LA REVIEW OF BOOKS, AUGUST 6, 2021
REBECCA HANDLER IS a writer who lives and works in San Francisco. Her stories have been published in several anthologies, and she blogs regularly. Edie Richter is Not Alone (2021) is her debut novel — of which, in a starred review, Booklist writes, “Handler’s Edie has joined the ranks of unforgettably eccentric, intelligent women protagonists.” A Kirkus starred review calls it a “tragicomic exploration of the collateral damage of Alzheimer’s disease. […] Handler gets it right from the title on out. Edie is definitely not alone.”
Vendela Vida is the award-winning author of six books, including We Run the Tides (2021), The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty (2015), and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name (2008). She is a founding editor of The Believer magazine, and co-editor of The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers (2008). She was a founding board member of 826 Valencia, the San Francisco writing center for youth, and lives in the Bay Area with her family. Author photo by Lili Peper.
In this conversation, conducted via email in June, the two writers discuss their working methods, the power of setting in fiction, the importance of endings, and the need to find space to write.