Lincoln Michel
Novelist and critic, author of The Body Scout and Metallic Realms; writes the newsletter Counter Craft on fiction craft and the publishing industry.
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Where they publish
Counter CraftNewsletter His newsletter on fiction craft, reading and the publishing business.
Open countercraft.substack.com
Recent
- Processing: How Josh Riedel Edited Thirty Cabins 24 Aug 2026
- Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revision 10 Aug 2026
- Processing: How Paul Tremblay Wrote Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep 28 Jul 2026
Show 17 more
- Principles of Plotting Part IV: Intersection and Redirection 9 Jul 2026
- Principles of Plotting Part III: Variation 1 Jul 2026
- There Are More than Five POVs 22 Jun 2026
- The Ghostwriter in the Machine, LLM Author Psychosis, and Other Saturday Sundries 6 Jun 2026
- Processing: How Hannah Lillith Assadi Wrote Paradiso 17 26 May 2026
- LLMs Are Revealing How Low the Bar Is (And Lowering It Even Further) 19 May 2026
- Scavenging in the Media Wastelands: Or, Substacking While Trying to Make a Living Writing 10 May 2026
- On Making Money (Or Not) Writing 1 May 2026
- Why BookScan Is Different from Book Sales (Which Are Different from Royalty Statements) 24 Apr 2026
- The Principles of Plotting Part II: Oscillation 17 Apr 2026
- I Loved this Novel About Digging Up Frozen Soldiers in 19th-Century Prussia and You Might Too 8 Apr 2026
- What Memoir Scandals Tell Us about Two LLM Writing Scandals 31 Mar 2026
- Interview: How Naomi Huffman and Julia Ringo Run Hagfish 25 Mar 2026
- What It Means that Hachette Just Canceled an AI Novel 20 Mar 2026
- MFA vs. Publishing Round 2,000 18 Mar 2026
- Processing: How Andrew Martin Wrote Down Time 10 Mar 2026
- The View from Inside: On Adding Interiority to Your Fiction 5 Mar 2026
Link verified 5 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
Recommends rcmnd
What they recommendrcmnd 21 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
Recent
Metallic Realms Recommends
A reminder that my novel Metallic Realms is available at a bookstore near you. Reviews call it "brilliant" (Esquire), "a total blast" (Chicago Tribune), "unrelentingly smart and inventive" (Locus), and "just plain wonderful" (Booklist). Maybe the perfect holiday gift for the booklover in your life?
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
their own
Pedro Páramo Loved
Some excellent short novels that fit this include Juan Rulfo's haunted and brilliant Pedro Páramo
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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Child of God Recommends
Cormac McCarthy's Child of God is the perfect starter book to see if you enjoy McCarthy's maximalist prose and macabre images before tackling the longer Blood Meridian.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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Show 18 more
Sula Loved
Toni Morrison's brief Sula—rereleased with a new cover this month—is one of her best works and a great starting place for her lush and lyrical style.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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The Loser Recommends
You can't go wrong with the short The Loser (trans. by Mark M. Anderson) as an introduction to Thomas Bernhard.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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The Box Man Liked
A reader reminded me that one of my favorite authors, Kobo Abe, has a very fun and formally bizarre novel called The Box Man
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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The Employees Loved
Olga Ravn's The Employees (trans. by Martin Aitken) that takes the form of employee interview transcripts on a spaceship that has encountered bizarre alien life.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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Multiple Choice Loved
Two other formally odd books I love: Alejandro Zambra's Multiple Choice (trans. by Megan McDowell), structured as a standardized test with e.g. chapters of fill-in-the-blank questions
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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Invisible Cities Loved
I'm going to have to include Italo Calvino's Oulipian novel Invisible Cities (trans. by William Weaver), since it is a foundational text for me.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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Exercises in Style Recommends
Oulipo's co-founder Raymond Queneau has a book to include here called Exercises in Style (trans. by Barbara Wright), which retells an intentionally banal story 99 times.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise Liked
The Art of Asking is a delightful and quick read. Only 80 pages in fact.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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What others say about The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise →
Moby-Dick Loved
Moby-Dick remains perhaps the best reading experience of my life.
