3 Debut Authors Discuss How to Live in the Hypothetical

Kyla D. Walker speaks with debut novelists Alexa Yasemin Brahme, Sonia Feldman, and Vincent Yu about building fiction from hypothetical questions and life-changing choices. Brahme’s Good News follows Maggie, a Turkish American MFA student navigating New York’s art world while confronting competing versions of the life she might choose. Feldman’s Girl’s Girl centers on Mina during a humid Ohio summer between her first and second years of high school, where friendship, desire, and adolescent experience become inseparable. Yu’s Seek Immediate Shelter begins with a false ballistic missile warning and follows five characters as their immediate reactions reshape the lives that follow. The three writers also discuss point of view, research, revision, and the uncertainty of writing a first novel. Brahme stresses the importance of protecting fragile creative work from outside judgment until the writer has developed a strong relationship with it. Feldman recalls having to accept that writing an imperfect book was better than writing no book at all. Yu describes his novel as a thought experiment that expanded from one character to many through trial and error, using fiction to test how different people might respond when faced with the possibility of imminent death.