Afsheen Farhadi was born in Phoenix, Ariz. He is the author of the novel False Prophet (Melville House, July 7, 2026), which confronts the intergenerational legacy of colonialism, the allure of power, and the age-old question: How much of yourself are you willing to lose in order to succeed? His short fiction and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, the Georgia Review, Conjunctions, the Southern Review, Colorado Review, Catapult, Bright Lights Film Journal, and elsewhere. He served as the inaugural Hughes Fellow in Creative Writing, Prose at Southern Methodist University and is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
A grieving actor-turned-memoirist goes viral for a lie about his mother's past, which threatens to transform him into the same monster he's speaking out against.
On your nightstand now:
During the school year, though I do read great work for class, it's hard to read outside of it. A certain cup feels too empty, and when the summer begins, I always have a list of books that intuition tells me to read, as though it's meant to lead me to some artistic end point. I couldn't tell you what that end point is, but I sense that the following books might line the path to it: The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher, and Death with Interruptions by José Saramago.
Favorite book when you were a child:
The first book series I fell in love with was R.L. Stine's Goosebumps. I was also a big fan of Louis Sachar, and I remember going to the library and switching out one of his books for another. I also remember reading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, which felt like my first sophisticated adult novel, and it impressed upon me the novel's ability to speak to the nature of our complex humanity.
Your top authors:
This is impossible. I've found different writers who've made strong impressions on me at different points of my life. In college, Jhumpa Lahiri and George Saunders made me fall in love with short stories. Don DeLillo and Roberto Bolaño were huge influences as I started focusing on novels. Joan Didion was the first writer whose nonfiction made me want to practice the form. And Franz Kafka has an aesthetic that permeates even deeper than my art, helping me develop a particular lens through which I see so much of the world.
Book you've faked reading:
In high school we were supposed to read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck over the course of a month. Every few chapters we'd talk about it in class. I think we also had written assignments due, but I know that whatever we did, I faked my way through. The book was long and, I assumed, boring. But then at the end of that month, I had a paper due, and I started reading. Once I had, I couldn't not finish, and by the end of the novel I found myself very moved and critically engaged.
Book you're an evangelist for:
I'm a big fan of horror movies, and I'm a writer, so people often ask me what the scariest book I've ever read is. My answer is always House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I've never experienced a novel that feels like it's reading you as you're reading it. Reading that book makes you feel seen in the creepiest way. I'm still amazed at the way the novel creeps under your skin, and I think it's a marvelous achievement.
Book you've bought for the cover:
I don't typically buy books for the cover, but I suspect others might (one reason I'm so happy with my novel's cover). I do remember hearing about this great comic novel called A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, and I remember seeing it at the bookstore with the cartoon rendition of Ignatius J. Reilly, bird perched on his hat, and thinking it did indeed look funny. So I bought it, read it, and happened to enjoy it very much.
Book you hid from your parents:
Though neither of my parents could be described as literary (my mom was a nurse, my dad an engineer) they were always very encouraging of my reading. I hid much, I'm sure, but never books.
Book that changed your life:
When people ask my favorite novel, I tell them there's no way to accurately answer that. However, I do often mention The Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño. I hadn't heard it mentioned much in discussions of his work, so when I started reading I wasn't expecting much. But the novel blew me away. I'd never seen mystery used in so many dynamic ways. There is, of course, the mystery of what happens, and there is the mystery of what the other characters know. But there's also the mystery of why the first-person narrator does the things he does, and this is an effect I'd never seen so well executed.
Favorite line from a book:
I can't say, but there's only one passage I printed out, framed, and hung on the wall above my desk. It's from Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo, and I remember finding it inspirational when I was younger. Psychoanalyze the younger me if you must:
"Work till it hurts, lad. This is demanded of you. We all demand it. It's what you owe your chosen field. We insist on the highest striving of your intellect. There's only one way to create, as if your life depended on it, which it does."
Five books you'll never part with:
What I don't want to part with is the world of literature. The novels I've read and loved had given my life a dimension from which I draw a lot of my daily happiness. And the fact that I still have novels to discover and fall in love with gives me such energy and joy. I won't part with any of that.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Trial by Franz Kafka.
"I wasn't prepared for how much hard work it is to keep a bookstore well-stocked and running smoothly. Any new entrepreneur will tell you the same thing. Figuring out the industry from the booksellers' side was a huge learning curve. Thankfully, I've learned so much from other booksellers, who are universally kind and helpful, and that has made all the difference. Much more than that, though, I've been so blown away by the level of support from the people in this town. I still hear at least once a day 'I am so glad we have a bookstore here now! Warkworth needed one!' It brings me so much joy, and I'm so grateful."
Mobile bookstore 
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Korean graphic designer and illustrator Park Sun-jung makes her picture book debut with Snowfall, a (nearly) wordless adventure showcasing white fluffy snowflakes that somersault, whirl, wriggle, and wobble through the night skies into the wee hours. Eventually, gravity helps them softly touch down to blanket a city with a shimmering layer of icy white.