In 2021, Dawnie Walton published her debut novel “The Final Revival of Opal & Nev.” The book not only received rave reviews, but it also drew praise from high-profile readers like former President Barack Obama, National Book Award winner Ta-Nehisi Coates and Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, among them.
After that kind of success, you might expect Walton to follow the kind of career path laid down by countless writers before her, but she didn’t.
Instead, she co-founded a startup company.
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It happened like this: Walton, who had already built a successful career working for publications such as Essence, Entertainment Weekly, and Life before getting her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, got talking to a friend from her publishing days, Longreads founder Mark Armstrong, who had an idea she really liked.
“After I left the EW, I went to work at a couple of different startups. I love the passion behind them. I love the energy of them,” she says. “When I went to grad school and finished the novel, I never really thought that I would be doing startup stuff again. But then Mark reached out to me and wanted to talk about this idea he was trying to develop, and I just got more into it and more into it. And here we are almost two years later.”
Ursa podcast. (Photo credit: Vanessa German / Rayon Richards / Courtesy of Ursa)
Where they are is Ursa, a just-launched company devoted to short fiction, that she, Armstrong and Deesha Philyaw, the author of the acclaimed short story collection “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” teamed up to create.
(Disclosure: Armstrong and I worked together years ago, and I follow him on Twitter, which is where I read about Ursa’s launch and – as the announcement was book-related – I immediately pounced on him for more info.)
Walton filled me in on the company’s aims.
“Ursa short story company is a website, it’s a podcast, and we are also publishers,” says Walton. “We are dedicated to celebrating short fiction with an emphasis on underrepresented voices.”
Together, Walton and Philyaw host the Ursa podcast, which just launched with an introductory episode loaded with book recommendations and a separate book club episode that takes a deep dive into Nana Kwami Adjei-Brenyah’s short story collection, “Friday Black.”
To illustrate the difficulty for new and diverse voices to break into publishing, Philyaw shared on the podcast that when she was trying to find a publisher for her debut collection – which went on on to win PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, The Story Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award – she got only one offer, the academic publisher West Virginia University Press.
“We know that’s how publishing works. They publish what they know has worked before, which doesn’t lend itself to being a gateway to new voices and to new forms and to subversion,” Philyah says in the podcast.
Going forward, Walton describes Ursa as taking a fresh approach to publishing.
“We are also going to be publishing audio stories and illustrated digital versions of original stories from writers,” she says, describing some upcoming works. “The illustrations are a beautiful digital production of the story, we had a composer do music, sound design, and, of course, the voice acting is the key component as well. So they’re beautiful, and what makes me very proud is that it feels like such a prestige experience given to the short story, and I think that’s really rare.
“There are so many literary journals that exist digitally, and they’re also wonderful, but not a lot of them are doing audio in this way,” she says. “So the idea behind Ursa is that there are possibilities here, and we’re going to explore them.”
You can check out the website, podcast and become a member if you choose, and though I didn’t pester Walton about her follow-up novel, it does sound like her startup duties could be having a positive affect on her next book.
“It’s kind of helpful for my own process to have these conversations with writers about craft and the difficulties that we have, the challenges we face,” she says. “I feel very lucky to be part of it.”
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You probably have noticed that I occasionally (read: often) mention my love and respect for libraries, and the above interview was another example of why I feel that way.
Just before I was supposed to host a Zoom interview with Walton, my internet cut out so I knew what I had to do: Raced to the library, where I set up outside (so as not to disturb anyone), and conducted a portion of the interview while kneeling awkwardly on the concrete, wondering occasionally if I would need to work my quads a bit more before my next interview.
Once we’d signed off, I went inside and picked up a couple of books (including a copy of the Walton-recommended “The Office of Historical Corrections” by Danielle Evans) and chatted with Librarian Helen, who not only reads this newsletter but says nice things about it to other people without even being asked. (Thanks, Helen!)
Being a librarian, she also shared some useful knowledge with this patron: At that branch, you can use your library card to book time in a quiet room for interviews, Zoom calls and other stuff.
Libraries: good for your mind and soul, and even better for your knees.
OK, you know the drill: email [email protected] with book recommendations, library stories and other things we might use in the column (including where you are writing in from, as we have some surprisingly far-flung correspondents).
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Melissa Chadburn talks about the books she loves and recommends
“A Tiny, Upward Shove” feels like a novel only Melissa Chadburn could write, combining her unique history and education: She is a Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at the University of Southern California with an impressive list of published articles, many of which pull from her experience growing up poor in the foster care system. (Courtesy of FSG Books)
Melissa Chadburn is the author of the debut novel “A Tiny, Upward Shove.” A Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at the University of Southern California, she’s been published in New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books, Los Angeles Times and other outlets on topics that often touch on her experience growing up poor in the foster care system. The essay “The Food of My Youth,” which deals with food insecurity, was included in 2019’s Best American Food Writing anthology. She recently appeared on Bookish and in a piece by Samantha Dunn, and here she responded to our book questionnaire.