countercraft.substack.com 2025-11-18
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Season of the Swamp Loved
Yuri Herrera is one of the few contemporary authors whose books I will always buy and know I will love.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-12-01
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Euphoria Days Liked
Like the previous two books, this one is short (just under 200 pages) and written in lively prose and fast-moving chapters.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-12-01
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Fulgentius Loved
Point being that it was probably inevitable I would love this short and absurd novel about a sexagenarian Roman general who is obsessed with staging the sole play he ever wrote—back as a precocious young artist—over and over again.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-12-01
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On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) Loved
I won't spoil anything by saying more but the novel is really lovely and captivating, pulling surprising meaning and depth from repetition.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-12-01
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What others say about On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) →
The Werewolf at Dusk Loved
Obviously, my text appears in the book but I would have loved it even if that wasn't the case. Small is just an astounding artist—see his bestselling memoir Stitches
countercraft.substack.com 2024-02-22
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Reboot Loved
For now, let me say I tore through Reboot, which is a sharply written and hilarious novel about a has-been actor in a downward spiral who tries to fix his life with a (yes) reboot of the Buffy-by-way-of-Baywatch teen drama that made him briefly a star.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-02-22
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The Novices of Lerna Loved
And if you are, like me, a fan of surreal and fantastical literature I think you will be blown away by The Novices of Lerna.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-02-22
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Headshot Loved
Rita Bullwinkel follows up her excellent and weird story collection Belly Up with a knockout punch of a debut
countercraft.substack.com 2024-02-22
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James Loved
Briefly, James is Huckleberry Finn retold from the perspective of Jim. It has all the energy and humor of Twain's work—in Everett's own unique voice of course—and adds a whole new level of depth to the story.
countercraft.substack.com 2024-02-22
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Latest
Full feed →Everything, newest firstFeed Posts and recommendations from the cards above, in one stream.
Filter & sortAll sources · condensed
- Processing: How Josh Riedel Edited Thirty Cabins 24 Aug
- Stitching Up the Creature; Or, the Horrors of Revision 10 Aug
- Processing: How Paul Tremblay Wrote Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep 28 Jul
- Principles of Plotting Part IV: Intersection and Redirection 9 Jul
- Principles of Plotting Part III: Variation 1 Jul
- There Are More than Five POVs 22 Jun
Show 24 more
- The Ghostwriter in the Machine, LLM Author Psychosis, and Other Saturday Sundries 6 Jun
- Processing: How Hannah Lillith Assadi Wrote Paradiso 17 26 May
- LLMs Are Revealing How Low the Bar Is (And Lowering It Even Further) 19 May
- Scavenging in the Media Wastelands: Or, Substacking While Trying to Make a Living Writing 10 May
- On Making Money (Or Not) Writing 1 May
- Why BookScan Is Different from Book Sales (Which Are Different from Royalty Statements) 24 Apr
- The Principles of Plotting Part II: Oscillation 17 Apr
- I Loved this Novel About Digging Up Frozen Soldiers in 19th-Century Prussia and You Might Too 8 Apr
- What Memoir Scandals Tell Us about Two LLM Writing Scandals 31 Mar
- Moby-Dick 18 Nov 2025 Lovedaffiliate link
- The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise 18 Nov 2025 Likedaffiliate link
- Exercises in Style 18 Nov 2025 Recommendsaffiliate link
- Invisible Cities 18 Nov 2025 Lovedaffiliate link
- Multiple Choice 18 Nov 2025 Lovedaffiliate link
- The Employees 18 Nov 2025 Lovedaffiliate link
- The Box Man 18 Nov 2025 Likedaffiliate link
- The Loser 18 Nov 2025 Recommendsaffiliate link
- Sula 18 Nov 2025 Lovedaffiliate link
- Child of God 18 Nov 2025 Recommendsaffiliate link
- Pedro Páramo 18 Nov 2025 Lovedaffiliate link
- Metallic Realms 18 Nov 2025 Recommendstheir own
- On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) 1 Dec 2024 Lovedaffiliate link
- Fulgentius 1 Dec 2024 Lovedaffiliate link
- Euphoria Days 1 Dec 2024 Likedaffiliate link