In this episode of Audicted, cohosts Katie O’Connor and Kat Johnson share the debuts they’re most excited about this year. Best-selling author Jesse Q. Sutanto (Dial A for Aunties) also joins the program to share her experiences as one of last year’s biggest debut authors. Download or stream the full episode here.
On the debut Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho
Kat Johnson: You're going to be seeing this one everywhere too. What I love about it is it's a friendship story and it's kind of a look at these two young women and their lives as they grow up together, coming apart, coming together again. If you're a fan of like Elena Ferrante or Sally Rooney, definitely [that] kind of female friendship [story]. But also what I really like is that it's kind of interconnected stories, so it's kind of a novel in short story. So it's innovative and the writing is beautiful and brilliant, [and] the two characters are beautiful and brilliant.
Advice from Jesse Q. Sutanto
KJ: Jesse, I'm curious. I can't believe when Katie said you have four new books coming out next year. […] Do you have a top piece of advice you would give to would-be authors who are dreaming of their debut?
Jesse Q. Sutanto: I have so many pieces of advice, but maybe the top one would be to find a community of writers. Because when I first started writing, I thought it was like, a lonely vocation, you know? I kind of had this image in my mind of like, that isolated writer who lives in a cabin in the woods, and never talks to anyone and their work is, like, sacred, and nobody gets to read it until it's published magically. But then I joined an online writers forum and it literally changed my life, because I met all my writing friends through the forum and they've just been such a big help to me.
Also in this episode:
Listen to Middlespace when all the episodes become available on 11/18. Starship Captain George Cottonhammer (Will Forte), bored by his job, stops his ship in middle space and floats, doing nothing. He refuses to answer distress calls, dodges anything that smacks of work, chooses instead to focus on his love life and his idea dujour - opening an intergalactic burger franchise. And while he perfects the art of killing time, his crew moves from baffled to annoyed, to furious, to borderline mutinous. But when an ignored intergalactic distress call turns out to be a trap, the limits of how high someone can fail upwards are stretched, and the captain must, to his dismay, do something.
"Olga Dies Dreaming is a love letter to Brooklyn brimming with the best music, with dreams and sorrows—the stuff of real life."
- Jennine Capó Crucet, author of My Time Among The Whites
This intimate coming of age story has been named 'A Most Anticipated Book of 2022' by Time, Vogue, and more.
This audiobook - a combination of reworked blog posts and new material - offers practical writing advice for anyone who's ever longed to increase their daily writing output....
