Writing the Jersey Shore: The Millions Interviews Daniel H. Turtel

Earlier this week, Daniel H. Turtel published his debut novel, Greetings from Asbury Park, which in 2020 was awarded the Faulkner Society’s Best Novel Award. The book, which is set on the Jersey Shore and follows three half-siblings as they deal with a family death, has received praise from the likes of Junot Díaz, Julia Glass, Tom Perrotta, and Rae DelBianco, who called Turtel “our next Philip Roth.”

The Millions caught up with Turtel—who is pursuing an MFA at The New School—to chat about Greetings from Asbury Park, his process, New Jersey fiction, and a whole lot more.

The Millions: You have a degree in mathematics from Duke and are currently pursuing an MFA in creative writing—and your first novel publishes next month. Tell us a little about that trajectory. Did you always want to be a writer?

My first creative writing course was a poetry seminar taken purely to satisfy a humanities requirement. My professor, , was really inspiring, and I started branching out from poetry; by the end of the year, I had enough material that I felt comfortable applying for a novel-in-progress course with (). Oscar completely changed the.