Lily Brooks-Dalton : Ruins

Lily Brooks-Dalton’s Ruins is both a cleverly plotted page-turner, and an emotionally engaging, character-driven novel with an unforgettable protagonist; it’s both erudite and a wild ride, inviting and yet mysterious, only slowly revealing its cards. Through the lens of archaeology, Ruins explores how cultures construct history and shape memory, and through our prickly protagonist Ember, the difficulties and rewards of questioning the beliefs we’ve inherited. Today’s conversation, beyond delving into the themes and narrative of Ruins , also is a deep dive into craft, particularly exploring a writer’s considerations when it comes to plotting. As part of that discussion, we not only discuss Lily’s sensibilities when it comes to her three successful novels, but we also talk about two completed novels that never coalesced and why that might be. For the bonus audio archive, Lily contributes a reading from the opening of one of these novels we will never see. This joins bonus readings from everyone from Ted Chiang to N.K. Jemisin, adrienne maree brown to Dionne Brand. You can find out how to

You can listen to Lily Brooks-Dalton : Ruins online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Lily Brooks-Dalton : Ruins is an episode from Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Milkweed Editions.

This episode is 2:12:55 long.

This episode was published on Apr 8, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.