Read Her Like an Open Book

Recently, my dear friend Susan Coll asked me to speak to her novel-writing class about creating and developing characters, one of my very favorite topics. I was excited about the visit, but it occurred to me that Susan’s students had likely already heard much of what I had to say about the topic from her or elsewhere. I considered dusting off the character questionnaire I’d created for my undergraduate fiction writing students, but it seemed a little dry.

May was a good reading month. I read several well-crafted and satisfying books, three of which I review here. Another, Tata by Valerie Perrin, is coming out in late June, so I’m saving the review for later this month. And a couple were backlist books that I’ll probably post along with my review of Tata.

By Shannon Bowring I often joke that the Dalton Novels trilogy took either three years or thirty years to write, depending on how you look at it. Though the books were published in quick succession between 2023 and 2025, the process behind writing them took nearly my entire lifetime. The fictional town of Dalton, Maine is inspired by the town where I was born and raised in Aroostook County, the isolated, sweeping swath of land that forms the crown of the state.

Short stories don’t receive the attentionthey deserve. Some readers dislike having to get oriented to characters, settings, and conflicts every 15 or 20 pages. And some find the tight focus and often unsettled conclusions dissatisfying. I found that the more stories I read, the better I became at appreciating the craft involved in writing short fiction and understanding writers’ tendency to not beat readers over the head to make their point.

By Guest Author Reyna Marder Gentin Mother’s Day is this coming Sunday, May 10. Whether you rail against the day as a Hallmark holiday or embrace it as a well-earned celebration of the hardest working member of the family, the whole range of emotions will be on display on the second Sunday in May, from nostalgia to frustration to regret. Perhaps your mother is your best friend. Perhaps she’s your nemesis. If, as in my case, your mom is no longer alive, the day can feel bittersweet.

By Guest Author Allyson Reedy I own 52 copies of The Great Gatsby. I’ve re-read it countless times since I first fell in love during my junior year of high school. I believe its diction is so perfect that it’s the first book I read my newborn babies when I brought them home from the hospital, their best possible introduction to the English language. Heck, I even named my dog Gatsby. And still I rewrote it.

Judy Batalion is the New York Times bestselling author of several books of award-winning nonfiction, most recently The Light of Days. Judy’s work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, The Forward, Salon, The Jerusalem Post, and many other publications. The Last Women of Warsaw (out today) is her debut novel. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children. Interviewed by Nicole Bokat for Read Her Like an Open Book Q.

[Editor’s note: Passover begins at sundown on April 1 this year.] One year when I was about seven years old, my mother cooked a duck for our Thanksgiving dinner. Both of my parents were refugees, Holocaust survivors, as well as fervent American patriots. I am certain that she wasn’t trying to be clever or ironic; my mother simply didn’t consider any specific cultural expectation regarding what type of roasted bird was to be served.

It seems like most of us can’t get enough of family dramas, whether in books, movies, or TV series. There are innumerable types of families, yet they share many traits across time, place, and culture. Along with love stories and coming of age tales, family stories represent one of the universal human experiences that we all seek to understand better. In the last few weeks I’ve read three novels about families that I think are worth your time. Good People by Patmeena Sabit (Crown Books, Feb.

Last summer, I got in the habit of taking long walks in the early evenings, wandering until the sun hung low in the sky and I knew it was time to make my way back to my car before it got too dark. Most of my walks took place on the expansive campus that houses all the public-school buildings in my town, from elementary through high school. On my walks, I’d pass a track that circles the high school football and lacrosse field. Next to the track are tennis courts.