This week I’m delighted to be talking with five-time novelist Christopher Castellani. Christopher’s newest book is “Last Seen,” which combines suspense, true crime, and magical realism to take the reader on a journey through the psyches and preoccupations of young men coming of age in twenty-first-century America.
Christopher’s first novel, “A Kiss from Maddalena,” chronicled the Italian-American immigrant experience and won the Massachusetts Book Award; its follow-up, “The Saint of Lost Things,” was a BookSense Notable Book; and the final novel in the trilogy, “All This Talk of Love,” was a New York Times Editors’ Choice.
His novel “Leading Men,” about the playwright Tennessee Williams and his longtime partner Frank Merlo, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and is being developed into a movie for Searchlight Pictures.
We covered:
- What happened in fifth grade that made him decide to be a writer
- Why he decided not to pursue the more stable path of becoming a writing professor
- How being an author is a little like being a one man band
- How he uses his books to make money–and it’s not by selling more copies
- The habit he started during the pandemic that he still does, and that has totally changed his relationship to reading
- The nerdy 80s magazine he’s still a subscriber to
Connect with Christopher (and check if he’s doing an event near you!) at christophercastellani.com.
For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.
Thank you for listening!

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