Karol Lagodzki
@klagodzki.bsky.social
1.3K followers 100 following 73 posts
#Author. Words in Invisible City, Storm Cellar, elsewhere. Controlled Conversations, a novel, finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award. In love with a painter. Father of strange children. He/him. Next novel seeking literary representation.
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klagodzki.bsky.social
Thank you @penamerica.bsky.social for including Controlled Conversations among the finalists for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel! Congratulations to all the finalists Venita Blackburn, Michael Deagler, Samuel Kolawole, and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio! #booksky
klagodzki.bsky.social
My wife says the same thing about me 🤣
klagodzki.bsky.social
Come by, it’ll be diverting! 😀 #booksky
wesblake.bsky.social
Bloomington Readers! Join @klagodzki.bsky.social & I at Morgenstern Books as we discuss Pineville Trace and Controlled Conversations. Both novels feature characters on the run, escaping to realize freedom. What are they running from and toward, and why does it matter? 💙📚 #authors
klagodzki.bsky.social
My guess is that Orangio and Wormbrain shorted a bunch of Kenvue Brands stock well before their Tylenol announcement #crooks
Reposted by Karol Lagodzki
ponderreview.bsky.social
Y'all, Monday, 9/15, is our deadline for the next issue of Ponder Review. If you haven't sent us your best writing since before June 15, then send us something soon and don't miss out! #submissioncall ponderreview.submittable.com
klagodzki.bsky.social
Polish, Dutch, German and Italian aircraft worked together last night to shoot down 19 Russian drones over Poland.

This might well have been the very first time German soldiers helped defend Poland from aggression.
klagodzki.bsky.social
What’s frightening is that an average person misses 4 of these specific questions, including what fossil fuels are.
klagodzki.bsky.social
#Bloomington #Indiana
@wesblake.bsky.social is coming to town on Oct 10! Join us at Morgenstern’s at 6 pm. Plenty of notice, so no excuses :-)
#booksky
klagodzki.bsky.social
My wonderful wife @mlagodzki.bsky.social is taking off for a month-long residency, and my goal is to get down the words for the first draft of the next novel before the end of Sep. Over/under? Wish us both luck.
Reposted by Karol Lagodzki
stemthebleeding.bsky.social
Felt like a pie chart was in order.

Number of mass shooters since 2018: 4197

% of mass shooters since 2018 that were transgender? 0.095%

% of mass shooters that were cisgender: 99.905%
klagodzki.bsky.social
Absolutely mesmerizing. I can't stop staring at it.
klagodzki.bsky.social
This sucks. I'm sorry you're going through it. A piece of pie is the least the universe owes you.
Reposted by Karol Lagodzki
hararereview.bsky.social
Also inside, on p27: from me about The Lives and Deaths of Véronique Bangoura x Tierno Monénembo, Ryan Chamberlain (tr.), which is out now from @schaffnerpress.bsky.social.

Thanks to @laurencerand.com for the review copy!

#Guinea
REVIEW
JACQUELINE NYATHI
THE LIVES AND DEATHS OF VERONIQUE BANGOURA
A NOVEL BY TIERNO MONÉNEMBO
TRANSLATED BY RYAN CHAMBERLAIN
To live, to die and to tell

Should we protect the world from our pain, and our pain from the world, or share it far and wide?

IN TRANSLATION, the idiomatic
expressions and mannerisms of the
original language can sometimes
interrupt the reader's flow. But if that
happens in the first pages of Tierno
Monénembo's new novel, keep going.
The tale of the woman who will
be known as Véronique Bangoura is
enthralling. On one of her daily jaunts
with her wheelchair-using husband
Véronique meets Madame Corre, who
recognises the language she speaks as
originating from Guinea. Madame Corre
wants Véronique to tell her story- why
she's in Paris and how she came to be
(as Madame Corre mistakenly believes)
a personal care assistant to the man in
the wheelchair.
Madame Corre, you see, has her own
painful history to share, and suspects
Véronique does too. From this shared
place ofpain the women bond and come
to understand one another across their
seeming divide.
The Lives and Deaths of Véronique
Bangoura weaves its story around the
atrocities that happened in Guinea
under Sékou Touré from 1956 to 1982.
In the moving retelling of of Touré's
brutality through the lives (and many
deaths) of Véronique and Madame
Corre, Monénembo brings what would
otherwise be a distant news story and
past history to the present experience
of the reader.
Once any initial struggle with style in
translation passes, the rhythm of this
work begins to resonate, along with
the singular voice of Véronique - an
outstanding character who has survived
a complicated past and escaped it
through a series of unlikely events.
klagodzki.bsky.social
Are you Black but grew up in a White family? If so, I’d really appreciate a chance to speak with you to get a sense for what it felt like. In complete confidentiality. Please DM me. Thanks!!! #novel #writing #fiction #characterization
Reposted by Karol Lagodzki
joshaboldt.bsky.social
Throwback to the author photoshoot last year and the book review by @fullybookedinky.bsky.social for Best Thriller Books. New novel is finished and coming soon!
Author photo of Josh Boldt standing on a rooftop parking lot in Lexington, KY. Quote says: “Boldt’s prose immerses and pulls the reader along with perfect pacing.” – Best Thriller Books
klagodzki.bsky.social
True. But lots of people will get hurt before sanity returns, and there is no satisfaction in I-told-you-sos even if we’re still here then.
Reposted by Karol Lagodzki
schaffnerpress.bsky.social
We are pleased to announce that Boman Desai of Chicago, IL, is the winner of the 2025 Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature for his novel BRAHMS COMES TO DINNER, which we will publish in June of 2026!
klagodzki.bsky.social
I don’t know about a movie or tv show, but what’s a novel without a deeply symbolic ceiling stain? One simply must have it. 😀

The omniscient narration by the camera might make the omission easier while preserving significance in film/tv. Few novels these days are written from the omniscient POV.
klagodzki.bsky.social
Check out the new paperback from @anandalima.bsky.social Craft is fantastic! #booksky
anandalima.bsky.social
Yay! Yay! Yay! It's paperback day! Today Craft is officially out in paperback! (Almost) The same cover I love (can you spot the difference?), snazzy new orange spine... plus more travel and wallet friendly. I love it so much! 😍🧡🎉 Get one for yourself, loved one, secret crush and frenemies today!
Reposted by Karol Lagodzki
phillewis.bsky.social
Two Minnesota lawmakers are in grave condition following apparent “targeted” shooting, officials say

Authorities believe the shooter was impersonating law enforcement
2 Minnesota lawmakers shot in apparent 'targeted' incident: Officials
Police are investigating two shootings targeting elected officials in Minnesota that could possibly be connected, officials said.
abcnews.go.com
klagodzki.bsky.social
Bloomington, IN. Come and be heard. Saturday, Jun 14: Monroe County Courthouse. #nokings #democracy
klagodzki.bsky.social
Sounds like the stamp is on its way :-)