In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Jan Elizabeth Watson Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Jan Elizabeth Watson

Jan Elizabeth Watson

Jan Elizabeth Watson Biography

Jan Elizabeth Watson is a writer who lives and teaches in Maine. A graduate of Columbia University's MFA program. her first novel, Asta in the Wings, was published by Tin House Books to critical acclaim in 2009. An Italian edition of the novel, Le Prigione di Neve, was published by Fazi Editore shortly thereafter. Her anticipated second novel, What Has Become of You, was published wordwide by Dutton in the spring of 2014.

She once rather famously described herself as being "one part Shaft, and two parts Emily Bronte." A fundamentally kindhearted and tender soul, she has been known to identify actors by their cause of death and checks out suspicious quantities of true crime books from her local library. She feeds stray cats and chases purse-snatchers, all while maintaining a ladylike demeanor from days gone by. She enjoys discovering neglected should-have-been classic novels and shuns modern should-not-have-been-invented technologies (while still gamely using some of them– i.e., websites, computers, and the electric toaster).

Jan Elizabeth Watson's website

This bio was last updated on 06/16/2017. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Jan Elizabeth Watson discusses Asta in the Wings and how she went about writing this luminous first novel.

Asta in the Wings is your first published novel. Is it the first novel you wrote?
When I was about twenty years old, I wrote a twelve hundred page novel called Tresunder Manor, which was sort of a cross between a Victorian “cozy” mystery and a novel of psychological suspense. (I think I was reading a lot of Ruth Rendell at the time.) My writing in this early novel was earnest but mostly turgid—unreadable, really-- and the files on which the manuscript was kept were lost long ago—which is no great loss, all things considered. But it was useful to attempt a sustained narrative and to learn from all its mistakes.

Asta was your thesis when you were an MFA student at Columbia. What did you gain from pursuing an MFA? Did you receive feedback that helped you bring the novel to its completed state?
I submitted a prototype of the first couple of chapters of Asta to my MFA workshops and noticed right away that the story elicited a mixed response; people either loved the writing or were baffled by it. I figured that any novel that draws such polarized responses couldn’t be all bad, so that gave me the impetus to forge ahead and turn it into a thesis-length work, which eventually became a springboard for the ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Jan Elizabeth Watson at BookBrowse
What Has Become of You jacket Asta in the Wings jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Jan Elizabeth Watson but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Chris Adrian

    Chris Adrian

    Chris Adrian was born in Washington, D.C. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he received his MD from East Virginia Medical School. "Every Night for a Thousand Years", the New Yorker story from which this ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Asta in the Wings

    Try:
    A Better Angel
    by Chris Adrian

  • Peter Bognanni

    Peter Bognanni

    Peter Bognanni is a writer currently based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His first novel, The House of Tomorrow, is out now from Amy Einhorn Books (Putnam). He attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop not long ago, and his short ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Asta in the Wings

    Try:
    The House of Tomorrow
    by Peter Bognanni

We recommend 10 similar authors


Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

The less we know, the longer our explanations.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.