Northwestern University Press

I like to write with scissors and tape. I’ve never been someone who can draft long essays into a blank document. I just can’t see enough of the whole. Perhaps if I were a poet or a painter of miniatures, it would be different, but long-form writing is my preferred mode. I love unearthing themes that span a life’s work and reclaiming theatre innovations lost to time.

My debut novel, Blow Yourself Up, follows two characters from high school to their mid-twenties, in that formative period where we’re concerned with who we are and how we want to be. The novel also tracks the history of the internet, from the first smartphones to blogs and social media to, well, whatever it is now. Throughout writing this novel, I knew I wanted to ce...