Grant Ginder

I do.

I do teach writing at NYU.

But I teach essays.

I don't actually teach fiction.

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely.

I think that it makes me a better writer because I'm constantly editing.

You know, so much of like teaching writing is like teaching through editing and giving feedback on essays about why something is working or why something isn't working.

And then when you sit down to write something, of course, the first thing you do is forget everything that you've ever said to any student.

And you're like, how do I do this?

But eventually kind of when you calm yourself down, you remember the lessons that you gave and you're like, okay, well, let me try that.

Let me see if it actually works, right?

And it does make you a better writer.

I also think it makes you kind of conversely a...

much more empathetic to students because you're constantly writing and you know how hard it is and you know that you know 99 of the times you're banging your head against the wall and trying to make a sentence work and so watching them struggle when they're working on something i i have a lot of empathy for that because it is i have that struggle every day do you have a hope for what readers will take away from this book

I do.

I hope that through these characters and through the story of them moving through, you know, 20 years of these five parties, I hope that it might make people more appreciative of their own friendships.

And it might cause people to pick up the phone and maybe call a friend that they haven't spoken to in a while.

I also hope that readers...

that are my age cohort that are millennials and that are kind of struggling with this business of middle age and come to it with grace and a realization that like this was always going to happen to us.