BTW Interviews

Willy Vlautin, author The Free, talks about the struggle of daily life in our country, the qualities of strength and persistence in his characters, and the influence of music and literature on his career.

Helen Peppe is the author of Pigs Can’t Swim, a memoir of childhood by the youngest of nine children in a hardscrabble, beyond-eccentric Maine family. Her debut title has been praised for being outrageous, hilarious, and touching.

In his debut title, the memoir Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West, Bryce Andrews recounts his experience of living and working on a cattle ranch in remote, windswept southwest Montana, where there’s a fragile balance between the tame and the wild.

Cristin Terrill, author of the debut YA novel All Our Yesterdays, believes that it is important for everyone to be able to see themselves and their experiences reflected back at them through art and entertainment, “and that probably goes double for teenagers,” she said.