1. “An Interview with Lydia Kang and Alex Segura” by E.A. Aymar. “As a writer and fan, to me, what Marvel and Star Wars have achieved is breathtaking…Not every effort excels (some branches break prematurely), but the mere act of telling intertwined, complicated stories — while growing fan bases — is a rare feat. Aside from film, television, and comics, Marvel and Star Wars have also ventured into novels and anthologies. I wanted to learn more about how all that works (and suspect quite a few other writers do, too). So, I interviewed Alex Segura and Lydia Kang — two celebrated, award-winning authors who, in addition to their own work, have written for these intellectual properties (IP) — about their experiences.”


2. The 2026 Washington Writers Conference. “Join us for the premier writing event in the DC area to network with fellow writers, learn from publishing pros during panels and workshops, and, most importantly, pitch directly to literary agents!”


3. Art Taylor’s review of The Final Score by Don Winslow (William Morrow). “And it’s not the broader canvas of time or an intricate range of conflict, either, often the distinctions of a novella. The title story covers the arc of a single heist job — one final score, against a casino laundering cartel money — by a robber out on bond and expecting to be put away for life. Another story, ‘The Lunch Break,’ follows a few days in a lifeguard’s stint babysitting a spoiled Hollywood actress. And a third, ‘True Story,’ takes place over the course of a single meal (though, in this case, breakfast rather than lunch).”


4. Madeleine de Visé’s review of Sunburn: A Novel by Chloe Michelle Howarth (Melville House). “It is a premise so classically sapphic, I can’t help but think of Vita and Virginia, of Jeanette Winterson, of Sappho herself. On the other hand, it strikes chords of universal appeal: first love, coming-of-age, the clash of tradition and progress. We follow Lucy from the beginning of her teens to her early 20s, and though it’s rarely mentioned, the shadow of the Troubles looms over their little town. Susannah’s mother is wealthy and Protestant, thus the natural subject of gossip in Lucy’s Catholic household, where politics is a sore subject.”


5. Bob Duffy’s review of The Typewriter and the Guillotine: An American Journalist, a German Serial Killer, and Paris on the Eve of WWII by Mark Braude (Grand Central Publishing). “The subtitle of The Typewriter and the Guillotine zeroes in precisely on the narrative coordinates of Mark Braude’s engrossing new book about prewar Paris. The story’s principals: the New Yorker’s pseudonymous European correspondent Janet Flanner and the German-born spree killer Eugen Weidmann, the final prisoner to be publicly beheaded in France. It’s an expansive chronicle, to be sure, touching on a dazzling clutch of Flanner’s Paris companions and literary colleagues, mostly expats, as well as a colorful assortment of Weidmann’s victims, criminal associates, and 1939 trial lawyers.

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