Lit Chat Interview with bestselling author Jami Attenberg

Completely Booked - Official Podcast of the Jacksonville Public Library

Jami Attenberg is the author of seven books of fiction including Instant Love, The Kept Man, The Melting Season, The Middlesteins, Saint Mazie, and All Grown Up. Her most recent novel is All This Could Be Yours (2019). She is also the author of the memoir I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home (2022). Attenberg has written about food, travel, books, relationships and urban life for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, Slate, and others. Her work has been published in a total of sixteen languages. She lives in New Orleans, LA.

Interviewer Nikesha Elise Williams is a two-time Emmy award-winning producer, an award-winning author, and producer and host of the Black & Published podcast. Her latest novel, The Seven Daughters of Dupree, was acquired by Scout Press and will be published in 2025. A Chicago native, Nikesha is now a columnist with JAX Today. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, ESSENCE, and VOX. She currently lives in Florida with her family.

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Check out some of Jami's work from the library: https://jkpl.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default/search/results?qu=AUTHOR%3D%22jami+attenberg%22&te=

THE LIBRARY RECOMMENDS

More fiction to complement Jami’s works:

• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
• The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

JAMI RECOMMENDS

My parents live over in Venice, Florida, across the state from all of you in Jacksonville, so that’s the part of Florida I know the best. These are my four favorite things about Venice:

1. Belkis Cuban food inside the Citgo gas station. The people who run it are so nice and sometimes you just need to sit down with your family and eat an enormous Cuban sandwich.
2. The free daily yoga on Venice Beach. The classes are offered by a lovely woman named Elin. She teaches it twice each morning. It’s basically just a lot of stretching but I like to go with my mom and then take a walk on the beach after.
3. The Legacy Trail. An incredible miles-long multi-use recreational rail trail connecting Sarasota and Venice. My mother is on the Friends of The Legacy Trail board and helped with fundraising for its expansion, so I always think of it as the “Joan Attenberg Trail.”
4. Humphris Park/South Jetty. Whenever I visit my parents, we go and watch the sunset here and it’s really lovely to see so many people come out and enjoy the natural beauty of Florida.

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