"People ask me if I ever get writers' block, and I say 'Never!' If you feel like you can't get anything creative done, throw on 'Born to Go' by Hawkwind." Ed Lin shared a playlist for his novel The Dead Can't Make a Living at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/04/07/e...

"When I lived in Sac City, Iowa, in my early twenties, the time in my life that Surety draws from, I was in the habit of starting a new playlist on the first of each month." Anna Zumbahlen shared a playlist for her poetry collection Surety at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/04/06/a...

"Miranda Lambert and I  might have made quite a team back in the day when I still drank tequila, smoked roll-your-own cigarettes, and danced with strangers." Patricia Henley shared a playlist for her story collection Apple & Palm at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/04/03/p...

"I wrote red, white, and blues because I believe poetry can still tell the truth when other forms have failed us." Sean Murphy shared a playlist for his poetry collection red, white, and blues at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/04/02/s...

"I love loud music in desert bars, especially on a jukebox, and throughout the '90s, which was when I worked on this book, such establishments were plentiful." Deanne Stillman shared a playlist on the 25th anniversary of the publication of Twentynine Palms largeheartedboy.com/2026/04/01/d...

"It is my great pleasure to share with you the music that soothed me and influenced me, that gave me the confidence to listen to my inner voice." Lisa Lee shared a playlist for her debut novel American Han at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/31/l...

"The book is divided into five sections of three essays each, and I’ve picked one song (and occasionally a bonus track) to accompany each essay." Elizabeth Zaleski shared a playlist for her essay collection The Trouble with Loving Poets at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/29/e...

"Music is woven throughout the book, as it is woven through my life..." Alicia Jo Rabins shared a playlist for her memoir, When We're Born We Forget Everything, at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/27/a...

"I think Horses is a response to pressure. I imagine the book opening with sound, disrupted, distorted, but oddly in sync as it rises slowly from the dark." Jake Skeets shared a playlist for his poetry collection Horses at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/26/j...

"The sonic quirk started in St. Louis, in my early teens. As the act of stringing sentences together moved beyond pleasure into something earnest, even sacred, it became harder to write without music..." Matthew Pitt shared a playlist for his novel Tear Here largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/25/m...

"Because my beautiful doomed daughter Anna loved music so much—it was her balm, her joy—music is a thread through my memoir, A Ribbon for Your Hair." Stephen Policoff shared a playlist for his memoir A Ribbon For Your Hair at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/24/s...

"The narrator of HOVEL is trying to defamiliarize the familiar world; she’s trying to see the world anew by probing it from as many strange angles as possible." Ailsa Ross shared a playlist for her debut novel Hovel at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/22/a...

"Concentric Macroscope is about transmissions—about radio waves and about communication, what’s said and unsaid. It’s about the transmission of information..." Kelly Krumrie shared a playlist for Concentric Macroscope at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/20/k...

"...the issue is maybe that I love music so much that sometimes I can’t cope with it. I am, like a lot of elder millennials, arrested in the '90s indie scene I first fell in love with." Luke Kennard shared a playlist for his novel Black Bag at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/19/l...

"...the book’s method is musical:  questions of tone, rhythm, pitch, and volume drive the unnamed first-person narrator’s torrential, obsessive voice." Wayne Koestenbaum shared a playlist for his novel My Lover, the Rabbi at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/18/w...

"OK, I can’t I say I recommend this as traditional playlist in the style of old mix tapes where you listen to ‘em all the way through— unless you’re down with some serious genre hopping!" Casey Scieszka shared a playlist for her debut novel The Fountain largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/17/c...

"I had far more training as a violinist than as a writer, and the curious forms of my fiction and the rhythm of my sentences are best understood as coming from a musicality expressed through words." Angela Woodward shared a playlist at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/15/a...

"The stories are filled with nostalgia for a simpler time, so this playlist reflects a ‘90s and Aughts sensibility." Kim Samek shared a playlist for her story collection I Am the Ghost Here at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/13/k...

"Writing fiction has been surprisingly transformative to my relationship with music, though, because I use playlists to work through questions of character and theme..." Avery Curran shared a playlist for her debut novel Spoiled Milk at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/12/a...

"So, if you’re heart-broken, filled with rage over your disappointing ex and his bad behavior, here’s a playlist to see you through." Lisa Unger shared a playlist for her novel Served Him Right at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/11/l...

"Music is such a time capsule for me, and this playlist reminds me of the person I was in 2001, as well as the people I wrote about in my forthcoming book." Jung Yun shared a playlist for her novel All the World Can Hold at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/10/j...

"Writing is a lonely practice. When no one is around to pump you up in the process, music will always be there. When no one else understands, music finds a way." Jan Saenz shared a playlist for her debut novel 200 Monas at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/09/j...

"While those years can sometimes feel like a blur, when I stop and slow down, these are the songs I can still sometimes hear." Timothy J. Hillegonds shared a playlist for his memoir And You Will Call It Fate at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/05/t...

"...Swan Lake, the full discography of Beach House, and the In the Mood for Love soundtrack have long been go-tos for me while writing, as music just generally swollen with drama and emotion." Kim Fu shared a playlist for her novel The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/04/k...

"The novel was inspired by my own working-class upbringing in Glasgow, and reflects my love of punk rock." Frances Crawford shared a playlist for her debut novel A Bad, Bad Place at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/03/f...

