Podcast appearances and mentions of jay mcinerney

Jay McInerney is a New York Times best selling author known for his breakout novel Bright Lights Big City. He also wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaption of Bright Lights Big City and co-wrote the screenplay for the 1998 film Gia, starring Angelina Jolie. In addition to his fiction work, McInerney was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and currently writes the wine column for Town & Country magazine. His essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006) and his book of short stories, titled How It Ended, was named one of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times in 2009. McInernay has also been honored by the New York Public Library as a “Literary Lion” and won the James Beard MFK Fisher Award for Distinguished Writing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

welcome back to the penn badgley module. today's episode is the most “normal” book we've read in a while: bright lights, big city by jay mcinerney. we talk about the novel's deadpan humor, whether it feels tied to the 1980s, and how the main character ends the book while still sort of spiraling. we explore the current irony of a plot about fact-checking and computers making life easier, the arc to cocaine as a drug in the united states, and a time where t.g.i. friday's was a cool place to hang out. we wonder if there's a jay mcinerney connected universe and we revisit shreds's shared bennington literary universe. we discuss how the second-person perspective villainizes amanda, the amount that bret easton ellis seems to take from this writing, and the weird miscasting in the film adaptation. shreds champions a specific element of kevin smith's movies. reading list for season thirteen interior chinatown by charles yu if on a winter's night a traveler by italo calvino bright lights, big city by jay mcinerney suicide by édouard levé the malady of death by marguerite duras how like a god by rex stout the diver's clothes lie empty by vendela vida the night circus by erin morgenstern a man asleep by georges perec open water by caleb azumah nelson

MSNBC's Ari Melber hosts The Beat on Tuesday, December 10th, and reports on Rupert Murdoch's loss in his bid to alter the family trust, as well as wealth inequality and excess in America. Gretchen Carlson, Michelle Goldberg and Jay McInerney join.

Author and socialite Truman Capote would have turned 100 this year. To celebrate and discuss Capote's literary legacy, authors Jay McInerney and John Burnham Schwartz join us, and take your calls. McInerney and Burnham Schwartz will be speaking at an event at the 92Y this evening, alongside Sloane Crosley. 

Jay McInerney: CristalJay discusses cocaine and a proposition from Truman Capote (spoiler alert: he escaped), his pioneering use of the 2nd-person in BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY, his best moment ever with a glass of wine, the perfect 3-course meal with wine pairing, what Raymond Carver taught him about writing, getting fired from The New Yorker, squatting in George Plimpton's house, waking up in December 2023 with his home covered in his own blood and remembering nothing.

In this episode, we are discussing Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott, a novel originally published in 1929 and a fascinating account of the experiences of women during the Jazz age. I'm joined by Juliana Soltis, an internationally acclaimed cellist, to discuss the book's continued relevance and its portrayal of female independence during the Jazz Age, akin to a 'Sex and the City' for that era. We also shed light on Parrott's obscured legacy in contrast to Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.' Moreover, Juliana speaks about her new album American Woman, which highlights lost works by female composers, underscoring the importance of preserving and celebrating women's contributions to art and culture. We wrap up with a tasty note, enjoying a non-alcoholic gin fizz themed to the novel, reflecting Prohibition-era cocktail cultureJuliana Soltis is an internationally-acclaimed cellist, specializing in telling the forgotten stories of classical music. Her latest release from PARMA Recordings, American Woman, explores the lost legacy of America's women composers and is now streaming across all platforms. When not on the road or in the recording studio, Juliana makes her home in Richmond's historic Church HIll neighborhood, where she caters to the every whim of her two greyhounds, Rain and Ceci.Gin Fizz Recipe2 ounces gin (We used Monday NA Gin)1 ounce lemon juice, freshly squeezed3/4 ounce simple syrup1 egg white (about 1/2 ounce)Club soda, to top (about 1 ounce)DirectionsAdd the gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and egg white to a shaker and vigorously dry-shake (without ice) for about 15 seconds.Add 3 or 4 ice cubes and shake vigorously until well-chilled.Double-strain into a chilled Collins glass and top with club soda.In this EpisodeJuliana Soltis' WebsiteAmerican Woman AlbumBecoming the Ex-Wife by Dr. Marsha Gordon (Ursula Parrott's Biography)The Great Gatsby by F. Scott FitzgeraldPresentation by Dr. Marsha Gordon on Ursula Parrott (we didn't discuss this in the episode but I found it absolutely fascinating!)Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney

Andrew Jefford, journalist and writer"It's not wine writing. It's writing." This quote is from Jay McInerney, a writer I particularly like, about Andrew Jefford and his writing. And I couldn't agree more.I have known Andrew's work for while as I read regularly Noble Rot but I never realised it. Mostly because I don't always read the name of the author of the article. Andrew has this incredible ability to make you travel to the place where the wine is made in just a few lines. A few months ago, Julie Reux, author of the excellent Vinofutur, shared a link on social media about an opening speech that she found inspiring. I read it too. It was from Andrew and it was brilliant. So brilliant that I immediatetly wanted to interview him.That is how I found myself at the top of the Pic Saint-Loup ⛰️ in Languedoc with Andrew at the end of August. Enjoy the conversation dear listeners

Jay McInerney is a writer from New York. It's the 40th anniversary of his book Bright Lights, Big City, and we spoke with Jay from his Malibu home about when people call meat "protein," cinnamon rolls, surfing in Malibu, we romanticize smoking in restaurants and on airplanes, blasting lines with Ray Carver, Absolut Vodka ads in the 80s and 90s, hanging with Bret Easton Ellis, sucks when the producer gets canceled, he finished his memoir but probably shouldn't put it out, Keith McNally's memoir, his hangover cure, classic New York restaurants, Tesla cars, and his thoughts on Substack. instagram.com/jaymcinerney twitter.com/donetodeath twitter.com/themjeans howlonggone.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The capacity for friendship is God's way of apologizing for our families.”― Jay McInerney, The Last of the Savages "I've gained a lot of experience in my life, but I lack the experience of family through blood." - SRP Topics: Do Rideshares Get Tickets TRUMP Is An Entertainer Don't Discredit Your Wins No One Wants A Regular Girl Anymore Death In The Family Doesn't Equate to Tears How to Enter Your 2nd Act Musical Intellect: Nipsey Hussle x Lithe Recorded in Dallas, TX @robertsmediagroup ⁣'Tha Reality Is' is powered by Roberts Media Group. For more programming and advertisement opportunities, please visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.robertsmediagroup.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ If you would like to be a guest on the show or would like us to answer one of your questions from our perspective, email us at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠info@tharealityis.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or leave a message ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and we'll be sure to answer it on an upcoming episode.⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Please leave us a rating or review. We don't care if it's a good review, we don't care if it's a bad review, we just want to hear from you!⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tharealityis/support

In the spotlight is the author of “Bright Lights, Big City” — the explosively successful debut novel by Jay McInerney, selling 700,000 copies during its first year, and tens-of-thousands of copies annually for years running. Dubbed a member of the 1980s “brat pack” (along with Bret Easton Ellis and Tama Janowitz), McInerney followed his sensational rookie effort with titles including: “Story of My Life,” “Brightness Falls,” “The Last of the Savages,” “Model Behavior” and “The Last Bachelor,” and others.  We discuss:  >> Writing in second person >> The trappings of literary success >> His new projects >> Raymond Carver >> New York's literati >> Contrasting the 1980s with the 2020s >> His passion for wine and writing columns about the fermented grape >> Etc.  Learn more about Jay McInerney here: https://jaymcinerney.com  Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol, author of “Lolita Firestone: A Supernatural Novel,” “Family Recipes: A Novel About Italian Culture, Catholic Guilt and the Culinary Crime of the Century” and “Hardwood: A Novel About College Basketball and Other Games Young Men Play.” Buy them on any major bookselling site. Write to Mike Consol at novelistspotlight@gmail.com. We hope you will subscribe and share the link with any family, friends or colleagues who might benefit from this program. 

Chloë Sevigny har blivit lika uppmärksammad för sin klädstil som för sitt skådespeleri och många har enats om att det bara finns ett enda ord som sammanfattar hennes stil och personlighet cool. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Just nu kan man se Chloë Sevigny i tv-serien ”Feud: Capote vs. The Swans”. En dramaserie om fejden mellan författaren Truman Capote och de bättre bemedlade kvinnor som tog honom under sina vingar – ända tills han avslöjade deras hemligheter i en artikel i tidningen Esquire, 1975. I serien spelar Chloë Sevigny en klassiskt elegant kvinna vid namn CZ Guest, blond och välfriserad och propert klädd med pärlor om halsen.En stil tvärtemot den som Chloë Sevigny själv blivit känd för. För under det tidiga 1990-talet blev hon höjd till skyarna som New Yorks nya ”it-girl” tack vare att hon inte verkade bry sig om vad hon satte på sig – eller hur hon såg ut – och ändå fick det att se häpnadsväckande rätt ut. Det var mikrominikjolar, förkläden och tigermönstrade strumpbyxor i en osalig blandning.Redan 1994 blev hon porträtterad i den prestigefulla tidskriften New Yorker av den då trendige författaren Jay McInerney som beskrev henne som “the coolest girl in the world”. Då hade hon ännu inte fyllt 20. Men sedan dess har detta epitet ”cool”suttit som klistrat på henne. För än idag – när hon snart firar 50 år, hon fyller i november – är det alltid ordet ”cool” som dyker upp i samband med hennes namn. Förra månaden prydde hon till exempel omslaget av franska Vogue och rubriken var, förstås: ”Chloë Sevigny, les sens du cool”.Att hon har lyckats upprätthålla denna position under mer än trettio år måste nog betraktas som en sorts bedrift. Inte minst i dagens tider då både trender och kändisar kommer och går snabbare än vad vi hinner scrolla på våra skärmar. Men det är inte bara det personliga sättet att klä sig på som fått henne att bli betraktad som en annorlunda stilförebild. Det har också filmerna hon valt att medverka i gjort. Det är inte de mest publikfriande filmerna direkt.I veckas stil pratar vi med Andrea Linett, som på 90-talet arbetade som moderedaktör på coola ungdomsmagasinet Sassy. 1992 upptäckte hon en då 17-årig och okänd Chloë Sevigny på gatan i New York, något som ledde till både modelljobb och praktikplats på Sassy. Vi reder också ut vad som hände med multitalangen och regissören Vincent Gallo. Fredrik Strage berättar om den något kaotiska intervjun han gjorde med Gallo 1998. Och så ringer vi upp komikern och ex-mormonen Carah Burrell för att prata mormonstil och tv-serien ”Big Love” som Chloë Sevigny medverkade i 2006-2011.Veckans gäst är Helena Lindblad, filmredaktör och kritiker på Dagens Nyheter.

This episode of Books for Men is a short recap of all the episodes from July '23. There were two works of fiction and two editions of From the Vault. It's also the one-year anniversary of the show—woohoo—so I share some high-level thoughts about the podcast. Listen for more!If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the podcast. Any of the three things below will help provide awareness for the initiative—inspiring (more) men to read and bringing together men who do. (Ladies, of course, you're always welcome!)Share with a friend or on social mediaSubscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platformLeave a rating or reviewVisit BooksforMen.org to sign up for the Books for Men newsletter, a monthly round-up of every episode with full book and author info, all the best quotes, and newsletter-only book recommendations!

