: the novels American Fantasy, This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, and the short story collection Other People We Married. She is also the author of…
more -
First Draft - Lily King (Returns)
Lily King is the award-winning author of six novels. Her most recent novel is Heart the Lover. She has also published a collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter. Her 2020 novel, Writers & Lovers, won the New England Society Book Awards and was a New York Times Notable Book and chosen…
more -
First Draft 12th Anniversary Best Of - Ross Gay
Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award; and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His first...
-
First Draft - Ramona Ausubel
Ramona Ausubel is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of the novel No One Is Here Except All of Us and the short story collection A Guide to Being Born. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, Best...
-
First Draft - Hafeez Lakhani
Hafeez Lakhani was born in Hyderabad, India and raised in suburban South Florida. His novel is called Abundance. His fiction and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, Exposition Review, Salt Hill, Tikkun, The Cortland Review, and The Southern Review, among other places, and have garnered…
more -
First Draft - Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of eleven works of fiction, including Election and Little Children, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and The Leftovers, which was adapted into a critically acclaimed, Peabody Award-winning HBO series. His other books include Bad Haircut…
more -
First Draft - Jim Newton
Jim Newton is a journalist, teacher, and author of Justice for All, Eisenhower, Worthy Fights, and Man of Tomorrow. He was at the Los Angeles Times for twenty-five years as a reporter, bureau chief, editorial page editor, columnist, and editor at large. He lives in Pasadena, California, and…
more -
First Draft 12th Anniversary Best Of - Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham is a novelist, screenwriter, and educator. His novel The Hours received the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1999. He has taught at Columbia University and Brooklyn College. He is currently a professor in the practice at Yale University. This is about…
more -
First Draft - Allegra Goodman
Allegra Goodman is the author of Isola, Sam, Intuition, The Cookbook Collector, Paradise Park, and Kaaterskill Falls (a National Book Award finalist). Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Commentary, and Ploughshares and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short...
-
First Draft - Rachel Khong
Rachel Khong’s first novel Goodbye, Vitamin, won the 2017 California Book Award for First Fiction, and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for First Fiction. Her second novel, Real Americans, was a New York Times bestseller. She was the managing and executive editor of Lucky Peach…
more -
First Draft - Kate Schatz
Kate Schatz is a feminist author, educator, and public speaker. She's the New York Times-bestselling author of the "Rad Women" book series; the novel Where the Girls Were; the 33 ⅓ book Rid of Me: A Story; and Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Activity Book, co-written with W. Kamau Bell. She lives in...
-
First Draft - Camille Dungy
Camille T. Dungy is the author of America, A Love Story. She has also written the memoir Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers, and four other collections of poetry, including Trophic Cascade, winner of the Colorado Book Award. Dungy…
more -
First Draft - Naeem Murr
Naeem Murr, a dual US and UK citizen, is the author of four novels: The Boy, a New York Times Notable Book; The Genius of the Sea; and The Perfect Man, which was awarded The Commonwealth WritersʼPrize for the Best Book of Europe and South Asia, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His new...
-
First Draft 12th Anniversary Best Of - Ada Limón
Ada Limón is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, which was a finalist for the Griffin Prize; The Carrying, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; and Bright Dead…
more -
First Draft - Andrea Mara
Andrea Mara is a number one international bestselling Irish author. Several of her books have been shortlisted for Irish Crime Novel of the Year awards. Someone in the Attic was her U.S. debut and her novel All Her Fault was adapted into a television series on Peacock. Her new novel It Should…
more -
First Draft - Philip Schultz
Philip Schultz is the author of nine poetry collections, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Failure. Some of his other works include Like Wings, winner of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award in literature; Deep within the Ravine awarded the Academy of American Poets...
-
First Draft - Tayari Jones
Tayari Jones is the author of four novels including An American Marriage, which was an Oprah’s Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama’s summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women’s Prize for Fiction Aspen Words Literary Prize and an NAACP...
-
First Draft - Bret Anthony Johnston
Bret Anthony Johnston is the author of the award-winning short story collection Corpus Christi, the novels We Burn Daylight and Remember Me Like This and the editor of Naming the World: And Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His short stories have been published in anthologized in New…
more -
First Draft 12th Anniversary Best Of - Sebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry was born in Dublin in 1955. His plays include of Boss Grady’s Boys, The Steward of Christendom, Our Lady of Sligo, The Pride Parnell Street, and Dallas Sweetman. His novels include The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, Annie Dunne, A Long Long Way, which was shortlisted for the Booker...
-
First Draft - R.L. Maizes (Returns)
R.L. Maizes is the author of A Complete Fiction. Her debut novel, Other People’s Pets, won the 2021 Colorado Book Award in Fiction and was a Library Journal Best Debut of Summer/Fall 2020. She also is the author of the short story collection, We Love Anderson Cooper. Her short stories have aired…
more -
First Draft - David Guterson
David Guterson is the author of thirteen books, including the PEN/Faulkner Award winner Snow Falling on Cedars, which was made into a major motion picture, translated into twenty–five languages, and has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. He lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington. His new...
-
First Draft - Ann Packer
Ann Packer is the author of four best-selling novels including Some Bright Nowhere, The Children’s Crusade, Songs Without Words, and The Dive from Clausen’s Pier, which received the Kate Chopin Literary Award among many other prizes and honors. Her short fiction has been published in two...
-
First Draft - George Saunders (Back Again)
George Saunders is the author of twelve books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English, and was a finalist for the Golden Man Booker, in which one Booker winner was selected to represent each decade, from the fifty years since the...
-
First Draft 12th Anniversary Best Of - Torrey Peters
Torrey Peters is the author of the novel Detransition, Baby, which won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction and was named a Best Book of the Century by the New York Times. Her second book of short stories is called Stag Dance. Torrey is an amateur sauna builder, rides a pink motorcycle,...
-
First Draft - Daniyal Mueenuddin
Daniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan, and Elroy, Wisconsin. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories 2008, selected by Salman Rushdie. His collection In Other Rooms…
more -
First Draft - Ashley Shelby
Ashley Shelby’s debut novel, South Pole Station, received praise from The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio and others. It was also named a New York Times Editor's Pick and an Indie Next Pick, as well as a Best Book of 2017 by Shelf Awareness, and was awarded the 2017...
-
First Draft - Benjamin Wood
Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. His previous works have been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award, the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the...
-
First Draft - Marisa Silver (Returns)
Marisa Silver is the author of the novels At Last, The Mysteries; Little Nothing, which was a New York Times Editor's Choice; Mary Coin, which was a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Southern California Independent Bookseller's Award; The God of War, which was a finalist for the Los...
About this show
First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with fiction, non-fiction, essay, and poetry writers. First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing highlights the voices of writers as they discuss their work, their craft, and the literary arts. This weekly show hosted by Mitzi Rapkin is a celebration of creative writing and the individuals who are dedicated to bringing their carefully chosen words to print as well as the impact writers have on the world we live in.
Hosted by
Mitzi Rapkin