Ivy Pochoda is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Wonder Valley and Visitation Street. Wonder Valley won The Strand Magazine Critics Award for Best Novel and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Southern California Independent Booksellers Award, as well as the Grand Prix de Litterature Americaine in France. Visitation Street received the Page America Prize in France and was chosen as an Amazon Best Book of 2013 and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Ivy’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Vogue. Her first novel, The Art of Disappearing, was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2009. For many years she was a world ranked squash player. She teaches creative writing at the Lamp Arts Studio in Skid Row. Ivy grew up in Brooklyn, New York and currently lives in West Adams, Los Angeles.
CONTRIBUTOR ARTICLES
Dead Serious Absurdity: A Conversation with Tod Goldberg
Ivy Pochoda talks with Tod Goldbery about “The Low Desert,” his new story collection....
The Magic of Plot and Catharsis: A Conversation with Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith
Ivy Pochoda interviews writers Smith Henderson and Jon Marc Smith about their novel, “Make Them Cry.”...
The Field Is Not Level: A Conversation with Sameer Pandya
Ivy Pochoda talks with writer Sameer Pandya about his new novel, “Members Only.”...
Yes, It Is the Evil Lurking: A Conversation with Michael Farris Smith
Ivy Pochoda interviews Michael Farris Smith about his new book, “Blackwood.”...
Closing the Story on My Own Terms: An Interview with Alex Segura
Ivy Pochoda interviews Alex Segura about “Miami Midnight” and the entire Pete Fernandez PI series....
Realistic, If Not Real
Ivy Pochoda interviews writer Sebastian Rotella about his new novel, “Rip Crew.”...
A Deeper Pull of Blood: An Interview with Lee Clay Johnson
Lee Clay Johnson talks to Ivy Pochoda about his new book, "Nitro Mountain."...
The Mask and the Mask Slipping
An interview with Megan Abbott....
The Canvas Is Limitless
Ivy Pochoda interviews Alafair Burke....
We Create a Lot of Widows
One of the reasons I say, “Get the story down first,” is because it’s the last thing I’m interested in, so I just lay it down like a base coat of paint....
Marriage, Bennington Style: Ivy Pochoda on Susan Scarf Merrell’s “Shirley”
Susan Scarf Merrell's "Shirley" is neither a tribute nor a derivation....
On How to Take a Swing: "Good Prose" by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd
In perfecting her backhand, Ivy Pochoda comes up with a way to write a new novel....
An Elaborate Lie: David Samuel Levinson’s Literary Hall of Mirrors
A complex and convoluted web of literary espionage, petty crime, gun violence, and revenge by David Samuel Levinson....
