LIVE! #82
6 September 2026
Agenda
- Why We're Here / Roundtable Rules
- Introduction to Literary Forensics
- Group Discussion
- Further Study
Why We're Here
We writers want to improve our craft
by reading like a writer
We learn from each other
using Literary Forensics
Roundtable Rules
Always refer back to the book
Practice active listening & serendipity
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but not every conclusion
Always refer back to the book
Reading Teaches Writing
Meet today's author: Emma Pattee
- Emma Pattee grew up on forty acres of land in Southern Oregon.
- Her one-act play "Waiting for Baby James," won the Davy Marlin Jones Award from the Northwest Drama Conference. She earned a BFA in writing, literature, and publishing from Emerson College.
- Pattee spent years working as a freelance writer and content strategist for marketing agencies and brand clients before her byline became a fixture in national magazines.
- Pattee’s reporting on the climate crisis has been published in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, and many other publications. In 2021, she coined the term “Climate Shadow” to describe an individual’s potential impact on climate change.
- She writes a Substack newsletter called Just One More Question.
- Pattee lives in Portland, Oregon, with her two children.
- Tilt is her first novel.
"I think it was really related to this idea of Millennial disappointment.
. . a Millennial who was told she was going to be a star, and then didn't really end up being a star. . .
In my sense Annie really is the Millennial Everywoman."
—Emma Pattee
"There is a cost I hadn't really considered about being the bearer of
bad news to your community."
—Emma Pattee
What do you feel?
What in the book elicited that feeling?
Every feeling and observation is valid...
but every conclusion should be questioned
We practice serendipity
- nothing is too crazy
Always refer back to the book
What do you notice?
Writing Tilt
- In 2019, Emma Pattee was pregnant and shopping for a baby crib at the Portland IKEA when the building started to shake. “In that moment I thought, ‘Oh my god, it’s the Big One!‘” she said. “In the five or 10 seconds that the building was shaking, the book appeared in my mind.”
- Pattee spent four years writing Tilt, first the present-day chapters, and then all of the backstory chapters. Chapter 1 remained almost exactly as originally written, and she always knew that Annie would be narrating to Bean. Originally Dom was a character, but she later realized that he didn't need to be in scene to be present.
- The author says she is much more like Dom than Annie.
- As a climate journalist and Portland resident, it was important to Pattee to get the details right. She walked Annie's path, studied Red Cross protocols, pulled the plans for the IKEA and all the buildings Annie encounters, and met with Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) facilitators, first responders who had evacuated schools, a structural engineer, and a geologist.
- Tilt got Portland's school district to release their seismic reports, and Pattee secured an addendum to a bond bill that reinforces 10 of the most dangerous schools. She calls that the proudest moment of her career.
- Pattee felt strongly that the book had to have a map, and she worked with the artist for 9 months. She also made sure that the bird model on the cover is just like the ones Annie's mother makes.
- Tilt is set in October, 2025.
Stats & Background
- Marketing: Mothers & Children Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women's Domestic Life Fiction
- Genre: Present-Day Realistic Long-Form Archplot
- Print Pages: 240; Word count: 62,862
Reading Grade: 6th; Avg. wds/sent.: 11.12
Lexical Density: 47.03; Flesch Reading Ease: 84.04 - POV: Emma; Person: 1st; Tense: Present
- Publish date: March 25, 2025
- Publisher: Scribner, HarperCollins
- Audio book length: (6 hours, 54 mins)
- Narrator: Ariel Blake
- Recognition: Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Fiction longlist, NYT Book Review Editors’ Choice, USA TODAY Bestseller, a Best Book of 2025 for Vogue, a Time Magazine 100 Must-Read Books of 2025, an NPR favorite fiction read of 2025
Upcoming meetings
October 4: Angel Down - Daniel Kraus (USA, 2025)
November 1: The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
- Rabih Alameddine (USA, 2025)
December 6: What We Can Know - Ian McEwan (UK, 2025)
Latest podcast
S3 E10: King of Ashes - S.A. Cosby