Conversations with authors and storytellers since 2002. DuShane is the author and screenwriter of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, directed by Eric Stoltz, available on Amazon Prime.
Los Angeles, CA

Joe McGinniss Jr. is the author of Damaged People: A Memoir of Fathers and Sons. We chat the complexity of father and son relationships, how writing is a process more […]

Rob Grant is the writer and director of This Too Shall Pass coming out October 24, 2025. It's a superb coming-of-age film set in the 1980s featuring a Mormon protagonist […]

H. Lee Barnes is the author of Emerald City Blues: A Novel. 10-Day Screenwriting Outline Workshop is open for registration for Dec 22 – Jan 2, Click here to register. […]

Stefanie Leder is the author of Love, Coffee & Revolution: A Novel. We discuss how she became a TV writer and showrunner, how she wrote this debut novel 20 years […]

Caitlin Myer is my writer friend from San Francisco. She has lived in Portugal for the last 7 years. Before that she traveled the world going wherever life would open […]

Carlo Rotella is the author of What Can I Get Out Of This? – Teaching and Learning in a Classroom Full of Skeptics. We discuss his optimism for college students […]

I caught up with Todd Solondz in San Francisco in 2004 when he was promoting Palindromes. I caught up with Larry Clark when he was promoting Wassup Rockers in 2005. […]

Terry Zwigoff is a great American filmmaker. Many of you know him for Bad Santa, but in 2006 he released a film called Art School Confidential and I had him […]

Tony DuShane is the author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk. This episode is called Kerfuffling Genitals. I talk about a botched one-night stand, words you can't use on […]

Nikki Nash is the author of Collateral Stardust: Chasing Warren Beatty and Other Foolish Things. We chat Don Cornelias and Soul Train, working with Conan O'Brien, how Jeff Goldbloom is […]

Fadi Zaghmout is the author of The Man of Middling Height. Originally published in Arabic it's now available in English from Syracuse University Press. We chat speculative fiction vs. sci-fi […]

Alecia McKenzie is the author of A Million Aunties: A Novel out now on Akashic Books. We chat walking amongst the dead literary spirits of Paris, her start writing as […]

Tad Crawford is the author of A Woman in the Wild. We also chat his other book, The Secret Life of Monday, and we talk about IQ84 and other Murakami, […]

James Elkins is the author of A Short Introduction to Anneliese out now on Unnamed Press. Novel 1 registration is open for August workshops, limited to six students: Register here […]

Ralph Steadman illustrated Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Also a writer, I interviewed Ralph in 2007 for his memoir The Joke's Over. A deep cut from […]

Kurt Baumeister is the author of Twilight of the Gods on Stalking Horse Press. He's also an acquisitions editor for 7.13. We discuss how we lose friends and family when […]

Jeffrey Konvitz is the author of The Circus of Satan: A Novel exploring the Irish mob in New York City of the early 1900s. Based on true events, yet fictionalized […]

Tom Lutz is the author of 1925 A Literary Encyclopedia out now on Rare Bird Lit. We discuss everything from Fitzgerald to the Harlem Renaissance and more from 1925 A […]

Ted Kessler is the author of The Authorized Unauthorized History of Billy Childish: To Ease My Troubled Mind. As a veteran music journalist and friend to Childish since the 1990s, […]

Jon Ronson is the author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed. I interviewed him in 2015 when the book came out and it's pretty mind blowing where cancel culture has […]

Lucinda Berry is the author of One In Four: A Thriller. We chat child psychology, running marathons, how the brain works, and her transition to full time author. New creative […]

Rachel Paris is the author of See How They Fall: A Novel. We discuss the humiliating vulnerability of writing and why everyone should do it, why we should never write […]

Chuck Klosterman is the author of tons of books. This is a tape from my interview with him around 2012 when he was promoting The Visible Man. We met at […]

Matthieu Ricard is the author of Happiness. I interviewed him around 2003 and he introduced the idea of mindfulness to me. He is also assistant and translator for the Dalai […]

Marlon James won the Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. I caught up with him in 2005 when he was touring his first book […]

