Emily Chenoweth biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Readalikes

Emily Chenoweth

Emily Chenoweth

Emily Chenoweth Biography

Emily Chenoweth is a former fiction editor of Publishers Weekly. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Bookforum, and People, among other publications. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Emily Chenoweth's website

This bio was last updated on 06/07/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Interview

Emily Chenoweth discusses her first novel, Hello Goodbye, which was inspired by a week that her family and parents' friends spent in a New Hampshire resort to say goodbye to her dying mother.

Can you talk about the real-life event that inspired Hello Goodbye?

My mother was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor during my first year of college. The following summer, my father arranged a family trip to the Mount Washington Hotel, a big, old fashioned resort in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, so that my parents and their East Coast friends could spend some time together before my mother died. I have a handful of pictures from that week, which I looked at a lot as I began to write the book. I kept a journal back then, too, but I lost it a long time ago. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. Right now, if someone asked me to write down what I actually remember about that week at the hotel, I could do it in ten pages or less. I'm not sure if it's because I have a terrible memory, or if it's because not remembering is part of some psychic defense mechanism.

Your circumstances back then sound very much like Abby's—but this isn't a memoir?


No, not by a long shot. I had originally thought I'd write a memoir (I'd sold it on proposal as such), but then I ran into the problem above: How do you try to tell the truth about an ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Emily Chenoweth at BookBrowse
Hello Goodbye jacket
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Readalikes

All the books below are recommended as readalikes for Emily Chenoweth but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose readalikes

  • Elizabeth Berg

    Elizabeth Berg

    Elizabeth Berg is the author of many bestselling novels, including Open House (an Oprah's Book Club selection), Talk Before Sleep, and The Year of Pleasures, as well as the short story collection The Day I Ate Whatever I... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Hello Goodbye

    Try:
    The Year of Pleasures
    by Elizabeth Berg

  • Helen Garner

    Helen Garner

    Helen Garner was born in Geelong, Australia, in 1942. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Melbourne, after which she became a high school teacher.

    After leaving teaching in 1972, she turned to... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Hello Goodbye

    Try:
    The Spare Room
    by Helen Garner

We recommend 7 similar authors

View all 7 Readalikes

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