This week we visit with Alison Lyn Miller in Athens, Georgia.

Alison Lyn Miller grew up in Hartwell, Georgia, and worked as a magazine editor in New York City and Dallas before moving to Athens, Georgia, in 2017. In 2020, she started reporting and writing about independent professional wrestlers around the state and published pieces in Sports Illustrated and Gravy. Her first book, Rough House (W.W. Norton, Jan. ’26), set in Georgia’s small-town professional wrestling scene, explores themes of escapism, self-actualization, performance and violence, and reveals the depth of an often-dismissed American pastime. She has written for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Washington Post, and Garden & Gun, among others, and has been awarded residencies at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Science (2023) and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (2024). She is 2021 graduate of the Narrative Nonfiction MFA program at The University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication.

BUY AND READ ROUGH HOUSE

For more on Alison: alisonlynmiller.com

Alison's Books on the Bed:

The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West by John Branch

The Last Fine Time by Verlyn Klinkenborg

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

Hiroshima by John Hersey

Dirtbag Queen: A Memoir of My Mother by Andy Corren

Matt's Gifts for Alison:

Bookshop Cats by Daphne Du Meowier

They Said They Wanted Revolution by Neda Toloui-Semnani

A Race to the Bottom of Crazy: Dispatches from Arizona by Richard Grant

Gene Smith's Sink: A Wide-Angle View by Sam Stephenson

This week we visit with Alice Martin in Waynesville, North Carolina.

Alice Martin is a writer, reader, and teacher from North Carolina. She holds a PhD in Literature from Rutgers University and works as an Assistant Professor of English Studies at Western Carolina University, where she teaches fiction writing and American literature. She lives outside of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, her son, and too many typewriters. Westward Women is her debut novel.

For more on Alice: alicejmartin.com

BUY WESTWARD WOMEN

Alice’s Books on the Bed:

The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing: Annie Ray's Diary by Jennifer Sinor

Envelope Poems: Poetry by Emily Dickinson (edited by Jen Bervin and Marta Werner)

If I Had Two Wings: Stories by Randall Kenan

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

Bad Behaviour by Mary Gaitskill

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Matt’s Gifts for Alice:

The Night Journal by Elizabeth Crook

Call It Horses by Jessie van Eerden

Girl’s Girl by Sonia Feldman (forthcoming June 2nd)

This week we visit with Nathaniel Roy in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Nathaniel Roy is a book designer, collage maker, photo taker, self-publisher, and a few other things.

He's a graphic designer who specializes in book design, but for the right cause, he'll design just about anything. He's keenly interested in local, independent, and non-profit projects and is currently an in-house designer at the Ann Arbor District Library and available for freelance opportunities. His clients include Simon & Schuster, W. W. Norton, Wayne State University Press, University of Texas Press, Penn State University Press, Minnesota Historical Society Press.

HIRE THIS GUY: nathanielroy.com

Nate's Books on the Bed:

The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Dark Interval: Letters on Loss, Grief, and Transformation by Rainer Maria Rilke

Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience by Shaun Usher

Boom Town: The Fantastical Saga of Oklahoma City, Its Chaotic Founding... Its Purloined Basketball Team, and the Dream of Becoming a World-class Metropolis by Sam Anderson

Matt's Gifts for Nate:

The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd's Life by Helen Whybrow

American Bulk by Emily Mester

A History of Half-Birds by Caroline Harper New