First Draft - Moshe Sakal

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 podcast at ⁠⁠Patreon⁠.⁠ Listeners like you keep the podcast going. Thank you! Visit the website at ⁠www.firstdraftwriters.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and Krik? Krak!, also a National Book Award finalist. A Neustadt International Prize for Literature winner and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere.  Her new novel Dèy is shortlisted for the National Book Award. Support this podcast at ⁠Patreon⁠. Listeners like you keep the podcast going. Thank you! Visit the website at www.firstdraftwriters.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, diaspora, queer identity, and the shared Arab-Jewish world before and after 1948. He is a two-time Sapir Prize nominee, Eshkol Prize winner, Fulbright Scholar, and Honorary Fellow in Writing at the University of Iowa. Support this podcast at ⁠Patreon⁠. Listeners like you keep the podcast going. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many awards, including the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir or Autobiography, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, a PEN/Faulkner Award, a PEN/Malamud Award, a PEN/Hemingway Award, a PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a Windham–Campbell Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, among other publications. She teaches at Princeton University and lives in Princeton, New Jersey.  Her new novel is Music Against the Night Support this podcast at Patreon. Listeners like you keep the podcast going. Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and the William Saroyan International Prize, received his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he later taught writing, and has held Stegner and Iowa Arts fellowships. His new novel is The Occidental Book of the Dead. You can support First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing on Patreon. Your support contributes to the existence of this podcast and offers you ad-free, pitch-free episodes plus extras each month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, the New York Post, and Amazon. His previous work includes Lost Girls, also a New York Times best-seller and New York Times Notable Book, and one of Slate’s best nonfiction books of the quarter century. He is a National Magazine Award finalist whose journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine. His new book is called The Vanishing Family: Love, Fate, and the Quest to End Dementia. Support First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing on Patreon. No ads, plus extras like cuts from the interviews not in this episode, writing tips from guests and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 been published in Glamour, Creative Nonfiction, Ós Pressan, Storychord, and other outlets. Her debut novel is FREYJA. Support First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing on Patreon. No ads, plus extras like cuts from the interviews not in this episode, writing tips from guests and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Costa Book of the Year Award, the Walter Scott Prize, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In the US, his novels have been recognized by the ALA Carnegie Medal (longlist), the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (shortlist), and the High Plains Book Award (winner). He lives in County Wicklow, Ireland.  His new novel is The Newer World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Day" for President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration and is currently president of the Mellon Foundation, the nation’s largest funder of the arts, culture, and humanities. Her new work is called Signals Across Vast Distances: Essays and Tales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 school in Rome. She is passionate about film and literature, especially Russian and French. She lives with her chihuahua, Claudio, in a small town on the coast of Lazio, Italy. Her new novel is All That Is Left of Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices