Podcast appearances and mentions of ben loory

Meg Wolitzer presents three stories in which plans go awry, or alter completely.  In Ben Loory's “Dandelions,” read by Wyatt Cenac, a suburb is invaded, and experiences a change of heart.   Edwidge Danticat imagines an ultimate act and its consequences in “Cane and Roses,” read by Anika Noni Rose.  And a romance with comic underpinnings changes course in Ray Bradbury's “The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair,” read by Tate Donovan.

Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works featuring birds, curated by writer and bird aficionado Amy Tan.  Ben Loory's “The Frog and the Bird,” is a twist the traditional fable genre; it's performed by Mike Doyle.  Teenagers are transformed in “Town of Birds,” by Heather Monley, performed by Yetide Badaki; and an avian love song goes viral in Mikkel Rosengaard's “The Mating Call,” performed by BD Wong.  Tan comments on the program's theme and the stories and the actors provide backstage commentary.  

Hal, an Afghan war veteran, begins to hear a voice telling him to go “home”—to a castle, in Scotland. But Hal has never been to Scotland. So whose voice is it? What does it want? And why is it calling Hal “home”? What follows is a surrealist road trip story, part Heart of Darkness and part bipolar Guardians of the Galaxy. In Farsickness, Joshua Mohr spins a picaresque, hallucinatory yarn like only he can, as Hal and the reader journey deep into the human soul. GET THE BOOK!!!! https://www.amazon.com/Farsickness-Novel-Joshua-Mohr/dp/B0C9SHFR1M/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=joshua+mohr+far+sickness&qid=1693021569&s=books&sr=1-1 “This book is like driving a Ferrari through a funhouse and then smashing through the windshield into another realm of existence. In other words, it's what a book should be.” - BEN LOORY, author of Tales of Falling and Flying

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 29, my conversation with author Ben Loory. It first aired on December 25, 2011. Loory is the author of the story collections Tales of Falling and Flying and Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, and a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, READ Magazine, and Fairy Tale Review; been heard on This American Life and Selected Shorts; performed live at WordTheatre in Los Angeles and London; and translated into many languages, including Japanese, Farsi, Arabic, and Indonesian. A graduate of Harvard and the American Film Institute, Loory lives in Los Angeles, where he is an Instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  TikTok Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories in which reality contrasts with the dreams, perceptions, and actions of the characters.  In “The Leap,” by Louise Erdrich, a mother's unusual skill set changes the outcome of events.  The reader is Elizabeth Reaser.  In “Death and the Lady,” by Ben Loory, even the Grim Reaper harbors illusions.   And his parents' damaged marriage haunts an adult child in Delmore Schwartz's “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.” Both the Loory and the Schwartz are read by multi-talented actor Denis O'Hare, and Wolitzer talks to him about his craft.

Host Meg Wolitzer presents perfect mismatches. In “The Man and the Moose” by Ben Loory, performed by Michael Cerveris, a man's best bud has antlers. In “Red Dirt Don't Wash” by Roger Mais, performed by Brandon J. Dirden, a young man's courtship is at risk—she doesn't like his shoes. And a piano lesson is out of tune in “The Piano Teacher's Pupil” by William Trevor, performed by Kathryn Erbe. Authors Elizabeth Strout and Marlon James present commentary from the stage at Symphony Space. 

Meg Wolitzer presents three stories in which plans go awry, or alter completely.  In Ben Loory's “Dandelions,” read by Wyatt Cenac, a suburb is invaded, and experiences a change of heart.   Edwidge Danticat imagines an ultimate act and its consequences in “Cane and Roses,” read by Anika Noni Rose.  And a romance with comic underpinnings changes course in Ray Bradbury's “The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair,” read by Tate Donovan. 

Host Meg Wolitzer presents three works featuring birds, curated by writer and bird aficionado Amy Tan.  Ben Loory's “The Frog and the Bird,” is a twist the traditional fable genre; it's performed by Mike Doyle.  Teenagers are transformed in “Town of Birds,” by Heather Monley, performed by Yetide Badaki; and an avian love song goes viral in Mikkel Rosengaard's “The Mating Call,” performed by BD Wong.  Tan comments on the program's theme and the stories.