This episode of Books for Men features Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney. A literary novel about a twenty-something writer who resorts to the hedonism of 1980's Manhattan—cocaine, nightclubs, etc—to cope with his hapless life. It's told using a second-person point of view, placing you in the shoes of the unnamed protagonist. Listen for more!If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the podcast. Any of the three things below will help provide awareness for the initiative—inspiring (more) men to read and bringing together men who do. (Ladies, of course, you're always welcome!)Share with a friend or on social mediaSubscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platformLeave a rating or reviewVisit BooksforMen.org to sign up for the Books for Men newsletter, a monthly round-up of every episode with full book and author info, all the best quotes, and newsletter-only book recommendations!

Jay McInerney, (bestselling author of Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, How It Ended, and most recently Bright, Precious Days) shares his one true sentence from Hemingway's story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

On this episode of Passport to Everywhere, Melissa Biggs Bradley takes you on a captivating journey to the dazzling Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc along the French Riviera on the Cap d'Antibes.  Known for its storied and star-studded history, as well as the glamorous destination where celebrities stay who attend the Cannes Film Festival, du Cap is one of the most legendary hotels of the world.  Melissa sits down with the General Manager Philippe Perd, Hotel Manager Sophie Volant, and Head Concierge Gilles Bertolini, to discuss the history of Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the incredible amenities of the property, the staff's dedication to excellence, and the artists, authors and creatives from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway who stayed at the hotel and were so inspired by du Cap that it influenced their work.  Melissa also speaks with celebrated novelist, screenwriter, and longtime guest of Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Jay McInerney, about his long history as a guest of the property and his favorite things to do while staying at the hotel.

In the classic novel, Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney the narrator flashes back to the scene of his mother's deathbed. Battling cancer, aware the end is near, she takes just enough pain medication to be uninhibited but still lucid.The walls between parent and child fall away. They talk openly of the things they never managed to broach in life without embarrassment. They talk about sex. They talk about love. They talk about their fears and worries. They shared their insecurities, their feelings of inadequacies.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com

Season 3* kicks off with full book episodes released on the first Monday of every month. First up, we return to the cocaine novels of the 1980s and one of the literary brat pack's brightest works. This novel has everything: Cocaine, Bolivian Marching Powder, Peruvian Pink (and also some really salient things to say about masculinity within the meat grinder of 1980s publishing.) You could watch the Michael J. Fox movie adaptation, but then you'd miss out on a rare novel told in the 2nd person POV.*Our Season 3 format will feature new episode on the first and third Monday of the month, with longer, full novel discussions on the first followed by special readings, road trips, interviews, and general pop culture discussions on the third. As always, you can join the discussion on Instagram: @litguise

This episode looks at the 1984 debut novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and its 1987 film adaptation. ----more---- Hello, and welcome to The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we're going to talk about 80s author Bret Easton Ellis and his 1985 novel Less Than Zero, the literal polar opposite of last week's subjects, Jay McInerney and his 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City. As I mentioned last week, McInerney was twenty-nine when he published Bright Lights, Big City. What I forgot to mention was that he was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, halfway between Boston and New York City, and he would a part of that elite East Coast community that befits the upper class child of a corporate executive. Bret Easton Ellis was born and raised in Los Angeles. His father was a property developer, and his parents would divorce when he was 18. He would attend high school at The Buckley School, a college prep school in nearby Sherman Oaks, whose other famous alumni include a who's who of modern pop culture history, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Tucker Carlson, Laura Dern, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Alyssa Milano, Matthew Perry, and Nicole Richie. So they both grew up fairly well off. And they both would attend tony colleges in New England.  Ellis would attend Bennington College in Vermont, a private liberal arts college whose alumni include fellow writers Jonathan Lethem and Donna Tartt, who would both graduate from Bennington the same year as Ellis, 1986. While still attending The Buckley School, the then sixteen year old Ellis would start writing the book he would call Less Than Zero, after the Elvis Costello song. The story would follow a protagonist not unlike Bret Easton Ellis and his adventures through a high school not unlike Buckley. Unlike the final product, Ellis's first draft of Less Than Zero wore its heart on its sleeve, and was written in the third person.  Ellis would do a couple of rewrites of the novel during his final years at Buckley and his first years at Bennington, until his creative writing professor, true crime novelist Joe McGinness, suggested to the young writer that he revert his story back to the first person, which Ellis was at first hesitant to do. But once he did start to rewrite the story as a traditional novel, everything seemed to click. Ellis would have his book finished by the end of the year, and McGinniss was so impressed with the final product that he would submit it to his own agent to send out to publishers. Bret Easton Ellis was only a second year student at the time. And because timing is everything in life, Less Than Zero was being submitted to publishers just as Bright Lights, Big City was tearing up the best seller charts, and the publisher Simon and Schuster would purchase the rights to the book for $5,000. When the book was published in June 1985, Ellis just finished his third year at Bennington.  He was only twenty-one years and three months old. Oh… also… before the book was published, the film producer Marvin Worth, whose credits included Bob Fosse's 1974 doc-drama about Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman, 1979's musical drama The Rose, Bette Midler's breakthrough film as an actress, and the 1983 Dudley Moore comedy Unfaithfully Yours, would purchase the rights to make the novel into a movie, for $7,500. The film would be produced at Twentieth Century-Fox, under the supervision of the studio's then vice president of production, Scott Rudin. The book would become a success upon its release, with young readers gravitating towards Clay and his aimless, meandering tour of the rich and decadent young adults in Los Angeles circa Christmas 1984, bouncing through parties and conversations and sex and drugs and shopping malls. One of those readers who became obsessed with the book was a then-seventeen year old Los Angeles native who had just returned to the city after three years of high school in Northern California. Me. I read Less Than Zero easily three times that summer, enraptured not only with Ellis's minimalist prose but with Clay specifically. Although I was neither bisexual nor a user of drugs, Clay was the closest thing I had ever seen to myself in a book before. I had kept in touch with my school friends from junior high while I lived in Santa Cruz, and I found myself to have drifted far away from them during my time away from them. And then when I went back to Santa Cruz shortly after Christmas in 1985, I had a similar feeling of isolation from a number of my friends there, not six months after leaving high school. I also loved how Ellis threw in a number of then-current Los Angeles-specific references, including two mentions of KROQ DJ Richard Blade, who was the coolest guy in radio on the planet. And thanks to Sirius XM and its First Wave channel, I can still listen to Richard Blade almost daily, but now from wherever I might be in the world. But I digress. My bond with Less Than Zero only deepened the next time I read it in early 1986. One of the things I used to do as a young would-be screenwriter living in Los Angeles was to try and write adaptation of novels when I wasn't going to school, going to movies, or working as a file clerk at a law firm. But one book I couldn't adapt for the life of me was Less Than Zero. Sure, there was a story there, but its episodic nature made it difficult to create a coherent storyline. Fox felt the same way, so they would hire Michael Cristofer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, to do the first draft of the script. Cristofer had just finished writing the adaptation of John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick that Mad Max director George Miller was about to direct, and he would do a literal adaptation of Ellis's book, with all the drugs and sex and violence, except for a slight rehabilitation of the lead character's sexuality. Although it was still the 1980s, with one part of the nation dramatically shifting its perspective on many types of sexuality, it was still Ronald Reagan's 1980s America, and maybe it wasn't a good idea to have the lead character be openly bisexual in a major studio motion picture. Cristofer would complete his first draft of the script in just one month, and producer Marvin Worth really loved it. Problem was, the Fox executives hated it. In a November 18th, 1987, New York Times article about the adaptation, Worth would tell writer Allen Harmetz that he thought Cristofer's script was highly commercial, because “it had something gripping to say about the dilemma of a generation to whom nothing matters.” Which, as someone who had just turned twenty years old eight days after the movie's release and four days before this article came out, I absolutely disagree with. My generation cared about a great many things. We cared about human rights. We cared about ending apartheid. We cared about ending AIDS and what was happening politically and economically. Yeah, we also cared about puffy jean jackets and neon colored clothes and other non-sensical things to take our minds off all the other junk we were dealing with, but it would be typical of a forty something screenwriter and a fiftysomething producer to thing we didn't give a damn about anything. But again, I digress. Worth and the studio would agree on one thing. It wasn't really a drug film, but about young people being destroyed by the privilege of having everything you ever wanted available to you. But the studio would want the movie version of the book to be a bit more sanitized for mainstream consumption. Goodbye, Marvin Worth. Hello, Jon Avnet. In 1986, Jon Avnet was mostly a producer of low-budget films for television, with titles like Between Two Women and Calendar Girl Murders, but he had struck gold in 1983 with a lower-budgeted studio movie with a first-time director and a little known lead actor. That movie was Risky Business, and it made that little known lead actor, Tom Cruise, a bona-fide star. Avnet, wanting to make the move out of television and onto the big screen, would hire Harley Peyton, a former script reader for former Columbia Pictures and MGM/UA head David Begelman, who you might remember from several of our previous episodes, and six-time Oscar nominated producer/screenwriter Ernest Lehman. Peyton would spend weeks in Avnet's office, pouring over every page of the book, deciding what to keep, what to toss, and what to change. Two of the first things to go were the screening of a “snuff” film on the beach, and a scene where a twelve year old girl is tied to a bedpost and raped by one of the main characters. Julian would still hustle himself out to men for money to buy drugs, but Clay would a committed heterosexual. Casting on the film would see many of Hollywood's leading younger male actors looked at for Clay, including a twenty-three year old recent transplant from Oklahoma looking not only for his first leading role, but his first speaking role on screen. Brad Pitt. The producers would instead go with twenty-four year old Andrew McCarthy, an amiable-enough actor who had already made a name for himself with such films as St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty in Pink, and who would have another hit film in Mannequin between being cast as Clay and the start of production. For Blair, they would cast Jami Gertz, who had spent years on the cusp of stardom, between her co-starring role as Muffy Tepperman on the iconic 1982 CBS series Square Pegs, to movies such as Quicksilver and Crossroads that were expected to be bigger than they ended up being. The ace up her sleeve was the upcoming vampire horror/comedy film The Lost Boys, which Warner Brothers was so certain was going to be a huge hit, they would actually move it away from its original Spring 1987 release date to a prime mid-July release. The third point in the triangle, Julian, would see Robert Downey Jr. get cast. Today, it's hard to understand just how not famous Downey was at the time. He had been featured in movies like Weird Science and Tuff Turf, and spent a year as a Not Ready For Prime Time Player on what most people agree was the single worst season of Saturday Night Live, but his star was starting to rise.  What the producers did not know, and Downey did not elaborate on, was that, like Julian, Downey was falling down a spiral of drug use, which would make his performance more method-like than anyone could have guessed. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were hot in the Los Angeles music scene but were still a couple years from the release of their breakout album, 1989's Mothers Milk, were cast to play a band in one of the party scenes, and additional cast members would include James Spader and Lisanne Falk, who would become semi-famous two years later as one of the Heathers. Impressed with a 1984 British historical drama called Another Country featuring Colin Firth, Cary Elwes and Rupert Everett, Avnet would hire that film's 35 year old director, Marek Kanievska, to make his American directing debut. But Kanievska would be in for a major culture shock when he learned just how different the American studio system was to the British production system. Shooting on the film was set to begin in Los Angeles on May 6th, 1987, and the film was already scheduled to open in theatres barely six months later. One major element that would help keep the movie moving along was cinematographer Ed Lachman. Lachman had been working as a cinematographer for nearly 15 years, and had shot movies like Jonathan Demme's Last Embrace, Susan Sideman's Desperately Seeking Susan, and David Byrne's True Stories.  Lachman knew how to keep things on track for lower budgeted movies, and at only $8m, Less Than Zero was the second lowest budgeted film for Twentieth Century-Fox for the entire year. Not that having a lower budget was going to stop Kanievska and Lachman from trying make the best film they could. They would stage the film in the garish neon lighting the 80s would be best known for, with cool flairs like lighting a poolside discussion between Clay and Julian where the ripples of the water and the underwater lights create an effect on the characters' faces that highlight Julian's literal drowning in his problems. There's also one very awesome shot where Clay's convertible, parked in the middle of a street with its top down, as we see Clay and Blair making out while scores of motorcycles loudly pass by them on either side. And there's a Steadicam shot during the party scene featuring the Chili Peppers which is supposed to be out of this world, but it's likely we'll never see it. Once the film was finished shooting and Kanievska turned in his assembly cut, the studio was not happy with the film. It was edgier than they wanted, and they had a problem with the party scene with the Peppers. Specifically, that the band was jumping around on screen, extremely sweaty, without their shirts on. It also didn't help that Larry Gordon, the President of Fox who had approved the purchase of the book, had been let go before production on the film began, and his replacement, Alan Horn, who did give the final go-ahead on the film, had also been summarily dismissed. His replacement, Leonard Goldberg, really hated the material, thought it was distasteful, but Barry Diller, the chairman of the studio, was still a supporter of the project. During all this infighting, the director, Kanievska, had been released from the film.  Before any test screenings. Test screenings had really become a part of the studio modus operandi in the 1980s, and Fox would often hold their test screenings on the Fox Studio Lot in Century City. There are several screenings rooms on the Fox lot, from the 53 seat William Fox Theatre, to the 476 seat Darryl Zanuck Theatre. Most of the Less Than Zero test screenings would be held in the 120 seat Little Theatre, so that audience reactions would be easier to gauge, and should they want to keep some of the audience over for a post-screening Q&A, it would be easier to recruit eight or ten audience members. That first test screening did not go over well. Even though the screening room was filled with young people between the ages of 15 and 24, and many of them were recruited from nearby malls like the Century City Mall and the Beverly Center based off a stated liking of Andrew McCarthy, they really didn't like Jami Hertz's character, and they really hated Robert Downey Jr's. Several of the harder scenes of drug use with their characters would be toned down, either through judicious editing, or new scenes were shot, such as when Blair is seen dumping her cocaine into a bathroom sink, which was filmed without a director by the cinematographer, Ed Lachman. They'd also shoot a flashback scene to the trio's high school graduation, meant to show them in happier times. The film would be completed three weeks before its November 6th release date, and Fox would book the film into 871 theatres., going up against no less than seven other new movies, including a Shelley Long comedy, Hello Again, the fourth entry in the Death Wish series, yet another Jon Cryer high school movie, Hiding Out, a weird Patrick Swayze sci-fi movie called Steel Dawn, a relatively tame fantasy romance film from Alan Rudolph called Made in Heaven, and a movie called Ruskies which starred a very young Joaquin Phoenix when he was still known as Leaf Phoenix, while also contending with movies like Fatal Attraction, Baby Boom and Dirty Dancing, which were all still doing very well two to four months in theatres. The reviews for the film were mostly bad. If there was any saving grace critically, it would be the praise heaped upon Downey for his raw performance as a drug addict, but of course, no one knew he actually was a drug addict at that time. The film would open in fourth place with $3.01m in ticket sales, less than half of what Fatal Attraction grossed that weekend, in its eighth week of release. And the following weeks' drops would be swift and merciless. Down 36% in its second week, another 41% in its third, and had one of the worst drops in its fourth week, the four day Thanksgiving holiday weekend, when many movies were up in ticket sales. By early December, the film was mostly playing in dollar houses, and by the first of the year, Fox had already stopped tracking it, with slightly less than $12.4m in tickets sold. As of the writing of this episode, at the end of November 2022, you cannot find Less Than Zero streaming anywhere, although if you do want to see it online, it's not that hard to find. But it has been available for streaming in the past on sites like Amazon Prime and The Roku Channel, so hopefully it will find its way back to streaming in the future. Or you can find a copy of the 21 year old DVD on Amazon. Thank you for listening. We'll talk again real soon, when our final episode of 2022, Episode 96, on Michael Jackson's Thriller, is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Less Than Zero the movie and the novel, and its author, Bret Easton Ellis. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.

