A Conversation With Maureen Corrigan on the Relationship Between Writers and Reviewers and How to Get Your Books Reviewed (Killer Writers)

Maureen Corrigan, the esteemed reviewing voice for NPR, is a figure I’ve admired for years. It was a true honor to present her with the John Seigenthaler Legends Award at the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference last year. Following her time at the conference, I had the privilege of conversing with her from her book-lined office in Washington, D.C. A testament to her influence, she receives over 200 books per week for review, a staggering number that speaks to the weight of her opinions and influence.

Maureen Corrigan

“Maureen, I want to talk about reviewers because writers have many myths about exactly who reviewers are, what they do, and how they gain their influence and power. What do writers need to know about reviewers in general?”

“It’s sort of hard to generalize about everybody, but I think there’s a misconception about the figure of the reviewer as being someone who is this resentful, crabbed person who has their knives out and loves nothing more than a lousy book so that they can dig in and rip it apart. I teach a course at Georgetown called Writing to be Heard, which is about the legacy of public intellectuals in America. We start with H.L. Mencken and go all the way up to Ta-Nehisi Coates. The point of the course is how to write for a wide audience of educated non-specialists. However, one of the things we do is look at the figure of the critic in popular culture. And so, we look at things like The Man Who Came to Dinner and the great film noir Laura. We look at these quick glimpses from mid-20th century America, pretty much, of these dyspeptic guys who are always kind of a little bit like Menken, gleefully ripping apart either plays or books, any kind of creative effort. I think that at least people need to know, for me, that the worst part of my job is sitting there with a lousy book that, for whatever reason, Fresh Air or the Washington Post feels like, oh, you need to review this. Probably because the writer is so well known, everybody will want to know about this latest project. I can feel the minutes of my life ticking away with those kinds of assignments. I want to be lost in the world of a book that I can then think about and be able to present to an audience and say, here’s why you want this. Here’s why this is special. Here’s why this book does something that perhaps no other book you’ve read before does. That’s the best part of my job, but it’s also the part of my job that I almost feel like I can’t believe anybody is paying me to do this. This is so wonderful, you know.”

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“How should authors view reviews?”

“Speaking as somebody who’s written two books myself, I think you should read them and take what you can from them, but I don’t think that they should make you too happy or too depressed. I think, as a writer, you’ve got to play within yourself, and I think the reception of your work, it’s going to be so varied out there that, as much as possible, I don’t think you should get hung up on reception because it will ruin you for the next book and the book after that. There’s a famous conversation between Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald mostly got mixed to not-great reviews for The Great Gatsby, but he got this beautiful review from Gilbert Seldes, who wrote a review for T.S. Eliot’s journal, The Dial, and that review got The Great Gatsby. It’s a gorgeous review to read, and Ernest Hemingway told Scott Fitzgerald, ‘Too bad about that Seldes review. It’s going to ruin you for your next book,’ meaning that it was so adulatory in some ways that how could Fitzgerald top The Great Gatsby? And, in fact, he never did. But with his nasty brilliance, Hemingway understood that a great review can sometimes be as hampering to a writer as a review that maybe completely misunderstands the work and is negative and nasty. Sometimes, it’s great reviews that you can’t take any of it too much to heart about. Let other people worry about the reception. We can’t control that as writers. I’m speaking both as a writer and as a critic. I can’t worry too much as a critic, especially on Fresh Air, how people received my reviews. I don’t look on Twitter to see what they’re saying. Sometimes, writers will contact me through my Georgetown email. They’ll thank me for a good review, and they’ll start telling me about how their Amazon numbers rose. And, of course, I’ve also gotten other kinds of emails. You’ve ruined my life, whatever. I can’t worry about that because if I worry about writing a review, I probably then would just end up being a publicist who would say everything was great and not want to hurt anybody’s feelings or hurt their heart.”

“Some writers, friends of mine, live and die on reviews, or if they got reviewed at all if they don’t get a review. They live and die.”

“I think reviews are for the reading public, and they want some guidance, and then they also want some literary conversation. I feel like a review should absolutely be more than a thumbs up and thumbs down. It should engage larger issues, maybe set the work in its place in literary history or the kind of topics it’s talking about, what other works have done similar things. But I feel like that’s my audience. My audience isn’t the writer. It’s not the publisher. It’s the folks out there who are interested in larger issues about literature, and they’re interested in particular books.”

“What do you think reviewers look for? What are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for a voice, a sense of place, a story that doesn’t feel like it’s been done 5,000 times. I’m looking for something that comes from an authentic source. If everything I’m reading feels very canned, I’m moving on. Or if I need to stick with the book because someone wants a review of it, I will talk about how it fails.”

“Let’s discuss an ideal world: You’ve found the right book.”

