Podcasts about iowa writers workshop

Send us a textToday I'm joined by author, Bob Johnson. Bob Johnson holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop.He took an extended break from writing short stories tofollow several career paths, the most notable being anEnglish professorship at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana,and Operations Manager at WSBT-TV in South Bend.Upon retirement, he picked up his pen again and now writesfull-time. His stories have appeared in The Hudson Review,The Common, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Barcelona Review, andelsewhere. His short story “Bird Fever” won the MargueriteMcGlinn Award in Philadelphia Stories, and his story “TheContinental Divide” was named Short Story of the Yearin The Hudson Review.Johnson lives and works in South Bend with his wife Cindyand their dog Gracie Mae.To learn more about Bob, or to purchase his booked, please visit https://www.bobjohnsonwriter.com/Creator/Host: Tammy TakaishiAudio Engineer: Alex Repetti Visit the Self-Care Institute at https://www.selfcareinstitute.com/ Support the showVisit www.creativepeacemeal.com to leave a review, fan voicemail, and more!Insta @creative_peacemeal_podcastFB @creativepeacemealpodRedbubble CPPodcast.redbubble.comCreative Peacemeal READING list here Donate to AhHa!Broadway here! Donate to New Normal Rep here! Interested in the Self-Care Institute with Dr. Ami Kunimura? Click here Interested in Corrie Legge's content planner? Click here to order!

My guest today is Jane Roper, author of a novel, “The Society of Shame,” which is a finalist for the Thurber Prize in American Humor, and the memoir “Double Time: How I Survived and Mostly Thrived Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins.” Jane's essays and humor have appeared in places like Salon, McSweeney's, Poets and Writers, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. And it's been included in the anthology, “Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers.” Jane is also a freelance copywriter and brand strategist. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, Jane currently lives just north of Boston in a drafty Victorian with her husband, teenage twins, and two cats. We covered: - Figuring out that humor was part of her writing skillset - Finding the right mix of copywriting work and more creative writing - Why hiking and indoor rock-climbing are key parts of her writing practice - Her plug for writing every day (even for 12 minutes) - Resisting the urge to beat yourself up after your writing is rejected - Why she doesn't check social media or email in the morning - Getting to the point in parenting where family time is more joy, less hustle Connect with Jane at janeroper.com. For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Thank you for listening! And thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues   Tom Robbins (1932-2025) Tom Robbins (1932-2025, author of the classic novels “Another Roadside Attraction” and “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues”, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff in the KPFA studios on May 15, 2000 while on tour for the novel “Fierce Invalids, Home from Hot Climates.” Tom Robbins, who died on February 9, 2025 at the age of 92,  was the considered the leading chronicler of the sixties vibe. Over the course of his long life, he only wrote eight novels, one collection of short stories and a memoir over the course of his long life, but he is recognized as one of the most important voices of mid to late twentieth century America. Among his novels are Another Roadside Attraction, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which became a film by Gus Van Sant, Still Life with Woodpecker and Jitterbug Perfume. Tom Robbins would only write one more novel after Fierce Invalids, Titled Villa Incognito, it was published in 2003. A collection of his short writings, Wild Ducks Flying Backwards, was published in 2003, and a memoir, Tibetan Peach Pie: A true Account of an Imaginative Life, was published in 2014. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is the only one of his books to be adapted for film. Photo: Creative Commons,   Margot Livesey Margot Livesey, author of the novel, “The Road from Belhaven,” now just out in trade paperback, in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California. Margot Livesey is the author of ten novels, including “The Missing World,” “Mercury” and “The Boy in the Field,” which range from literary novels to psychological thrillers. Born and raised in Scotland. she currently teaches at the Iowa Writers Workshop. “The Road from Belhaven” is set in the late 1800s in rural Scotland and Glasgow, and concerns a young woman artist with second sight who finds herself in difficult circumstances. It's based on stories of Margot Livesey's great grandmother as told by her grandmother and relatives in Australia. Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli and the folks at Book Passage Bookstore. Photo: Richard Wolinsky. Complete Interview.   Review of “The Thing About Jellyfish” at Berkeley Rep Roda Theatre through March 9, 2025.   Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival  See website for highlights from the 10th Annual Bay Area Book Festival, June 1-2, 2024. Book Passage.  Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc.  Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith.  Monthly Event Calendar. BookShop West Portal. Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books  On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actors Ensemble of Berkeley. See website for specific days and times, and for staged readings at LaVal's Subterranean Theater. Actor's Reading Collective (ARC).   See website for upcoming productions. African American Art & Culture Complex. See website for calendar. Alter Theatre. See website for upcoming productions. American Conservatory Theatre Nobody Loves You, a musical, Feb. 28 – March 30, Toni Rembe Theatre. Aurora Theatre  The Heart-Sellers by Lloyd Suh, February 9 – March 9, 2025. Awesome Theatre Company. See website for information. Berkeley Rep. The Thing About Jellyfish, based on the novel by Ali Benjamin, adapted by Keith Bunin, January 31 – March 9, World Premiere, Roda Theatre. Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov, adapted by Conor McPherson, February 14 – March 23, Peets Theatre. Berkeley Shakespeare Company. See website for upcoming shows. Supergalza: A Shakespeare Cabaret, spring 2025. Boxcar Theatre. Magic Man, Jan 3 – June 2, Palace Theatre. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for current and upcoming productions. BroadwaySF: Back to the Future: The Musical, Feb 12 – March 9. Orpheum. See website for complete listings for the Orpheum, Golden Gate and Curran Theaters. Broadway San Jose:  The Cher Show. March 18 – 23. Center Rep: Froggy, Feb. 9 – March 7. Lesher Center. Central Stage. See website for upcoming productions, 5221 Central Avenue, Richmond Central Works  Push/Pull by Harry Davis, March 1 – 30, 2025. Cinnabar Theatre. Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling, February 14-23, 2025, Warren Theatre, Sonoma State University. Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco ongoing. Check website for Music Mondays listings. Contra Costa Civic Theatre Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury. February 1 – 16, 2025. 42nd Street Moon. See website for upcoming productions. Golden Thread  AZAD (The Rabbit and the Wolf) by Sona Tatoyan in collaboration with Jared Mezzocchi, April 11 – May 3. See website for other events. Hillbarn Theatre: Fly by Night conceived by Kim Rosenstock Written by Will Connolly, Michael Mitnick, and Kim Rosenstock, March 6 – 23. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. See website for upcoming productions. Los Altos Stage Company. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. Jan. 23 – Feb. 16. Lower Bottom Playaz  See website for upcoming productions. Magic Theatre. the boiling by Sunui Chang  April 3 -20, 2025. See website for additional events. Marin Shakespeare Company: See website for calendar. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Upcoming Events Page. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) Francis Grey and the Case of His Dead Boyfriend by Nathan Tylutkis, February 6-16. Wild with Happy by Colman Domingo, March 7 – April 6. New Performance Traditions. Both Eyes Open, a chamber opera on the Japanese American WWII incarceration, February 15-16, Zellerbach Hall. Oakland Theater Project.  See website for upcoming schedule. Odd Salon: Upcoming events in San Francisco & New York, and streaming. Palace of Fine Arts Theater.  See website for event listings. Pear Theater. The Gods of Comedy by Ken Ludwig,  Feb. 21 – March 16. See website for staged readings and other events. Playful People Productions. See website for upcoming productions and events. Presidio Theatre. See website for complete schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: Next to Normal. June 2025. San Francisco Playhouse. Exotic Deadly, or the MSG Play by Keiko Green, January 30 – March 8. SFBATCO.  See website for upcoming streaming and in- theater shows. Cuckoo Edible Magic by Reed Flores, at the Magic in Fort Mason, Feb. 13 – March 8. San Jose Stage Company: An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, Feb. 5 – March 2.. Shotgun Players.  Heart Wrench, Feb 14 – 15. Art by Yazmina Reza, starts March 8. South Bay Musical Theatre: Urinetown,  January 15 – February 15, 2025. Saratoga Civic Theater. Stagebridge: See website for events and productions. Storytime every 4th Saturday. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Lunatico  See website for upcoming productions. Theatre Rhino  Doodler, conceived and directed by John Fisher, February 8- March 2. Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Happy Pleasant Valley, Book, Music, and Lyrics by Min Kahng, Lucie Stern Theatre, Palo Alto, March 5-30. Word for Word.  See website for upcoming productions. Misc. Listings: BAM/PFA: On View calendar for BAM/PFA. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2025 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Fort Mason Center. Events calendar. Crushing, live monologue show, Feb. 27-28. Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus. Signs of Life? written and performed by Cheyenne Jackson, 2 performances February 14, Chan National Queer Arts Center. See schedule for upcoming SFGMC performances. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org                                   .   . The post February 13, 2025: Tom Robbins – Margot Livesey appeared first on KPFA.

