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Stephanie Wrobel grew up in Chicago but has been living in the U.K. for the last four years with her husband and her dog, Moose Barkwinkle. She has an MFA from Emerson College and her short short fiction has been published in Bellevue Literary Review. Before turning to fiction, she worked as a creative copywriter at various advertising agencies. Her debut novel, Darling Rose Gold, was just published by Berkley.
On your nightstand now:
On my nightstand is Set Me on Fire: A Poem for Every Feeling by Ella Risbridger. I pick it up every few weeks, whenever the mood strikes. I love the playful way the anthology is organized and how accessible the poems are. There's one called "Monica" by Hera Lindsay Bird that's about, among other things, how horrible Monica from Friends is. My friends from home always called me the Monica of our group, so you would think I'd find this poem insulting but I love it so much.
Favorite book when you were a child:
I loved the Nancy Drew series because I've always adored a mystery, the Thoroughbred series while going through a serious horse phase, and the Babysitters Club--I idolized all the babysitters.
Your top five authors:
Shirley Jackson's storytelling is creepy, whimsical, and thought-provoking--all that I want in a book. I've read everything Cheryl Strayed has ever written, down to the "Dear Sugar" essays. She feels like my wise aunt, and I always feel better after reading her work. Fredrik Backman brings characters to life with such truth and vividness it takes my breath away. I have a ball whenever I read Taylor Jenkins Reid; I could spend the rest of my days absorbing her thoughts on art, ambition, independence, power and what it meant to be a woman at different times in history. Tana French writes so beautifully and dives so deeply into her characters that the mysteries are just a bonus.
Book you've faked reading:
I haven't read most of the books I'm supposed to have read. I battled my way through The Brothers Karamazov and Anna Karenina out of a sense of writerly obligation.
Book you're an evangelist for:
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. It's a love letter to humanity hidden inside a dystopian novel. It's become fashionable to bag on our phones and social media (I do it too!) but Mandel reminds us how insanely wonderful our society is, in spite of its flaws. From a craft perspective, I still study the structure and timelines of this book.
Book you've bought for the cover:
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow. I almost never buy a book for its cover but this one is so lush and gorgeous that I couldn't help myself. I'm dying to get lost in the world inside.
Book you hid from your parents:
As a lifelong goody two-shoes, I can't think of anything I read that would have upset my parents. I remember reading a couple of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps books as a kid and quickly wading back to the safer shores of Nancy Drew.
Book that changed your life:
Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking made me view my disposition as a strength instead of a liability.
Favorite line from a book:
This line isn't from a book but an essay by the composer Nico Muhly in the London Review of Books: "The primary task, I feel, is to create a piece of art that is better than the same amount of silence." I keep this quote on my desktop.
Five books you'll never part with:
I don't typically reread books--there are so many I haven't read a first time!--but I refer back to them for craft questions all the time while writing. Tenth of December by George Saunders and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson are two of the best studies on voice that have ever been written. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver has the most arresting narrator. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier is a flawless psychological thriller. And while I love On Writing and Bird by Bird as much as every other writer, I think Thrill Me by Benjamin Percy is one of the best books about the topic of writing. I revisit his essays over and over again.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
The Harry Potter books, but only if I could read them at the same ages I originally read them. When a new one came out, I'd sit in my bed, begin reading, and stop only for food and bathroom breaks. That's still the best feeling in the world: ignoring the rest of your life for a little while because you can't pull yourself away from a book.