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Cara Wall Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

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

Cara Wall
Photo: Ken Hamm

Cara Wall

Cara Wall Biography

Cara Wall is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and Stanford University. While at Iowa, Cara taught fiction writing in the undergraduate creative writing department as well as at the Iowa Young Writer's Studio in her capacity of founder and inaugural director. She went on to teach middle school English and history and has been published by Glamour, Salon, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in New York City with her family and The Dearly Beloved is her first novel.



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Interview

Author Cara Wall discusses the research and writing process behind her critically acclaimed debut novel, The Dearly Beloved, describing how she brought New York City in the 1960s to life on the page.

Congratulations on publishing your debut novel, The Dearly Beloved. You've told us that you started this novel when your daughter was born, and she's now fourteen years old. What was it like to work on this project for almost fifteen years? What, if any, challenges did that pose? What opportunities did it present?

I didn't work on the book continuously for fifteen years! I worked off and on, in between long stretches where I put my energy into teaching and parenting—sometimes because I wanted to, and sometimes because it was absolutely necessary for me to earn a living or be fully present for my daughter. Often, I felt quite a bit of shame about not writing faster, or not having enough discipline to write for three hours a day, every day, as we were told was the key to success at Iowa. There were many people in my life who had no idea I was writing a book because, at some point, I completely stopped talking about it—I decided that if I wasn't actually, physically writing, I couldn't call myself a writer.

It's always agonizingly difficult for me to sit down, open a notebook to a blank page, and put pen to paper. Something about that moment terrifies me. I can spend days wandering around the house doing all the ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Cara Wall at BookBrowse
The Dearly Beloved jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Cara Wall 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

We recommend 5 similar authors

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