This episode looks at the 1984 debut novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and its 1987 film adaptation. ----more---- Hello, and welcome to The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. On this episode, we're going to talk about 80s author Bret Easton Ellis and his 1985 novel Less Than Zero, the literal polar opposite of last week's subjects, Jay McInerney and his 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City. As I mentioned last week, McInerney was twenty-nine when he published Bright Lights, Big City. What I forgot to mention was that he was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, halfway between Boston and New York City, and he would a part of that elite East Coast community that befits the upper class child of a corporate executive. Bret Easton Ellis was born and raised in Los Angeles. His father was a property developer, and his parents would divorce when he was 18. He would attend high school at The Buckley School, a college prep school in nearby Sherman Oaks, whose other famous alumni include a who's who of modern pop culture history, including Paul Thomas Anderson, Tucker Carlson, Laura Dern, Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, Alyssa Milano, Matthew Perry, and Nicole Richie. So they both grew up fairly well off. And they both would attend tony colleges in New England.  Ellis would attend Bennington College in Vermont, a private liberal arts college whose alumni include fellow writers Jonathan Lethem and Donna Tartt, who would both graduate from Bennington the same year as Ellis, 1986. While still attending The Buckley School, the then sixteen year old Ellis would start writing the book he would call Less Than Zero, after the Elvis Costello song. The story would follow a protagonist not unlike Bret Easton Ellis and his adventures through a high school not unlike Buckley. Unlike the final product, Ellis's first draft of Less Than Zero wore its heart on its sleeve, and was written in the third person.  Ellis would do a couple of rewrites of the novel during his final years at Buckley and his first years at Bennington, until his creative writing professor, true crime novelist Joe McGinness, suggested to the young writer that he revert his story back to the first person, which Ellis was at first hesitant to do. But once he did start to rewrite the story as a traditional novel, everything seemed to click. Ellis would have his book finished by the end of the year, and McGinniss was so impressed with the final product that he would submit it to his own agent to send out to publishers. Bret Easton Ellis was only a second year student at the time. And because timing is everything in life, Less Than Zero was being submitted to publishers just as Bright Lights, Big City was tearing up the best seller charts, and the publisher Simon and Schuster would purchase the rights to the book for $5,000. When the book was published in June 1985, Ellis just finished his third year at Bennington.  He was only twenty-one years and three months old. Oh… also… before the book was published, the film producer Marvin Worth, whose credits included Bob Fosse's 1974 doc-drama about Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman, 1979's musical drama The Rose, Bette Midler's breakthrough film as an actress, and the 1983 Dudley Moore comedy Unfaithfully Yours, would purchase the rights to make the novel into a movie, for $7,500. The film would be produced at Twentieth Century-Fox, under the supervision of the studio's then vice president of production, Scott Rudin. The book would become a success upon its release, with young readers gravitating towards Clay and his aimless, meandering tour of the rich and decadent young adults in Los Angeles circa Christmas 1984, bouncing through parties and conversations and sex and drugs and shopping malls. One of those readers who became obsessed with the book was a then-seventeen year old Los Angeles native who had just returned to the city after three years of high school in Northern California. Me. I read Less Than Zero easily three times that summer, enraptured not only with Ellis's minimalist prose but with Clay specifically. Although I was neither bisexual nor a user of drugs, Clay was the closest thing I had ever seen to myself in a book before. I had kept in touch with my school friends from junior high while I lived in Santa Cruz, and I found myself to have drifted far away from them during my time away from them. And then when I went back to Santa Cruz shortly after Christmas in 1985, I had a similar feeling of isolation from a number of my friends there, not six months after leaving high school. I also loved how Ellis threw in a number of then-current Los Angeles-specific references, including two mentions of KROQ DJ Richard Blade, who was the coolest guy in radio on the planet. And thanks to Sirius XM and its First Wave channel, I can still listen to Richard Blade almost daily, but now from wherever I might be in the world. But I digress. My bond with Less Than Zero only deepened the next time I read it in early 1986. One of the things I used to do as a young would-be screenwriter living in Los Angeles was to try and write adaptation of novels when I wasn't going to school, going to movies, or working as a file clerk at a law firm. But one book I couldn't adapt for the life of me was Less Than Zero. Sure, there was a story there, but its episodic nature made it difficult to create a coherent storyline. Fox felt the same way, so they would hire Michael Cristofer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, to do the first draft of the script. Cristofer had just finished writing the adaptation of John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick that Mad Max director George Miller was about to direct, and he would do a literal adaptation of Ellis's book, with all the drugs and sex and violence, except for a slight rehabilitation of the lead character's sexuality. Although it was still the 1980s, with one part of the nation dramatically shifting its perspective on many types of sexuality, it was still Ronald Reagan's 1980s America, and maybe it wasn't a good idea to have the lead character be openly bisexual in a major studio motion picture. Cristofer would complete his first draft of the script in just one month, and producer Marvin Worth really loved it. Problem was, the Fox executives hated it. In a November 18th, 1987, New York Times article about the adaptation, Worth would tell writer Allen Harmetz that he thought Cristofer's script was highly commercial, because “it had something gripping to say about the dilemma of a generation to whom nothing matters.” Which, as someone who had just turned twenty years old eight days after the movie's release and four days before this article came out, I absolutely disagree with. My generation cared about a great many things. We cared about human rights. We cared about ending apartheid. We cared about ending AIDS and what was happening politically and economically. Yeah, we also cared about puffy jean jackets and neon colored clothes and other non-sensical things to take our minds off all the other junk we were dealing with, but it would be typical of a forty something screenwriter and a fiftysomething producer to thing we didn't give a damn about anything. But again, I digress. Worth and the studio would agree on one thing. It wasn't really a drug film, but about young people being destroyed by the privilege of having everything you ever wanted available to you. But the studio would want the movie version of the book to be a bit more sanitized for mainstream consumption. Goodbye, Marvin Worth. Hello, Jon Avnet. In 1986, Jon Avnet was mostly a producer of low-budget films for television, with titles like Between Two Women and Calendar Girl Murders, but he had struck gold in 1983 with a lower-budgeted studio movie with a first-time director and a little known lead actor. That movie was Risky Business, and it made that little known lead actor, Tom Cruise, a bona-fide star. Avnet, wanting to make the move out of television and onto the big screen, would hire Harley Peyton, a former script reader for former Columbia Pictures and MGM/UA head David Begelman, who you might remember from several of our previous episodes, and six-time Oscar nominated producer/screenwriter Ernest Lehman. Peyton would spend weeks in Avnet's office, pouring over every page of the book, deciding what to keep, what to toss, and what to change. Two of the first things to go were the screening of a “snuff” film on the beach, and a scene where a twelve year old girl is tied to a bedpost and raped by one of the main characters. Julian would still hustle himself out to men for money to buy drugs, but Clay would a committed heterosexual. Casting on the film would see many of Hollywood's leading younger male actors looked at for Clay, including a twenty-three year old recent transplant from Oklahoma looking not only for his first leading role, but his first speaking role on screen. Brad Pitt. The producers would instead go with twenty-four year old Andrew McCarthy, an amiable-enough actor who had already made a name for himself with such films as St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty in Pink, and who would have another hit film in Mannequin between being cast as Clay and the start of production. For Blair, they would cast Jami Gertz, who had spent years on the cusp of stardom, between her co-starring role as Muffy Tepperman on the iconic 1982 CBS series Square Pegs, to movies such as Quicksilver and Crossroads that were expected to be bigger than they ended up being. The ace up her sleeve was the upcoming vampire horror/comedy film The Lost Boys, which Warner Brothers was so certain was going to be a huge hit, they would actually move it away from its original Spring 1987 release date to a prime mid-July release. The third point in the triangle, Julian, would see Robert Downey Jr. get cast. Today, it's hard to understand just how not famous Downey was at the time. He had been featured in movies like Weird Science and Tuff Turf, and spent a year as a Not Ready For Prime Time Player on what most people agree was the single worst season of Saturday Night Live, but his star was starting to rise.  What the producers did not know, and Downey did not elaborate on, was that, like Julian, Downey was falling down a spiral of drug use, which would make his performance more method-like than anyone could have guessed. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were hot in the Los Angeles music scene but were still a couple years from the release of their breakout album, 1989's Mothers Milk, were cast to play a band in one of the party scenes, and additional cast members would include James Spader and Lisanne Falk, who would become semi-famous two years later as one of the Heathers. Impressed with a 1984 British historical drama called Another Country featuring Colin Firth, Cary Elwes and Rupert Everett, Avnet would hire that film's 35 year old director, Marek Kanievska, to make his American directing debut. But Kanievska would be in for a major culture shock when he learned just how different the American studio system was to the British production system. Shooting on the film was set to begin in Los Angeles on May 6th, 1987, and the film was already scheduled to open in theatres barely six months later. One major element that would help keep the movie moving along was cinematographer Ed Lachman. Lachman had been working as a cinematographer for nearly 15 years, and had shot movies like Jonathan Demme's Last Embrace, Susan Sideman's Desperately Seeking Susan, and David Byrne's True Stories.  Lachman knew how to keep things on track for lower budgeted movies, and at only $8m, Less Than Zero was the second lowest budgeted film for Twentieth Century-Fox for the entire year. Not that having a lower budget was going to stop Kanievska and Lachman from trying make the best film they could. They would stage the film in the garish neon lighting the 80s would be best known for, with cool flairs like lighting a poolside discussion between Clay and Julian where the ripples of the water and the underwater lights create an effect on the characters' faces that highlight Julian's literal drowning in his problems. There's also one very awesome shot where Clay's convertible, parked in the middle of a street with its top down, as we see Clay and Blair making out while scores of motorcycles loudly pass by them on either side. And there's a Steadicam shot during the party scene featuring the Chili Peppers which is supposed to be out of this world, but it's likely we'll never see it. Once the film was finished shooting and Kanievska turned in his assembly cut, the studio was not happy with the film. It was edgier than they wanted, and they had a problem with the party scene with the Peppers. Specifically, that the band was jumping around on screen, extremely sweaty, without their shirts on. It also didn't help that Larry Gordon, the President of Fox who had approved the purchase of the book, had been let go before production on the film began, and his replacement, Alan Horn, who did give the final go-ahead on the film, had also been summarily dismissed. His replacement, Leonard Goldberg, really hated the material, thought it was distasteful, but Barry Diller, the chairman of the studio, was still a supporter of the project. During all this infighting, the director, Kanievska, had been released from the film.  Before any test screenings. Test screenings had really become a part of the studio modus operandi in the 1980s, and Fox would often hold their test screenings on the Fox Studio Lot in Century City. There are several screenings rooms on the Fox lot, from the 53 seat William Fox Theatre, to the 476 seat Darryl Zanuck Theatre. Most of the Less Than Zero test screenings would be held in the 120 seat Little Theatre, so that audience reactions would be easier to gauge, and should they want to keep some of the audience over for a post-screening Q&A, it would be easier to recruit eight or ten audience members. That first test screening did not go over well. Even though the screening room was filled with young people between the ages of 15 and 24, and many of them were recruited from nearby malls like the Century City Mall and the Beverly Center based off a stated liking of Andrew McCarthy, they really didn't like Jami Hertz's character, and they really hated Robert Downey Jr's. Several of the harder scenes of drug use with their characters would be toned down, either through judicious editing, or new scenes were shot, such as when Blair is seen dumping her cocaine into a bathroom sink, which was filmed without a director by the cinematographer, Ed Lachman. They'd also shoot a flashback scene to the trio's high school graduation, meant to show them in happier times. The film would be completed three weeks before its November 6th release date, and Fox would book the film into 871 theatres., going up against no less than seven other new movies, including a Shelley Long comedy, Hello Again, the fourth entry in the Death Wish series, yet another Jon Cryer high school movie, Hiding Out, a weird Patrick Swayze sci-fi movie called Steel Dawn, a relatively tame fantasy romance film from Alan Rudolph called Made in Heaven, and a movie called Ruskies which starred a very young Joaquin Phoenix when he was still known as Leaf Phoenix, while also contending with movies like Fatal Attraction, Baby Boom and Dirty Dancing, which were all still doing very well two to four months in theatres. The reviews for the film were mostly bad. If there was any saving grace critically, it would be the praise heaped upon Downey for his raw performance as a drug addict, but of course, no one knew he actually was a drug addict at that time. The film would open in fourth place with $3.01m in ticket sales, less than half of what Fatal Attraction grossed that weekend, in its eighth week of release. And the following weeks' drops would be swift and merciless. Down 36% in its second week, another 41% in its third, and had one of the worst drops in its fourth week, the four day Thanksgiving holiday weekend, when many movies were up in ticket sales. By early December, the film was mostly playing in dollar houses, and by the first of the year, Fox had already stopped tracking it, with slightly less than $12.4m in tickets sold. As of the writing of this episode, at the end of November 2022, you cannot find Less Than Zero streaming anywhere, although if you do want to see it online, it's not that hard to find. But it has been available for streaming in the past on sites like Amazon Prime and The Roku Channel, so hopefully it will find its way back to streaming in the future. Or you can find a copy of the 21 year old DVD on Amazon. Thank you for listening. We'll talk again real soon, when our final episode of 2022, Episode 96, on Michael Jackson's Thriller, is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Less Than Zero the movie and the novel, and its author, Bret Easton Ellis. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.