Colum McCain is the author of Twist: A Novel. We had a great time talking NYC, Ireland, the obsessive structure of writing environments for novels, and his really cool organization […]

Richard Hell is the author of Godlike. And this interview is old, like 2003 or 2004 taping. We met at a bar called The Argus in San Francisco, he was […]

Miranda July, two interviews from the archives. The first one is from 2015 regarding her novel The First Bad Man. The second one is from 2005 regarding her film Me […]

Alex Higley is the author of True Failure: A Novel. We do a deep dive into the novel writing process and how we're always being manipulated by stories. On March 1st […]

Angela Brown is the author of Some Other Time. We discuss how her and her husband met at 14 in high school, writing speculative fiction, do magic moments happen in […]

William Boyle is the author of Saint of the Narrows Street. We chat Brooklyn Dodgers, Oxford Mississippi, James Joyce, the fun of NOT organizing personal libraries to indulge in the […]

Paul Ollinger is the author of Reasonably Happy: The Skeptic's Guide to Achievable Contentment. He's also a podcaster and standup comic. We discuss specific details of when I lost my […]

Francesca Lia Block is the author of House of Hearts and many other books. We discuss love and heartbreak, her moment with David Byrne. LA punk rock and how The […]

Craig Clevenger is the author of The Contortionist's Handbook, re-issued by Datura Books. On this episode we discuss the glorious holy temple where we worship which is the public library, […]

Kim Dower is the author of What She Wants: Poems on Obsession, Desire, Despair, Euphoria. We chat channeling our characters, why poetry gets a bad rap, visiting Baudelaire's grave, and […]

Joe Clifford is the author of Shadow People and many other books. We discuss the esoteric ways of writing novels, what success and failure in life can be, how high […]

Hal Hartley is one of the kings of indie cinema with films like Henry Fool and The Girl From Monday. I taped this about 20 years ago at Dalva in […]

Tony DuShane is the author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk. This week I dive into greedy eyeballs of actors at industry screenings, how to make left turns in […]

From the author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk comes Tony DuShane's Book Smash. It's my rundown on my favorite books of the year, my complaints about society and […]

David Leo Rice is the author of The Berlin Wall: A Novel. We discuss Tim O'Brien's Short Story “On the Rainy River”, Flo from the Progressive commercials and how to […]

Diego Gerard Morrison is the author of Pages of Mourning. We chat the ups and downs of translating novels, the literary scene in Mexico City, how living on a remote […]

Jean-Paul L. Garnier is the author of Cardboard Spaceship. He also owns Space Cowboy Books in Joshua Tree. We talk Czech writers, starting a bookstore and publishing company, why living […]

Sacha Mardou is the author of Past Tense: Facing Family Secrets and Finding Myself in Therapy, A Graphic Memoir. We discuss growing up in crazy families and religions, Internal Family […]

Kes Trester is the author of To The Nines, Book 3 of The Nine series. We discuss how to safely chat with grocery clerks about suicidal thoughts, how to find […]

Gabriel Hart is the author of On High At Red Tide. He's also the lead singer of Jail Weddings and The Starvations. October 5th is the first Drinks with Tony […]

Krystal Kenney is the author of Paris, A Life Less Ordinary: A Memoir. We discuss tourist scams of Paris, where are the best neighborhoods, how Krystal moved to Paris from […]

Marianne Leone is the author of Five-Dog Epiphany: A Memoir. Marianne is an actor you may know from shows like The Sopranos. Her book tackles the grief of losing her […]

Colleen McKeegan is the author of Rip Tide: A Novel. We discuss what to do when you have a major brain crush on an author, training for mascots of sports […]

Jessica Maguire is the author of The Nervous System Reset: Heal Trauma, Resolve Chronic Pain, and Regulate Your Emotions with the Power of the Vagus Nerve. We discuss the micro-communications […]

John A. Dailey is the author of Tough Rugged Bastards: A Memoir of a Life in Marine Special Operations. We discuss the subconscious mind work of repetitive drills, the emotional […]