Author Jonathan Payne On The Book That Changed His Life

An Interview With Jake Frankel

Make your work stand out. I saw Justin Cronin (author of The PASSAGE) speak several years ago at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC. His advice to new writers was not just to make your work good, but to make it different. Find ways to make it stand out from the crowd.

Books have the power to shape, influence, and change our lives. Why is that so? What goes into a book that can shape lives? To address this we are interviewing people who can share a story about a book that changed their life, and why. As a part of our series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jonathan Payne.

Jonathan Payne is a British-American writer based in Washington, DC. He holds a Master of Arts degree in Novel Writing from Middlesex University, London. His first novel, CITIZEN ORLOV, will be published in May 2023 by CamCat Books.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory” and how you grew up?