Episode 483 - Bob Johnson  - Midwest Author - The Continental Divide explore the undertow of violence and sin along the St. Lawrence Divide in Northern IndianaBob Johnson holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. He took a disgraceful, extended break from writing short stories to follow several career paths, the most notable of which were an English professorship at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana, and Operations Manager at WSBT-TV in South Bend.He came to his senses in the last year and is now writing fiction full-time and having the time of his life.Bob's story "Pay the Fish Lady" appeared earlier this summer in the online journal Wag's Revue.He lives in South Bend with his wife Cindy and his dog Ellie. His other hobbies include playing golf (badly) and gardening (occasionally successful). He has two sons, two daughters-in-law and two granddaughters, and he is looking forward to the arrival of two grandsons within a week of one another in December.Book: The Continental Divide: Stories - A country woman makes a Sophie's Choice regarding her family's survival. A small town marshal hunts his own son for murder. A former football hero must face his role in a brutal locker room ritual. Ferocious and real, the fourteen tales in Bob Johnson's blistering debut The Continental Divide explore the undertow of violence and sin along the St. Lawrence Divide in northern Indiana, where men, women, and children struggle to find their way in the darkness...of the divide.Twitter: https://twitter.com/WriterRLJhttps://www.bobjohnsonwriter.com/Support the show___https://livingthenextchapter.com/podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/Coffee Refills are always appreciated, refill Dave's cup here, and thanks!https://buymeacoffee.com/truemediaca

This week, we bring you a live interview with Garth Greenwell, conducted in October 2024 at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn. Garth talks about growing up in Kentucky assuming that he would die young, the teacher who gave him a path toward being an artist, and the doggedness with which he has pursued his aesthetic practices (in both music and literature) ever since. Mentioned: Garth's new novel, Small Rain (FSG 2024)Frank BidartBenjamin BrittenCosì Fan TutteThe HIV/AIDS crisisGarth Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and Cleanness was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2020, a New York Times Critics Top 10 book of the year, and a Best Book of the year by the New Yorker, TIME, NPR, the BBC, and over thirty other publications. A new novel, Small Rain, is now out from FSG. He is the recipient of many honors for his work, including a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2021 Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Grinnell College, the University of Mississippi, Princeton, and NYU. He writes regularly about literature, film, art and music for his Substack, To a Green Thought. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a special series direct from the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival Nam Le chats with Irma about why his first unpublished novel was a spectacular failure but still worthwhile, why for a long time he was a secret writer and the renowned Iowa Writers Workshop was him ‘coming out' to the world, how he naively thought the crazy success of The Boat was what all writers experienced, why Nam made a pact with himself that he would find the good in every publicity question, how his publisher felt about him wanting to publish a poetry collection – notoriously the smallest selling genre – and why he had to fight for the book in the US market, the ways in which he is wrestling with his cultural identity and the notion that he must represent a particular voice, why he puts so much pressure on himself as a writer, the good and the bad of the writers' room on film and TV projects, and how self-doubt can become damaging.ABOUT NAM LENam Le burst onto the literary scene in 2008 with his collection of short fiction, The Boat, which was translated into 14 languages and won every prize imaginable, including the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Prime Minister's Literary Award. It was also selected as a New York Times Notable Book and named book of the year by everyone from The Guardian to The Australian. Since then Nam has published a monograph, On David Malouf, as part of the Writers on Writers series, and most recently a collection of poetry, 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem. He has also written for film and television.

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/education

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2009, Fudan University launched China's first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs' founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2019, as their inspiration. In her book, The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China (Association for Asian Studies, 2024), Jin Feng explores why Chinese authors took part in the U.S. programs, and how they tried to implement its teaching methods in mainland China–clearly, a very different political and cultural environment. In this interview, Jin and I talk about the Iowa Writers Workshop, the Chinese authors that attended, and the surprising links between U.S. and Chinese academia. Jin Feng is Professor of Chinese and Japanese and the Orville and Mary Patterson Routt Professor of Literature at Grinnell College, USA. She has published four English monographs: The New Woman in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction (Purdue University Press: 2004), The Making of a Family Saga (SUNY Press: 2009), Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance (Brill, 2013), and Tasting Paradise on Earth: Jiangnan Foodways (University of Washington Press, 2019), three Chinese books such as A Book for Foodies and numerous articles in both English and Chinese. You can read an excerpt of The Transpacific Flow here. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Transpacific Flow. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

Ayana Mathis is the author of the novel The Unsettled, now available in trade paperback from Vintage. Mathis's first novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was a New York Times best seller, an NPR Best Book of 2013, the second selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. and has been translated into sixteen languages. Her nonfiction has been published in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, Guernica, and RollingStone. Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. She was born in Philadelphia, and currently lives in New York City where she teaches writing in Hunter College's MFA Program. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly 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 Twitter Instagram  TikTok Bluesky 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

Ayana Mathis's first novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was a New York Times best seller and has been translated into sixteen languages. Her nonfiction has been published in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, Guernica, and Rolling Stone. Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. On today's show she talks to Neil Denny about her long-awaited new novel The Unsettled. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Juliana Lamy, author of the short story collection, You Were Watching From the Sand. A Haitian writer, Juliana says her collection is preoccupied with what it means to be Haitian and the honesty of that lived experience. In our conversation, Juliana, who is a graduate of Harvard and the Iowa Writers Workshop, explains how she creates rhythm and lyricism that translates into English as well as Haitian Kreyol. Plus, the reason she says she isn't ready to commit to a literary agent despite having published a book. And, how she's correcting the record about the cultural and spiritual importance of Vodun. Support the Show.Follow the Show: IG: @blkandpublished Twitter: @BLKandPublished Follow Me:IG: @nikesha_elise Twitter: @Nikesha_Elise Website: www.newwrites.com

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 626, my conversation with author Garth Greenwell. The episode first aired on February 26, 2020. Greenwell is the author of What Belongs to You, which won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, it was named a Best Book of 2016 by over fifty publications in nine countries, and is being translated into fourteen languages. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize, the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, the L.D. and LaVerne Harrell Clark Fiction Prize, and France's Prix Sade (Deuxième sélection). Cleanness was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2020, a New York Times Critics Top 10 book of the year, and a Best Book of the year by the New Yorker, TIME, NPR, the BBC, and over thirty other publications. It is being translated into eight languages. A new novel, Small Rain, is forthcoming from FSG in 2024. Greenwell is also the co-editor, with R.O. Kwon, of the anthology KINK, which appeared in February 2021, was named a New York Times Notable Book, won the inaugural Joy Award from the #MarginsBookstore Collective, and became a national bestseller. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written nonfiction for The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, and Harper's, among others. He writes regularly about literature, film, art and music for his Substack, To a Green Thought. He is the recipient of many honors for his work, including a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2021 Vursell Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Grinnell College, the University of Mississippi, and Princeton. Greenwell currently lives in New York, where he is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at NYU. *** 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

