Elizabeth Gonzalez James

This week we visit with Elizabeth Gonzalez James in Sharon, Massachusetts. 

Elizabeth Gonzalez James is a screenwriter and bestselling author of the novels, The Bullet Swallower and Mona at Sea, as well as the chapbook, Five Conversations About Peter Sellers. The Bullet Swallower was named a best book of 2024 by NPR, Esquire, and elsewhere, was a Book of the Month Club pick, and was featured on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” as one of their spring book club picks. Elizabeth was featured on the MSNBC documentary “My Generation” representing the Millennials. She has taught fiction writing at Grub Street, Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop, Story Studio, and elsewhere. Originally from South Texas, Elizabeth now lives with her family in Massachusetts.

Elizabeth’s Books on the Bed:

Jorge Luis Borges: Collected Fictions

Temporary by Hilary Leichter

The Dog of the South by Charles Portis

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Mona by Pola Oloixarac

Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God

Matt’s gifts for Elizabeth:

Blood Test by Charles Baxter 

Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal Women of the Canadian Northwest and Borderlands by Sarah Carter and Patricia A. McCormack