ESCAPE!

by Stephen Fishbach

(27 January 2026, Dutton)

Authorlink® Interview by Anna Roins


Escape!  is a propulsive debut novel that follows a has-been reality TV star and a disgraced producer who get one last shot at redemption on a remote island TV show, only to discover that the plot twists are beyond what they ever imagined.

Everybody gets the story arc they deserve.

Kent Duvall, a faded reality show winner, just wants another chance at glory—to find his way out of his depressing life and back to his highlight reel. When a scandal is captured on camera at a charity event, he gets his shot on a new jungle survival show with seven other contestants. Each has been cast as a type—Ruddy the bully, Miriam the nerd, Ashley the love interest—but everyone is more than they appear.

The contestants’ goals seem simple—survive the wild, build a raft, and win treasure. But Beck Bermann, a reality producer who suffered her own public shaming, sees them as characters in her redemption arc.

As the schemes and strategies spiral out, breakout camps sabotage each other, and rival producers struggle to control the storyline. Soon, the question becomes less about who will win than who will make it out in one piece.

 

AUTHORLINK: Stephen, welcome to Authorlink! We are so happy to be able to discuss the Survivor franchise with you and your new book, ESCAPE! It’s such a unique read and a lot of fun for survivor/reality show fans who love a dash of suspense. The show unfolds from both the contestants’ and the producer’s perspectives, which is so interesting!

We understand you are a digital strategy consultant, writer, and reality television show participant, and you are widely known for competing on the reality TV show Survivor. In fact, you finished as the runner-up on Survivor: Tocantins and finished in ninth place on Survivor: Cambodia! You began blogging for People Magazine in 2009 during the airing of Survivor: Samoa (when you were also named one of People Magazine‘s hottest bachelors!), and you remain active in the Survivor community through blogging and podcast hosting.

Your debut novel, ESCAPE! inspired by Survivor, will be released in January 2026. Early reviews of your debut praise its emotional depth and satirical look at reality show production. Bravo!

How long have you been thinking of writing a book based on your experiences with the Survivor series, now heading into its 50th season?

FISHBACH: Well first, thank you so much for the kind words and the thoughtful questions! But I should clarify that the book isn’t actually based on Survivor – it’s an entirely fictional reality TV show. That said, the book is inspired by my own experiences both as a reality contestant and working behind-the-scenes for production companies and the TV networks.

Honestly, I resisted writing a book about reality television. I didn’t want to be the “reality TV guy writing a book.” But the more I thought about the themes that intrigue me– issues like authenticity, micro-celebrity, manipulation, people in extreme environments and at the mercy of corporate power—I realized I had a lot of raw first-hand experience and could tell a story that I hadn’t yet seen before.

Reality television is such a huge part of our culture, and yet it’s still treated as this trashy fluke, an easy stand-in for social decay. My own experiences belie that. The contestants I know from jungle shows like Survivor and Naked and Afraid subject themselves to extreme environments in search of a defining personal moment. The producers are hard-working professionals trying to do the impossible job of shaping real human lives into a three-act structure.

I wanted to tell those stories, while also acknowledging the bathos that all these titanic human struggles are contained within this ridiculous reality TV frame.

 AUTHORLINK: And we love how you took that chance! It’s compelling. How did you come up with the plot of ESCAPE!? Are you a Plotter or a ‘Pantser’? Is the original story very different from the final version?

FISHBACH: Escape! emerged from melding two different storylines. Initially, I wrote a book entirely from my producer character, Beck’s, point of view, following the subtle ways she shaped and manipulated the contestants in her care. But while I was in my MFA program at NYU, my teacher, John Freeman read a short story I’d written about a has-been reality contestant blowing up his life at a charity event. He told me it was all part of the same novel. I realized that I’d been avoiding the thing I had the deepest knowledge of, which is the actual experience of being a contestant on one of these shows. After that, capturing the tragedy and absurdity of my hero Kent Duvall came easily. The challenge came in weaving the two tales together.

I’m very much a plotter, and that served me well with this book, since there are two intersecting plot lines. I worked hard to ensure that everybody got their story arc, and that the highs and lows for each character crisscrossed in meaningful places. But as I worked, the book took on a shape of its own. So I guess I’m a plotter who had to rely on the flexibility of his pants?

 AUTHORLINK: How long did it take you to write ESCAPE!? What does your average writing day look like? Do you have any writing rituals? How many hours/or words a day did you wish to dedicate to writing?

FISHBACH: The book took ten years, which is a very long time, but it wasn’t ten years of continuous labor. In that decade I also got married and had two children; I received my MFA, and am assembling a collection of short stories; oh yeah and there was a global pandemic! I also completely rewrote the book, after getting that fantastic advice from John Freeman.

In terms of rituals, I always try to do 1-2 hours of work in the morning, before I’ve even opened my email. I want to get as much creative work accomplished while I’m still a little soggy with sleep, and without the background anxiety of the day’s chaos swirling in my subconscious. Plus, if I can log a few hours at the start of the day, I generally feel good about having achieved at least some forward progress, and that buoys the rest of my day.

 AUTHORLINK: Who is the first reader of your written works, and more recently ESCAPE!? Do you take constructive criticism on the chin or lie in bed with curtains drawn? Ha ha ha! Likewise, do you read your reviews in general?