On this episode, we travel back to 1984, and the days when a "young adult" novel included lots of drugs and partying and absolutely no sparkly vampires or dystopian warrior girls. We're talking about Jay McInerney's groundbreaking novel, Bright Lights, Big City, and its 1988 film version starring Michael J. Fox and Keifer Sutherland. ----more---- Hello, and welcome to The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. The original 1984 front cover for Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City If you were a young adult in the late 1980s, there's a very good chance that you started reading more adult-y books thanks to an imprint called Vintage Contemporaries. Quality books at an affordable paperback price point, with their uniform and intrinsically 80s designed covers, bold cover and spine fonts, and mix of first-time writers and cult authors who never quite broke through to the mainstream, the Vintage Contemporary series would be an immediate hit when it was first launched in September 1984. The first set of releases would include such novels as Raymond Carver's Cathedral and Thomas McGuane's The Bushwhacked Piano, but the one that would set the bar for the entire series was the first novel by a twenty-nine year old former fact checker at the New Yorker magazine. The writer was Jay McInerney, and his novel was Bright Lights, Big City. The original 1984 front cover for Raymond Carver's Cathedral Bright Lights, Big City would set a template for twenty something writers in the 1980s. A protagonist not unlike the writer themselves, with a not-so-secret drug addiction, and often written in the second person, You, which was not a usual literary choice at the time. The nameless protagonist, You, is a divorced twenty-four year old wannabe writer who works as fact-checker at a major upscale magazine in New York City, for which he once dreamed of writing for. You is recently divorced from Amanda, an aspiring model he had met while going to school in Kansas City. You would move to New York City earlier in the year with her when her modeling career was starting to talk off. While in Paris for Fashion Week, Amanda called You to inform him their marriage was over, and that she was leaving him for another man. You continues to hope Amanda will return to him, and when it's clear she won't, he not only becomes obsessed with everything about her that left in their apartment, he begins to slide into reckless abandon at the clubs they used to frequent, and becoming heavily addicted to cocaine, which then affects his performance at work. A chance encounter with Amanda at an event in the city leads You to a public humiliation, which makes him starts to realize that his behavior is not because his wife left him, but a manifestation of the grief he still feels over his mother's passing the previous year. You had gotten married to a woman he hardly knew because he wanted to make his mother happy before she died, and he was still unconsciously grieving when his wife's leaving him triggered his downward spiral. Bright Lights, Big City was an immediate hit, one of the few paperback-only books to ever hit the New York Times best-seller chart. Within two years, the novel had sold more than 300,000 copies, and spawned a tidal wave of like-minded twentysomething writers becoming published. Bret Easton Ellis might have been able to get his first novel Less Than Zero published somewhere down the line, but it was McInerney's success that would cause Simon and Schuster to try and duplicate Vintage's success, which they would. Same with Tana Janowitz, whose 1986 novel Slaves of New York was picked up by Crown Publishers looking to replicate the success of McInerney and Ellis, despite her previous novel, 1981's American Dad, being completely ignored by the book buying public at that time. While the book took moments from his life, it wasn't necessarily autobiographical. For example, McInerney had been married to a fashion model in the early 1980s, but they would meet while he attended Syracuse University in the late 1970s. And yes, McInerney would do a lot of blow during his divorce from his wife, and yes, he would get fired from The New Yorker because of the effects of his drug addiction. Yes, he was partying pretty hard during the times that preceded the writing of his first novel. And yes, he would meet a young woman who would kinda rescue him and get him on the right path.  But there were a number of details about McInerney's life that were not used for the book. Like how the author studied writing with none other than Raymond Carver while studying creative writing at Syracuse, or how his family connections would allow him to submit blind stories to someone like George Plimpton at the Paris Review, and not only get the story read but published. And, naturally, any literary success was going to become a movie at some point. For Bright Lights, it would happen almost as soon as the novel was published. Robert Lawrence, a vice president at Columbia Pictures in his early thirties, had read the book nearly cover to cover in a single sitting, and envisioned a film that could be “The Graduate” of his generation, with maybe a bit of “Lost Weekend” thrown in. But the older executives at the studio balked at the idea, which they felt would be subversive and unconventional. They would, however, buy in when Lawrence was able to get mega-producer Jerry Weintraub to be a producer on the film, who in turn was able to get Joel Schumacher, who had just finished filming St. Elmo's Fire for the studio, to direct, and get Tom Cruise, who was still two years away from Top Gun and megastardom, to play the main character. McInerney was hired to write the script, and he and Schumacher and Cruise would even go on club crawls in New York City to help inform all of the atmosphere they were trying to capture with the film. In 1985, Weintraub would be hired by United Artists to become their new chief executive, and Bright Lights would be one of the properties he would be allowed to take with him to his new home. But since he was now an executive, Weintraub would need to hire a new producer to take the reigns on the picture. Enter Sydney Pollack. By 1985, Sydney Pollack was one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. With films like They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor, The Electric Horseman and Tootsie under his belt, Pollock could get a film made, and get it seen by audiences. At least, as a director. At this point in his career, he had only ever produced one movie, Alan Rudolph's 1984 musical drama Songwriter, which despite being based on the life of Willie Nelson, and starring Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Rip Torn, barely grossed a tenth of its $8m budget. And Pollock at that moment was busy putting the finishing touches on his newest film, an African-based drama featuring Meryl Streep and longtime Pollock collaborator Robert Redford. That film, Out of Africa, would win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, in March 1986, which would keep Pollock and his producing partner Mark Rosenberg's attention away from Bright Lights for several months. Once the hype on Out of Africa died down, Pollock and Rosenberg got to work getting Bright Lights, Big City made. Starting with hiring a new screenwriter, a new director, and a new leading actor. McInerney, Schumacher and Cruise had gotten tired of waiting. Ironically, Cruise would call on Pollock to direct another movie he was waiting to make, also based at United Artists, that he was going to star in alongside Dustin Hoffman. That movie, of course, is Rain Man, and we'll dive into that movie another time. Also ironically, Weintraub would not last long as the CEO of United Artists. Just five months after becoming the head of the studio, Weintraub would tire of the antics of Kirk Kerkorian, the owner of United Artists and its sister company, MGM, and step down. Kerkorian would not let Weintraub take any of the properties he brought from Columbia to his new home, the eponymously named mini-major he'd form with backing from Columbia. With a new studio head in place, Pollock started to look for a new director. He would discover that director in Joyce Chopra, who, after twenty years of making documentaries, made her first dramatic narrative in 1985. Smooth Talk was an incredible coming of age drama, based on a story by Joyce Carol Oates, that would make a star out of then seventeen-year-old Laura Dern. UA would not only hire her to direct the film but hire her husband, Tom Cole, who brilliantly adapted the Oates story that was the basis for Smooth Talk, to co-write the screenplay with his wife. While Cole was working on the script, Chopra would have her agent send a copy of McInerney's book to Michael J. Fox. This wasn't just some random decision. Chopra knew she needed a star for this movie, and Fox's agent just happened to be Chopra's agent. That'd be two commissions for the agent if it came together, and a copy of the book was delivered to Fox's dressing room on the Family Ties soundstage that very day. Fox loved the book, and agreed to do the film. After Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly and other characters he had played that highlighted his good looks and pleasant demeanor, he was ready to play a darker, more morally ambiguous character. Since the production was scheduled around Fox's summer hiatus from the hit TV show, he was in. For Pollock and United Artists, this was a major coup, landing one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. But the project was originally going to be Toronto standing in for New York City for less than $7m with a lesser known cast. Now, it was going to be a $15m with not only Michael J. Fox but also Keifer Sutherland, who was cast as Tad, the best friend of the formerly named You, who would now known as Jamie Conway, and would be shot on location in New York City. The film would also feature Phoebe Cates as Jamie's model ex-wife, William Hickey, Kelly Lynch. But there was a major catch. The production would only have ten weeks to shoot with Fox, as he was due back in Los Angeles to begin production on the sixth season of Family Ties.  He wasn't going to do that thing he did making a movie and a television show at the same time like he did with Back to the Future and Family Ties in 1984 and 1985. Ten weeks and not a day more. Production on the film would begin on April 13th, 1987, to get as much of the film shot while Fox was still finishing Family Ties in Los Angeles. He would be joining the production at the end of the month. But Fox never get the chance to shoot with Chopra. After three weeks of production, Chopra, her husband, and her cinematographer James Glennon, who had also shot Smooth Talk, were dismissed from the film. The suits at United Artists were not happy with the Fox-less footage that was coming out of New York, and were not happy with the direction of the film. Cole and Chopra had removed much of the nightlife and drug life storyline, and focused more on the development of Jamie as a writer. Apparently, no one at the studio had read the final draft of the script before shooting began. Cole, the screenwriter, says it was Pollock, the producer, who requested the changes, but in the end, it would be not the Oscar-winning filmmaker producing the movie that would be released but the trio of newer creatives. Second unit footage would continue to shoot around New York City while the studio looked for a new director. Ironically, days after Chopra was fired, the Directors Guild of America had announced that if they were not able to sign a new agreement with the Producers Guild before the end of the current contract on June 30th, the directors were going on strike. So now United Artists were really under the gun. After considering such filmmakers as Belgian director Ulu Grosbard, who had directed Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro in Falling in Love, and Australian director Bruce Beresford, whose films had included Breaker Morant and Tender Mercies, they would find their new director in James Bridges, whose filmography included such critical and financial success as The Paper Chase, The China Syndrome and Urban Cowboy, but had two bombs in a row in 1984's Mike's Murder and 1985's Perfect. He needed a hit, and this was the first solid directing offer in three years. He'd spend the weekend after his hiring doing some minor recasting, including bringing in John Houseman, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in The Paper Chase, as well as Swoosie Kurtz, Oscar-winning actors Jason Robards and Dianne Weist, and Tracy Pollan, Fox's co-star on Family Ties, who would shortly after the filming of Bright Lights become Mrs. Michael J. Fox, although in the film, she would be cast not as a love interest to her real-life boyfriend's character but as the wife of Keifer Sutherland's character. After a week of rewriting McInerney's original draft of the screenplay from the Schumacher days, principal photography re-commenced on the film. And since Bridges would be working with famed cinematographer Gordon Willis, who had shot three previous movies with Bridges as well as the first two Godfather movies and every Woody Allen movie from Annie Hall to The Purple Rose of Cairo, it was also decided that none of Chopra's footage would be used. Everything would start back on square one. And because of the impending Directors Guild strike, he'd have only thirty-six days, a tad over five weeks, to film everything. One of the lobby cards from the movie version of Bright Lights, Big City And they were able to get it all done, thanks to some ingenious measures. One location, the Palladium concert hall on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, would double as three different nightclubs, two discotheques and a dinner club. Instead of finding six different locations, which would loading cameras and lights from one location to another, moving hundreds of people as well, and then setting the lights and props again, over and over, all they would have to do is re-decorate the area to become the next thing they needed. Bridges would complete the film that day before the Directors Guild strike deadline, but the strike would never happen. But there would be some issue with the final writing credits. While Bridges had used McInerney's original screenplay as a jumping off point, the writer/director had really latched on to the mother's death as the emotional center of the movie. Bridges' own grandmother had passed away in 1986, and he found writing those scenes to be cathartic for his own unresolved issues. But despite the changes Bridges would make to the script, including adding such filmmaking tropes as flashbacks and voiceovers, and having the movie broken up into sections by the use of chapter titles being typed out on screen, the Writers Guild would give sole screenwriting credit to Jay McInerney. As post-production continued throughout the fall, the one topic no one involved in the production wanted to talk about or even acknowledge was the movie version of Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero that rival studio 20th Century Fox had been making in Los Angeles. It had a smaller budget, a lesser known filmmaker, a lesser known cast lead by Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz, and a budget half the size. If their film was a hit, that could be good for this one. And if their film wasn't a hit? Well, Bright Lights was the trendsetter. It was the one that sold more copies. The one that saw its author featured in more magazines and television news shows. How well did Less Than Zero do when it was released into theatres on November 6th, 1987? Well, you're just going to have to wait until next week's episode. Unless you're listening months or years after they were published, and are listening to episodes in reverse order. Then you already know how it did, but let's just say it wasn't a hit but it wasn't really a dud either. Bridges would spend nearly six months putting his film together, most of which he would find enjoyable, but he would have trouble deciding which of two endings he shot would be used. His preferred ending saw Jamie wandering through the streets of New York City early one morning, after a long night of partying that included a confrontation with his ex-wife, where he decides that was the day he was going to get his life back on track but not knowing what he was going to do, but the studio asked for an alternative ending, one that features Jamie one year in the future, putting the finishing touches on his first novel, which we see is titled… wait for it… Bright Lights, Big City, while his new girlfriend stands behind him giving her approval. After several audience test screenings, the studio would decide to let Bridges have his ending. United Artists would an April 1st, 1988 release date, and would spend months gearing up the publicity machine. Fox and Pollan were busy finishing the final episodes of that season's Family Ties, and weren't as widely available for the publicity circuit outside of those based in Los Angeles. The studio wasn't too worried, though. Michael J. Fox's last movie, The Secret of My Success, had been released in April 1987, and had grossed $67m without his doing a lot of publicity for that one, either. Opening on 1196 screens, the film would only manage to gross $5.13m, putting it in third place behind the previous week's #1 film, Biloxi Blues with Matthew Broderick, and the Tim Burton comedy Beetlejuice, which despite opening on nearly 200 fewer screens would gross nearly $3m more. But the reviews were not great. Decent. Respectful. But not great. The New York-based critics, like David Ansen of Newsweek and Janet Maslin of the Times, would be kinder than most other critics, maybe because they didn't want to be seen knocking a film shot in their backyard. But one person would actually would praise the film and Michael J. Fox as an actor was Roger Ebert. But it wouldn't save the film. In its second week, the film would fall to fifth place, with $3.09m worth of tickets sold, and it would drop all the way to tenth place in its third week with just under $1.9m in ticket sales. Week four would see it fall to 16th place with only $862k worth of ticket sales. After that, United Artists would stop reporting grosses. The $17m film had grossed just $16.1m. Bright Lights, Big City was a milestone book for me, in large part because it made me a reader. Before Bright Lights, I read occasionally, mainly John Irving, preferring to spend most of my free time voraciously consuming every movie I could. After Bright Lights, I picked up every Vintage Contemporary book I could get my hands on. One of the checklists of Vintage Contemporary books listed in the back of a Vintage Contemporary book. And one thing that really helped out was the literal checklist of other books available from that imprint in the back of each book. Without those distinct covers, I don't know if I would have discovered some of my favorite authors like Raymond Carver and Don DeLillo and Richard Ford and Richard Russo. Even after the Vintage Contemporary line shut down years later, I continued to read. I still read today, although not as much as I would prefer. I have a podcast to work on. I remember when the movie came out that I wasn't all that thrilled with it, and it would be nearly 35 years before I revisited it again, for this episode. I can't say it's the 80s as I remember it, because I had never been to New York City by that point in my life, I had never, and still never have, done anything like cocaine. And I had only ever had like two relationships that could be considered anything of substance, let alone marriage and a divorce. But I am certain it's an 80s that I'm glad I didn't know. Mainly because Jamie's 80s seemed rather boring and inconsequential. Fox does the best he can with the material, but he is not the right person for the role. As I watched it again, I couldn't help but wonder what if the roles were reversed. What if Keifer Sutherland played Jamie and Michael J. Fox played the friend? That might have been a more interesting movie, but Sutherland was not yet at that level of stardom. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week, when Episode 95, on the novel and movie version of Less Than Zero is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Bright Lights, Big City, both the book and the movie, as well as other titles in the Vintage Contemporary book series. The full cover, back and front, of Richard Ford's 1986 The Sportswriter, which would be the first of four novels about Frank Bascombe, a failed novelist who becomes a sportswriter. The second book in the series, 1995's Independence Day, would win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the first of only two times the same book would win both awards the same year. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.  