On today's episode, we sat down with Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘Less,' Andrew Sean Greer. We discuss how he approached writing the sequel ‘Less is Lost', book recommendations, his favorite burrito in San Francisco, and what it's like to be a crossword clue and question on Jeopardy. Photo credit: Kaliel Roberts READ TRANSCRIPT Use promo code: SWITCH when signing up for a new Libro.fm membership to get 2 extra free credits to use on any audiobooks. About Andrew Sean Greer: Andrew Sean Greer is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford and the Iowa Writers Workshop, been a TODAY show pick, a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, a judge for the National Book Award, and a winner of the California Book Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. He is the recipient of a NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Read Andrew's books: Less is Lost Less The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells The Story of a Marriage Books discussed on today's episode: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer Funny Story by Emily Henry

​Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues    Margot Livesey, author of the novel, “The Road from Belhaven,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded March 19, 2024 at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California. Margot Livesey is the author of ten novels, including “The Missing World,” “Mercury” and “The Boy in the Field,” which range from literary novels to psychological thrillers. Born and raised in Scotland. she currently teaches at the Iowa Writers Workshop. “The Road from Belhaven” is set in the late 1800s in rural Scotland and Glasgow, and concerns a young woman artist with second sight who finds herself in difficult circumstances. It's based on stories of Margot Livesey's great grandmother as told by her grandmother and relatives in Australia. Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli and the folks at Book Passage Bookstore. Photo: Richard Wolinsky. Complete Interview.   Review of “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” at ACT Strand Theatre through May 5, 2024. Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival  Event calendar and links to previous events. Book Passage.  Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc.  Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith.  Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books  On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actor's Reading Collective (ARC).  The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by Steven Adly Guirgis, May 4, 7 pm, Marin Shakespeare Company, San Rafael. African American Art & Culture Complex. See website for calendar. Alter Theatre. Dine Nishli (i am a sacred being) or A Boarding School Play by Blossom Johnson, April 11-13. See website for time and location. American Conservatory Theatre  Kristina Wong Sweatshop Overlord, March 30 – May 5, 2024, Strand Theater. A Strange Loop, April 18 – May 12, Toni Rembe Theater. Aurora Theatre  Blue Door by Tanya Barfield, April 19 – May 19. Streaming:  March 14-19. Awesome Theatre Company. Awesome High: A Sketch Comedy Play, directed by Nikki Menez,  April 12-27, Eclectic Box, 446 Valencia, SF. Berkeley Rep The Far Country by Lloyd Suh, March 8 – April 14, Peets Theatre. Galileo, World Premiere Musical, book by Danny Strong, with Raul Esparza, May 5 – June 10, Roda Theatre. Berkeley Shakespeare Company. See website for upcoming schedule. Boxcar Theatre. See website for upcoming shows. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for current and upcoming productions. BroadwaySF: Haispray, April 16-21, Orpheum. See website for special events at the Orpheum, Curran and Golden Gate. Broadway San Jose:  Peter Pan, June 25-30. California Shakespeare Theatre (Cal Shakes). Terrapin Roadshow, June 1-2; As You Like it, September 12 – 29. Center Rep: Cabaret, May 26 – June 23, Lesher Center for the Arts. Central Works  Boss McGreedy, written and directed by Gary Graves, extended to April 7. Accused by Patricia Milton, July 13 – August 11. Cinnabar Theatre. Shipwrecked! April 12 – 28. Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco ongoing. Contra Costa Civic Theatre In Repertory: Hamlet and Rosencranz and Gildenstern Are Dead, September 7 – 22. Curran Theater: See website for upcoming one-night only live events, including the Unscripted series with various celebrities. Custom Made Theatre. In hibernation. Cutting Ball Theatre. See website for upcoming productions. 42nd Street Moon. Forever Plaid, April 18 – May 5, 2024. Golden Thread  Returning to Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani, April 12 – May 4, Potrero Stage. Hillbarn Theatre: Something Rotten, April 25 – May 12. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. (NO MORE) adjustments: A Black Queer Woman Evolves in Real Time, written and performed by Champagne Hughes, May 1-5, 2024. Fort Mason. Magic Theatre. Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind by Martha Gonzalez and Virginia Grise, April 18-21. Garuda's Wing by Naomi Iizuka, June 5-23. Marin Theatre Company Torch Song by Harvey Fierstein, May 9 – June 2, 2024. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Upcoming Events Page. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC) The Tutor by Torange Yeghiazarian, April 5 – May 12. Oakland Theater Project.  Red, Red, Red by Amilio Garcia, conceived by Lisa Ramirez, World Premiere, April 26 – May 19.h Odd Salon: Upcoming events in San Francisco & New York, and streaming. Pear Theater. In Repertory: The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh; Love Letters by A.R. Gurney. April 19 – May 20. Presidio Theatre. See website for complete schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: Everybody's Talking About Jamie, June 1 – 23, 2024. See website for Spotlight Cabaret Series at Feinstein's at the Nikko. San Francisco Playhouse. The 39 Steps, March 7 – April 20. SFBATCO See website for upcoming streaming and in- theater shows. Sign My Name to Freedom: The Unheard Songs of Betty Reid Soskin, March 29 – April 13. San Jose Stage Company: Hangmen by Martin McDonagh. Regional premiere. April 3 – 28. Shotgun Players.  A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. March 15 – April 14. Website also lists one night only events at the Ashby Stage. South Bay Musical Theatre: Mary Poppins, the Broadway Musical, May 18 – June 8. Saratoga Civic Theater. Stagebridge: Shady Manor, a musical play by Prescott Cole. June 14-16. 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Rhino  Pride of Lions, by Roger Q. Mason, March 28 – April 21. Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Tiger Style by Mike Lew, April 6-28, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.. Word for Word.  See website for upcoming productions. Misc. Listings: BAM/PFA: On View calendar for BAM/PFA. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2023 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – April 11, 2024: Margot Livesey, “The Road from Belhaven” appeared first on KPFA.

Margot Livesey, author of the novel, “The Road from Bellhaven,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Recorded March 19, 2024 at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California. Margot Livesey is the author of ten novels, including “The Missing World,” “Mercury” and “The Boy in the Field,” which range from literary novels to psychological thrillers. Born and raised in Scotland. she currently teaches at the Iowa Writers Workshop. “The Road from Bellhaven” is set in the late 1800s in rural Scotland and Glasgow, and concerns a young woman artist with second sight who finds herself in difficult circumstances. It's based on stories of Margot Livesey's great grandmother as told by her grandmother and relatives in Australia. Special thanks to Elaine Petrocelli and the folks at Book Passage Bookstore. Photo: Richard Wolinsky. The post Margot Livesey, ” The Road from Bellhaven,” 2024 appeared first on KPFA.

Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is an award-winning Zimbabwean novelist who teaches at the acclaimed Iowa Writers Workshop in the US, like many literary icons before her. And she's only 36 years old. Her debut novel House of Stone is set during the Gukahurundi massacres that took place immediately after Zimbabwean independence and remain shrouded in secrecy. Her second novel Digging Stars also received glowing reviews. It deals with an equally uncomfortable history. She charts the similarities between the reserves allocated to native Americans in the US and those allocated to indigenous people in South Africa and Zimbabwe.This is a must listen for anyone interested in African fiction, interested in reading it of course but also interested in how it is produced. Novuyo gives us a peek behind the scenes of some of the most prestigious writing institutions in the US, telling us what it's like to be a young African woman professor there. She's equally clear-sighted about the situation in Zimbabwe and what it's like to come back home with your partner when you are queer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's book is: The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You (Catapult, 2020), by Dina Nayeri, a book which asks “what is it like to be a refugee?” There are more than 25 million refugees in the world today. At age eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. She shows us that to be a refugee is to grapple with your place in society, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with a new, unfamiliar home. All this while bearing the burden of gratitude in your host nation: the expectation that you should be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. The Ungrateful Refugee recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience, by sharing the real stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh. Our guest is: Professor Dina Nayeri, who is the author of The Ungrateful Refugee, winner of numerous prizes including the Geschwister Scholl Preis, the Kirkus Prize, and Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices. Her essay of the same name was one of The Guardian's most widely read long reads in 2017, and is taught in schools and anthologized around the world. A 2019-2020 Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, Dina has won a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, among other honors. Her work has been published in 20+ countries and in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Granta, and other publications. She is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. In autumn 2021, she was a Fellow at the American Library in Paris. She recently joined the faculty at the University of St. Andrews. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. Listeners may also be interested in: Who Gets Believed? Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You'll find them all archived here. You can support the show by downloading episodes and by telling a friend about them, because knowledge should be shared. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today's book is: The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You (Catapult, 2020), by Dina Nayeri, a book which asks “what is it like to be a refugee?” There are more than 25 million refugees in the world today. At age eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. She shows us that to be a refugee is to grapple with your place in society, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with a new, unfamiliar home. All this while bearing the burden of gratitude in your host nation: the expectation that you should be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. The Ungrateful Refugee recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience, by sharing the real stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh. Our guest is: Professor Dina Nayeri, who is the author of The Ungrateful Refugee, winner of numerous prizes including the Geschwister Scholl Preis, the Kirkus Prize, and Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices. Her essay of the same name was one of The Guardian's most widely read long reads in 2017, and is taught in schools and anthologized around the world. A 2019-2020 Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, Dina has won a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, among other honors. Her work has been published in 20+ countries and in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Granta, and other publications. She is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. In autumn 2021, she was a Fellow at the American Library in Paris. She recently joined the faculty at the University of St. Andrews. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. Listeners may also be interested in: Who Gets Believed? Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You'll find them all archived here. You can support the show by downloading episodes and by telling a friend about them, because knowledge should be shared. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Today's book is: The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You (Catapult, 2020), by Dina Nayeri, a book which asks “what is it like to be a refugee?” There are more than 25 million refugees in the world today. At age eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. She shows us that to be a refugee is to grapple with your place in society, attempting to reconcile the life you have known with a new, unfamiliar home. All this while bearing the burden of gratitude in your host nation: the expectation that you should be forever thankful for the space you have been allowed. Nayeri offers a new understanding of refugee life, confronting dangers from the metaphor of the swarm to the notion of “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. The Ungrateful Refugee recalibrates the conversation around the refugee experience, by sharing the real stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh. Our guest is: Professor Dina Nayeri, who is the author of The Ungrateful Refugee, winner of numerous prizes including the Geschwister Scholl Preis, the Kirkus Prize, and Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices. Her essay of the same name was one of The Guardian's most widely read long reads in 2017, and is taught in schools and anthologized around the world. A 2019-2020 Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, Dina has won a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, among other honors. Her work has been published in 20+ countries and in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Granta, and other publications. She is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. In autumn 2021, she was a Fellow at the American Library in Paris. She recently joined the faculty at the University of St. Andrews. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. Listeners may also be interested in: Who Gets Believed? Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 200+ Academic Life episodes? You'll find them all archived here. You can support the show by downloading episodes and by telling a friend about them, because knowledge should be shared. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

Today's book is: Whiskey Tender: A Memoir (Harper, 2024), by Deborah Jackson Taffa, who was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Deborah Jackson Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”  Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Quechan (Yuma) reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent's desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe's particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Her childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation. Deborah Jackson Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance. Our guest is: Deborah Jackson Taffa, who is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, the Huffington Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best Travel Writing, and other outlets.  Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we don't. Listeners may also be interested in this playlist: This discussion of the book A Calm and Normal Heart, with Chelsea T. Hicks The conversation about the book Night of the Living Rez, with Morgan Talty Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today's book is: Whiskey Tender: A Memoir (Harper, 2024), by Deborah Jackson Taffa, who was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Deborah Jackson Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”  Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Quechan (Yuma) reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent's desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe's particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Her childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation. Deborah Jackson Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance. Our guest is: Deborah Jackson Taffa, who is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, the Huffington Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best Travel Writing, and other outlets.  Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we don't. Listeners may also be interested in this playlist: This discussion of the book A Calm and Normal Heart, with Chelsea T. Hicks The conversation about the book Night of the Living Rez, with Morgan Talty Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

Today's book is: Whiskey Tender: A Memoir (Harper, 2024), by Deborah Jackson Taffa, who was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Deborah Jackson Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”  Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Quechan (Yuma) reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent's desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe's particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Her childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation. Deborah Jackson Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance. Our guest is: Deborah Jackson Taffa, who is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, the Huffington Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best Travel Writing, and other outlets.  Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we don't. Listeners may also be interested in this playlist: This discussion of the book A Calm and Normal Heart, with Chelsea T. Hicks The conversation about the book Night of the Living Rez, with Morgan Talty Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Today's book is: Whiskey Tender: A Memoir (Harper, 2024), by Deborah Jackson Taffa, who was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Deborah Jackson Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”  Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Quechan (Yuma) reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent's desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe's particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Her childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation. Deborah Jackson Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance. Our guest is: Deborah Jackson Taffa, who is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, the Huffington Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best Travel Writing, and other outlets.  Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we don't. Listeners may also be interested in this playlist: This discussion of the book A Calm and Normal Heart, with Chelsea T. Hicks The conversation about the book Night of the Living Rez, with Morgan Talty Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Today's book is: Whiskey Tender: A Memoir (Harper, 2024), by Deborah Jackson Taffa, who was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Deborah Jackson Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.”  Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Quechan (Yuma) reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent's desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian” status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe's particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Her childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation. Deborah Jackson Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot” of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance. Our guest is: Deborah Jackson Taffa, who is a citizen of the Quechan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo. She earned her MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, A Public Space, Salon, the Huffington Post, Prairie Schooner, The Best Travel Writing, and other outlets.  Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the creator of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore which stories we tell and what happens to those we don't. Listeners may also be interested in this playlist: This discussion of the book A Calm and Normal Heart, with Chelsea T. Hicks The conversation about the book Night of the Living Rez, with Morgan Talty Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Join us to learn from experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

Page One, produced and hosted by author Holly Lynn Payne, celebrates the craft that goes into writing the first sentence, first paragraph and first page of your favorite books. The first page is often the most rewritten page of any book because it has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. We interview master storytellers on the struggles and stories behind the first page of their books.About the guest author:Kate Christensen is the author of seven novels, including The Last Cruise, The Astral, Trouble, The Epicure's Lament, Jeremy Thrane, In the Drink and The Great Man, which won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Christensen was one of only five women in 30 years at the time who had ever received this prestigious award. She has also published two food-centric memoirs, Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moose, which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. She teaches fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has taught numerous workshops in both memoir and fiction at various residencies and MFA programs throughout the United States, in addition to publishing many essays, reviews, and stories. She has recently finished the first book of her debut YA trilogy with her co-writer, Eliza Wolfe, for Disney Books and also finished her first detective book, published under a pseudonym for HarperCollins. When she's not in Iowa teaching, she lives in Taos, New Mexico with her screenwriter husband and two dogs and is currently at work on a new novel. You can follow her on Instagram @kate.christensen100. About the host:Holly Lynn Payne is an award-winning novelist and writing coach, and the former CEO and founder of Booxby, a startup built to help authors succeed. She is an internationally published author of four historical fiction novels. Her debut, The Virgin's Knot, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book. She recently finished her first YA crossover novel inspired by her nephew with Down syndrome. She lives in Marin County with her daughter and enjoys mountain biking, surfing and hiking with her dog. To learn more about her books and private writing coaching services, please visit hollylynnpayne.com or find her at Instagram and Twitter @hollylynnpayne.Hear past episodes.To get updates and writing tips from master storytellers, follow me onFacebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and Instagram.Until then, be well and keep reading!In service,Holly

City Lights LIVE celebrates the publication of “The Unsettled” by Ayana Mathis, published by Alfred A Knopf, with a discussion between Ayana and Angela Flournoy. From the best-selling author of “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie,” a searing multi-generational novel—set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama. This is a story about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival. From the moment Ava Carson and her ten-year-old son, Toussaint, arrive at the Glenn Avenue family shelter in Philadelphia in 1985, Ava is already plotting a way out. She is repulsed by the shelter's squalid conditions: their cockroach-infested room, the barely edible food, and the shifty night security guard. She is determined to rescue her son from the perils and indignities of that place, and to save herself from the complicated past that led them there. A brilliant, explosive, vitally important new work from one of America's most fiercely talented storytellers. Ayana Mathis' first novel, “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie” was a New York Times bestseller, an NPR Best Book of 2013, the second selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. and has been translated into sixteen languages. Her nonfiction has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Guernica and Rolling Stone. Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. She was born in Philadelphia, and currently lives in New York City, where she teaches writing in Hunter College's MFA Program. Angela Flournoy is the author of “The Turner House,” which was a finalist for the National Book Award. The novel won the VCU Cabell First Novel Prize and was also a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and an NAACP Image Award. She is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, and her nonfiction has appeared in many publications, including The Nation, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker. You can purchase copies of “The Unsettled” at https://citylights.com/unsettled-2/. This event is made possible with the support of the City Lights Foundation. To learn more visit: https://citylights.com/foundation/.

