Teddy Wayne: Write the Book You Would Want To Read
In this interview, author Teddy Wayne discusses how a film inspired his new literary thriller, The Au Pair.
Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels The Au Pair, The Winner, The Great Man Theory, Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A former columnist for the New York Times and McSweeney’s and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has developed films and series from his novels with Columbia Pictures, HBO, MGM Television, and others. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Kate Greathead, and their children. Follow him on Twitter.
In this interview, Teddy discusses how a film inspired his new literary thriller, The Au Pair, his advice for other writers, and more.
Name: Teddy Wayne
Literary agent: Jim Rutman
Book title: The Au Pair
Publisher: Harper
Release date: June 30, 2026
Genre/category: Literary thriller
Previous titles: The Winner; The Great Man Theory; Apartment; Loner; The Love Song of Jonny Valentine; Kapitoil
Elevator pitch: A floundering Brooklyn novelist’s domestic life is upended by the arrival of a young Norwegian au pair.
What prompted you to write this book?
Without giving too much away, I was inspired by the movie Anatomy of a Fall.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
This was quite fast. I got the idea in the spring of 2024, started writing it in June of that year, and completed a first draft very quickly. We sold it that fall, then I revised it and finished up my last real work on it in August 2025. The spine of it stayed the same, but, as with all my books, numerous particulars changed through the revision process.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
I sold the film rights around the same time as the book, and adapted the screenplay myself, as I did for my previous novel, The Winner. For a stretch I was revising the novel and writing the screenplay simultaneously, and often a change I came up with for one medium worked its way into the other.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I’ve often found that a key piece of a character’s back story doesn’t come to me until I’ve finished the first draft (or even multiple drafts).
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
Escapism and questioning why they want to escape.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
The classic advice to write the book you would want to read. Any attempt to write toward the market will look like pandering and be less successful, and even if you pull it off, it’ll be a hollow victory.
