Kimberly Elkins was a finalist for the National Magazine Award and has published fiction and nonfiction in the Atlantic, Best New American Voices, Iowa Review, Chicago Tribune, Glamour, and Village Voice, among others.She has a B.A. from Duke University, an M.A. in Creative Writing from Florida State, and an MFA in Fiction from Boston University. Elkins grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, and currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
What Is Visible is her first novel.
Recently I asked Elkins about what she was reading. Her reply:
At this stage in my life, I always seem to be skipping back and forth between books, double- or triple-dipping, paying attention toVisit Kimberly Elkins's website.whichever direction my emotional, intellectual, or even spiritual compass guides that day or that hour.
An esteemed writer friend recommended David Samuel Levinson’s recent debut novel, Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence, and I immediately saw why: the prose is brilliant--lush but precise--and the breathtaking plot the kind usually reserved for genre works, but here elevated to Nabokovian literary heights. You know you really love a book when you ardently wish you’d written it.
In the quieter moments, I’ve lately turned to Chloe Honum’s elegant and haunting poetry collection, A Tulip Flame. Poetry does not necessarilycome easily to me, but it is impossible not to feel kindled by Honum’s work.
And for just plain fun, I’m re-reading Mary McCarthy’s page-turning The Group, as a treat, the vodka gimlet kind of treat.
My Book, The Movie: What Is Visible.
The Page 69 Test: What Is Visible.
--Marshal Zeringue
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