Episode 30: Structure and Resistance: a talk with Angie Powers
Devi S. Laskar
In this episode, hosts Angie Powers and Elizabeth Stark celebrate the publication day of Devi Laskar's third novel, Midnight at the War (Mariner Books, April 14, 2026).
About Devi Laskar
Devi S. Laskar is a poet, novelist, artist, photographer, songwriter, and former newspaper reporter. Her debut poetry collection Self-Portraits, Ex Machina is out from Finishing Line Press. She is the author of the award-winning novel The Atlas of Reds and Blues and Circa (a Goop Book Club selection). Her first spoken word album is also out this year. A USA Today "50 AAPI Authors to Read" honoree, she holds degrees from Columbia University, University of Illinois, and UNC Chapel Hill.
What We're Talking About
- What we're working on: Angie on Obsidian and reading manuscripts for the 50 Scenes List; Elizabeth on her dual-timeline Kafka book revision; Devi on poems and a food memoir exploring her family's relationship to food and famine.
- Revision process: How a caregiving break gave Devi fresh eyes to spot "Swiss cheese holes" in her manuscript — and how Lucille Clifton's advice to read aloud shaped her final pass.
- Working with an editor: The experience of working with editor Rakia Clark at Mariner Books, and the surprising note to add more as a poet-turned-novelist.
- About Midnight at the War: A female journalist of color steps in as a replacement foreign correspondent in a fictional Middle Eastern country while running from problems at home. The novel centers around 9/11 and traces the shift from fact-based journalism to opinion, deregulation, and the decline of local news.
- Literary inspirations: Jesmyn Ward's Notes on Grief, Yoko Ogawa's Whereabouts, Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, Hanan al-Shaykh's The Story of Zahra, Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and Don DeLillo's Mao II.
- Journalism, truth & the news today: The "don't both-sides the rain" rule, media fragmentation, social media's bite-sized news, and the disappearance of local journalism.
- The novel as local reporting: How long-form fiction, like long-form journalism, creates space for backstory, consequence, and dignity.
- Poetry, songwriting & multiple genres: Devi on identifying as a poet first, her debut collection, and how working with Brooklyn Shanti on spoken word forces fast production and revision — like a news deadline.
Steal This
- Devi: Janet Fitch's workshop tip on landscape writing — zoom from the full range down to a single cactus.
- Angie: Slow down and attend carefully to a small space (inspired by a statistic that people spend only 3 seconds looking at artwork).
- Elizabeth: Embodied detail — using all five senses in writing and in daily life, inspired by conversations with Margaret Malone and Ellen Sussman.
Find Devi & the Book
- Website & events calendar: devislakar.com
- Midnight at the War is available now wherever books are sold
- Launch event at Kepler's Books on April 16th
Elizabeth Stark
Elizabeth Stark is a novelist (Shy Girl: FSG, finalist for the Ferro-Grumely and Lambda Literary Awards) and award-winning filmmaker (producer of Lost in the Middle: Best Feature at Broad Humor 2019 and a Festival Favorite at Cinema Diverse; co-director and co-writer of FtF: Female to Femme and Little Mutinies, distributed by Frameline), co-hosts the podcast Story Makers Show, and co-directs and teaches at Sonoma County Writers Camp and Story Makers Academy, and serves on the advisory board for the Bay Area Book Festival. She earned her MFA from Columbia University, and her work has appeared in The New York Times and The Rumpus.
Angie Powers
Angie Powers is an award-winning filmmaker and writer. Her first feature, Lost in the Middle, won Best Feature the Broad Humor 2019 Festival, and was a Festival Favorite at Cinema Diverse.
Angie has an M.F.A. in English and Creative Writing from Mills College, where she won the Amanda Davis Thesis Award for her novel, The Blessed. She also has Masters in Film by Negotiation from Staffordshire University, and a Certificate in Screenwriting from the Professional Programs at UCLA. Co-director and co-writer of the short "Little Mutinies" (distributed by Frameline and an official selection of the Palm Springs International Short Fest), she also wrote and directed the shorts "Hot Date" and "The Truth About Love and Panic," a comedy about anxiety, both of which premiered at the Frameline Film Festival.
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