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Molly Prentiss biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Molly Prentiss
Photo: Elizabeth Leitzell

Molly Prentiss

Molly Prentiss Biography

Molly Prentiss was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. She was a Writer in Residence at Workspace at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and at the Blue Mountain Center and was chosen as an Emerging Writer Fellow by the Aspen Writers Foundation. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the California College of the Arts. Her stories, essays, and poems can be found in Fourteen Hills, Hobart, HTMLGiant, Wilder Quarterly, The Aesthete, and La Petite Zine, among others. She lives in Brooklyn.



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Interview

Molly Prentiss discusses her first novel, Tuesday Nights in 1980

Do you have experience within the New York art scene?

It was mostly done by research. Most of my friends are artists or writers, but not in 1980. I went to graduate school at an art school, so I have been around a lot of visual artists, and my fiancé is a visual artist. Conversations with them often influenced the projects and pieces I referenced throughout my book. I go to a lot of gallery openings in the Lower East Side and SoHo with those friends. But I wouldn't say I'm an expert of any kind. A lot of it was googling and reading books at the Strand and some trips to the New York Public Library.


What about synesthesia? You portray James's sensations so vividly.

I don't have synesthesia, and I don't know anyone very well who has it. But I do think there are elements of synesthesia that exist within a lot of creative people's brains. I feel I have really strong associations: with days of the week having a certain color, for example, although I don't actually see those colors. Words pop into my head when I think of a certain smell or color. I often used my own associations to create James's. I was enthralled by the idea of synesthesia and I did tons of research ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Molly Prentiss at BookBrowse
Tuesday Nights in 1980 jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Molly Prentiss 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 read-alikes

  • Stuart Archer Cohen

    Stuart Archer Cohen

    Stuart Archer Cohen was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1958. After graduating from high school he spent a year hitchhiking around the United States, hopping freight trains and traveling with a circus as a prop man, then attended... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Tuesday Nights in 1980

    Try:
    This Is How It Really Sounds
    by Stuart Archer Cohen

  • Olga Grushin

    Olga Grushin

    Olga Grushin is a Russian-born award-winning writer whose work has been translated into fifteen languages. Her first novel, The Dream Life of Sukhanov, won the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and was a ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Tuesday Nights in 1980

    Try:
    Forty Rooms
    by Olga Grushin

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