How High We Go In The Dark with Sequoia Nagamatsu

SEQUOIA NAGAMATSU is the author of the National Bestselling novel, HOW HIGH WE GO IN THE DARK (2022), a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and the story collection, WHERE WE GO WHEN ALL WE WERE IS GONE (2016). 

His work has appeared in publications such as Conjunctions, The Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, Tin House, Iowa Review, Lightspeed Magazine, and One World: A Global Anthology of Short Stories, and has been listed as notable in Best American Non-Required Reading and the Best Horror of the Year. Other honors include a fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and shortlist inclusions for The Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize, the Ursula K Le Guin Prize, and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, as well as long list inclusions for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award.  

He was educated at Grinnell College (BA) and Southern Illinois University-Carbondale (MFA), and he teaches creative writing at Saint Olaf College and the Rainier Writing Workshop Low-Residency MFA program.  He is originally from O’ahu, Hawaiʻi  and the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Minneapolis with his wife, the writer Cole Nagamatsu, their cat Kalahira, their real dog Fenris, and a Sony Aibo robot dog named Calvino. 

He is at work on two other novels. 

 “Moving and thought-provoking . . . You’ll be impressed with Nagamatsu’s meticulous craft. . . . Well-honed prose, poignant meditations and unique concepts . . . offering psychological insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative conceits. . . . How High We Go in the Dark is a book of sorrow for the destruction we’re bringing on ourselves. Yet the novel reminds us there’s still hope in human connections.” 

— LINCOLN MICHEL, NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW