Confession: I troll the internet for youngish writers that I've never heard of. My Google Reader is chalk full of contemporary fiction blogs. One of my favorites is the NYTimes Papercuts Blog, and I particularly like their semi-weekly segment Living With Music. Here they give a writer the chance to list his or her top ten songs, usually stuff that's had some affect on their writing. Most of the writers are young novelists from NYC.
This is how I came to Amy Koppelman.
Koppelman--look ...