Issue 64

Coming soon

Every issue of Reader’s House begins with a simple belief: great stories do more than entertain us. They preserve memory, uncover lives that history has overlooked, challenge the way we see the world and, sometimes, allow voices separated from us by centuries to speak again.

That spirit is beautifully embodied by our cover author, Lisa See.

Few contemporary historical novelists have explored women’s lives with such curiosity, sensitivity and dedication. Across books including Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, The Island of Sea Women and Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, See has travelled beyond familiar histories to illuminate women, communities and traditions too easily left at the margins. As our interview reveals, research for her is not simply preparation; she calls it a “treasure hunt”, one that takes her into archives, across cultures and directly into the places inhabited by the people whose stories inspire her fiction. 

Her conversation with us is one of the highlights of this issue. She speaks compellingly about female friendship and its “dark shadow sides”, her Chinese American family history, the remarkable haenyeo divers of Jeju Island, and the discovery of Ming dynasty physician Tan Yunxian. Perhaps most revealing is her determination to make the past tangible enough that readers feel they are standing “in the room with the characters”.  

But Lisa See is only the beginning.

Across these pages, we celebrate an exceptionally varied collection of writers and creative minds. Steve Higgs takes us from a 25-year British Army career to a remarkable second life writing more than 100 books, while Maria Johnsen explores the fascinating intersection of artificial intelligence, filmmaking, literature, music and human creativity.  

Different genres, different lives, different ways of seeing the world—but throughout this issue runs a common thread: curiosity, persistence and the courage to tell the stories that matter.

Lisa See tells aspiring authors to write 1,000 words a day, five days a week, before doing anything else. Behind that practical advice lies something even more important: passion. Without it, she asks, “why do it?” 

We could hardly find a better thought with which to open this issue.

We hope these pages inspire you to read more widely, think more deeply and perhaps tell a story of your own.

Happy reading.

Anna Harlowe  

Editor-in-Chief

Anna Harlowe
Editor-In-Chief