On this episode, we travel back to 1984, and the days when a "young adult" novel included lots of drugs and partying and absolutely no sparkly vampires or dystopian warrior girls. We're talking about Jay McInerney's groundbreaking novel, Bright Lights, Big City, and its 1988 film version starring Michael J. Fox and Keifer Sutherland. ----more---- Hello, and welcome to The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today. The original 1984 front cover for Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City If you were a young adult in the late 1980s, there's a very good chance that you started reading more adult-y books thanks to an imprint called Vintage Contemporaries. Quality books at an affordable paperback price point, with their uniform and intrinsically 80s designed covers, bold cover and spine fonts, and mix of first-time writers and cult authors who never quite broke through to the mainstream, the Vintage Contemporary series would be an immediate hit when it was first launched in September 1984. The first set of releases would include such novels as Raymond Carver's Cathedral and Thomas McGuane's The Bushwhacked Piano, but the one that would set the bar for the entire series was the first novel by a twenty-nine year old former fact checker at the New Yorker magazine. The writer was Jay McInerney, and his novel was Bright Lights, Big City. The original 1984 front cover for Raymond Carver's Cathedral Bright Lights, Big City would set a template for twenty something writers in the 1980s. A protagonist not unlike the writer themselves, with a not-so-secret drug addiction, and often written in the second person, You, which was not a usual literary choice at the time. The nameless protagonist, You, is a divorced twenty-four year old wannabe writer who works as fact-checker at a major upscale magazine in New York City, for which he once dreamed of writing for. You is recently divorced from Amanda, an aspiring model he had met while going to school in Kansas City. You would move to New York City earlier in the year with her when her modeling career was starting to talk off. While in Paris for Fashion Week, Amanda called You to inform him their marriage was over, and that she was leaving him for another man. You continues to hope Amanda will return to him, and when it's clear she won't, he not only becomes obsessed with everything about her that left in their apartment, he begins to slide into reckless abandon at the clubs they used to frequent, and becoming heavily addicted to cocaine, which then affects his performance at work. A chance encounter with Amanda at an event in the city leads You to a public humiliation, which makes him starts to realize that his behavior is not because his wife left him, but a manifestation of the grief he still feels over his mother's passing the previous year. You had gotten married to a woman he hardly knew because he wanted to make his mother happy before she died, and he was still unconsciously grieving when his wife's leaving him triggered his downward spiral. Bright Lights, Big City was an immediate hit, one of the few paperback-only books to ever hit the New York Times best-seller chart. Within two years, the novel had sold more than 300,000 copies, and spawned a tidal wave of like-minded twentysomething writers becoming published. Bret Easton Ellis might have been able to get his first novel Less Than Zero published somewhere down the line, but it was McInerney's success that would cause Simon and Schuster to try and duplicate Vintage's success, which they would. Same with Tana Janowitz, whose 1986 novel Slaves of New York was picked up by Crown Publishers looking to replicate the success of McInerney and Ellis, despite her previous novel, 1981's American Dad, being completely ignored by the book buying public at that time. While the book took moments from his life, it wasn't necessarily autobiographical. For example, McInerney had been married to a fashion model in the early 1980s, but they would meet while he attended Syracuse University in the late 1970s. And yes, McInerney would do a lot of blow during his divorce from his wife, and yes, he would get fired from The New Yorker because of the effects of his drug addiction. Yes, he was partying pretty hard during the times that preceded the writing of his first novel. And yes, he would meet a young woman who would kinda rescue him and get him on the right path.  But there were a number of details about McInerney's life that were not used for the book. Like how the author studied writing with none other than Raymond Carver while studying creative writing at Syracuse, or how his family connections would allow him to submit blind stories to someone like George Plimpton at the Paris Review, and not only get the story read but published. And, naturally, any literary success was going to become a movie at some point. For Bright Lights, it would happen almost as soon as the novel was published. Robert Lawrence, a vice president at Columbia Pictures in his early thirties, had read the book nearly cover to cover in a single sitting, and envisioned a film that could be “The Graduate” of his generation, with maybe a bit of “Lost Weekend” thrown in. But the older executives at the studio balked at the idea, which they felt would be subversive and unconventional. They would, however, buy in when Lawrence was able to get mega-producer Jerry Weintraub to be a producer on the film, who in turn was able to get Joel Schumacher, who had just finished filming St. Elmo's Fire for the studio, to direct, and get Tom Cruise, who was still two years away from Top Gun and megastardom, to play the main character. McInerney was hired to write the script, and he and Schumacher and Cruise would even go on club crawls in New York City to help inform all of the atmosphere they were trying to capture with the film. In 1985, Weintraub would be hired by United Artists to become their new chief executive, and Bright Lights would be one of the properties he would be allowed to take with him to his new home. But since he was now an executive, Weintraub would need to hire a new producer to take the reigns on the picture. Enter Sydney Pollack. By 1985, Sydney Pollack was one of the biggest directors in Hollywood. With films like They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Jeremiah Johnson, Three Days of the Condor, The Electric Horseman and Tootsie under his belt, Pollock could get a film made, and get it seen by audiences. At least, as a director. At this point in his career, he had only ever produced one movie, Alan Rudolph's 1984 musical drama Songwriter, which despite being based on the life of Willie Nelson, and starring Nelson, Kris Kristofferson and Rip Torn, barely grossed a tenth of its $8m budget. And Pollock at that moment was busy putting the finishing touches on his newest film, an African-based drama featuring Meryl Streep and longtime Pollock collaborator Robert Redford. That film, Out of Africa, would win seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, in March 1986, which would keep Pollock and his producing partner Mark Rosenberg's attention away from Bright Lights for several months. Once the hype on Out of Africa died down, Pollock and Rosenberg got to work getting Bright Lights, Big City made. Starting with hiring a new screenwriter, a new director, and a new leading actor. McInerney, Schumacher and Cruise had gotten tired of waiting. Ironically, Cruise would call on Pollock to direct another movie he was waiting to make, also based at United Artists, that he was going to star in alongside Dustin Hoffman. That movie, of course, is Rain Man, and we'll dive into that movie another time. Also ironically, Weintraub would not last long as the CEO of United Artists. Just five months after becoming the head of the studio, Weintraub would tire of the antics of Kirk Kerkorian, the owner of United Artists and its sister company, MGM, and step down. Kerkorian would not let Weintraub take any of the properties he brought from Columbia to his new home, the eponymously named mini-major he'd form with backing from Columbia. With a new studio head in place, Pollock started to look for a new director. He would discover that director in Joyce Chopra, who, after twenty years of making documentaries, made her first dramatic narrative in 1985. Smooth Talk was an incredible coming of age drama, based on a story by Joyce Carol Oates, that would make a star out of then seventeen-year-old Laura Dern. UA would not only hire her to direct the film but hire her husband, Tom Cole, who brilliantly adapted the Oates story that was the basis for Smooth Talk, to co-write the screenplay with his wife. While Cole was working on the script, Chopra would have her agent send a copy of McInerney's book to Michael J. Fox. This wasn't just some random decision. Chopra knew she needed a star for this movie, and Fox's agent just happened to be Chopra's agent. That'd be two commissions for the agent if it came together, and a copy of the book was delivered to Fox's dressing room on the Family Ties soundstage that very day. Fox loved the book, and agreed to do the film. After Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly and other characters he had played that highlighted his good looks and pleasant demeanor, he was ready to play a darker, more morally ambiguous character. Since the production was scheduled around Fox's summer hiatus from the hit TV show, he was in. For Pollock and United Artists, this was a major coup, landing one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. But the project was originally going to be Toronto standing in for New York City for less than $7m with a lesser known cast. Now, it was going to be a $15m with not only Michael J. Fox but also Keifer Sutherland, who was cast as Tad, the best friend of the formerly named You, who would now known as Jamie Conway, and would be shot on location in New York City. The film would also feature Phoebe Cates as Jamie's model ex-wife, William Hickey, Kelly Lynch. But there was a major catch. The production would only have ten weeks to shoot with Fox, as he was due back in Los Angeles to begin production on the sixth season of Family Ties.  