Ask the Author: Naima Coster
Answered Questions (3)
Naima Coster
Hi, Elliott! Thank you for reading and reviewing Halsey Street. I look forward to reading what you write. Thank you for checking in about how I identify. It's thoughtful, and I have been mislabeled before! I identify as Dominican and also Latinx, and I do identify as a person of color. I also identify as a black woman. Lots of identifications! I hope this helps!
Naima Coster
My desire to write was born out of my deep love of reading. Every summer, before trips to the Dominican Republic, my parents would buy me a big stack of books to read. I tore through the novels, desperate for more to read before the summer was through. My parents' support of my appetite for books was critical to my decision to try and create books of my own. To this day, the work of other writers continues to inspire me to create. I was also lucky to have amazing English teachers in high school who helped me believe, audaciously, in myself as a writer. They helped me move my love of writing from the margins of my life, where it lived as a hobby, to the center, where it became a point of focus, labor, and great joy. I was eighteen when I finished my first book-length project, "Fifteen," a collection of short stories. It helped me start embracing what it might mean to spend a life writing. Thank you for your question, Glenda!
Naima Coster
I've got a long list for this summer, and I'm hoping to get through a number of these while I also get started on a draft of my second novel. I intend to lounge on porches, beaches, and my couch as much as I can swing so that I can dig into:
A FEW MEMOIRS:
**HUNGER by Roxane Gay
**YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME by Sherman Alexie
**A GIRL WALKS INTO A BOOK by Miranda Pennington, my friend & a fellow writer
A FEW RECENT NOVELS:
**AFTER SUCH DISASTERS by Viet Dinh (on rescue work & colonialism)
**EUPHORIA by Lily King (a love triangle unfolds between anthropologists in the early 20th c.)
**THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas (glorious YA about police violence, friendship, and the lives of young POC)
**A PIECE OF THE WORLD by Christina Baker Kline (inspired by the life of Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth's famous painting, CHRISTINA'S WORLD)
& A FEW CLASSICS that I've been meaning to read for years:
LITTLE, BIG by John Crowley
THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy
ON SUCH A FULL SEA by Chang-Rae Lee
I'm also counting down the days to the fall publication of Jesmyn Ward's SING, UNBURIED, SING. I've been waiting for another novel from Ward for six years since I read her last, and it can't come soon enough.
A FEW MEMOIRS:
**HUNGER by Roxane Gay
**YOU DON'T HAVE TO SAY YOU LOVE ME by Sherman Alexie
**A GIRL WALKS INTO A BOOK by Miranda Pennington, my friend & a fellow writer
A FEW RECENT NOVELS:
**AFTER SUCH DISASTERS by Viet Dinh (on rescue work & colonialism)
**EUPHORIA by Lily King (a love triangle unfolds between anthropologists in the early 20th c.)
**THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas (glorious YA about police violence, friendship, and the lives of young POC)
**A PIECE OF THE WORLD by Christina Baker Kline (inspired by the life of Christina Olson, the subject of Andrew Wyeth's famous painting, CHRISTINA'S WORLD)
& A FEW CLASSICS that I've been meaning to read for years:
LITTLE, BIG by John Crowley
THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy
ON SUCH A FULL SEA by Chang-Rae Lee
I'm also counting down the days to the fall publication of Jesmyn Ward's SING, UNBURIED, SING. I've been waiting for another novel from Ward for six years since I read her last, and it can't come soon enough.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more