"I did most of the writing of Mass Mothering in silence, as it’s hard for me to write with music on without getting swept up and unduly influenced by it." Sarah Bruni shared a playlist for her novel Mass Mothering at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/03/01/s...

"Writing the Dollartorium was an exercise in anger which I hoped to temper with satire, absurdity and a sense of hope at the beginning and end." Ron Pullins shared a playlist for his novel Dollartorium at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/26/r...

"During the year it took me to compose Mule Boy, I found myself going back to songs of longing, told like stories, and sung as though these might be the last songs a songwriter sings." Andrew Krivak shared a playlist for his novel Mule Boy at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/26/a...

"'Every teacher’s story about a former student is unreliable by design, because the student is not there to interrupt." Brian Platzer shared a playlist for his novel The Optimists at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/23/b...

"Neon Steel is a speculative collection of fiction set in Pittsburgh...I wanted this playlist to reflect the flavor of the post-industrial city and project a certain energy, futurism, and joy." Jennifer Maritza McCauley shared a playlist for Neon Steel largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/23/j...

"I have to confess that I am not a music person. Paradoxically, I am very much a mix CD person." Lillian Li shared a playlist for her novel Bad Asians at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/20/l...

I loved writing the playlist for Teen Queen Training (Janis Ian! Everclear! Miranda Lambert!) and I’m happy to have it up at @largeheartedboy.bsky.social's Author Playlists today <3 largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/18/k...

"'Deceptacon' by Le Tigre Cleaner is told in one paragraph with no chapter breaks: this song is how I wanted and how I imagine the reader’s experience to be. Pure uncut momentum and insanity." Jess Shannon shared a playlist for Cleaner at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/19/j...

"When you get to interview two dozen incredible women filmmakers, you get to watch at least 5 times that many incredible movies that offer up music , scoring a few memorable moments." Kevin Smokler shared a playlist for Break the Frame at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/19/k...

"As I compose this piece on a long train journey, it occurs to me that the rhythmic, occasionally juddering, song of the rail below me is in spirit a musical companion to my novel." Rahul Bhattacharya shared a playlist for his novel Railsong at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/18/r...

"Teen Queen Training is a book steeped in the lessons I took from Seventeen magazine during the late ‘90s." Kristine Langley Mahler shared a playlist for her essay collection Teen Queen Training at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/18/k...

"I had a song or a soundtrack in mind for each of the nine essays in the book." Lynette D'Amico shared a playlist for her memoir-in-essays Men I Hate at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/17/l...

"In public and in private, whenever I was writing something for On Sundays, songs would come to me..." Yah Yah Scholfield shared a playlist for their novel On Sundays She Picked Flowers at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/17/y...

"Finding a song that aligns with the emotion or experience I’m trying to communicate helps me go deeper and stay in the moment." Avery Irons shared a playlist for her novel Belonging to the Air at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/17/a...

"Berceuse Parish is a community record...a poetry book you can read as a novel, or maybe a broken novel you can read as a series of poems and other ephemera." Burnside Soleil shared a playlist for his poetry collection Berceuse Parish at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/16/b...

"When I think about Red Girl Jumping – both the writing and living within — the music that comes to mind embodies states of confusion, longing for saviors and hope, and the da-da-dum heartbeat sounds..." Kim Merrill shared a playlist Red Girl Jumping largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/13/k...

"Music helps me imagine the world at the moment of the story." Lisa Slage Robinson shared a playlist for her story collection Esquire Ball at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/12/l...

"Clutch, a book about friendship and endurance and the ups and downs and trainwrecks of growing up and into midlife together, has a lot of music in it." Emily Nemens shared a playlist for her novel Clutch at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/04/e...

"Whatever the case or occasion, music holds my emotional memory. Known songs aren’t just melodies but rather life’s bookmarks, bookmarks that evolve and change with each listen..." Justin C. Key shared a playlist for his novel The Hospital at the End of the World largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/03/j...

"Novels take me FOREVER to finish. I keep a running playlist in my head that fuels the spirit or, as the kids say, the vibes of the book." Lauren Sanders shared a playlist for the 25th anniversary edition of her novel Kamikaze Lust at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/02/01/l...

"I wrote If You Leave from a place of unknowing...What carried me were settings...with their textures of sounds and sights that I collaged into a character-driven novel." Margaret Hutton shared a playlist for her novel If You Leave at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/01/30/m...

"Every long project I work on has its own hyper-specific soundtrack, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the writing process is finding out what songs work for each book." Larissa Pham shared a playlist for her novel Discipline at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/01/29/l...

"In Bloom explores the redemptive power of friendship for a group of disenfranchised young women. It’s also a story about being the biggest Nirvana fans in THE WORLD." Liz Allan shared a playlist of Nirvana songs for her debut novel In Bloom at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/01/27/l...

"Music can act as a time machine..." Heather Sweeney shared a playlist for her memoir Camouflage at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/01/23/h...

"The songs refer to three different landscapes, as the novel is set between the South of Italy, London and Morocco, and are often intertwined with specific memories of my own." Emanuela Anechoum shared a playlist for her debut novel Tangerinn at Largehearted Boy largeheartedboy.com/2026/01/22/e...