Our sponsor: Houghton Hornswww.houghtonhorns.comNext Generation Trumpet Competitionwww.nextgenerationtrumpet.comNathan Hudson is a composer and educator currently living in Atlanta. His music has been called “…simple, yet cinematic” (Sybaritic Singer) and “Tonal-lyrical-primal-old/new-synthetic and partakes of a rhapsodical quality in new ways…” (Gapplegate Classical-Modern Music Review). As a curator, Nathan has collaborated with author Ben Loory, the saxophone quartet ~Nois and has also curated at MISE-EN_PLACE Bushwick to present cross-disciplinary concerts of new music. The recipient of several awards, prizes and residencies, he has had works performed at colleges across the country and at festivals such as the: Aspen Music Festival and School, Avaloch Music Institute, Sewanee Summer Music Festival, Orford Music Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival, Lancaster New Sounds, National Trumpet Competition, International Trumpet Guild Conference, International Clarinet Association National Conference, and the International Double Reed Society Conference, among others.Ensembles Nathan has worked with include ~Nois, F-Plus, Unheard-Of//Ensemble, Duo Cylindre, The Astralis Chamber Ensemble, The Zafa Collective, The Cavell Trio, Harmonie del Sur, Ritual Action and The Off-Broadway Trio. His music has been recorded by Unheard-Of//Ensemble and Duo Cylindre.Nathan is a co-founder, along with Ginevra Petrucci, and serves as the executive director for the Flauto d’Amore Project. The Flauto d’Amore Project is a long-term, large scale commissioning project involving the creation of a new repertoire for the flauto d'amore, an instrument that, in its modern form, is completely unknown.Nathan is the founder and director of the Forage & Flourish Contemporary Music Festival in Alpharetta, GA. Forage & Flourish is a week of concerts and student workshops focused on music written by living composers, and performed by internationally acclaimed facultyIn 2020 Nathan began the Next Generation Trumpet Competition. NGTC is a new music contest for trumpet featuring new works by established composers.He holds a BM in Trumpet Performance from the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, and MA in Composition from Stony Brook University and a PhD from Stony Brook University. His current and past teachers include Daniel Weymouth, Perry Goldstein, Matthew Barnson and Fred Cohen.Support the show (https://thatsnotspit.com/support/)

Guest host Jane Kaczmarek presents works celebrating dance.  A domineering mother uses an evening at the ballet to find fault in "My Mother Explains the Ballet to Me,” by Jesse Eisenberg, performed by Patricia Kalember. A pioneering African-American dancer remembers an audition in “Léonide Massine,” by Janet Collins, performed by Carmen de Lavallade. A magical garment transforms its owner in “The Cape,” by Ben Loory, performed by Tony Yazbeck. And the “Tango” undermines a stuffy WASP community in this funny story by Kurt Vonnegut, performed by Tony Shalhoub. Join and give!: https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/symphonyspacenyc?code=Splashpage See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In keeping with the tenets of 2020, this year's holiday episode unfolded online, not in a Zoom room but in a "Skype amphitheater." With guest appearances by Megan Boyle, Leland Cheuk, Richard Chiem, Rachel Bell de Navailles, Juliet Escoria, Joseph Grantham, Mik Grantham, Ben Loory, Gene Morgan, Timothy Willis Sanders, and Bud Smith. Special guest: Rich Ferguson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Guest host Hope Davis presents three improbable stories: in “The Orange,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum, a citrus fruit rules the world.  The read is John Cameron Mitchell.  In “The Man, The Restaurant, and the Eiffel Tower,” by Ben Loory, performed by Stana Katic, a father’s children conspire to make him happy.  In “I, Gentile,” by David Gordon, performed by Michael Urie, a reluctant Jew falls in love with the wrong girl.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

[NOTE: this was recorded when the show was named "The Lunar Podcast." It is now "Dark Sky Twelve"] instagram @darkskytwelve twitter@darkskytwelve   Ben Loory is the author of Tales of Falling and Flying (Penguin, 2017) and Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Penguin, 2011), as well as a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2015). His fables and tales have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Electric Literature, and The Sewanee Review, been anthologized in The New Voices of Fantasy and Year's Best Weird Fiction, and been heard on This American Life and Selected Shorts. They have also been translated into many languages—including Arabic, Farsi, Japanese, and Indonesian—and adapted to short film, live theater, chamber music, and dance. Loory is a graduate of Harvard University and holds an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches short story writing at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program. The Lunar Podcast will return in early 2020! 

