Books on the Bed

Nilo Tabrizy

This week we visit with Nilo Tabrizy in Brooklyn, New York.
Nilo Tabrizy is the co-author (with Fatemeh Jamalpour) of For the Sun After Long Nights, a moving exploration of the 2022 women-led protests in Iran, as told through the interwoven stories of two Iranian journalists. She is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post working for the visual forensics team, where she covers Iran using open-source methods. Previously, she was a video journalist at The New York Times, covering Iran, race and policing, abortion access, and more. She is an Emmy nominee and the 2022 winner of the Front Page Award for Online Investigative Reporting. She received an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University and a B.A. in political science and French from the University of British Columbia.
For more on Nilo: ntabrizy.com
Nilo's Books on the Bed:
Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
Women's Voices from Kurdistan: A Selection of Kurdish Poetry (edited by Farangis Ghaderi, Clémence Scalbert Yücel, Yaser Hassan Ali)
Puerto Rico: A National History by Jorell Meléndez-Badillo
An Anthology of the Experiences of Hiroshima Atomic Bomb Victims (Third Collection) by Hiroshima Association for the Success of the Atomic Bomb Exhibition
Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg (must-read afterword by Peg Boyers!)
They Said They Wanted Revolution: A Memoir of My Parents by Neda Toloui-Semnani
Matt's Gifts for Nilo:
As Seeds We Grow: Student Reflections on Resilience (edited by Elise Boulanger)
Heating the Outdoors and Between the Moments: Canadian Aboriginal Voices by Marie-Andrée Gill
Daughters of Palestine by Leyla K. King
 
 
 

Tessa Fontaine

This week we visit with Tessa Fontaine in Asheville, North Carolina. 
Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts and The Red Grove, her debut novel. Raised outside San Francisco, Tessa teaches in Warren Wilson’s MFA program, started Salt Lake City’s Writers in the Schools program, and has taught in jails and prisons for years. She co-founded and teaches the Accountability Workshops with writer and pal Annie Hartnett, and lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her daughter, silly dog and sassy cat.
For more on Tessa: tessafontaine.com
Tessa's Books on the Bed:
Sun Under Wood by Robert Hass
Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
Jazz by Toni Morrison
The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Matt's Gifts for Tessa:
Leaving Biddle City by Marianna Chan
Obit by Victoria Chang
Chooch Helped by Andrea L. Rogers (illustrated by Rebecca Kunz)
 
 

Andrea L. Rogers

This week we visit with Andrea L. Rogers in Mountainburg, Arkansas. 
Andrea L. Rogers is an award-winning author of historical and contemporary fiction across a variety of genres. Her first book, Mary and the Trail of Tears is historical fiction, which is pretty much horror for Native people. It was on both the NPR & American Indians in Children’s Literature best of 2020 lists.
Her critically acclaimed Young Adult Horror Novel, Man Made Monsters, was released by Levine Querido in October 2022. It includes illustrations by Jeff Edwards (Cherokee). The novel received the Walter Award and several other accolades. She also authored a YA novel of Cherokee Futurism called The Art Thieves, released in August 2024. Her debut picture book about Southeastern tribes and wild onion dinners (the opposite of horror) is called When We Gather, illustrated by Madelyn Goodnight (Chickasaw). A second picture book, Chooch Helped, arrived in October 2024, illustrated by Rebecca Kunz(Cherokee). Chooch Helped won the 2025 Caldecott Medal.
Andrea is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She currently attends The University of Arkansas in Fayetteville where she is a doctoral student in English. Andrea graduated with an MFA from the Institute for American Indian Arts. She taught Art and HS English in public schools for 14 years. She has three wonderful children.
Andrea's Books on the Bed:
A Golden Treasury of Song and Lyrics by Francis Turner Palgrave
The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleasing in the Promised Land, 1820-1875 by Gary Clayton Anderson
The Ballad of Black Tom and The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle
Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson
Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror by W. Scott Poole
Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey
Fall in Line, Holden! and Herizon by Daniel W. Vandever
Matt's Gifts for Andrea:
Roots of My Fears: Terrifying Stories of Ancestral Horror (Edited by Gemma Amor)
The Ghost Variations by Kevin Brockmeier
The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis

