Deesha Philyaw, author and previous guest on the Podcast Some Things Considered, is releasing a new book The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, available September 29th, 2026. We are HUGE fans of Deesha (writer, woman, force of nature) and are expecting appropriately huge things from this release. You can enjoy her episode of the 14:55 Interview here, and featured in the 1455 Author Series, here.
You can pre-order the book on Deesha’s website here.
See Deesha Philyaw join Sean Murphy on the podcast Some Things Considered here.
ABOUT DEESHA PHILYAW
Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, the LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Deesha is a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, a Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, a United States Artists Fellow, and co-host of two podcasts, Ursa Short Fiction (with Dawnie Walton) and Reckon True Stories (with Kiese Laymon). She is currently at work developing TV shows based on her short fiction.
Deesha’s debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, is forthcoming from Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, in September 2026.
ABOUT THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF FIRST LADY FREEMAN
The wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed “rags-to-Rolex” life when her secretive past comes roaring into the spotlight—in this much-anticipated, splendidly unruly debut novel from Deesha Philyaw, author of the award-winning hit short story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.
Can't wait to read this!