For the first time ever I went Live on Substack last night with my friend and contemporary , author of Leverage, his excellent debut novel published in August by Atria Books.
Amran and I first crossed paths right here on Substack back in 2023. He was an early and active presence in my comments, and I was lucky to read an early version of Leverage later that year. Since then, I’ve watched him navigate the whole roller coaster of bringing a first book into the world — grinding through rejections, finding an agent who believed in him, selling the novel, and then hustling hard to get it noticed. Through his newsletter (now on Ghost) and a series of smart, creative social campaigns — including hilarious TikTok videos from the point of view of one of his characters — Amran has been a great example of what persistence and literary hustle look like in practice.
Our conversation last night touched every part of that journey: the long road to publication, the high of release week, the lofty expectations, and the reality that followed. Amran was candid about how his book hasn’t (yet!) performed the way he imagined it would and we talked about what that kind of comedown does to a writer’s head, and how easy it is to let external measures — lists, sales, attention — overshadow the real work of being an artist and creating dope shit you’re proud of.
We had a great — and real — conversation about what recalibration looks like, and what it means to stop chasing outcomes and start focusing back on the work itself: on sentences, ideas, and the desire to create something original and unique. In a literary market where it sometimes feels like you’re supposed to care less about art and more about brand management, we spoke about what it looks like to block out the noise and focus on what matters.
About 25 of you tuned in live last night to hang out — thank you! If you missed it, the full conversation is above for you to watch or listen to (best done in the Substack app).
Moving forward, I’ll still run traditional written Q&As on Dwell, but this experiment was fun so I plan to mix in more Live talks with writers who call this platform home.
Speaking of Lives, I’ll be in the hot seat myself next week, chatting with on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET. More details on that here.
Peace,
Andrew
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