Michael Amos Cody

This week we visit with Michael Amos Cody in Johnson City, Tennessee. 
Michael Amos Cody was born in the South Carolina Lowcountry and raised in the North Carolina highlands. He spent his twenties writing songs in Nashville and his thirties in school. He’s the author of the novels Streets of Nashville (Madville Publishing) and Gabriel’s Songbook (Pisgah Press) and short fiction that has appeared in Yemassee, Tampa Review, Still: The Journal, and elsewhere. His short story collection, A Twilight Reel (Pisgah Press) won the Short Story / Anthology category of the Feathered Quill Book Awards 2022. Cody lives with his wife Leesa in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and teaches in the Department of Literature and Language at East Tennessee State University.
For more on Michael: michaelamoscody.com
Michael's Books on the Bed:
Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
Merciful Days by Jesse Graves
This House of Sky by Ivan Doig
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Dixie City Jam by James Lee Burke
Matt's Gifts for Michael:
Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie
The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook
 

Nic Brown

This week we visit with Nic Brown in Clemson, South Carolina. 
Nic Brown is a writer and a musician. He has published several books, including the memoir Bang Bang Crash (Counterpoint 2023), which was named a book of the year by Library Journal and Booklist, and the novels In Every Way (Counterpoint 2015), Doubles (Counterpoint 2010), and Floodmarkers (Counterpoint 2009), which was selected as an Editors' Choice by The New York Times Book Review. His newest book, Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes, will be published by Bloomsbury on May 14, 2026, as part of their 33 1/3 series of books about music. 
Nic's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Oxford American, and the Harvard Review, among many other publications. 
A graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Nic has served as the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi and is now a professor at Clemson University.
He is also a drummer. With his first band, Athenaeum, he released two records on Atlantic Records. The first single off their first album peaked at #14 on the Billboard Alternative Rock charts. He has since recorded and toured with many acts, including Ben Lee, Longwave, Skeleton Key, Kim Richey, Matt Pond PA, and Eszter Balint. 
For more on Nic: nicbrown.net
Nic's Books on the Bed:
Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton
Light Years by James Salter
A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
The Complete Guide to Stonescaping: Dry-Stacking, Mortaring, Paving & Gardenscaping by David Reed
Matt's Gifts for Nic: 
What Doesn't Kill You Open Your Heart by Max Hipp
Streets of Nashville by Michael Amos Cody

Toni Jensen

This week we visit with Toni Jensen in Springdale, Arkansas. 
Toni Jensen’s Carry is a memoir-in-essays about gun violence, land and Indigenous women’s lives (Ballantine 2020). An NEA Creative Writing Fellowship recipient in 2020, Jensen's essays have appeared in Orion, Catapultand Ecotone. She is also the author of the short story collection From the Hilltop. She teaches at the University of Arkansas and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is Métis.
For more on Toni: tonijensen.com
Toni's Books on the Bed:
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Winter in the Blood by James Welch
Grassland by Richard Manning
Hum by Jamaal May
This Is Not Your City by Caitlin Horrocks
Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones
Matt's Gifts for Toni:
Silver Box by Natachee Momaday Gray
The Antidote by Karen Russell 
Retablos: Stories from a Life Lived Along the Border by Octavio Solis
 
Graphic Design by Nathaniel Roy Design
Music by Eliza Edens from her album Time Away From Time (2020)
 

Damon Young

This week we visit with Damon Young in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh writer DAMON YOUNG’s debut memoir, What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays (Ecco), won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. His new book, That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor released on June 3rd, 2025. A founder of the culture blog Very Smart Brothas and creator and host of the Crooked Media podcast Stuck with Damon Young, Damon has been a contributing columnist for The Washington Post Magazine, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and a columnist for GQ and was the inaugural writer-in-residence at the University of Pittsburgh’s David C. Frederick Honors College.
Buy his new book here!
Damon's Books on the Bed:
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman
The Broke Diaries by Angela Nissel
Supreme Clientele by Ghostface Killah (Album)
Matt's Gifts for Damon:
Good Women by Halle Hill
English Lit by Bernard Clay
Native Hoops: The Rise of American Indian Basketball, 1895-1970 by Wade Davies
 