Q. How do you choose what to read next?
That is the question. I have a ginormous TBR pile, and I think my intention is to read them in the order I receive them, so sometimes I will reach for the book that holds the most guilt for me in terms of length of neglect, but sometimes I will just reach for the book that I am gravitating towards.
Q. Is there a book or book you like to recommend to other readers?
I just finished Chantal V. Johnson’s “Post-Traumatic,” and I just love how she captures the impacts of trauma on everyday life, particularly for women of color.
Q. What are you reading now?
I’m reading Elaine Hsieh Chou’s “Disorientation.” I’m just beginning my own dissertation so this is all very fresh to my experience but sometimes it’s fun to escape further into another version of your reality. I just want to go hang with Ingrid and talk smack about our professors.
Q. Is there a book you’re nervous to read?
Maybe I’d say “Disorientation” because I’m in it right now in terms of academic uncertainty but I’m a fan of this kind of angsty ethos.
Q. Do you remember the first book that made an impact on you?
There are so many, but here I’m gonna have to maybe shout out Alice Walker’s “The Temple of My Familiar” because until reading that book I don’t think I’d dared to dream of the possibility of two women of color living together and loving each other in the way I’d only previously imagined a man and wife.
Q. Can you recall a book you read and thought: That was written just for me?
I was astonished by Saidiya Hartman’s “Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments.” It opened up the possible for me. How to reconcile surveillance in the archives. I feel troubled often by what it is we call a literature of witness and long for a more expansive practice and I feel Hartman has accomplished this.
Q. What’s something you took away from a recent reading – a fact, a snatch of dialogue or something else?
I scribble all over my books, so I’ll just grab the closest one I have on hand. This is from “In Sensorium” by Tanaïs: “Research suggests trauma is recorded in our genes, but some scientists argue that this is circumstantial, and that encoding trauma is something we inherit in our bodies would be undesirable. I believe in science, but I believe in the unknowable too.”
I couldn’t agree more. I had the pleasure of reading this book on a train from Seattle to Portland and I couldn’t help but take in all the scents around me, the smell of microwave hot dogs from the dining car, baby smells from two rows in front of me, tortilla chips, weak coffee these scents were blending with the more erotic sensorium in this meditation, making everything more alive and pleasant.
Q. Which are some of your favorite book covers?
I’m a big fan of the design work of Na Kim so her book covers always pop to me. “Miracle Creek” by Angie Kim, “Sorrowland” by Rivers Solomon, “The Dominant Animal” by Kathryn Scanlan.
A book cover that I think accomplishes a lot is AM Homes “May We Be Forgiven.” The opening scene takes place over Thanksgiving and nothing says this better than that gelatinous cylinder of what was once canned cranberry sauce, white plate, white background.
Q. Is there a genre or type of book you read the most – and what would you like to read more of?
Hmm…I don’t think so. I’m a promiscuous reader.
Q. Do you have a favorite book or books?
“Beloved” by Toni Morrison and the Wonderland Quartet by Joyce Carol Oates (particularly them )
Q. What books do you plan, or hope, to read next?
If life goes as I’d like it to, the next book I will read is “The Unwritten Book” by Samantha Hunt.
Q. Is there a person who made an impact on your reading life – a teacher, a parent, a librarian or someone else?
Junior High Journalism teacher, Ms. Marshall. She was the mandated reporter who got me into fostercare.
More books, more authors, more bestsellers
Unlike most 20-year-olds, Leila Mottley is publishing her first novel, “Nightcrawling,” a beautifully written yet unflinching novel about growing up poor and Black in Oakland. (Photo credit: Magdalena Frigo / Courtesy of Knopf)
A Teen’s Dream
Leila Mottley talks acclaimed novel “Nightcrawling,” which she wrote in her teens. READ MORE
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Altadena-based novelist Michelle Huneven has just published her latest novel “Search.” (Photo by Courtney Gregg / Penguin Press)
‘Search’ Party
What Michelle Huneven’s novel says about religion, recipes and SoCal. READ MORE
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Oakland-based author William Brewer is the author of the novel, “The Red Arrow.” (Photo credit: Jonathan Sprague / Courtesy of Knopf)
‘Arrow’ Head
This Stanford lecturer discusses time travel, psychedelics and his debut novel. READ MORE
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“Happy-Go-Lucky,” a new collection of essays by David Sedaris, is the top-selling nonfiction release at Southern California’s independent bookstores. (Courtesy of Little Brown)
The week’s bestsellers
The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE
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What’s next on ‘Bookish’
On the next free Bookish event June 17 at 5 p.m., host Sandra Tsing Loh talks with Delia Ephron, Caroline Aaron and Kristin Marguerite Doidge.
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