Nathaniel Kressen

Biography

Short bio:
Nathaniel Kressen is the author of two novels — Dahlia Cassandra (released June 2016) and Concrete Fever (Bestseller, Strand Book Store) — as well as the co-founder of Second Skin Books and the leader of the Greenpoint Writers Group.

Extended bio:
Nathaniel Kressen is the author of two novels — Dahlia Cassandra (released June 2016) and Concrete Fever (Bestseller, Strand Book Store) — as well as the co-founder of Second Skin Books and the leader of the Greenpoint Writers Group.

Nathaniel lives and works in Brooklyn. In addition to his work with the GWG, he curates The Loaded Canon at Brooklyn Oenology which combines raw unpublished work with high-end wine & cocktail pairings. His writing has been published by some of the most well-respected indie presses, though he has a penchant for going the DIY route when traditional paths take too long.

Upon finishing his first novel, he taught himself how to bind books and went on to print, stitch, and sell nearly 250 copies through local stores. With those earnings he published the first paperback edition of Concrete Fever – now in its second printing. Though the pin pricks on his fingers have healed, he remains committed to creating physical art objects out of literary fiction.

His work for the stage has been published and produced in NYC, DC, LA, and regionally. As a screenwriter he won First Place in The Relevance Group’s American Details Competition. He is a proud alumnus of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where he studied performance at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute.

His better half is the visual artist Jessie T. Kressen. They camp and travel and mix cocktails for friends. They have a horde of furry children together as well as an epic backyard garden.

nk {at} nathanielkressen [dot] com

Smashwords Interview

What's the story behind your latest book?
My wife and I got engaged while taking a road trip around the U.S., staying in national parks. One of the parks we passed through was Craters of the Moon in Idaho, which really stuck with me. It's just black volcanic soil, rock formations that lead to nowhere. It's desolate and it's beautiful. It's a completely different world. Years later, when I realized I was writing a novel set in that pocket of the country, my wife and I returned there to live out of a campervan for a week. On average, we saw four shooting stars a night. We heard silence. Dahlia Cassandra is rooted in the details of that world. The novel never would have happened without that initial glimpse.
What is your writing process?
I'm pretty analog, I still have a flip phone. To that effect, I write everything by hand first in a notebook -- or occasionally on a ripped-up paper bag. Then I transcribe everything into a word doc, revising as I go without necessarily thinking about it. Then I'll print out the pages, read them over, cross out huge sections and write them by hand again. I'll go through that cycle over and over again until the rhythms start to feel right and I stop changing words. If I start obsessing over a comma, I know I'm done. At a low estimate, I'd guess that every sentence in Dahlia Cassandra was written by hand at least four times.
Read more of this interview.

Where to find Nathaniel Kressen online

Where to buy in print

Books

Dahlia Cassandra
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 66,090. Language: English. Published: October 18, 2016 . Categories: Fiction » Literature » Literary
A pair of teenage siblings are abandoned on an Idaho farm where nothing will grow. The arrival of two strangers awakens new thoughts and desires, leading to an unthinkable act of passion that sends the pair spiraling apart. From the author of Concrete Fever comes a haunting, heartfelt novel about faith, fantasy, and the emptiness that resides within all of us and the things we do to fill it.
Concrete Fever
Price: $2.99 USD. Words: 51,190. Language: English. Published: January 22, 2011 . Categories: Fiction » Literature » Literary
On the night he decides to jump off his Upper West Side rooftop, a prep school teen encounters a lost girl dancing on the ledge. They split cigarettes, spill secrets, and hatch an unexpected plan: to play out a romantic relationship over the course of one night, and discover whether magic can truly exist. “A Manic Must-Read About Love and Loss” – Literary Man