Ben Loory is the author of Tales of Falling and Flying, Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, and The Baseball Player and the Walrus. He has never watched […]

Magical and funny, profound and seductive, the linked stories in True Love and Other Dreams of Miraculous Escape explore the life-bending power of love. In these interwoven lives, ardent desire meets a keen sense of reality deep in the heart of progressive California. When Sadie opens a funky bookstore in Santa Cruz, she is swept off her feet by Daniel, a true-blue romantic—athletic, bookish, from Santiago, Chile. Their connection is heady and erotic, and it echoes through the love lives around them: from Harry Houdini’s first encounter with the widow Winchester to the threatening intimacy between a wife and her brother to a grumpy teenager who inspires her divorced parents. Years later, when Sadie and Daniel take an overdue trip to Paris, their blended family doesn't blend so well, sending them back to rediscover their roots. In these interconnected lives, the desire for passion is as strong as the desire to escape, and the terror of claustrophobic connection competes with the deepest human yearning. An intoxicating look at the complexity and simplicity of embracing and running from love. By the award-winning author of What Becomes Us, Micah Perks. Perks is in conversation with Ben Loory, author of the collections Tales of Falling and Flying and Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day.

Ben Loory returns with a second collection of timeless tales, inviting us to enter his worlds of whimsical fantasy, deep empathy, and playful humor, in the signature voice that drew readers to his highly praised first collection. In stories that eschew literary realism, Loory's characters demonstrate richly imagined and surprising perspectives, whether they be dragons or swordsmen, star-crossed lovers or long-lost twins, restaurateurs dreaming of Paris or cephalopods fixated on space travel. In propulsive language that brilliantly showcases Loory's vast imagination, Tales of Falling and Flying expands our understanding of how fiction can work. Appealing to the fans of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi writers like Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, and Philip Pullman, as well as contemporary literary powerhouses like George Saunders, Karen Russell, and Helen Oyeyemi, Tales of Falling and Flying expands our understanding of how fiction can work and is sure to cement Loory’s reputation as one of the most innovative short-story writers working today. Praise for Tales of Falling and Flying “Ben Loory’s stories are little gifts, strange and moving and wonderfully human. I devoured this book in one sitting.” —Ransom Riggs, author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children “Russell Edson’s new protégé, or Steven Millhauser, distilled into tea. Meet, or re-meet Ben Loory, whose preposterous, friendly stories can’t help but charm. They are so bizarrely readable they don’t even feel like they’re made of words.”—Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake “Parables, dark fables, quirky flash fictions—call them what you will, Ben Loory has perfected the form and in Tales of Falling and Flying proves once again he can disturb a little and entertain a lot. Easily read, not easily forgotten.”—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne and The Southern Reach Trilogy “To read a Ben Loory story is to slip through a portal into an adjacent dimension. To learn—with brevity and clarity—the laws of this universe next door, new rules of logic and contradiction and truth. And, in the end, to be left with the disturbing and wondrous feeling of having never left home at all.” —Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe “Ben Loory is a wonder. I'd like to curl up inside his marvelous head and canoodle with a besotted squid, swallow a tiny dragon, levitate with Death and fall in love with the Eiffel Tower, and after reading these sublime stories-- slyly funny, melancholy and deeply weird-- I suppose I have, and it was fantastic.”—Elissa Schappell “Equal parts Beckett and Twilight Zone . . . Perfect for reading on strange beaches and by oddly shaped swimming pools. Fits right in your pocket or purse for emergency doses of the charming and weird.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander Ben Loory is the author of the collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, and a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, READ Magazine, and Fairy Tale Review, been heard on This American Life and Selected Shorts, and performed live at WordTheatre in Los Angeles and London. A graduate of Harvard University and the American Film Institute MFA program in screenwriting, Loory lives in Los Angeles, where he is an Instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Event date:  Thursday, September 7, 2017 - 7:30pm

Today our podcast connects with Ben Loory, 2016 The Plaza Literary Prize Judge, instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, and author of numerous books including Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Penguin Books) and The Baseball Player and the Walrus (Dial Books). Producer: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Kevin Staniec Manager: Sarah Becker Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels Guest: Ben Loory

Episode #4 of The Talking Book Podcast featuring Ben Loory and his book "Tales of Falling and Flying."