Ron Destro is an award-winning writer, actor, director, and teacher. Trained in the US and UK, his mentors have included Royal Shakespeare Company founder John Barton, Oscar-winner F Murray Abraham, TV legend Lucille Ball, painter Pierre Matisse, and teachers at the Iowa Writers Workshop. He received the Kennedy Center New American Play Award for his work, Hiroshima, for which Yoko Ono wrote the original score.             He runs the nonprofit New York and London summer-based Oxford Shakespeare Company, which trains actors and presents Shakespeare plays in historic locations, including Hamlet in Elsinore, Macbeth in Birnam Wood, and Richard III on Bosworth Field.             He's lectured on the Shakespeare authorship question at Harvard University, Chautauqua Institution and the Edinburgh Skeptics Society.             His new book, The Starre, The Moone, The Sunne, is an Elizabethan murder mystery, the solving of which just happens to reveal the identity of the real “William Shakespeare.” I've read The Starre, The Moone, The Sunne and can tell you it's uniquely entertaining, especially as Ron has written it as if he was an author living in the Elizabethan era. Funny, dramatic, raucous, and filled with an amazing theatrical energy, I highly recommend it to you.             And if you're into the Bard of Avon, please check out Ron's excellent book, The Shakespeare Masterclasses, featuring fantastic insights from 13 of the world's greatest classical actors.            Among some of Ron's more unusual achievements, he taught Christopher Reeve to smoke, was told by Groucho Marx to give somebody the finger, and nearly ran Michael York off a mountaintop in a toboggan.www.rondestro.com

Rachel talks with long time friend and writer for children, Laurel Snyder. They talk about the Iowa Writers  Workshop, Laurel's path from poet to children's book author, money, the novice brain, labor, being “messy and extra but not totally batshit,” the relationship between poetry and picture books, the experimental nature of picture books, world building, getting things out rather than getting things down. 

On this week's show, I'm speaking to Dina Nayeri about the truth. In a growing age of false news, propoganda, smear campaigns and cancel culture, the sanctity of the truth and who gets believed is increasingly important. There is a difference between those who speak the truth, and those whose truth is believed, as sometimes it is the case that those who speak their truth are not believed, and the consequences are dire. We have seen this play out worldwide for centuries for women, refugees, people of colour and black people, among other minority and vulnerable groups especially. On this week's show, we unpack why some people are more believable than others, the role of the media, and the state's eagerness to push out certain narratives, even if they are not true. This has especially been the case recently since the increased attacks on Gaza, where news outlets have recalled harmful and incorrect statements. Dina Nayeri is the author of two novels and two books of creative nonfiction, Who Gets Believed? (2023) and The Ungrateful Refugee (2019), winner of the Geschwister Scholl Preis and finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Kirkus Prize, and Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices, and called by The Guardian “a work of astonishing, insistent importance.” Her essay of the same name was one of The Guardian's most widely read long reads in 2017, and is taught in schools and anthologized around the world. A 2019-2020 Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, and winner of the 2018 UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, Dina has won a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, among other honors. Her work has been published in 20+ countries and in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Granta, and many other publications.  Her short dramas have been produced by the English Touring Theatre and The Old Vic in London.  She is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers Workshop.  In autumn 2021, she was a Fellow at the American Library in Paris. She is currently working on plays, screenplays, and her upcoming publications include The Waiting Place, a nonfiction children's book about refugee camp, Who Gets Believed, a creative nonfiction book, and Sitting Bird, a novel. She has recently joined the faculty at the University of St. Andrews. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and consider rating and leaving a review. Also, connect with me on social media - I'd love to hear from you!www.instagram.com/readwithsamiawww.instagram.com/thediversebookshelfpod Support the show

Bookwaves/Artwaves is produced and hosted by Richard Wolinsky. Links to assorted local theater & book venues   Bookwaves Mick Herron discusses his latest novel, “The Secret Hours,” and the Slough House series of of spy novels and stories with host Richard Wolinsky. Mick Herron has written eight books in the Slough House series of novels about a tiny corner of MI5 for rejects and misfits, people who have screwed up but not been fired. They are known collectively as “Slow Horses,” which is the title of the television series starring Gary Oldman as their boss, Jackson Lamb. “The Secret Hours” is located in the same world as the series, but serves as a stand-alone novel about an inquiry into MI5's past, set up by a conservative government out to rein in the Secret Service. In the interview, Mick Herron discusses the origins of the book and of the Slough House series, as well as his career as a writer, and his writing process. Recorded via Zencastr September 22, 2023. Complete 47-minute Radio Wolinsky podcast.   Bookwaves Vauhini Vara, author of the novel,  “The Immortal King Rao,” in conversation with host Richard Wolinsky. Recorded via zencastr September 8, 2022. Vauhini Vara studied at the Iowa Writers Workshop, worked as tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal and wrote for the business section of The New Yorker. She is a contributing writer at Wired. Her upcoming collection of short stories, This is Salvaged, will be published in 2023. The Immortal King Rao tells two stories, that of a fictional tech billionaire who grew up in humble beginnings in the 1950s in southern India and eventually came to the United States, and during the novel flashes forward a hundred years to a dystopia in which algorithms determine the success or failure of any individual. Vauhini Vara webpage. Complete 45-minute Interview     Book Interview/Events and Theatre Links Note: Shows may unexpectedly close early or be postponed due to actors' positive COVID tests. Check the venue for closures, ticket refunds, and vaccination and mask requirements before arrival. Dates are in-theater performances unless otherwise noted. Some venues operate Tuesday – Sunday; others Wednesday or Thursday through Sunday. All times Pacific Time. Closing dates are sometimes extended. Book Stores Bay Area Book Festival  Event calendar and links to previous events. Book Passage.  Monthly Calendar. Mix of on-line and in-store events. Books Inc.  Mix of on-line and in-store events. The Booksmith.  Monthly Event Calendar. Center for Literary Arts, San Jose. See website for Book Club guests in upcoming months. K Ming Chang, October 26, 7 pm. Hammer Theater. Green Apple Books. Events calendar. Kepler's Books  On-line Refresh the Page program listings. Live Theater Companies Actor's Reading Collective (ARC).  See website for past streams. Alter Theatre. See website for upcoming productions. American Conservatory Theatre  All Hallows Gala, October 27, August Hall. A Christmas Carol, December 6 -24, Toni Rembe Theater. Aurora Theatre  1984 by George Orwell, adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan, In Theater, November 10 – December 10, Streaming, December 5-10. Awesome Theatre Company. See website for upcoming productions. Berkeley Rep Bulrusher by Eisa Davis, October 27 – December 3, 2023, Peets Theatre. Harry Clarke by David Cale, featuring Billy Crudup, Roda Theatre, November 15 – December 23, 2023. Berkeley Shakespeare Company. See website for upcoming productions. Boxcar Theatre. All Hallows Eve, October 26-28. At the Speakeasy. See website for details. Brava Theatre Center: See calendar for current and upcoming productions. BroadwaySF: See website for assorted upcoming events in 2023. Disney's The Lion King, November 22 – December 30, Orpheum. Broadway San Jose: Ain't Too Proud, October 31 – November 5. California Shakespeare Theatre (Cal Shakes). See website for events. Center Rep: The Legend of Georgia McBride by Matthew Lopez, November 4 -26, Lesher Center for the Arts. Central Works The Engine of Our Disruption by Patricia Milton, October 14 – November 12. Cinnabar Theatre. The Addams Family, November 17-December 2. The Last Five Years, January 5-21, 2024, Club Fugazi. Dear San Francisco. Open-ended run. Contra Costa Civic Theatre ;Tintypes, October 20 – November 12. Curran Theater: See website for upcoming live events and streaming choices. Custom Made Theatre. Tiny Fires by Aimee Suzara, October 19-29. CounterPulse, 80 Turk Street, San Francisco. Cutting Ball Theatre. Rossum's Universal Robots by Karel Capek, adapted by Chris Steele, October 20 – November 12, Cutting Ball Theatre, 277 Taylor St., SF 42nd Street Moon. Mame, November 2 -19, 2023. Golden Thread  ReOrient Festival of Short Plays, October 13 – November 4, 2023. Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Soulful Christmas, December 14-17, Magic Theatre. Magic Theatre. See website for events at the Magic. Saint John Coltrane Church service, Sundays 11 am. Marin Theatre Company Dragon Lady written and performed by Sara Porkalob, November 24-December 17. Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts Upcoming Events Page. New Conservatory Theatre Center (NCTC)  we are continuous by by Harrison David Rivers, October 20 – November 26. Oakland Theater Project.  See website for upcoming events. Pear Theater. In Repertory, November 17 – December 10: District Merchants by Aaron Posner; William Shakespeare's The Land of the Dead by John Heimbuch. PianoFight. Permanently closed as of March 18, 2023. Presidio Theatre. See website for schedule of events and performances. Ray of Light: The Rocky Horror Show, Oasis Nightclub, October 6  – 31. See website for Spotlight Cabaret Series at Feinstein's at the Nikko. San Francisco Playhouse. Nollywood Dreams by Jocelyn Bioh, September 28 – November 4, 2023. SFBATCO See website for upcoming streaming and in- theater shows. San Jose Stage Company: The Play That Goes Wrong. November 15 – December 10. Shotgun Players.  Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Performances start October 28. South Bay Musical Theatre: A Little Night Music, January 27 – February 17, 2024. The Breath Project. Streaming archive. The Marsh: Calendar listings for Berkeley, San Francisco and Marshstream. Theatre Rhino  Group Therapy by Tanika Baptiste, November 9 – December 3, Thursday thru Sunday. Streaming: Essential Services Project, conceived and performed by John Fisher, all weekly performances now available on demand, New performances most Wednesdays. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley. Mrs. Christie by Heidi Armbruster, October 4 -29, Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts. Word for Word.  Citizen by Greg Sarris, October 18 – November 12, Z Below. Misc. Listings: BAM/PFA: On View calendar for BAM/PFA. Berkeley Symphony: See website for listings. Chamber Music San Francisco: Calendar, 2023 Season. Dance Mission Theatre. On stage events calendar. Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Calendar listings and upcoming shows. San Francisco Opera. Calendar listings. San Francisco Symphony. Calendar listings. Filmed Live Musicals: Searchable database of all filmed live musicals, podcast, blog. If you'd like to add your bookstore or theater venue to this list, please write Richard@kpfa.org                                     The post Bookwaves/Artwaves – October 26, 2023: Mick Herron – Vauhini Vara appeared first on KPFA.

Reading List:* “Why the Culture of the So-Called Great Books is Hostile to Trans People,” by Naomi Kanakia* “Brandon Taylor's online writing is vibrant, funny, and true. Why is his fiction trying so hard to be something else?” by Laura Miller* “A Review of ‘The Late Americans' is Sending Book Twitter Into A Tailspin,” by Katherine Esters* “The New, Weirdly Racist Guide to Writing Fiction,” by Naomi Kanakia* “How to start your para-intellectual career,” by Naomi KanakiaMy guest on the podcast is Naomi Kanakia, author of 3 extant books as well as roughly 18 forthcoming books in seven different genres. We're going to talk about two big things. One is Naomi herself, her writing and what I would characterize as her unusually meta- approach to thinking and writing about the work of being a writer, her fascination with the subterranean motives and status moves that lie just underneath the wholesome public narratives that writers provide to the world and why and how they do what they do.  Before we get to that, though, we're going to spend some time on novelist and substacker Brandon Taylor. Taylor is a 34-year old black gay writer, primarily of fiction, now based in New York but born and raised in a small town outside of Montgomery, Alabama in a conservative Christian family. He spent a number of years in a graduate biochemistry program at University of Wisconsin Madison before leaving, without finishing the PhD, to focus on fiction, soon after earning his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. Taylor has since published three works of fiction, the 2020 novel Real Life, which was short listed for a Booker Prize, the 2021 collection Filthy Animals, and most recently this year's Late Americans, which is maybe a collection masquerading as a novel. He's written book reviews and review essays for fancy places like the New York Times and the New Yorker, and he has a very popular substack, , to which Naomi and I are both subscribers.If I had to briefly characterize why I think we find Taylor interesting for the purposes of this podcast, it's less because of his fiction, which is solid but not super distinctive, than because of the ways he deals, as a queer writer of color, with a few different conflicting tendencies within him. He loves the books he loves, irrespective of the race or era of their author. He has a somewhat agonized relationship to woke politics, seems to feel allergic to it in a lot of the particulars but can't shake a kind of global allegiance to it. He has a strong desire to connect with his readers, and he also has a somewhat thin skin. Naomi Kanakia is the author of three books, the YA novels Enter Title Here and We Are Totally Normal, and the nonfiction semi-self-help tract the Cynical Guide to Publishing. She also has three, count 'em three, forthcoming books: the YA novel Just Happy to Be Here, the adult novel The Default World, and the nonfictional What's So Great About The Great Books? And she has a great substack as well, , which you should subscribe to. She got her undergraduate degree at Stanford, and then an MFA at Johns Hopkins. I don't usually list my guest's academic credentials, but I think in this case it will prove relevant to our discussion.Eminent Americans is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Eminent Americans at danieloppenheimer.substack.com/subscribe

