Liza Monroy, The Distractions

Solitary tech worker Mischa Osborn is mourning the shelving of her passion project—an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of love—when a chance encounter with a social media celebrity leads her spiraling into an all-consuming obsession. Simultaneously, someone—or something—is watching. Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher—keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied—from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory. Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection. Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic onReel. As Mischa's ReelWatching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even realspace stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control. Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices. Liza Monroy is the author of The Distractions and three previous books. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, O (Oprah Magazine), Poets & Writers, Marie Claire, Longreads, Newsweek, Guernica, Catamaran, Self, Psychology Today, Jezebel, Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers, Bust and many other publications and anthologies, including both editions of The New York Times’ Best of Modern Love, Best American Food Writing, Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, Oprah’s Little Book of Calm and Comfort, One Big Happy Family, and Wedding Cake For Breakfast. Find out more on her website, lizamonroy.com Malena Watrous is a novelist and nonfiction writer based in Santa Cruz. Her novel, If You Follow Me (Harper Perennial) won a James Michener award and was a Lammy finalist. She has also co-authored two cookbooks: My Mexico City Kitchen, with Gabriela Camara, and Scandinavian From Scratch, with Nichole Accettola. She teaches creative writing and serves as creative writing curriculum coordinator for Stanford’s Continuing Studies, where she helped to start the online novel writing certificate program.

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