LaToya Watkins: Talent Matters, but Persistence Matters More
In this interview author LaToya Watkins discusses the grief at the center of her new literary novel, The Book of Chuck.
LaToya Watkins is an award-winning author of two books. Her short story collection, Holler, Child, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the winner of Reading the West Book Award in Fiction and the Writer’s League of Texas Book Award in Fiction. Her debut novel, Perish, was published to great acclaim in 2022. LaToya’s writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, and the Kenyon Review, among other publications. Follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, LaToya discusses the grief at the center of her new literary novel, The Book of Chuck, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: LaToya Watkins
Literary agent: Samantha Shea
Book title: The Book of Chuck
Publisher: Tiny Reparations
Release date: August 18, 2026
Genre/category: Literary Fiction
Previous titles: Perish; Holler, Child
Elevator pitch: On the surface, it's about a family with the ability to see death coming. But underneath, it's really about one man trying to become the kind of ancestor his descendants deserve. To love well, to break cycles, and to leave his family with something better than what was handed to him.
What prompted you to write this book?
Over the last 15 years, I've lost 10 close family members. What I've come to realize is that they don't really die until we stop remembering them. The strangest part of grief has been reaching for memories of people I once spoke to every day and discovering how much has slipped away. Not because they disappeared, but because my silence slowly erased the stories of who they were. That's what made me want to write a story that doesn't care about time. A story where memory is stronger than chronology. Where characters can find one another across any timeline, as long as someone remembers.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I first began thinking about The Book of Chuck in 2020, when my grandson was born, and I started drafting it in 2022. From the initial idea to publication, it took about six years. The story evolved along the way, some early characters disappeared, but its heart never really changed. From the beginning, I wanted to write about a man who was deeply flawed and deeply loving at the same time, someone whose failures never erased his capacity for grace. That's the book I set out to write and, ultimately, the one I wrote.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I learned that grief has her own sense of time. She doesn't leave just because we aren't ready for her. She waits. This book shook loose grief I'd been telling to wait for almost 40 years, and it did the same for members of my family as I started asking questions and uncovering the stories we'd inherited about loss. I realized grief isn't something we outrun. We simply arrive at her when we're finally able, and then the work begins.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Actually, yes. For a long time, I could only write when I had carved out dedicated blocks of time from my schedule. With this book, I wrote every day. Every single day. There was something about returning to the story daily that changed my relationship with writing. I wasn't waiting for the right moment anymore. I was living inside the work.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope readers see the love. This is a novel about grief, inheritance, failure, and loss, but beneath all of it is love, persistent and stronger than the things that threaten it. I hope that’s what stays with them: the belief that love outlives our failures, our suffering, and even death itself.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Keep writing the stories that inspire you. Talent matters, but persistence matters more. More often than not, the difference between a successful writer and an unsuccessful one is simply that one loved the work enough to keep showing up until the story was finished.