Danielle Anne Trussoni is a New York Times,[1] USA Today,[2] and Sunday Times Top 10 bestselling novelist. She has been a Pulitzer Prize in Fiction jurist,[3] and wrote the "Dark Matters" column for the New York Times Book Review for five years, from 2018-2023. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, where she was a Maytag Fellow. Her novels have been translated into 33 languages. Her work includes six books: Falling Through the Earth (2006), Angelology (2010), Angelopolis (2012), The Fortress (2016), The Ancestor (2020), and The Puzzle Master (2023). The Puzzle Box is forthcoming in 2024. She is the recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Society of America award, the Dana Award in the novel, and The New York Times Top 10 Book of the Year[4] for her first book. In addition to being published in The New York Times Book Review, she has also been published in The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, and Tin House. Her writings have been widely anthologized. A.J. Jacobs is an author, journalist, lecturer and human guinea pig. He has written four New York Times bestsellers that combine memoir, science, humor and a dash of self-help. His latest book is called The Puzzler. His first book is called The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World (Simon & Schuster, 2004). The memoir spent two months on the New York Times bestseller list. After trying to improve his mind, he turned to his spirit. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (2007) tells of his attempt to follow the hundreds of rules in the Good Book. It spent three months on the NYT bestseller list, and was praised by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today and others. It appeared on the cover of the evangelical magazine Relevant, but was also featured in Penthouse. (Jacobs is proud to be a uniter, not a divider). In 2012, Jacobs completed his mind-spirit-body self-improvement trinity with Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection. It is the tale of his quest to be as healthy as humanly possible for which he revamped his diet, exercise regimen, sleep schedule, sex life, posture and more. He wrote the book on a treadmill desk (It took him about 1,200 miles). He also published a collection of essays called My Life as an Experiment: One Man's Humble Quest to Improve Himself (2010). The book contains experiments featuring George Washington's rules of life, marital harmony, marital disharmony, multitasking and nudity – not in that order. It includes the Esquire piece ‘My Outsourced Life,' which also appeared in Tim Ferriss's 4-Hour Workweek. Jacobs's new book It's All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World's Family Tree.” It's about the extraordinary changes happening in family research and DNA, and how they have an impact on politics, race relations, health and happiness. The book has been praised by Kirkus (“delightful”), Booklist (“a real treat”) and Publisher's Weekly (“entertaining and lively.”) In addition to his books, Jacobs written for The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, New York magazine and Dental Economics magazine, one of the top five magazines about the financial side of tooth care. He has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN, The Dr. Oz Show, Conan and The Colbert Report. He has given several TED talks, including ones about living biblically, creating a one-world family, and living healthily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With white-hot debut novelist and Pulitzer Prize finalist Xochitl Gonzalez, discussing her wise, funny, politically-charged rom-com, Olga Dies Dreaming. We chatted about inspiring Latinx readership, what she learned at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and the moment she decided to make a mid-career pivot while bargain-hunting at a sales rack in Nieman Marcus.

Notes and Links to Chloé Cooper Jones' Work        Chloé Cooper Jones is a professor, journalist, and the author of the memoir Easy Beauty, which was named a best book of 2022 by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, and was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Memoir. She was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing in 2020. She is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient and a Howard Foundation Fellow. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.      For Episode 197 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Chloé Cooper Jones, and the two discuss, among other things, her early relationship with reading, writing, seeking beauty, her parents' influences on her world views, formative and transformative writers (and “fun trash” she read), and salient topics from her powerful memoir, such as muses and aesthetes, pop culture and philosophy, bigoted views on women as those with disabilities, and the pertinent trips that Chloé took in seeking beauty, catharsis, and hope.      Buy Easy Beauty: A Memoir   Chloe's Website   Chloe's Pulitzer-Prize Nominated Article for The Verge- “Fearing for His Life”   People Magazine 2022 Article about Easy Beauty-“Author Chloé Cooper Jones, Who Has a Visible Disability, On Deciding to Claim Space For Herself and Her Son” At about 1:35, Chloe lets the listener in on her mindset in hearing about her second Pulitzer Prize nomination, including the beauty of combining family pursuits and career    At about 6:55, Chloe gives out information regarding where to buy her book, and her contact information, including Greenlight and Books are Magic, and Lawrence, KS' The Raven Bookstore   At about 8:45, Chloe talks about her childhood and its focus on beauty as impressed upon her by her parents in their different ways; she calls “having a rich interior life a survival mechanism”    At about 13:15, Pete shouts out a short story idea from Chloe's father that was emblematic of his mind   At about 14:00, Chloe details some of the reading that excited and challenged her as she grew up, and “the fun trash” too   At about 16:40, Chloe lists Diane Williams and Cormac McCarthy, among many others, as formative writers   At about 17:30, Pete asks Chloe about David Foster Wallace and some other nonfiction she may have read; she notes how “exciting” his sportswriting was, and Janet Malcolm and John McPhee as other great influences   At about 20:20, Chloe shouts out the recently-released and incredibly versatile work of Andrew Leland-The Country of the Blind, Rachel Aviv's work, and Jessamine Chan's School for Good Mothers   At about 22:10, Chloe responds to Pete's question about if she felt represented in what she read growing up, and she answers the question using Coming Home as one anomaly   At about 26:30, Chloe reflects on the use of the word “disabled” and its myriad meanings    At about 28:05, Chloe answers Pete's questions about the balance between disabled people educating others and well-meaning people and possible dehumanizing actions; she cites a telling excerpt from Andrew Leland's book   At about 33:30, Pete cites Elaine Scarry and how Chloe connects ideas of processing beauty and ignorance   At about 34:15, Pete lays out the structure for the book as based on trips Chloe took, and he and Chloe discuss the importance and circumstances of the first trip chronicled, the trip to see Beyonce at San Siro; Chloe builds on the idea and definitions of “easy beauty”   At about 41:55, Pete compliments Chloe's genuine writing about her son and motherhood   At about 42:55, Chloe explains the power of Beyonce and her “radical presence”   At about 45:50, The two discuss the freeing nature of Chloe's reporting trip to see Roger Federer, which leads to further discussion of how Chloe's melds philosophy and more aesthetic ideals with a more pop(ular) sensibility   At about 51:10, Chloe discusses an opening scene from the book that engendered strong feelings for her, as well as pervasive beliefs    At about 54:45, Chloe reflects on what was different about her reaction to the above conversation and the phenomenon of “The Neutral Room”   At about 56:35, The two discuss the book's “Indifferent Man”   At about 59:20, Chloe gives background on her trip to Rome and seeking beauty and connections to her father's philosophies    At about 1:04:15, The two discuss Chloe's trip to Cambodia, and she discusses the evolving nature of her research and searching questions, as catharsis and society's desire for witnessing violence become topics   At about 1:13:10, Pete notes the emphasis on capitalism in “dark tourism” and the seeming normality of dark tourism sites   At about 1:14:35, The two discuss a final scene dealing with perspective and Chloe's mother and a trip to Miami   At about 1:19:25, Chloe responds to Pete's question about how she deals with writing on profound and deeply painful and tragic topics   At about 1:23:45, Chloe talks about upcoming events and projects, including working with Matty Davis in Bentonville, AR    You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch this and other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.    Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl     Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    NEW MERCH! You can browse and buy here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChillsatWillPodcast    This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.    Please tune in for Episode 198 with Sarah Thankam Mathews (Thungun) who is the author of the novel All This Could Be Different, which was shortlisted for the 2022 National Book Award and the 2022 Discover Prize, and nominated for the Aspen Literary Prize. She is formerly a Rona Jaffe Fellow in fiction at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and a Margins Fellow at The Asian American Writers Workshop. 

Between seven books and decades in newspapers, Stephen Kiernan has had nearly five million words in print. A graduate of Middlebury College, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and the Iowa Writers Workshop, his work has won dozens of awards, has been translated into many languages, and has been optioned for TV and film production. A performing guitarist since he was ten years old, he has recorded 3 CD's of original music, and has composed for theater, dance and film scores. He lives in Vermont.

We're joined by fiction writer Sarah Anne Strickley (Incendiary Devices) to talk about what it's like to be one half of a literary power couple. Plus a strange Brian Evenson novella, Sarah's path toward weirdness in her own fiction, and whether the Iowa Writers Workshop will live inside our heads forever. Check out Sarah's work--including her new book--at her website: https://www.sarahannestrickley.com/ And if you'd like more Book Fight in your life, join our Patreon and get two bonus episodes a month, for only $5: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight  

We're joined by Nic Brown, author of several books, most recently the memoir Bang Bang Crash, about his life as a rock drummer. Nic was also a grad school classmate of ours at the Iowa Writers Workshop, so we decided to revisit Stop-Time, the famous memoir by Frank Conroy, who was in his final years of running the program when we were students there. You can find Nic (and his book) here: https://www.nicbrown.net/ If you like the show, and want more of it, you can Subscribe to our Patreon for $5 a month and get exclusive bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight  

Bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss her new novel, Romantic Comedy, which begins behind the scenes at a television show similar to Saturday Night Live, where a female comedy writer is gobsmacked that her schlubby straight male co-workers keep dating famous women seemingly out of their league. Sittenfeld discusses dating up, women in the workplace, and the similarities between SNL and the Iowa Writers Workshop. Sittenfeld and Ganeshananthan crack up while reading from Romantic Comedy, and Sittenfeld discusses the surprising turn in her heroine's love life, the complications of writing sex scenes, and how she dealt with the pressure to be funny when describing comedians.  To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This episode of the podcast was produced by Ryan Reed and Anne Kniggendorf. Curtis Sittenfeld Romantic Comedy Rodham Eligible American Wife “Gender Studies,” from The New Yorker Others: Live from New York by Tom Shales and James Andrew Miller Bossypants by Tina Fey Pete Davidson on Marc Maron's WTF Podcast Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen David Spade on Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend Podcast How to Write a Sketch for SNL from the Working it Out Podcast Saturday Night: Documentary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're less than three weeks away from the NFL Draft, so host Pat Fitzmaurice (@Fitz_FF) welcomes in FantasyPros college football and NFL Draft analyst Thor Nystrom (@thorku) to discuss the Class of 2023. Thor reveals which QB he'd take No. 1 if he were the Panthers' GM and offers deep thoughts on C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis, and Hendon Hooker. Thor also talks about the magnificence of Bijan Robinson, why he prefers Zach Charbonnet to Jahmyr Gibbs, and why he's high on Tyjae Spears.  A product of the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop, Thor talks about what it was like to be enrolled in America's premier incubator for young writers. Then it's more rookie talk, as Thor and Pat discuss a polarizing and relatively thin WR class. Thor explains why he prefers Quentin Johnston to Jaxson Smith-Njigba and why it wouldn't be far-fetched for Zay Flowers to be the first wide receiver drafted. And with a talented and deep TE class this year, Thor offers praise for one of his favorites, Iowa's Sam LaPorta.  Host: Pat Fitzmaurice (@Fitz_FF)  Guest: Thor Nystrom (@thorku)  Podcast produced by Colm Kelly (@OvertimeIreland)  Music provided by International Jet Set 

Novelist and screenwriter Stephen Markley on writing his 900-page epic novel The Deluge, writing sprawling narratives and what it's like to count Stephen King as a fan. We talk about writing for the TV show Only Murders in the Building, making money as a writer, and what it takes to succeed and persist. *QUOTES“You can't guarantee your book will be a success...it comes down to loving the work, loving what you're doing, loving the story you're telling, and being ready..."*ABOUT STEPHEN MARKLEYStephen Markley is the author of The Deluge: A Novel. His previous books include the critically acclaimed bestseller Ohio: A Novel, Publish This Book, and Tales of Iceland. He has also written for the Hulu comedy Only Murderers in the Building. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. *RESOURCESThe Deluge by Stephen MarkleyIowa Writers WorkshopOnly Murders in the BuildingS1 Ep7: "The Boy from 6B"S2 Ep7: "Flipping the Pieces"Steve's appearance on Late Night with Seth MyersSteve's previous books: Publish This Book, Tales of Iceland, OhioThis is Us creator Dan Fogelman*FOLLOW STEPHEN MARKLEYWebsite: stephenmarkley.comInstagram: @stephen.markley*For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.comFor free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

Why are people judged on whether or not they are compelling? Why isn't telling the truth enough? What are people really listening for when others share their truths? And how does this harm asylum seekers? Dina Nayeri joins us to share: Why our perceptions of other people's experiences impact them and us. What makes a “credible” story, and what doesn't. How her own stories shape her. Why it can be difficult to believe a messy truth. What she had to forgive herself for. The book Who Gets Believed. Today's book is: Who Gets Believed by Dina Nayeri, which asks unsettling questions about lies, truths, and the difference between being believed and being dismissed. Dina Nayeri begins with asking why are honest asylum seekers dismissed as liars? She shares shocking and illuminating case studies, as the book grows into a reckoning with our culture's views on believability. From learning the tools of persuasion and performance in her job at McKinsey to struggling to believe her troubled brother-in-law, Nayeri explores an aspect of our society that is rarely held up to the light. Who Gets Believed is a book as deeply personal as it is profound in its reflections on morals, language, literature, human psychology, and the unspoken social codes that determine how we relate to one another. Our guest is: Dina Nayeri, who is the author of novels, articles, and creative nonfiction. A former Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris, winner of the UNESCO City of Literature Paul Engle Prize, and fellow at the American Library in Paris, she has also won a National Endowment for the Arts literature grant, the O. Henry Prize, and Best American Short Stories, among other honors. Her work has been published in 20+ countries, in The Guardian, The New Yorker, Granta, and many other publications. She is a graduate of Princeton, Harvard, and the Iowa Writers Workshop. She has recently joined the permanent faculty at the University of St. Andrews. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is a historian. Listeners to this episode may also be interested in: The American Library in Paris The Innocence Project A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea, by Dina Nayeri Refuge, by Dina Nayeri The Ungrateful Refugee, by Dina Nayeri Becoming the Writer You Already Are, by Michelle R. Boyd Welcome to The Academic Life! Join us here each week to learn from today's experts inside and outside the academy, and embrace the broad definition of what it means to live an academic life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today, Christina Cooke (BROUGHTUPSY, Jan. 2024) talks to us about spending 11 years writing her debut novel, working on it at the Iowa Writers Workshop and MacDowell, the stamina of being a writer, all the “life stuff,” the ego death of going on submission, and more!  Christina Cooke's writing has previously appeared in PRISM international, The Caribbean Writer, Prairie Schooner, Epiphany: A Literary Journal, and elsewhere. A MacDowell Fellow and 2022 Journey Prize winner, she holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of New Brunswick and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Born in Jamaica, Christina is now a Canadian citizen who lives and writes in New York City.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew Sean Greer is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of the novel Less is Lost (Little, Brown), a New York Times bestseller. Greer is the author of six works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including the Iowa Writers Workshop, been a Today show pick, a New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellow, a judge for the National Book Award, and a winner of the California Book Award and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. He is the recipient of a NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He lives in San Francisco. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  YouTube 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

In this episode of A Special Place in Hell, the girls/women wade through the sorry details of last week's scandale littéraire involving Hobart, a literary magazine no one had ever heard of until last Wednesday. Meghan is a veteran of the literary world and it turns out it's her job to educate Sarah about how things work. They discuss the phenomenon of “white Brooklyn ladies of the publishing business,” as coined by the writer Alex Perez, a Cuban American writer and Iowa Writers Workshop alum who is Sick Of The Wokeness™. Meghan talks about her own experience in an MFA program, her bouts of self-loathing about it in recent years and the vagaries of the literary “community”. They then move on to the lighter topic of assisted suicide and consider the ways in which Canadian programs for the benefit of the terminally ill might actually be a slippery slope. Meghan deathsplains to Sarah about the phenomenon of death cafes and death doulas. (She's a fan!). In the subscriber-only BONUS content, Sarah reveals the truth behind her affinity for taking Twitter polls. (Spoiler: it's not feminist). The ladies then return to one of their favorite questions: why do so many otherwise smart people go along with idiotic nonsense? Are Sarah and Meghan smarter than everyone else? Or do they just have better b******t detectors? Relavant links: * Hobart Interview with Alex Perez* Who Killed Creative Writing? Meghan's Substack article about the Hobart saga* Scheduled to Die: The Rise of Canada's Assisted Suicide Program * Sarah's Free Inquiry article This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit aspecialplace.substack.com/subscribe

We're joined by Elizabeth McCracken (author, most recently, of the novel The Hero of This Book, out Oct. 4 from Harper Collins) to discuss Mary Gaitskill's 2005 novel Veronica, a book that until recently Elizabeth was scared to re-read. We talk carnality in fiction, and the sweatiness of early 80s New York City. Plus: we compare notes on our time at the Iowa Writers Workshop, discuss trigger warnings for undergrad classes, and Elizabeth explains why for years she quietly pretended to have read Dostoevsky. You can order Elizabeth's newest book here: https://bookshop.org/books/the-hero-of-this-book/9780062971272 If you like the show, and would like more of it, we're releasing two bonus episodes a month to our Patreon subscribers, for only $5: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight