Natalie Serber

A new novel by Alice McDermott is an event. "Someone" is her first book in seven long years. The world of "Someone" is 1930s Brooklyn, a middle class, Irish Catholic neighborhood.

Luna lives in Portland and her novel is published by Tin House Books.

Alarcon was born in Peru and grew up in Alabama. He is a graduate of Columbia and the University of Iowa.

Vlautin lives outside Portland and is the author of "Lean on Pete," an Oregon Book Award winner, and other novels.

By JUDITH PULMANSometimes it’s easy to forget what incredible literary talent lives in Portland. Of course there are readin

For the Modern Working Woman

Carefree days of sunbathing topless and reading Salinger comes to an abrupt turning point when the young Serber must choose between starting a writing program she’s dreamed of vs. playing hou…

Alice Hoffman has written dozens of novels, most recently "The Dovekeepers."

Claire Messud's writing is as controlled as Nora's (the main character) dioramas. Sentences are carefully constructed. Small moments reverberate. And, joy, though present, is hard to find, and nearly impossible to hold.

Benjamin Benjamin is at the end of his rope. Having suffered the unthinkable -- the loss of his entire family -- he's depressed, broke, unemployed and perhaps unemployable.

Through the lens of this particular family history, "The Burgess Boys" grapples with identity, marriage, race, immigration, class, and politics.

Stories Speaking to Stories: Cynthia Newberry Martin on Natalie Serber’s Shout Her Lovely Name . Here’s a confession: For many months now, I haven’t wanted to read story collections. Each time I paused in front of my waiting-to-be-read stacks, the story collections would jump up and down, screaming it was their turn, while the novels did nothing …

Shout Her Lovely Name

John Irving's 13th novel tells the story of Billy Abbott, a bisexual man who struggles with his attraction to men, women and transgendered individuals as the world changes around him.

Thrity Umrigar's new book, "The World We Found." The novel tells the story of an enduring friendship between four women.

A blurb on the back of the book states that the Bell's "wild manipulation of form and genre makes the bulk of contemporary fiction feel bloodless and inert...." Well, bloodless in the concrete sense, to be certain, but inert or lifeless?

"The Lowland," Jhumpa Lahiri's expansive and intimate new novel, explores the complex story of the Mitra family. Loyalty and betrayal, lies and forgiveness, filial responsibility and abandonment, the choices and sacrifices we make to find our way in the world are beautifully wrought in this novel.

A Conversation with Natalie Serber | Literary Mama

By JUDITH PULMANSometimes it’s easy to forget what incredible literary talent lives in Portland. Of course there are readin

Freudenberger is one of the wunderkind, praised by The New Yorker, and her prose proves her to be worthy.

Dynamic and wildly imaginative, this loop de loop roller coaster ride through cults, North Korea, the CIA, underground bunkers and a hostage crisis kept the characters and their real-world yearnings at bay.

I was shocked when I saw her nipple. The next months taught me I wasn't in charge of her body -- or my own