“Leni Zumas here proves she can do almost anything. Her tale feels part Melvillian, part Lydia Davis, part Octavia Butler—but really Zumas’s vision is entirely her own. RED CLOCKS is funny, mordant, political, poetic, alarming, and inspiring—not to mention a way forward for fiction now.”

—MAGGIE NELSON, THE ARGONAUTS

“Strange and lovely and luminous. I loved RED CLOCKS with my whole heart.”                    

—KELLY LINK, GET IN TROUBLE

”Move over Atwood, Leni Zumas's RED CLOCKS is a gender-roaring tour de force. The bodies of women in RED CLOCKS are each the site of resistance and revolution. I screamed out loud. I pumped my first in the air. And I remembered how hope is forged from the ground up, through the bodies of women who won't be buried.”                   

—LIDIA YUKNAVITCH, THE BOOK OF JOAN

“Hilarious, terrifying, and masterful—RED CLOCKS reflects the horror and absurdity of our political landscape with a brilliance that ensures the book's timelessness. It's as riotously fun as it is chilling. Zumas has produced a poignant, wickedly sharp classic.”  

—ALISSA NUTTING, MADE FOR LOVE

“The women in this suspenseful book resist. They will not be circumscribed. The effect on the reader is cathartic.”          

—CHRISTINE SCHUTT, PROSPEROUS FRIENDS

“In bristling sentences, Leni Zumas shows girls and women defying the excruciating restrictions imposed by both law and culture. RED CLOCKS is unabashedly political and fiercely humane.”          

—EMILY FRIDLUND, HISTORY OF WOLVES

“This novel is not due to arrive until January 16, 2018, but it’s so urgent and important and unforgettable that I have to tell you about it now so you’ll have plenty of time to clear your schedules. Written in a language entirely unique and inventive, Red Clocks weaves together the lives of five women to create a story that is equal parts prophecy, allegory, and human history. ...In one of her expedition journal entries, Eivør writes, “[i]f wrecked in this vessel, we wreck together.” This line—written from the belly of a ship—binds not only the women in the novel, but all women, past and present. Zumas’s novel is a reckoning, a warning, and nothing short of a miracle. Don’t miss it.“                             

—AMY JO BURNS in Ploughshares

“The novel's central focus is on the internal legislation that governs motherhood—not the laws enacted by Congress, but the joys and recriminations every woman feels regarding pregnancy and motherhood. As the Wife, Mender, Daughter, and Biographer show—in utterly compelling, distinct voices—there's no simple narrative governing the choice to carry, birth, abort or adopt a child. Each choice is fraught, and intimately tied to a self-determination constantly under threat not just from outsiders, but from our own flawed and evolving ideas of what a woman should be, or want.“                 

—RHIANNA W., bookseller, Powells.com

November 15, 2017

University of Portland

7:30 PM / University of Portland Bookstore, 5000 North Willamette Blvd, Portland.

January 17, 2018

Elliott Bay, Seattle

7:00 PM / Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 Tenth Avenue, Seattle.

February 20, 2018

Broadway Books, Portland

7:00 PM / Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, Portland.

March 2-5, 2018

Tin House Winter Workshop

I'll lead an intensive three-day class on novel writing at the Tin House Winter Workshop. Ramona Ausubel and Matthew Salesses are also teaching. And there will be lighthouse karaoke!

Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport, OR.

March 7-10, 2018

AWP Conference

I'm on a panel called "Secrets of the Job Market: Everything You Always Wanted to Know (But Were Afraid to Ask)," with Michelle Herman, Chris Coake, Joe Oestreich, and Ann Townsend.

Tampa Convention Center, Tampa, FL.

June 17-24, 2018

Juniper Summer Writing Institute

University of Massachusetts, Amherst.