Five Authors, Seven Questions: Lit Hub's October Questionnaire

What did five writers tell Lit Hub this month?

Lit Hub's Author Questionnaire for October 2026 paired five writers with new books against seven questions. The lineup: Lauren Michele Jackson (Back: Essays on the Soul and Spine of America), Natasha Lennard (On Un/Certainty: The Uses of Doubt in Dangerous Times), Julie Orringer (Luna, Phoenix, Queen), Kawai Strong Washburn (The Names of the New World) and Adam Wilson (Fail Sons). All five answered in the magazine's recurring format.

How did each writer describe their own work?

Asked to describe their books without summarizing, the five answered in radically different registers. Lennard gave a one-line directive: "Stop talking about 'these uncertain times.'" Orringer, by contrast, listed "artistic and marital betrayal. A love triangle. A stolen manuscript. An injured dog who elicits confessions."

Washburn named "the glory of the Pacific islands, climate instability, race, transcendence, Minnesota." Wilson took aim at "the fantasy of immortality" and "millennials in midlife crisis." Jackson went abstract: "Form—but isn't everything? The United States as a not-self-evident object of attention."

What influences shaped these books?

Influences ranged from Wittgenstein to the 1994 film Speed. Wilson credited "Twenty years of talk therapy. Two years of physical therapy... The movie Speed." Jackson cited "digressive criticism, exasperation with takes and timeliness, gym bros, black-and-white photography." Orringer invoked "men's betrayal of women's authorship," "therianthropy" (a folklore term for human-animal transformation), and "a visit from a luna moth to the window of my studio when I was working on this book at MacDowell."

Lennard pointed to "the impossibility of doubting everything." Washburn credited "the landscapes of Hawai'i and Minnesota... hip-hop." Taken together, the influences run from private therapy rooms to Polynesian geography.

What was happening in their lives during the writing?

Life events bled directly into the manuscripts. Here's what each writer logged:

• Wilson: "A birth, a pandemic, another birth, hospitals, funerals, school drop-offs, travel chess tournaments, a kitchen renovation, herniated discs."
• Orringer: "Losing my grandmother. Covid. Five months in Maine. A disastrous election. Tearing my MCL. Thirty-two revisions."
• Jackson: "Social distancing, dream employment, acclaim and unwanted virality, blonde again, vaccines, engagement (now defunct)."
• Lennard: "Constant talk of uncertain times, the movement against genocide, the destruction of my university, being in love."

Which words do they reject about their own prose?

The questionnaire's most pointed question produced sharp answers. Wilson named one word: "Oversexed." Jackson rejected "anything in the realm of passion or intensity," calling "powerful" both lazy and an insult. Lennard dismissed "dense, academic flapdoodle."

Orringer remembered her first book being called "Little. Competent. Snapshots. Like someone who's learned to use an Instax in bad light." Washburn demurred: "It's all love. I'm grateful people are reading and writing."

What other careers would they choose?

The answers ran from whimsical to earnest:

• Wilson: "a kind of Rick Rubin-type mentor/producer figure for Gen Z bands."
• Washburn: "a doctor, especially in whatever place might desperately need it."
• Lennard: "Heiress."
• Orringer: "NICU babysaver. Croissantist. Nineteenth-century explorer. Climate-change reverser."
• Jackson: "professional dancer—ballet, soloist, or principal with a well-managed company."

What are their craft strengths and weaknesses?

Wilson answered in one word: "Rhythm." Washburn claimed "a strong lyric instinct and some inherent sense of plot" and wanted "more astute psychological observations." Orringer said "revision is my strong suit" and wanted help "deciphering with my conscious mind the ransom-note cryptograms sent by my unconscious."

Lennard said she makes "complex ideas and concepts clear to nonacademic readers" but isn't "a particularly skilled stylist." Jackson offered: "I do think I have a talent for sitting with cultural detritus long enough to have an interesting thought about it."

How do they justify the act of writing itself?

The closing prompt asked about the hubris of expecting anyone's attention. Lennard quoted Wittgenstein's On Certainty: "The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing." She added: "There's a Pomeranian with over 10 million Instagram followers."

Orringer countered: "I remind myself that if other writers were silenced by that thought, there would be nothing for any of us to read." Jackson took a deflationary line: "As yet, nobody I respect has begged me to stop. I figure I can put off the dilemma until then." Wilson said he balances it "with crushing bouts of despair."

What does this format give readers?

The questionnaire strips away the publisher's pitch and the reviewer's spin, leaving writers to speak in their own registers. For readers browsing October's new releases, the column functions less as criticism than as a sampler of voice — useful precisely because it asks its subjects to do something most authors dread: skip the summary.

By Grace Kim