In 2022 she published Avalon, again a New York Times notable book, with Alfred A. Zink then released Nicotine, Private Novelist and Doxology through Ecco Press. Her debut The Wallcreeper was released in the United States by the independent press Dorothy and named one of 100 notable books of 2014 by The New York Times, as was Mislaid. After being a long term penpal of Avner Shats, she came to prominence in her fifties with the help of Jonathan Franzen and her novel, Mislaid, was longlisted for the National Book Award. Helen 'Nell' Louise Zink (born 1964) is an American writer living in Germany. She lives near Berlin, Germany.College of William and Mary University of Tübingen Doxology, her most recent novel, was listed as a Recommended Book of 2019 from Vulture and Esquire. Her books include The Wall Creeper, Mislaid, Private Novelist, and Nicotine, and her writing has appeared in n+1, Granta, and Harper’s. In the early 1990s, she edited an indie rock fanzine. She has worked in a variety of trades, including masonry and technical writing. Too late for that, but you could still fulfill my other fantasy of a Jonathan Franzen/ Bill McKibben debate moderated by Petina Gappah.īONUS QUESTION: In honor of the 5th anniversary of Children’s Day, we’re asking everyone, What’s your favorite children’s book?

I’d like to see John Clute interview Doris Lessing. If you had the power to create your own fantasy BKBF panel – any writer or artist, dead or alive – who would you love to see discussing books? We went to the public library once a week and I checked out ten books every time. Pretty soon I had a 100-watt bulb over my bed and permission to read all night. The stories were illustrated and I think they involved bunnies. Whenever I learned new diphthongs, she wrote new stories. My mother taught me to read by writing stories in autograph books using just a few letters, à l’oulipo. The autobiography of Wolf Biermann, an East German dissident singer-songwriter. What’s the last book that had you reading past your bedtime? It’s an old linen-bound, rained-on copy I found on a park bench, too beat up to go on a shelf, which is why it’s been on the windowsill in my bathroom for five years. What book do you return to most often, whether passages or whole? It’s a toss-up between the breakfast table and the train. The BKBF Interview with Nell Zink, author of Doxology.

Private novelist by nell zink