“Let’s talk about an ideal world. I reviewed this book. I think it aired today for Fresh Air. Francis Spufford’s Cahokia Jazz. It imagines an America where Native Americans weren’t mostly killed off by smallpox in the wake of Columbus’s voyages. It imagines an America where Native Americans were still a vital force, and it imagines this place kind of around present-day Illinois—Cahokia—that was an actual city way back in ancient times and that is still flourishing. It weds that kind of alternative American origin story to a noir crime story, and in doing so, this alternative history manages to be very up-to-the-minute in its commentary on America today without it feeling lecture-ish. It feels organic and fun, the language is lively, and there’s a character I’m really holding onto here, along with his voice. And so, wow! What a great imaginative achievement! It’s not perfect, I said so. When you build up these alternative worlds, you’ve got to do a lot of backstories, and sometimes it feels like putting Legos together. There are stretches where I would have cut down some of this backstory if I were an editor. But it’s fantastic. So that’s wonderful to be able to talk about a book that’s certainly more than just entertainment but is also entertaining and has a connection to the world outside that we’re living in.”

“People reading this right now will say, I need to send my book to Maureen Corrigan. That’s not how it works, is it? Tell us how it works.”

“Presumably, people have a publisher. We don’t review self-published books, and neither does The Washington Post.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m getting, on an average week, 200 books pitched to me and sent to me digitally. They used to be advanced review copies on my front porch. Now, mostly, it’s digital copies. With a pitch by a publicist from a legitimate publisher. It doesn’t have to be one of the big trade houses, but could be an academic press, or a small independent press. But somebody is telling me we’ve just published this book, and we think it’s fantastic. It’s gone through an editor. Presumably, the person has an agent who pitched it to the editor in the first place. So, there are other people behind the book who say, ‘We think this is worthwhile.’ With those 200 books a week that have gone through some kind of gatekeeping process, and I know that’s a word that people bristle at, but gatekeepers can be useful. I mean, we need the FDA, right? For drugs and for food.”

“Call it vetting.”

“Yeah, so with those 200 books a week…”

“The sheer volume of it.”

“…why should I look at something somebody has paid to have published, and no one else is involved? I could be saying no to Walt Whitman, who, in fact, did that in his lifetime.”

“Or Mark Twain.”

“Loads of those kinds of examples I could be, and maybe I have. But I would say the odds are in my favor. I’ve read self-published books. In general, they need an editor. They need someone else’s eyes on this who isn’t profiting from having that book simply published.”

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“How does the process work? The publisher, the publicist, sends you a work for consideration?”

“Even before that I will look at lists that the publishing houses have of what’s coming out in the next season. I will start to make a working list of the next season, like summer for Fresh Air, which I’ll work on with my producer, because if Terry Gross or now, Tanya Mosley, if they’re interviewing someone for Fresh Air, probably I won’t do a review because there’s so much out there. So, I’m making up that list. I’m talking to the independent booksellers I know who read much farther out than I do. ‘What are you excited about for the summer?’ Maybe even next fall. ‘What have you read that you think is worth my consideration?’ And I get info from them. So, I’m always trying to keep my ears out also for books that aren’t being pushed by the big trade presses because it’s nice to be able to sing the praises of an academic press book or a small press book that’s not going to have as much money behind it. And then I’m also constantly changing that list in terms of what’s coming out right now and in March. March is a tidal wave. January, I was desperate for a few titles. January is traditionally a bit of a dead time in publishing. As is August. I am now thinking, I’ve done Cahokia Jazz. I’ve done alternative history. Maybe I’m not going to pay as much attention to the other alternative histories that are coming out immediately. As promising as they may be. Maybe it’s time to do nonfiction or a memoir, or maybe even a graphic novel. Let’s change up the genre, too. So sometimes, that’s the criteria. We’ve done a lot of these big literary novels. Let’s see what else is out there.”

“Based on what we’ve discussed so far, one last message to these readers: What do you have to say about reviewing, the process?”

“If you can’t take the heat, don’t get into the kitchen. I say that as somebody who’s gotten some bad reviews and nasty letters; people hate my voice and all the rest of that. Just do what you do. Trust the people who will give you honest feedback. The people in your circle. Maybe fellow writers. Trust them, and write from the heart, and write from the gut, and write from the soul. I think reviewers and readers can tell when someone is doing that and when they’re just writing to make a buck. There’s nothing wrong with money. We all want more of it, but I’m tired of books that just feel like the same old domestic suspense situation that you know I’ve read 5,000 times before.”

“You’re looking for something fresh.”

“I’m looking for something fresh or a fresh spin on that familiar situation.”

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Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle; in 2023, she received the John Seigenthaler Legends Award from The Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference. Her book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures, was published in 2014. https://maureencorrigan.com/