In Conversation: On The Very Nice Box: A Novel & The Other Black Girl: A Novel

Dr. Donna Aza Weir-Soley is the President of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars (ACWWS) and former Coordinator of the Mellon Foundation’s Hispanic Serving Institutions Pathways to the Professoriate Fellowship at Florida International University. She is also an Associate Professor of English, and affiliate faculty in African & African Diaspora Studies, Center for Women and Gender Studies and LACC at FIU. An Andrew W. Mellon and Citizens and Scholars Fellow (formerly Woodrow Wilson Fellow), Weir-Soley is the author of Eroticism, Spirituality and Resistance in Black Women’s Writings (University Press of Florida 2009 and 2015), two poetry collections, First Rain (Peepal Tree Press, 2006), and The Woman Who Knew (Finishing Line Press 2016) and co-editor of Caribbean Erotic (Peepal Tree Press, 2010 with Opal Palmer Adisa) which features essays, fiction and poetry from 62 writers from the English-speaking, Spanish-speaking and French-speaking Caribbean. Her critical and creative writings have been widely published in national and international forums including scholarly and literary journals and edited volumes.

Eve Gleichman’s short stories have appeared in the Kenyon Review, the Harvard Review, Bomb Daily, and elsewhere. The Very Nice Box: A Novel (Mariner Books), her offbeat and wryly funny debut novel with co-author Laura Blackett, follows Ava Simon, an eccentric product engineer who works for a hip furniture company where sweeping corporate change lands her under the purview of a startlingly charismatic boss who seems determined to get close to her at all costs. Ava is hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It’s been years since she’s let anyone in. Then her new boss – the young and magnetic Mat Putnam – offers her a ride home one afternoon and a relationship blossoms. Ava remembers how rewarding it can be to open up and, despite her instincts, becomes enamored. But Mat isn’t who he claims to be, and the romance takes a sharp turn. The Very Nice Box is at once a sendup of male entitlement and a big-hearted account of grief, friendship, and trust. Booklist noted that “this nicely hard-to-define joint debut combines workplace satire, steamy romance, and genuine suspense.”

Laura Blackett is a woodworker and writer. She builds tools and objects for the home. The Very Nice Box: A Novel (Mariner Books), her offbeat and wryly funny debut novel with co-author Eve Gleichman, follows Ava Simon, an eccentric product engineer who works for a hip furniture company where sweeping corporate change lands her under the purview of a startlingly charismatic boss who seems determined to get close to her at all costs. Ava is hard-working, obsessive, and heartbroken from a tragedy that killed her girlfriend and upended her life. It’s been years since she’s let anyone in. Then her new boss – the young and magnetic Mat Putnam – offers her a ride home one afternoon and a relationship blossoms. Ava remembers how rewarding it can be to open up and, despite her instincts, becomes enamored. But Mat isn’t who he claims to be, and the romance takes a sharp turn. The Very Nice Box is at once a sendup of male entitlement and a big-hearted account of grief, friendship, and trust. Booklist noted that “this nicely hard-to-define joint debut combines workplace satire, steamy romance, and genuine suspense.”

Zakiya Dalila Harris spent nearly three years in editorial at Knopf/Doubleday after receiving her MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Guernica, and The Rumpus. The Other Black Girl (Atria Books) is her debut novel, a story of 26-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers, who’s tired of being the only Black staffer at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born-and-bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just started comparing natural hair care regimens, though, when a string of uncomfortable events elevates Hazel to Office Darling, and Nella is left in the dust. Then notes begin to appear on Nella’s desk: LEAVE WAGNER. NOW. It’s hard to believe Hazel is behind these messages, but as Nella starts to spiral and obsess over the sinister forces at play, she soon realizes that there’s a lot more at stake than just her career. A smart, dynamic thriller and sly social commentary at once, The New York Times called the book a “funny, sometimes creepy indictment of the book business.”