Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
LaToya Watkins was born in Texas. Her writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney's, The Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize XXXIX (2015), and elsewhere. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and A Public Space (she was one of their 2018 emerging writers fellows). She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Perish is her debut novel.
LaToya Watkins's website
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Dear Reader
When I was a young girl, I'd sneak my mother's mass market paperbacks after
she was done reading them. I didn't grow up in a home with lots of books, but my
mother was a reader. She was also a factory laborer, which meant that time to
read was a rare luxury for her. I always noticed when she'd found time because
there was always a new book for me to sneak. The stories I'd find were often
written by writers who created characters and worlds I was happy to escape to
but couldn't identify with or see myself in. I found writers like Danielle Steel,
Jackie Collins, John Grisham, and Stephen King, among so many others.
I'll never quite forget running across Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides. It was the
first story that stayed with me long after I closed the book. It was the first novel I
ever reread. When I was older, I realized that despite not seeing myself or anyone
who looked like me in the work, despite the heaviness of the story, and despite
those times I wanted to turn away from the world Conroy had created, the Wingo
family's suffering and their audacious attempt to survive it was the most relatable
thing I'd ever read. I wanted to experience more of that. I wanted to see more of
that from ...
Since the publication of her debut work Breath, Eyes, Memory in 1994, Edwidge Danticat has won praise as one of America's brightest, most graceful and vibrant young writers. In this novel, and in her National Book ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Perish
Try:
Breath, Eyes, Memory
by Edwidge Danticat
Wally Lamb is the author of the New York Times and national bestseller The Hour I First Believed, as well as the novels She's Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, both #1 New York Times bestsellers and Oprah's Book Club ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
Perish
Try:
I Know This Much Is True
by Wally Lamb
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