Well Read

Dive into fascinating books by Maverick authors

Inspiration struck Seraphina Nova Glass, assistant professor of instruction and playwright-in-residence, on a drive home from rehearsal for a play she was directing at UTA. An avid fan of thrillers and crime fiction, she was listening to one on audiobook when it occurred to her: “I could write one of these.”

As soon as the play closed in October, Glass got to work, and by Christmas, she had finished her first novel, Someone’s Listening. By New Year’s, she had landed an agent, and just a few weeks later, she had secured a multibook deal with HarperCollins.

“It was a whirlwind,” Glass says. “I still can’t believe it worked out that way.” Someone’s Listening was published in 2020, and she has released a book per year since: Such a Good Wife came out in 2021, and the Edgar Award-nominated On a Quiet Street followed in 2022. Glass is currently developing a screenplay for On a Quiet Street for Marvista Entertainment. Her fourth book, The Vanishing Hour, was released in May.

It’s a staggeringly prolific pace, but Glass says it feels much slower to her in practice.

“I have to write and get the idea out of my head. I don’t want to leave it and come back to it, because then I’ll lose track of the world and the characters,” she says. “I need to stay in it throughout the process, and I do that until I’m done. I write hard for three months, and then it’s sort of a lot of waiting after that.”

Glass has plenty to keep her busy whether she’s working on a new novel or not. As an award-winning playwright, an established screenwriter, and a UTA professor, she has a lot going on at any one time. At UTA, she teaches classes like script analysis, playwriting, and film studies.

“Seraphina is amazing,” says Erin Malone Turner (’17 BFA, Theatre), a former student and accomplished local playwright. “She gets to the point, but doesn’t ever do that in a way that will make you doubt yourself. She made us all feel so comfortable and so capable.” Now, Glass is also sharing her publishing and film experience with her students.

“It’s a unique position to be actively working in the industry like that,” she says. “I’m going back and forth to Los Angeles, working with a film agent, a literary agent, and industry professionals. That’s all current real-time experience that I’m bringing back to the classroom.”

“Music of the Abyss: A Short Horror Story”

BY SHAUN HAMILL (’08 BA, ENGLISH)

Part of the Come Join Us By the Fire horror anthology, “Music of the Abyss” is an H.P Lovecraft-inspired tale about an orphan in a coastal Texas town who attends a dark ceremony.

Protected

BY PAULA PECKHAM (’98 BS, BUSINESS)

Book one in Paula Peckham’s San Antonio series, Protected follows Abby and Manny’s love story, which blooms on a wagon train making its way to San Antonio, Texas, in the 1800s.

Boulevard

BY NATHANAEL O’REILLY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH

In Boulevard, a book-length poem in 76 sections, Nathanael O’Reilly explores the life of a street and neighborhood over the course of the year during the COVID-19 pandemic.