This week on The Write Question, host Lauren Korn speaks with Emily Ruskovich about her short story collection, Nightjar (Penguin Random House), a collection of five short stories grounded in rich geographical, emotional, and psychological landscapes. With a writer’s tenderness and devotion, Emily has written multi-layered characters and corresponding histories buzzing with both joy and grief, vulnerability, candor, and closely-held secrets. Writer Paula Hawkins says of Nightjar, these are stories “of enduring love—marital, parental, and fraternal—of the hurts and indignities of childhood, the wonder of the natural world, of seemingly harmless lies that grow and swell and threaten to overwhelm their tellers.” These stories have been called “slippery” (Kirkus), “mysterious” (Publishers Weekly), “eerie” (Chicago Review of Books), and “provocative” (Electric Lit).
Join the University of Montana’s Creative Writing Program, the Missoula Public Library, and Fact & Fiction Books for an event with Emily; she’ll be in conversation with writer Sam McPhee at the Missoula Public Library on Wednesday, October 21, 2026m, at 6 p.m.
This episode has been edited for time.
About the book:
Five years after moving into the isolated house in rural Oregon where her husband lived as a child, the protagonist of “Victor’s Room” begins to doubt her husband’s account of his family’s past. In “Round Lake,” a young woman’s plans to meet a lover in Tokyo are upended when she learns a startling truth about her mother’s death. In “Owl,” winner of an O. Henry Award, a fur trapper reckons with the dreadful origins of his marriage after his wife is brutally injured by four adolescent boys.
Haunting and psychologically provocative, and set against the vivid backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, Nightjar illuminates the secret, instinctive knowledge that lies just under the surface of our awareness.
About Emily:
Emily Ruskovich is the author of the bestselling novel Idaho, which won the International Dublin Literary Award, only the fourth American novel ever to do so. Ruskovich is also the recipient of the Pacific Northwest Book Award and an O. Henry Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Guardian, One Story, Zoetrope, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She grew up in the Idaho panhandle, and lives now in the mountains of western Montana with her husband and their three young children. Nightjar is her second book.
There was just a natural, casual magic that was a part of my daily, [childhood] existence that . . . I wanted to replicate for my kids.
Emily Ruskovich recommends:
Beloved by Toni Morrison (Vintage Books)
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (Bloomsbury USA)
About Above Around by Mark Mayer (Texas Review Press)
What the Ice Gets by Melinda Mueller (Carnegie Mellon University Press)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (Vintage Books)
The Last Report On the Miracles At Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins)
Watership Down by Richard Adams (Scribner)
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson (Picador)
The Lost Journals of Sacajawea by Debra Magpie Earling; listen to Lauren’s conversation with Debra here!
Lauren Korn recommends:
Nightjar and Idaho by Emily Ruskovich (Penguin Random House)
Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Emily here!
Bear by Julia Philips (Hogarth); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Julia here!
How Much of These Hills is Gold by Z Pam Zhang (Flatiron Books)
Indian Country by Shobha Rao (Crown Publishing Group); listen to Lauren’s conversation with Shobha here!
The Lost Journals of Sacajawea by Debra Magpie Earling; listen to Lauren’s conversation with Debra here!
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (Picador)
Birding to Change the World by Trish O’Kane (Ecco Press)
We Should All Be Birds by Brian Buckbee, with Carol Ann Fitzgerald (Tin House Books; Zando Projects) Note: The audiobook is narrated by Brian and is also fantastic. Listen to Lauren’s conversation with Brian and Carol Ann here!
Raised by Ferns (Porphyry Press) and out takes/ glove box (New American Press) by Maya Jewell Zeller; listen to Lauren’s conversations with Maya here and here!
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The Write Question team for this episode was Lauren Korn, host, co-producer, and editor; and Chris Moyles, co-producer, editor, and sound engineer. This episode is supported by Fact & Fiction, an independent bookstore located in the heart of downtown Missoula, Montana, providing books for all ages and supporting the literary community in Montana and beyond. More information can be found at factandfictionbooks.com.
The Write Question logo and brand (2022) was designed by Molly Russell. You can see more of her work at iamthemollruss.com and on Instagram @iamthemollruss.
Funding for The Write Question comes from members of Montana Public Radio; and from the Greater Montana Foundation—encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans. A hat-tip to Humanities Montana for supporting this program since 2008.
The Write Question is a production of Montana Public Radio.
