Hilary Leichter’s debut novel Temporary, tells the story of a woman’s adventures in the gig economy, something with which she has years of experience. Now a lecturer at Columbia University, she talks about the precariousness of temp work, the desire for permanence, and how time is an engine that drives fiction. In Terrace Story, her most recent novel, she returns to time in a story of three generations, expanding spaces, a fable, extinction, and the way we so often fear the wrong thing.  

Hilary grew up in New Jersey and settled in New York, where she initially hoped to be an actress. Not until grad school did she realize she preferred creation to interpretation, and began publishing short stories in outlets like  n+1, The New York Times and The New Yorker. In 2020, her novel Temporary was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Prize. Terrace Story, her most recent novel, was named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, and the LA Times. 

Just doors away from the apartment where she lived while writing Terrace Story, Hilary joined Pamela in the Brooklyn Podcasting Studio for this conversation.

Novels on Hilary’s time travel syllabus include:

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Sparks
• Kindred by Octavia Butler
• They Will Drown in Their Mother’s Tears by Johannes Anyuru
• The Throwback Special by Chris Bachelder

How I Wrote This is created and hosted by Pamela Hensley

Presented by Knockabout Media. 

Original music by Tyler K. Rauman

Find out more at our website: www.howiwrotethisthepodcast.com

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