He wasn't going to do that thing he did making a movie and a television show at the same time like he did with Back to the Future and Family Ties in 1984 and 1985. Ten weeks and not a day more. Production on the film would begin on April 13th, 1987, to get as much of the film shot while Fox was still finishing Family Ties in Los Angeles. He would be joining the production at the end of the month. But Fox never get the chance to shoot with Chopra. After three weeks of production, Chopra, her husband, and her cinematographer James Glennon, who had also shot Smooth Talk, were dismissed from the film. The suits at United Artists were not happy with the Fox-less footage that was coming out of New York, and were not happy with the direction of the film. Cole and Chopra had removed much of the nightlife and drug life storyline, and focused more on the development of Jamie as a writer. Apparently, no one at the studio had read the final draft of the script before shooting began. Cole, the screenwriter, says it was Pollock, the producer, who requested the changes, but in the end, it would be not the Oscar-winning filmmaker producing the movie that would be released but the trio of newer creatives. Second unit footage would continue to shoot around New York City while the studio looked for a new director. Ironically, days after Chopra was fired, the Directors Guild of America had announced that if they were not able to sign a new agreement with the Producers Guild before the end of the current contract on June 30th, the directors were going on strike. So now United Artists were really under the gun. After considering such filmmakers as Belgian director Ulu Grosbard, who had directed Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro in Falling in Love, and Australian director Bruce Beresford, whose films had included Breaker Morant and Tender Mercies, they would find their new director in James Bridges, whose filmography included such critical and financial success as The Paper Chase, The China Syndrome and Urban Cowboy, but had two bombs in a row in 1984's Mike's Murder and 1985's Perfect. He needed a hit, and this was the first solid directing offer in three years. He'd spend the weekend after his hiring doing some minor recasting, including bringing in John Houseman, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in The Paper Chase, as well as Swoosie Kurtz, Oscar-winning actors Jason Robards and Dianne Weist, and Tracy Pollan, Fox's co-star on Family Ties, who would shortly after the filming of Bright Lights become Mrs. Michael J. Fox, although in the film, she would be cast not as a love interest to her real-life boyfriend's character but as the wife of Keifer Sutherland's character. After a week of rewriting McInerney's original draft of the screenplay from the Schumacher days, principal photography re-commenced on the film. And since Bridges would be working with famed cinematographer Gordon Willis, who had shot three previous movies with Bridges as well as the first two Godfather movies and every Woody Allen movie from Annie Hall to The Purple Rose of Cairo, it was also decided that none of Chopra's footage would be used. Everything would start back on square one. And because of the impending Directors Guild strike, he'd have only thirty-six days, a tad over five weeks, to film everything. One of the lobby cards from the movie version of Bright Lights, Big City And they were able to get it all done, thanks to some ingenious measures. One location, the Palladium concert hall on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, would double as three different nightclubs, two discotheques and a dinner club. Instead of finding six different locations, which would loading cameras and lights from one location to another, moving hundreds of people as well, and then setting the lights and props again, over and over, all they would have to do is re-decorate the area to become the next thing they needed. Bridges would complete the film that day before the Directors Guild strike deadline, but the strike would never happen. But there would be some issue with the final writing credits. While Bridges had used McInerney's original screenplay as a jumping off point, the writer/director had really latched on to the mother's death as the emotional center of the movie. Bridges' own grandmother had passed away in 1986, and he found writing those scenes to be cathartic for his own unresolved issues. But despite the changes Bridges would make to the script, including adding such filmmaking tropes as flashbacks and voiceovers, and having the movie broken up into sections by the use of chapter titles being typed out on screen, the Writers Guild would give sole screenwriting credit to Jay McInerney. As post-production continued throughout the fall, the one topic no one involved in the production wanted to talk about or even acknowledge was the movie version of Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero that rival studio 20th Century Fox had been making in Los Angeles. It had a smaller budget, a lesser known filmmaker, a lesser known cast lead by Andrew McCarthy and Jami Gertz, and a budget half the size. If their film was a hit, that could be good for this one. And if their film wasn't a hit? Well, Bright Lights was the trendsetter. It was the one that sold more copies. The one that saw its author featured in more magazines and television news shows. How well did Less Than Zero do when it was released into theatres on November 6th, 1987? Well, you're just going to have to wait until next week's episode. Unless you're listening months or years after they were published, and are listening to episodes in reverse order. Then you already know how it did, but let's just say it wasn't a hit but it wasn't really a dud either. Bridges would spend nearly six months putting his film together, most of which he would find enjoyable, but he would have trouble deciding which of two endings he shot would be used. His preferred ending saw Jamie wandering through the streets of New York City early one morning, after a long night of partying that included a confrontation with his ex-wife, where he decides that was the day he was going to get his life back on track but not knowing what he was going to do, but the studio asked for an alternative ending, one that features Jamie one year in the future, putting the finishing touches on his first novel, which we see is titled… wait for it… Bright Lights, Big City, while his new girlfriend stands behind him giving her approval. After several audience test screenings, the studio would decide to let Bridges have his ending. United Artists would an April 1st, 1988 release date, and would spend months gearing up the publicity machine. Fox and Pollan were busy finishing the final episodes of that season's Family Ties, and weren't as widely available for the publicity circuit outside of those based in Los Angeles. The studio wasn't too worried, though. Michael J. Fox's last movie, The Secret of My Success, had been released in April 1987, and had grossed $67m without his doing a lot of publicity for that one, either. Opening on 1196 screens, the film would only manage to gross $5.13m, putting it in third place behind the previous week's #1 film, Biloxi Blues with Matthew Broderick, and the Tim Burton comedy Beetlejuice, which despite opening on nearly 200 fewer screens would gross nearly $3m more. But the reviews were not great. Decent. Respectful. But not great. The New York-based critics, like David Ansen of Newsweek and Janet Maslin of the Times, would be kinder than most other critics, maybe because they didn't want to be seen knocking a film shot in their backyard. But one person would actually would praise the film and Michael J. Fox as an actor was Roger Ebert. But it wouldn't save the film. In its second week, the film would fall to fifth place, with $3.09m worth of tickets sold, and it would drop all the way to tenth place in its third week with just under $1.9m in ticket sales. Week four would see it fall to 16th place with only $862k worth of ticket sales. After that, United Artists would stop reporting grosses. The $17m film had grossed just $16.1m. Bright Lights, Big City was a milestone book for me, in large part because it made me a reader. Before Bright Lights, I read occasionally, mainly John Irving, preferring to spend most of my free time voraciously consuming every movie I could. After Bright Lights, I picked up every Vintage Contemporary book I could get my hands on. One of the checklists of Vintage Contemporary books listed in the back of a Vintage Contemporary book. And one thing that really helped out was the literal checklist of other books available from that imprint in the back of each book. Without those distinct covers, I don't know if I would have discovered some of my favorite authors like Raymond Carver and Don DeLillo and Richard Ford and Richard Russo. Even after the Vintage Contemporary line shut down years later, I continued to read. I still read today, although not as much as I would prefer. I have a podcast to work on. I remember when the movie came out that I wasn't all that thrilled with it, and it would be nearly 35 years before I revisited it again, for this episode. I can't say it's the 80s as I remember it, because I had never been to New York City by that point in my life, I had never, and still never have, done anything like cocaine. And I had only ever had like two relationships that could be considered anything of substance, let alone marriage and a divorce. But I am certain it's an 80s that I'm glad I didn't know. Mainly because Jamie's 80s seemed rather boring and inconsequential. Fox does the best he can with the material, but he is not the right person for the role. As I watched it again, I couldn't help but wonder what if the roles were reversed. What if Keifer Sutherland played Jamie and Michael J. Fox played the friend? That might have been a more interesting movie, but Sutherland was not yet at that level of stardom. Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again next week, when Episode 95, on the novel and movie version of Less Than Zero is released. Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about Bright Lights, Big City, both the book and the movie, as well as other titles in the Vintage Contemporary book series. The full cover, back and front, of Richard Ford's 1986 The Sportswriter, which would be the first of four novels about Frank Bascombe, a failed novelist who becomes a sportswriter. The second book in the series, 1995's Independence Day, would win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the first of only two times the same book would win both awards the same year. The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment. Thank you again. Good night.  