Brad Listi talks with Ben Loory, author of the new story collection TALES OF FALLING AND FLYING, available from Penguin. Loory has appeared 'This American Life' and other radio programs, and first guested on this podcast in Episode 29 on December 25, 2011. Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. All episodes are free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hoopty Time Machines: fairy tales for grown ups (Atticus Books) Who Knew Godzilla Had a Poetic Side? Hoopty Time Machines. It’s fun to say, isn’t it? Fanciful. Downright playful. Go ahead, try it. Say it out loud. Let it tumble off your tongue: “Hoopty Time Machines.” Just mouthing the words takes you to another time, a time when everything still seems possible, a time when you can stay up late with a flashlight under your sheets and disappear into the adventures of a good book. Christopher DeWan’s Hoopty Time Machines: fairy tales for grown ups is a permission slip to adventure, an escape from the staid, workaday world, a passport to wistful, fabulist places, each one filled with peculiar dreams and wild awakenings. The stories include fairy tale heroines, introspective superheroes, and a whole menagerie of myths and monsters, but at their heart, each one is deeply human, and at least a little bit heartbreaking. DeWan’s debut collection is “one of the most anticipated small press books of 2016” (John Madera, Big Other) and is coming in September from Atticus Books. Praise for Hoopty Time Machines:“Funny, sharp, playful zingers of stories that reach right out to grab a reader."– Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake "Hoopty Time Machines is much like a bag of M&M's, in that it's nearly impossible, once you've opened it, not to consume it down to the last morsel, and fast. It is less like a bag of M&M's in that you never know what you'll find beneath the candy coating: a peanut or an amphetamine, a rosary bead or a thumbtack."– Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Illumination "Reading the book is like staring into a spiderwebbed mirror, the perfect vessel by which to understand our fractured, absurdist world. There are hints of Barthelme, Vonnegut, and Calvino to be found here, but make no mistake: DeWan is something gloriously new."– Nathan Ballingrud, author of North American Lake Monsters "An absolute delight from the first page to the last: it's like that scene in Singin' in the Rain, only with ideas instead of puddles."– Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day “That rare story collection that is both a total blast to read and a complete philosophical package. These abrupt, funny, vigorous stories—involving urban legends, minotaurs, little mermaids, chupacabras, and changelings—contain in their brevity vast depth and import. These are stories to read, reread, and perennially enjoy."– Sharma Shields, author of The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac Christopher DeWan has published more than forty short stories in journals including Hobart, Necessary Fiction, Passages North, and wigleaf. His collection of domestic fabulism, Hoopty Time Machines, is one of the "most anticipated small press books of 2016." Christopher has had TV projects with the Chernin Group and Indomitable Entertainment and collaborated on transmedia properties for Bad Robot, Paramount, Universal, and the Walt Disney Company. His screenwriting has been recognized by CineStory, Final Draft, the PAGE Awards, and Slamdance, and he is recipient of a fellowship from the International Screenwriters' Association (ISA). He teaches with Writing Workshops Los Angeles and the California State Summer School for the Arts, where he is currently chair of creative writing.

