Gina Frangello on her new novel and life as a writer [video]

Gina Frangello’s “A Life in Men” (Algonquin) is a novel about a woman with cystic fibrosis who decides to explore the word, making reckless choices with the knowledge that her time is limited. Frangello keeps very busy: She is fiction editor of the Nervous Breakdown, Sunday editor of the Rumpus, editor of Other Voices Books, an imprint of Dzanc, and teaches creative writing.

“Frangello writes with epic ferocity,” Beth Kephart wrote in the Chicago Tribune review of “A Life in Men.” “She inhabits many countries brilliantly, many characters seamlessly, and a carousel of points of view. The scenes are often crass, harsh. The primary characters do not beg for our devotion. There are no soft transitions, no lyrical reposes. These are lives cranked to full volume, and readers must beware...”

Frangello appeared at the L.A. Times Festival of Books last weekend and talked to features editor Alice Short about her new book and her life as a writer.

“I started dictating stories before I knew how to write,” Frangello explains; she began her first novel when she was 10. You can follow your own writer’s path by playing our online game.

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