FISHBACH: I have a small group of close friends from my MFA program to whom I trust my early drafts. Whenever I receive criticism, I typically give myself a day to feel furious, emo, and misunderstood, and then the next day I digest the notes and get to work. In terms of reviews, this is all very new to me, so I’m still learning how to handle them. Having been a reality TV contestant for seventeen years, I’ve seen everything from my facial structure to my running form eviscerated online, so I thought I was pretty inured to criticism. But it turns out when it comes to my writing, I’m still sensitive. I guess the standard advice is to read the professional reviews, and beyond that, there are some people who will like the book and others who won’t. I think if you are writing a book to please everyone, it probably won’t deeply connect with anyone.

AUTHORLINK: You are a Pushcart Prize-winning writer for ‘To Sharks’ (2021), which must have felt amazing. The Pushcart Prize is a prestigious American literary award honoring the best poetry, fiction, and essays published by small presses and literary magazines. You recently also won the Story Foundation Prize for ‘Wound Care’ (2025). Congratulations!

When did you start writing? Do you have many drafts of short stories or essays stuck in a drawer that haven’t made it into the light of day?

FISHBACH: Thank you so much! Winning these prizes was such a shock and a validation, because I have been working very hard! I always imagined I would be a writer, but truthfully, it was only after my second time on Survivor in 2015 that I gained the courage to actually sit down and do the work. It had been raining torrentially for three days. Our firepit was drenched, so we couldn’t cook any rice. And suddenly at the worst of the downpour, I became horrifically ill. As I was violently sick in the middle of the monsoon, I thought to myself –how can I be willing to do all this for reality television, but not pursue the thing I truly care about? I came back from Cambodia committed to writing a book.

I do have a few short stories, and my next project is going to be editing them into a collection. People love publishing short story collections, right? RIGHT???

AUTHORLINK: Right! If you’re not writing or commenting on the Survivor series, how do you spend your days?

FISHBACH: Mostly I try to get through the day’s tasks to spend time playing games with my kids.

 AUTHORLINK: It must have been an incredible experience being a participant in Survivor. You once said, “I think the storytelling on the show has really evolved in the past few years in a wonderful way. But I’d love to see a continued focus on every contestant’s inherent dignity. It’s possible to present a person’s messy complexity without making them look ridiculous.” (Entertainment, 22 March 2021). Do you still feel this way today? Do you hope that in the future, Survivor doesn’t need to demean to entertain? Or has it evolved already?

FISHBACH: Actually, I think Survivor has come a long way with specifically this. The editing of the show is so redemptive, so focused on people overcoming their local struggles. They do a fantastic job of humanizing their contestants. Honestly the show is almost too empowering!

AUTHORLINK: We think so, too! What are you working on now? Can you tell us about it and your following projects overall?

FISHBACH: I’m working on a collection of short stories. It’s actually still tangentially related to reality television, in that every story is inspired by the real life jobs of people I’ve met through the show. Survivor casts such an incredible hodgepodge of professions – so I have one story based on a whale trainer, and another on a wound care specialist. Of course the stories take off from there, but having access to the real-world details of these fascinating professions has been exciting fodder for the fiction.

 AUTHORLINK: We are looking forward to reading them! And our final question, just for a bit of fun, which three people, either unalive or living, would you invite for dinner, and why?

FISHBACH: This is really hard, that’s asking me to choose from a LOT of people. Three who come to mind right now are:

– Saint Augustine. I’ve been reading the Confessions, and have been so moved by Augustine’s deep faith combined with his obvious intellect and humanity. I bet he could expand my whole understanding of life while we were still on the appetizers.

– Carl Barks, the man who invented Scrooge McDuck and Duckburg, and wrote the early Donald Duck stories. Carl Barks’s stories have been a huge influence on me, the way they evoke a thrilling sense of adventure juxtaposed against his obvious love of human (and duck) absurdity.

– Karen Russell. She’s one of my favorite writers working today, and I’d love to pick her brain about craft and process. I reread her short story “The Prospectors” whenever I need to supercharge my metaphors. But I do worry with Saint Augustine and Carl Barks at the table, she might have more interesting things to talk about than my work!

AUTHORLINK: Stephen, it’s been such a pleasure chatting with you about your debut novel, ESCAPE!, and we look forward to many more stories coming. Authorlink wishes you and your family a safe and festive holiday season!

FISHBACH: Thank you so much! I’m so honored and appreciative of your time, and to any readers who made it this far!

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR99

Stephen Fishbach is a Pushcart Prize-winning writer and former television executive. A two-time Survivor contestant (voted onto the show the second time by millions of fans), he’s worked on the network side as a Vice President at MTV and freelanced for a reality producers’ trade group. He cohosts the Survivor Know9999999999999-It-Alls podcast and hosts the literary podcast Paraphrase. Stephen graduated with honors from Yale and received a Master of Fine Arts in fiction at New York University. His short story “To Sharks”—an excerpt from Escape!—was published by One Story, which garnered Stephen the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two daughters.

You can find out more about Stephen Fishbach at https://stephenfishbach.com/, https://stephenfishbach.com/writing, https://www.instagram.com/stephenfishbach/, and, https://x.com/stephenfishbach.

9