Group Chat

Madeleine Watts (Elegy, Southwest), Gabriel Flynn (Poor Ghost!) and Vijay Khurana (The Passenger Seat) all published novels this year. As members of a seven-person writing group, they’ve also been meeting regularly for over four years and have seen one another’s books develop, from early plans and false-starts to rough drafts and final edits. In this discussion, they’ll interview one another, drawing on their deep knowledge of one another’s working processes as they explore the nitty-gritty of drafting, editing, and publishing a novel.

Vijay Khurana’s debut novel, The Passenger Seat, was shortlisted for the Novel Prize and was published in 2025. He is currently working on a second novel, with the working title Time Spent Listening, as well as on an English translation of Rot (Hunger) by Senthuran Varatharajah.

Madeleine Watts is the author of the novels Elegy, Southwest (2025) and The Inland Sea (2021), which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award and the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing. Her nonfiction has appeared in Harper’s, the Guardian, and The Believer, among others. She was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. After more than a decade in New York, she now lives in Berlin.

Gabriel Flynn is a writer based in Berlin. His debut novel, Poor Ghost! was published this year and his short fiction has appeared in The White Review, Five Dials, and Best British Short Stories. He is currently working on a PhD in Literary Practice and co-edits the website creativecritical.net.