Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

From KCRW, Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today I'm happy to have as my guest, Zizi Packer.

Her first book has just come out.

It's a book of short stories called Drinking Coffee Elsewhere.

It was published by Riverhead Books.

Her stories have been making a stir for quite a few years, actually. There was a story that won a Best American Stories,

chosen by E.L. Doctoro, which begins this book, a story called Brownies. She appeared in one of

the debut fiction issues of the New Yorker. And so this book, a story called Brownies. She appeared in one of the debut fiction issues of The New Yorker.

And so this collection has been widely anticipated.

I didn't know until I sat down to read it how fresh and original and really precise the voice would be in it.

It's a really fresh and enjoyable voice. You've been writing since you were what age?

It's sort of odd to say because I could start and say, oh, since I was seven or eight, or I could

sort of say that I start to actually look at writing when I was in high school and I had this

English teacher, Mrs. K. Torionis, and she encouraged us to actually write stories as opposed

to just read the stories and critique them and then hand in your sort of book report or your paper on them.

And so I guess since then is when I really became aware of what I had been doing as actually writing and something more than just this sort of cathartic thing I used to do as a kid.

And how old were you when your first story was published? I think it was in 17 magazine.

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