Emily Hunt Kivel’s home, in Austin’s Travis Heights neighborhood, looks exactly as I hoped it would after reading her novel, Dwelling . The book, out today from Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is a modern-day fairy tale about a woman who moves to the fictional town of Gulluck, Texas, and is forced to live in a shoe. Alas, Kivel’s real-life home is not shaped like footwear, but it does give serious “once upon a time” vibes. It’s a white cottage with scalloped trim, but the most striking thing about it is the front door. It’s the exact bright orangey-red shade as her book cover, which is a fact I cannot help but blurt out as soon as she opens said door to greet me.

“Oh my gosh, is it?” Kivel says as she leads me inside her home. “I didn’t even realize it. That’s sort of embarrassing.”

In

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