Graphic Design by Nathaniel Roy Design
Music by Eliza Edens from her album Time Away From Time (2020)

Kevin Brockmeier

This week we visit with Kevin Brockmeier in his hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. 
In addition to his latest book, The Ghost Variations: One Hundred Stories, Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the novels The Illumination, The Brief History of the Dead, and The Truth About Celia; the story collections Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer; the children’s novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery; and a memoir of his seventh-grade year called A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. He has published his stories in such venues as The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, McSweeney’s, Zoetrope, Tin House, The Oxford American, The Best American Short Stories, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, and New Stories from the South. He has received the Borders Original Voices Award, three O. Henry Awards (one, a first prize), the PEN USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an NEA Grant. In 2007, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. He teaches frequently at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was raised.
For more on Kevin: kevinbrockmeier.com
Kevin's Books on the Bed:
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Cockroaches of Stay More by Donald Harington
The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis
Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban
Crash by J.G. Ballard
Matt's Gifts for Kevin:
That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor by Damon Young
Little Worlds by Rob Amberg
Yoke & Feather by Jessie van Eerden
 
Graphic Design by Nathaniel Roy Design
Music by Eliza Edens from her album Time Away From Time (2020)
 

Jen Fawkes

This week we visit with Jen Fawkes in her hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas. 
Jen Fawkes is the author of Daughters of Chaos, a literary alternate history in which a female Union spy discovers a secret society of magical women that spans millennia. Pulitzer Prize finalist Kelly Link called Daughters of Chaos "ferociously, radiantly compelling," and according to Publishers Weekly's starred review, the novel is a "dazzling historical fantasy . . . both the historical and fantastical elements come alive in Sylvie’s suspenseful narration, which is interwoven with the text of the imaginary play. Fawkes wows with this wildly original tale.”
Jen's first book, Mannequin and Wife, was a 2020 Shirley Jackson Award Nominee, the winner of the 2023 Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award, and a Foreword INDIES gold medalist. Her collection Tales the Devil Told Me was a ForewordINDIES silver medalist, one of Largehearted Boy’s Favorite Collections of 2021, and a finalist for the 2022 World Fantasy Award for Single-Author Story Collection.
Jen's short fiction has won numerous awards, including the 2021 Porter Fund Literary Prize, and has appeared in One Story, Lit Hub, the Iowa Review, swamp pink, Best Small Fictions, and many others. A two-time finalist for the Calvino Prize for fabulist fiction, Jen lives in Little Rock, Arkansas.
For more on Jen: jenfawkes.com
 
Jen's Books on the Bed:
Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls 
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
The Odyssey by Homer (Translated by Robert Fagles)
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Matt's Gifts for Jen:
The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen (Translated by Don Barlett, Don Shaw)
Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge by Margaret Willson
 
Graphic Design by Nathaniel Roy Design
Music by Eliza Edens from her album Time Away From Time (2020)
 

Amy Le Ann Richardson

This week we visit with Amy Le Ann Richardson in Carter County, Kentucky.
Amy Le Ann Richardson earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University (‘09) and is the author of two poetry chapbooks, Make Believe Worlds We Built Together (Bottlecap Press, 2023) and Who You Grow Into (Finishing Line Press, 2024), as well as a full collection, Out of Places (Pine Row Press, 2025). Her work has been featured in journals such as Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, Kentucky Monthly, Untelling, and Still: The Journal. She currently lives and works on her family farm in Carter County, Kentucky, where she writes, grows food, and engages with her community through art and environmental advocacy.
You can find her artwork at www.chickenhousestudio.com and her farm at www.forgottenfoods.com. Also, see her Etsy store here: https://kymtnwriter.etsy.com
Amy's Books on the Bed:
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
Where You Come from Is Gone by Annie Woodford
Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia
When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown
Strange As This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake
Gay Poems for Red States by Willie Edward Taylor Carver, Jr. 
Matt's Gifts for Amy:
Glass Jaw by Raisa Tolchinsky
Thunder Song: Essays by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe