Suzan-Lori Parks

(Random House)

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parkstalks about her first novel. She explains how she learned to start at the climax of an event and move outward, how she learned to reveal character from the get-go instead of tiptoeing toward revelation. How, in short, she rejected an art of concealment for one that celebrates rollicking immediacy and oddball truth.

Read an excerpt from Getting Mother's Body.