Writers Read: Ty Landers

Thursday, November 12, 2026

Ty Landers

Ty Landers holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside. Born and raised in Alabama, he spent more than twenty years in Nashville, Tennessee, before moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife, Emily, and their sons Jack, Rowan, and Barrett.

Baby Queen is his first novel and has already been optioned by HBO.

Recently I asked Landers about what he was reading. The author's reply:

I’m reading a few things right now and I’m very excited about my TBR pile as well. I usually read at least two books at a time, then something else on audiobook in the car. So, three things really. I try to read something for fun, something to study, and then a piece of nonfiction that can go either way.

I’m reading Crone by Keith Rosson. This is a horror-noir novel about a grieving ex-detective struggling with addiction in the Pacific Northwest. He is hooked on an experimental drug and working as hired muscle for a biker gang. It’s this awesome mash-up of crime-thriller and folklore horror and it’s amazing. Rosson’s been on a heater for years and he might have the best book covers in the business.

I have Fruit Fly by Josh Silver on my TBR. It’s a highly literate thriller about a washed-up writer who exploits a young, gay drug-addict to revive her career. I’m in a washed-up protagonist/ addict mood, I guess. I’m saving this one for some flights I have coming up and I’m very excited. I think everyone on the planet has already read it. Josh has been deservedly launched into the literary stratosphere as a result of this book. We share a publisher in the UK and I’m telling everyone this so maybe some of his stardust rubs off on me.

My current audiobook is Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch. I love David Lynch and could listen to him talk about creativity and working with an idea forever. He narrates as well, which I love with non-fiction and don’t love with fiction. He connects working ideas to meditation and it’s fascinating. David Lynch never misses with me. He can go as far out as he can and I’ll follow him.