Join us into the 80s as we explore the first of the Brat Pack, Jay McInerney, and his debut novel Bright Lights, Big City.  Warning: May Contain Spoilers Created by: Cristo M. Sanchez Written by: Cristo M. Sanchez and Jason Nemor Harden Hosted by: Jason Nemor Harden Music by: Creature 9, Wood, Cristo M. Sanchez and Jason Nemor Harden Follow us on instagram and facebook for the latest updates and more!

“You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning.” So begins Jay McInerney's “Bright Lights, Big City”, a debut novel that sets out to encapsulate an era at its frantic extremity. That era is New York City in the early 1980s and our narrator is living the high life in the fast lane. Or to be more accurate, our narrator is getting high because life is moving a bit too fast. On the surface there's a supermodel wife, a job at an unnamed literary magazine that sounds like it might rhyme with The Blue Talker, and a never-ending slew of yuppie parties and yucky nightclubs. But underneath there is a different story, a story full of the kind of suffering that can't be solved by regular cash contributions to the Colombian cartels. Set over the course of one wild week, McInerney's novel follows our narrator as he races from the heights of New York society all the way to the curb, and in between he has a lot of growing up to do. Some of the books and authors discussed in this episode include: "Bright Lights, Big City" by Jay McInerny “Metamorphosis” by Ovid “Trust” by Hernan Diaz Additional segments throughout the podcast include: Inner Shelf Fact or fiction What are you reading? On that Quote Apple Podcast: https://lnkd.in/gF2zVhQT Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gTHtxVh5 Podbean: https://onthesamepagepodcast.podbean.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesamepagepod_ Email: seamusandblake@gmail.com IG: https://www.instagram.com/on.the.same.page.podcast/  -------- #bookpodcast #podcast #book #novel #stories #shortstories #apassagenorth #anukaradpragasm #brightlightsbigcity #hernandiaz #tolstoy #trust #poetry #shortstoryskirmish #litfacts #paris #literature #books #novels #salmonrushdie #spotifypodcasts #applepodcasts #audible #samsungpodcasts #books #novels #audibleau #lit #onthesamepage #whatareyoureading #literaryfacts #podbean #whatareyoureading

MSNBC's Ari Melber hosts "The Beat" on Friday, August 26th and reports on the newly unsealed, heavily redacted Trump search affidavit. The information reveals more about the unprecedented search of Mar-A-Lago and suspicion over criminal evidence. Former FBI special agent Asha Rangappa, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and authors Mark Liebovich and Jay McInerney join.

In this edition of The Way Out I'm over the moon excited about bringing you my interview with Author, Poet, Teacher, and person in long-term Recovery Peter Murphy. Peter shares his journey to and through recovery to this point with a candor and wry humor that's as compelling as it is enlightening. Anyone who is in recovery from addiction is by definition a truly remarkable human being, and Peter is no exception, especially considering his childhood trauma and chaotic family of origin. After years of struggling with the internal and external consequences of alcohol addiction, Peter has a fateful encounter with the Bahai Faith which offered much of what 12-Step Recovery offers us – spiritual connection, community, self-examination, amend making, and abstinence from drugs and alcohol and thus Peter's recovery journey began in earnest and provided the fertile soil for Peter to uncover and unleash the Poet, Author, and Teacher within him. Far from being a happily ever after, peter experienced a sober bottom that prompted his active participation in 12-Step Recovery, which led him to lean in and do the hard work that ultimately resulted in meaningful, rewarding, and enduring recovery made up of beautiful relationships so listen up. Contact Peter: Email peteremurphy9@gmail (dot) com or leave a message at 6zero9 823 5zero76 Peter Murphy's Writing: https://peteremurphy.com/ https://murphywriting.com/ More about the Bahai Faith: https://www.bahai.org/ Recommended Recovery Literature (Quit-Lit) Eight Million Ways to Die by Lawrence Block: https://lawrenceblock.com/books/eight-million-ways-to-die/ The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison: https://www.amazon.com/Recovering-Intoxication-Its-Aftermath/dp/0316259616 Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney: https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Lights-Big-City-McInerney/dp/0394726413 Best piece of recovery advice - Don't give up! Song that symbolizes recovery: Marlene Dietrich "You Go To My Head": https://youtu.be/AwJ-kY15eFE Don't forget to check out “The Way Out Playlist” available only on Spotify. Curated by all our wonderful guests on the podcast! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6HNQyyjlFBrDbOUADgw1Sz (c) 2015 - 2022 The Way Out Podcast | All Rights Reserved Theme Music: “all clear” (https://ketsa.uk/browse-music/) by Ketsa (https://ketsa.uk) licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-way-out-podcast/message

Kania, who grew up in a small town outside of Milwaukee, says she was the black sheep of her family. A child of the 1980s punk/new wave scene, her influences were people like Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel and Francesco Clemente. So it follows that her first aspiration was to be an artist. But a few semesters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago convinced Kania she didn't have the talent to make it as a painter. Fortunately, she had a side job as a bookseller.“I can tell you, almost to the day, when I decided to go into publishing,” Kania says. She could, it turns out, get it down to the month—August 1992. That was when Donna Tartt's The Secret History came out. Kania was enthralled not only with the book but also with how it was marketed. “It was her. It was the story of her. It was Bennington. And it was the package.... When you're 21 and you're trying to figure out what your lot in life is, and you wake up and you're like, 'Oh shit, I can't paint,' you know, you panic. I decided I wanted to be a publisher. I didn't want to be anything else.”Although Kania admits she had only a vague idea of what a publisher actually did, she knew enough. She knew about Gary Fisketjon and was as enamored with writers—writers like Raymond Carver, Mark Lindquist and Jay McInerney—as she was with artists. So, with $1,200 and a one-way train ticket, Kania set out for Manhattan. “Bright lights, big city,” she quips. “You know, the whole bit.”Despite a bumpy start in the Big Apple—she was working for a computer programmer, sharing a studio with a drag queen—Kania got a lucky break when she met Michael Morrison at a friend's wedding. “I begged him for a job,” she recounts. “He hired me as his assistant in 1995, and I've been working with him ever since.”Kania's passion for her literary (and visual) idols has served her well professionally. She managed to turn Harper Perennial into a recognizable brand, in part by publishing the kind of literary fiction and nonfiction that turned her on to the business 16 years ago.And while some scoff at the notion that readers notice what's on a book's spine, Kania vehemently disagrees: “If people watch a television show because it's on HBO, if they see a movie because it's a Focus Features release, if they buy an album because it's on Sub Pop Records, then why doesn't the same go for books?” 

