Texas Book Fest Q&A with Jami Attenberg

Jami Attenberg is the author of All This Could Be Yours

TBF: Where did the idea start for your new book? What was your inspiration? 

Jami Attenberg: I moved to New Orleans and spent several years contemplating how I could write about this city which has such a deep sense of its history – more than anywhere else I have lived in America. I ended up writing about it mostly as an outsider looking in on it, but hopefully I did this beloved place justice. But the idea began on the roof of a hotel, looking out at the pool, when I had some family in town. I was, at that moment, seeing the city both as a resident and a tourist. And off I went.

TBF: What’s the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? Why is it so good? 

JA: I cannot stop recommending Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It was a masterpiece. I was captivated it on a sentence level, and I cared about each character so deeply. It’s a long book, but I would have spent so much more time with each of these characters. I highly recommend it to any kind of reader out there.


Jami Attenberg is one of 300 authors who will appear at the 2019 Texas Book Festival which takes place October 26-27th 2019 in downtown Austin. The Festival is free and open to the public! Check out all of this year’s authors.