This is the second annual Holiday Spectacular. The guests are Melissa Broder, Gene and Jenny Schlief Morgan, Amelia Gray, Lee Shipman, Ben Loory, Rich Ferguson, and Adam Greenfield. Recorded on December 10, 2016.  Get the free Otherppl app. Listen via iTunes. Support the show at Patreon. Happy holidays, everyone. I should be back next week with the final episode of the year. Stay tuned...    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black Sheep Boy (Rare Bird Books) Meet a wild-hearted boy from the bayou land of Louisiana. Misfit, outcast, loner. Call him anything but a victim. Sissy, fairy, Jenny Woman. Son of a mixed-race Holy Ghost mother and a Cajun French phantom father. In a series of tender and tough stories, he encounters gender outlaws, drag queen renegades, and a rogues gallery of sex-starved priests, perverted teachers, and murderous bar owners. To escape his haunted history, the wild-hearted boy must shed his old skin and make a new self. As he does, his story rises from dark and murk, from moss and mud, to reach a new light and a new brand of fairy tale. Cajun legends, queer fantasies, and universal myths converge into a powerful work of counter-realism. Black Sheep Boy is a song of passion and a novel of defiance. Praise for Black Sheep Boy “Beautifully impressionistic, and also raw, open and vulnerable. Pousson’s bayou is such a frightening and vibrant place, generous and punishing, and the narrator’s perspective pulls us in, and brings the reader close.”—Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake "Electrical, convulsive, hallucinatory, elemental... A book to give you fevers, chills, and visions."—Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day Praise for No Place, Louisiana finalist for the John Gardner Book Award in Fiction “Setting out to capture the modern South, the first-time novelist confidently eschews the style of a Faulkner or the charm of a McCullers to evoke the prejudices and limitations of Cajun culture in its unique, enriching and destructive complexity.”—Publishers Weekly “No Place, Louisiana is the Southern answer to The Ice Storm; from its sultry pages there emerges a chilling portrait of a family in the midst of a very deep freeze.”—The Los Angeles Times “Powerful and empathetic...A beautiful ode to the lonely and unloved.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune  “Pousson has written a strong, confident novel... many veteran authors have yet to write a novel of this depth.”—BookReporter.com “A remarkably sure-footed and rich first novel, admirable not only for the clarity of its voice and the fluidity of its style but for the coherence of its vision; its dramatic family saga, gradually unfolding in a deftly integrated Cajun universe, reveals the narrator to be a complex and acrobatic survivor. Pousson brings remarkable insight and literary power to the landscape of the American novel.” —Lis Harris, author of Rules of Engagement Praise for Sugar finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Awards for Poetry “With Sugar, Martin Pousson returns to the territory that activated his novel, No Place, Louisiana, recharging that fertile ground with a shift from prose to poetry. The result is a series of compressed observations, by turns satiric and heartbreaking, languorous, outraged, and tender.” —Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha “Here is the poet Louisiana has always wanted. Gulf Coast heat turns into huge trees and lush flora, which then turn into sex and dramatic dialogue. Desire so metamorphic inevitably slides toward hallucination. To convey experience at the edge, Martin Pousson has invented a new poetics that takes from the earlier art only its intense imagery and verbal economy. The few dozen pages of Sugar bring a tragic and sensuous bayou mindscape unforgettably to life.” —Alfred Corn, author of Stake and Contradictions “...his sugar ain’t sweet, it’s scorched.” —Jake Shears, Scissor Sisters Martin Pousson was born and raised in the bayou land of Louisiana. His short stories won a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and have appeared in The Antioch Review, Epoch, Five Points, StoryQuarterly, TriQuarterly, and elsewhere. He also was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award, the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, and the Lambda Literary Award. He now lives in Los Angeles.

Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday (Unnamed Press) Debbie Graber’s debut short story collection, Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday is a trenchant and searing satirical look at office life that is as astute and hilarious as Joshua Ferris’s And Then We Came to the End. These thirteen stories skewer corporate culture, as told through souls adrift in a khaki-clad purgatory. And Graber knows from what she writes – she has held a number of jobs in corporate America, which informed her gimlet-eyed writing. One of the aspects of the workplace that most interested her are the personas are forced to adopt. “It’s like they exist in a far flung area of the time space continuum where reason seems to always be taking a vacation day,” says Graber, “If we’re spending all these hours in make-believe land, what does that say about the work we are doing? What does it say about us?   In Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday, our hero Kevin Kramer is the new Senior Vice President of the Products Profit center at Production Solutions. He has worked hard for all his success, perfected the non-clammy handshake, and speaks “corporate” like a second language. But our Kevin Kramer harbors many dark secrets. As do many of the characters in Graber’s stories: An HR manager trying desperately to maintain order, even as the entire software department vanishes under mysterious circumstances. An estranged (and possibly deranged) sister devises her reunion by throwing together a DIY wedding shower. A man who wears a Chewbacca costume feels he is uniquely qualified to divide the world into winners and losers. And a call center representative tries to give himself a pep talk after a particularly egregious client interaction. With a wit and voice all its own, with Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday, Debbie Graber announces herself as a literary talent to watch. Praise for Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday “The stories in Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday are funny and funny-sad, formally bold, and a total delight to read. Graber captures perfectly the absurdities of contemporary, corporate America and her fabulous debut reminds us that we are all searching for meaning and human connection, whether it be from friends, family, or reply-all emails.”-Edan Lepucki, author of California “Debbie Graber's stories are crisp, sardonic, and funny—as antic and acerbic as they are intelligent and alert. A sly and incisive observer of human nature, Debbie Graber will win you over with this delightful debut.”-Sara Levine, author of Treasure Island!!! "Evil, evil, evil stories-- If you know the devil, you should buy him this for Christmas."-Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day “Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday offers satirical fiction that causes you to howl with laughter at the same moment its sharply exposed horrors cut into you. Debbie Graber's stories capture the absurdities of the 21st century corporate workplace in which white-collar millenials find their inboxes always brimming with new incentives for betrayal and self-betrayal. Neither the powerless nor the powerful outrun their demons in these brilliantly funny and bruising tales of American "enterprise."-Kevin McIlvoy, author ofThe Fifth Station “Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday skewers that place where so many of us spend our days and about which we spend the other hours of our lives complaining: the modern workplace. In this bitingly funny, precisely crafted collection, Debbie Graber takes on office excess: happy hours, overtime, trysts, and petty grievances. In doing so, she questions our societal notions of success and failure and invites us to laugh at our bosses and coworkers and, perhaps most of all, ourselves—knowing that if we don’t laugh, we just might cry. Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday is satire at its most incisive.”-Lori Ostlund, author of After the Parade "With laugh-out-loud humor and a wildly keen eye for detail, Graber doesn't just brilliantly satirize our heavily corporate and medicated world, she wonderfully eviscerates it."-J. Ryan Stradal, author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest Debbie Graber has performed at Second City, worked in an office, and received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from U.C. Riverside at Palm Desert.  Her stories have appeared in The Nervous Breakdown, Harpers, Zyzzyva, Hobart, and elsewhere. Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday is her first collection of stories. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Matt Flanagan began his career as a writer for The Late Show With David Letterman, wrote movies you haven't seen, and several shows that were canceled after 13 episodes. He currently writes for Disney Channel's Stuck In The Middle and co-hosts a storytelling podcast called Tell It Anyway with his wife Jennie Josephson.

Karen Stefano, author of The Secret Games of Words, in conversation with Ben Loory, author of Stories For Nighttime And Some for The Day.

