5 Writers on the Rise You Need to Read Right Now

Check out these unforgettable Narratively stories — and learn what the authors have been up to since we published their work.

Illustration by Yunuen Bonaparte

Hey, readers! Narratively Deputy Editor Jesse Sposato here. When our team works on a Narratively story, we not only deeply immerse ourselves in the story itself (and we certainly do that!), but we really get to know the authors we work with. It’s an intimate thing, crafting a shared vision for a piece, and we take it seriously. Writers become a part of our extended community. Many become repeat contributors, and even for those who don’t, we often stay in touch and keep tabs on what they’re working on. For this post, I reached out to a few writers who published fantastic pieces with us early(ish) in their writing careers to find out what other great things they’ve been up to since. These are five writers to keep an eye on!

1. Lena Crown

Lena’s story, “My High School’s Secret Fantasy Slut League,” won a spot on our “Editors’ Picks” list last year — in fact, two of our team members picked it as their fave! — and for good reason. Since writing this excellent piece about scandalous hookup culture, Lena has been busy. She received her MFA in creative nonfiction from George Mason University, is currently a PEN/Faulkner writer in residence and is headed to Colgate as the Olive B. O’Connor Writing Fellow in nonfiction this fall, where she’ll be teaching creative writing and working feverishly on her upcoming books.

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2. peech breshears

Since peech breshears wrote their incredible story, “The Fastest Formerly Blind ‘Biker Babe’ in Wichita” for us, they co-edited a book called Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex, “an intimate portrait of the lives of sex workers,” which came out this past spring. They also recently completed a master’s in English at Wichita State University, focusing on comic studies, with a fellowship at Vizling, an app that allows visually impaired individuals to read graphic novels, comics and more. When they’re not writing or working as an advocate, they are encouraging women and people of color to enjoy motorcycle riding.

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3. Laura Green-Russell

When Laura won first place in our first-ever Spring Memoir Prize last year for her story “Murder to Middle School,” she was “in major shock,” as she told us here. Since then, Laura has launched Boujee Book Box, a limited-edition curated reading experience she’s super excited about — she wants to make reading fun for everyone — and she’s been continuing to work on her memoir with her writing coach (and Narratively alum), Paulina Pinsky. The pair are “flying through the early chapters and getting final edits done,” Laura says. Now that she’s so deeply ensconced in writing her book, she sees memoirs differently than she used to. “I used to pick up a book and think about it in relation to price, and now I just think, hours, months, years — blood, sweat, tears,” she says. “I think nonfiction has gotta be the hardest thing in the world.”

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