Her work has been featured in Stone of Madness Press, The McNeese Review, and several independent anthologies and audiovisual projects. Her novels include Shoot the Moon (2023), and the new midcentury drama, The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf.
Arsén applied the Page 69 Test to The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf and reported the following::
On page 69, Margaret is mid-argument with her director Ezra -- he has decided to cut her from his theater company in the wake of a messy public meltdown she experienced backstage, and she is attempting to plead her case to stay on:Visit Isa Arsén's website."Probation," Ezra said, easy as anything, removing his pince-nez to fiddle them idly between his fingers. "Protracted."I think this is a surprisingly good litmus of the book's main conflicts all bundled together. The reader is able to pick up on the relationship between Margaret and Ezra, understand that this comes after the breakdown hinted at on the jacket copy, and get a taste of how Margaret moves through the world: eager to move past (or straight-up ignore) her weaknesses, and determined to obey the pull of her ambition come hell or high water despite her own imbalances.
"Replaced," I repeated, tasting the depths of its cruelty for the first time.
Ezra held in a sigh and canted his eyes up at me in exasperation. "You aren't in any fit state to perform, Margot. You have to see that."
My stitches had been removed the week prior. I applied a vitamin salve twice a day to the skinny red lines; the nurses told me it would work wonders -- See here, one said as she lifted the edge of her blouse, I had my appendix out and now you can barely tell. I was back to routine with Wesley, lunch at our favorite cafe three times a week and going with him to parties again with my new rotation of evening gloves.
I was alright. I was alive. I could forget this ever happened and move on.
But none of that mattered if I couldn't work.
Q&A with Isa Arsén.
--Marshal Zeringue
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