Kitchens of the Great Midwest (Pamela Dorman Books) From one of our favorite local authors comes a hotly anticipated debut--about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate who becomes the iconic chef behind the country's most coveted dinner reservation.  When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine--and a dashing sommelier--he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter--starting with pureed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes the star chef behind a legendary and secretive pop-up supper club, culminating in an opulent and emotional feast that's a testament to her spirit and resilience.  Each chapter in J. Ryan Stradal's startlingly original debut tells the story of a single dish and character, at once capturing the zeitgeist of the Midwest, the rise of foodie culture, and delving into the ways food creates community and a sense of identity. By turns quirky, hilarious, and vividly sensory, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is an unexpected mother-daughter story about the bittersweet nature of life--its missed opportunities and its joyful surprises. It marks the entry of a brilliant new talent. Praise for Kitchens of the Great Midwest: "Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a big-hearted, funny, and class-transcending pleasure. It's also both a structural and empathetic tour de force, stepping across worlds in the American midwest, and demonstrating with an enviable tenderness and ingenuity the tug of war between our freedom to pursue our passions and our obligations to those we love." --Jim Shepard, author of Project X and National Book Award finalist for Like You'd Understand, Anyway "Tender, funny, and moving, J. Ryan Stradal's debut novel made me crave my mother's magic cookie bars...and every good tomato I've ever had the privilege of eating. Kitchens of the Great Midwest manages to be at once sincere yet sharply observed, thoughtful yet swiftly paced, and the lives of its fallible, realistic, and complicated characters mattered to me deeply. It's a fantastic book."-- Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of California  "In Kitchens of the Great Midwest, a charming, fast-moving round robin tale of food, sensuality and Midwestern culture, Mr. Stradal has delivered one extremely tasty, well-seasoned debut in what is sure to be a long and savory career."--Janet Fitch, author White Oleander "From the quite literally burning passions of a lonely eleven-year-old girl with an exceptional palate, to the ethical dilemmas behind a batch of Blue Ribbon Peanut Butter Bars, J. Ryan Stradal writes with a special kind of meticulous tenderness--missing nothing and accepting everything. A superbly gratifying debut."--Meg Howrey, author of The Crane's Dance  "An impossible-to-put-down, one-of-a-kind novel. The prose is beautiful, the characters memorable, and the plot is surprising at every turn. I have never read a book quite like this--and neither, I'll bet, have you. This stunning debut announces J. Ryan Stradal as a first-rate voice in American fiction. This is a wildly creative, stunningly original, and very moving novel. I can't wait to see what Stradal does next."-- Rob Roberge, author of The Cost of Living  "A Great American Novel in the fullest sense of the term. Everything you want a book to be."--Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day J. Ryan Stradal is the author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in Los Angeles, where he is Acquisitions Editor at Unnamed Press and the Fiction Editor at The Nervous Breakdown.  Julia Ingalls is primarily an essayist. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Guernica, and KCRW, among others. From David Mitchell to Alan Ball to Amelia Gray, she's had the pleasure of conversing with the world's finest imaginative writers, a tradition she continues tonight with J. Ryan Stradal.

Bud Smith is the guest. His new novel, F 250, is available now from Piscataway House. I did a reading with Bud here in Los Angeles earlier this summer. He was kind enough to invite me. Ben Loory, Mira Gonzalez, and xTx also read. The next day Bud came over and we sat down and talked. What strikes me about him is that his path to writing is different from most everyone I know in literature. Different and the same, I guess. The word "refreshing" comes to mind. By day he works as a boilermaker. He writes his novels on his iPhone, typing with his thumbs, during his lunchbreaks and whanot. He doesn't get too neurotic about it. We discuss all of this in the interview, and more. Bud is a good one. He has the right attitude.  In today's monologue, I talk about the birth of my son, River, who arrived on July 21st, a few hours after I recorded my last episode. Hard to put it into words, especially since I'm so sleep-deprived, but I give it a shot. Let's just say it's been a great week for my family, and I want to thank those of you who wrote/tweeted/Facebooked your good wishes. Really appreciate it, you guys. Means a lot to me. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stone in the Sky (Roaring Brook Press) The Baseball Player and the Walrus (Dial Books) Please join us tonight as we celebrate the launch of Cecil Castellucci's Stone in the Sky, as well as the paperback release of Tin Star and the 10th anniversary of the release of Boy Proof, which was just named as one of the top 100 best YA Books of All Time by Time Magazine! For today's event Cecil will be joined by Ben Loory, who will be launching his first children's book The Baseball Player and the Walrus! "Brother Blue. His name, even the color, filled me with a furious fire of pure hatred." Years ago, Tula Bane was beaten and left for dead on a remote space station far from Earth, her home planet. She started with nothing and had no one, but over time, she found a home, a family, and even love. When it's discovered that the abandoned planet beneath the station is abundant with a rare and valuable resource, aliens from across the galaxy race over to strike it rich. With them comes trouble, like the man who nearly killed Tula years ago—the man she has dreamed of destroying ever since. In this sequel to Tin Star, Cecil Castellucci takes readers on an extraordinary adventure through space in a thrilling and thoughtful exploration of what it means to love, to hate, and to be human. Cecil Castellucci is a two-time MacDowell Colony fellow and award-winning author of twelve books for young adults, including Boy Proof, The Plain Janes,First Day on Earth, Year of the Beasts, and Tin Star. She lives in Los Angeles. . . . From acclaimed short-story writer Ben Loory comes a sweet and poignant story of friendship. Once there was a famous baseball player who seemed to have it all. He made lots of money and had fans from around the world. But, he didn't have the one thing he wanted most—happiness. That is until he went to the zoo. There the baseball player sees a walrus who “makes funny noises” and “flaps its flippers” in glee, and he decides he wants the walrus in his life. When the baseball player leaves his job to spend more time with his new best friend, trouble arises in zoo paradise. Hopefully, the pair can find a compromise that will keep everyone happy and even leave a little time for one last game. The Baseball Player and the Walrus brings the love of baseball and of friendship together in a humorous story of how we find happiness in the most surprising of places. Author Ben Loory lives in Los Angeles and is the acclaimed author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, which Kirkus has called “one of kind.” His short stories have appeared in the New Yorker and on NPR's This American Life. Visit him at www.benloory.com. Illustrator Alexander Latimer lives on the outskirts of a national park, where rogue porcupines wander the nearby streets, though he has yet to find any walruses. He is also the author of The Boy Who Cried Ninja, Lion vs. Rabbit, Pig and Small, andPenguin's Hidden Talent. Visit him at www.alexlatimer.co.za.

