In Episode 62 of Literary Prospects, we talk with author Cynthia Weiner about her debut novel, A Gorgeous Excitement.
Cynthia has had a long career writing and teaching fiction. Her short stories have been published in Ploughshares, The Sun, and Epiphany, and her story “Boyfriends” was awarded a Pushcart Prize. Recently, her story “A Castle In Outerspace” was republished in Coolest American Stories 2024. She is also the assistant director of The Writers Studio in New York City. A Gorgeoushttps://bookshop.org/a/15247/9780593798843 Excitement, her first novel, is out now, and was inspired by her upbringing on New York’s Upper East Side in the 1980s, and the infamous “Preppy Murder” of 1986, to which she had a personal connection. Cynthia now lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.
In this interview, Cynthia talks about her personal connection to her novel and the infamous “Preppy Murder” in New York in 1986, how she knew when the short story she was working on was really a novel, finding your voice as an author (it starts with really knowing your narrator), and much more…