The following audio was recorded live at the KGB Bar on February 18, 2015, with guests Ben Loory and Mike Allen. Ben Loory Ben is the author of the collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, and a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus His fables and tales have […]

Join us for a terrific reading from one of Los Angeles' premier literary magazines! PEN Center USA and Narrow Books present The Rattling Wall, Issue 4. The reading will begin at 7:30 PM and will feature contributors Ben Loory, Mehnaz Sahibzada, Ben Pack, Brady Hammes, Ron Gutierrez, George Ducker, and Erika Schickel.The Rattling Wall, Issue 4, includes new writing by T. Duncan Anderson Jr., Arielle Bernstein, Laura Bogart, Corey Campbell, George Ducker, Megan Falley, David Francis, Leah Griesmann, Ron Gutierrez, Brady Hammes, Nathalie Handal, Dana Johnson, Joe Kelly, Anne-Marie Kinney, Hunter Liguore, Ben Loory, Ruth Nolan, Ben Pack, Minh Pham, Martin Pousson, Jeremy Radin, James Ragan, Mehnaz Sahibzada, Erika Schickel, Heather Simons, Susan Straight, Amber Tamblyn, Michael Tolkin, Bruce Weigl, and Wendy Xu.Ken Garduno is the featured artist for The Rattling Wall, Issue 4. In 2006, Garduno graduated with honors in illustration from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. After graduating, Ken pursued a career as a freelance illustrator/gallery artist. His work has been shown in galleries internationally, as well as in various publications, album art, and T-shirt designs.Michelle Meyering is the founding editor of The Rattling Wall and Director of Programs and Events at PEN Center USA. Meyering has produced over 200 literary events across Southern California. She currently teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program in Los Angeles.PEN Center USA, a literary nonprofit based in Beverly Hills, has a membership of more than 600 professional writers. PEN Center USA strives to protect the rights of writers around the world, to stimulate interest in the written word, and to foster a vital literary community among the diverse writers living in the western United States. PEN Center USA has a long, successful history of planning literary events in and around Los Angeles; special programming has taken place at The Hammer, The Hotel Café, Largo at the Coronet, The Echo, Actor's Gang, The Pacific Design Center, and The Beverly Hills Hotel.Narrow Books is an independent Los-Angeles-based publisher founded in 2005, publishing both art and literature. In addition to The Rattling Wall, their titles include: Hey Fudge, a giant collection of work by acclaimed artist Travis Millard (aka Fudge); Eat Hell, a book of stories by Los Angeles author Joseph Mattson; the Two Letters anthology collections; and several “unofficial,” and now out-of-print, handmade mini-books and zines.For more information on The Rattling Wall, Issue 4: Reading & Release, please contact Michelle Meyering, Director of Programs and Events at PEN Center USA: michelle@penusa.org.

Ben Loory is the guest.  He's the author of the debut collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, now available from Penguin.  Long a favorite of small zine readers in print and online, as well as a longtime ... Continue reading → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"..there's so much of it that really is ... that comes from the unconscious and I really don't have any control over."