Kania, who grew up in a small town outside of Milwaukee, says she was the black sheep of her family. A child of the 1980s punk/new wave scene, her influences were people like Andy Warhol, Julian Schnabel and Francesco Clemente. So it follows that her first aspiration was to be an artist. But a few semesters at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago convinced Kania she didn't have the talent to make it as a painter. Fortunately, she had a side job as a bookseller.“I can tell you, almost to the day, when I decided to go into publishing,” Kania says. She could, it turns out, get it down to the month—August 1992. That was when Donna Tartt's The Secret History came out. Kania was enthralled not only with the book but also with how it was marketed. “It was her. It was the story of her. It was Bennington. And it was the package.... When you're 21 and you're trying to figure out what your lot in life is, and you wake up and you're like, 'Oh shit, I can't paint,' you know, you panic. I decided I wanted to be a publisher. I didn't want to be anything else.”Although Kania admits she had only a vague idea of what a publisher actually did, she knew enough. She knew about Gary Fisketjon and was as enamored with writers—writers like Raymond Carver, Mark Lindquist and Jay McInerney—as she was with artists. So, with $1,200 and a one-way train ticket, Kania set out for Manhattan. “Bright lights, big city,” she quips. “You know, the whole bit.”Despite a bumpy start in the Big Apple—she was working for a computer programmer, sharing a studio with a drag queen—Kania got a lucky break when she met Michael Morrison at a friend's wedding. “I begged him for a job,” she recounts. “He hired me as his assistant in 1995, and I've been working with him ever since.”Kania's passion for her literary (and visual) idols has served her well professionally. She managed to turn Harper Perennial into a recognizable brand, in part by publishing the kind of literary fiction and nonfiction that turned her on to the business 16 years ago.And while some scoff at the notion that readers notice what's on a book's spine, Kania vehemently disagrees: “If people watch a television show because it's on HBO, if they see a movie because it's a Focus Features release, if they buy an album because it's on Sub Pop Records, then why doesn't the same go for books?”  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Meg tells the story of Marla Hanson and The Landlord From Hell. Jessica checks in with NYC's literary Brat Pack: Tama, Jay, and Bret.

Novelist and veteran wine writer Jay McInerney, famous for his 1984 cult classic “Bright Lights, Big City,” talks with us about how vineyard owners are coping with the climate crisis, the opportunity plant-based fine dining presents for rethinking wine pairings, and why great food should cost a certain price.Episode sponsored by Château Troplong Mondot.

How are natural wines different from raw or clean wines? Why do natural wines provoke furious debates in the wine world? Why will you want to read our guest's new memoir that's hot off the press (pun intended)? In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Rachel Signer, who has just published a gripping, addictive memoir, You Had Me at Pet-Nat. You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.   Highlights How did a trip to the Loire Valley give Rachel the impetus to start her magazine? What was it like to meet one of the most famous natural winemakers, Nicolas Joly? What role does sulphur play in winemaking? How does ageing differ for a no-sulphur-added wine? Why was living in Spain a life-changing experience for Rachel? Do you need formal training to be a serious wine professional? What is Rachel's approach to wine self-education? What are Rachel's top tips for getting the most out of your visit to a wine region? Why does natural wine provoke such strong debates in the wine world? How is Rachel helping bring new people into the world the natural wine? What makes the natural wine world a movement and a culture? Which criteria does Rachel use for natural wine in her magazine? How did a wild bus ride on a Georgian wine trip lead to Rachel meeting her winemaker husband? Why aren't Rachel's wines certified organic? Why does Rachel always have her copy of Ernest Hemingway's memoir with her?   Key Takeaways I usually summarize my take-aways, but today I'm going to share some reviews of Rachel's new memoir with you as I recommend it highly: "From Paris to Australia, Signer takes us on a gripping journey to reclaim her sense of self through the medium of the natural wine she loves so much. You Had Me at Pét-Nat is a reminder of the importance of rebirth, the restorative power of love, and the invigorating gifts of nature. A must read for bon vivants and explorers alike." — Victoria James, author of Wine Girl: The Obstacles, Humiliations, and Triumphs of America's Youngest Sommelier "I lean more toward Champagne than Pét-Nat, but Rachel Signer's addictive memoir drew me deep into the world of natural wine and into the company of its eccentric, obsessive and hedonistic citizens. Ultimately, though, it is Signer's personal journey, her search for love and identity, which makes this such a compelling and moving book." —Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City and Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar “Signer… takes readers on a movable feast… In this love letter to not only natural wines but also the community and ethos that sustain them, Signer shares her wine experiences, from working in a restaurant and wine shop to wine journalism and harvesting grapes, emphasizing both the traditions and environmental impact of vineyards and wine production…Her extensive journalistic experience shines through, and readers will learn never to look at a glass of wine again without considering the people pouring their hearts into every bottle.” —Booklist "You Had Me at Pét-Nat was like my favorite bottle of wine; I consumed it in one sitting. Dive head-first into the natural wine world with Rachel Signer to discover why these wines will deepen your pleasure as you meet the witty oddballs who make them. This is also the story of how one woman found healing and love when she finally let go of who she thought she should be and started living fully, wildly alive, as much as the wine in her glass." —Natalie MacLean, author of Red, White, and Drunk All Over and Unquenchable!   Watch Party Join me for the debut Watch Party of the video of this conversation that I'll be live-streaming for the very first time on Zoom on Wednesday, November 17th at 7 pm eastern. You can save your spot for free right here: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DfbS5Q6zQNC8dKwd_6svuA. I'll be jumping into the comments as we watch it together so that I can answer your questions in real-time. I want to hear from you! What's your opinion of what we're discussing? What takeaways or tips do you love most from this chat? What questions do you have that we didn't answer?   Giveaway You could win a one-year subscription to Pipette Magazine, a gorgeously illustrated magazine about natural wines.   How to Win All you need to do is comment on one of the posts on Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn before 7 pm EDT on November 17th. I'll select the winner randomly from those who participate. You get a bonus entry for every wine-loving friend you tag and if you re-share this post in your stories. Good luck!   About Rachel Signer Rachel Signer is a wine writer originally from Virginia, now living in South Australia. She's written for numerous publications, including The Guardian, Vogue and Eater. She's also the publisher and founder of Pipette Magazine, an independent magazine about natural wines sold in over twenty countries. She makes natural wines with her husband in the Adelaide Hills under the labels Lucy M and Persephone Wines. Her fabulous memoir, You Had Me at Pet-Nat, has just been published by Hachette Books.     To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/151.

In the podcast this week we are speaking to international bestselling author Ben Mezrich. In 2003 he released Bringing Down The House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions which spent a whopping sixty-three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and went on to be adapted into the 2008 film 21. In 2009 came The Accidental Billionaires which explored the founding of the now highly influential social media giant Facebook, which spent eighteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and was later adapted into the Oscar winning film The Social Network. His latest book The Antisocial Network was published this month and tells the David v. Goliath story of the GameStop short squeeze which caught the attention of the public this year and left the powers that be on Wall Street shaking. Books mentioned in this episode: The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich (https://bit.ly/3FLsSoY), The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich (https://bit.ly/2YQcp1K), Breaking Vegas by Ben Mezrich (https://bit.ly/3lFWXht) Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney (https://bit.ly/3j1NxLB), Life by Keith Richards (https://bit.ly/3lDMxPx), Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (https://bit.ly/3aS2tHT), Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson (https://bit.ly/3BIrr8i), All of which are available to buy for a discounted price through the Mostly Books website (www.mostly-books.co.uk/shop). The podcast is produced and presented by the team at Mostly Books. Find us on Twitter @mostlyreading & Instagram @mostlybooks_shop. Edited by Nick Short @alongstoryshorter Ben can be found on Twitter @benmezrich & Instagram @benmezrich

Jay McInerney burst onto the literary scene in 1984 with Bright Lights, Big City, his novel based on an era both in his life and the life of New York City. A dozen years later McInerney surprised a lot of people by turning to writing about wine. He won over many early doubters, displaying a novelist’s eye and a wine lover’s enthusiasm for profiling wines, winemakers, wine regions, and more. Enjoy! Wine books byJay McInerney:https://jaymcinerney.com/books-on-wine/

After taking a look at the eventful life and dramatic death of Yukio Mishima in our last episode, Jacke turns to a closer look at the works of Mishima, including appraisals by Jay McInerney and Haruki Murakami, before turning to a deep dive into the world of Spring Snow, the first volume in Mishima's four-book masterpiece The Sea of Fertility. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com. New!!! Looking for an easy to way to buy Jacke a coffee? Now you can at paypal.me/jackewilson. Your generosity is much appreciated! The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Show Notes and Links to Edoardo Ballerini's Work and Allusions/Texts from Episode   On Episode 42, Pete talks with Edoardo Ballerini about a myriad of topics, all revolving around art and creativity in some way. They discuss Edoardo's artistic upbringing, language and translation, his writing for film and other forms, his acting, his award-winning narration of audiobooks and newspaper articles, his literary inspiration, and much more. Edoardo Ballerini, described on multiple occasions as “The Golden-Voiced Edoardo Ballerini,” is a two time winner of the Audiobook Publishers Association's Best Male Narrator Audie Award (2013, Beautiful Ruins, by Edoardo Ballerini; 2019, Watchers by Dean Koontz). He has recorded nearly 300 titles, including classic works by Tolstoy, Dante, Stendhal, Kafka, Calvino, Poe, Emerson, Whitman and Camus, best-sellers by James Patterson and David Baldacci, modern masterpieces by Tom Wolfe, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and André Aciman, and spiritual titles by The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn. On screen, Ballerini is best known for his role as junkie "Corky Caporale" on The Sopranos (HBO) and as the star chef in the indie classic Dinner Rush. He has appeared in over 50 films and tv shows, including a series regular role in the critically acclaimed Quarry, (Cinemax)  and recurring roles in Boardwalk Empire (HBO), 24 (Fox) and Elementary (CBS). Ballerini's work as a narrator has garnered international attention. Articles on his work and career have appeared in The New York Times (US), The Guardian (UK), Aftenposten (Norway) and MediaPost (US), among others. In 2019 he recorded Robert Alter's translation of The Hebrew Bible in its entirety. In 2020 he added Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace to his growing list of titles. He is also a two time winner of the Society of Voice Arts Award, and was recently named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile Magazine, an honorific bestowed to only 35 narrators in the magazine's 20 year history. Other authors Edoardo has voiced include Chuck Palahniuk, Eve Ensler, Carson McCullers, Jay McInerney, Stephen Greenblatt, Jeffrey Deaver, Danielle Steel, Chuck Palahniuk, Louis L'Amour, Adriana Trigiani, Isabel Allende, Stieg Larsson, James Salter, Paul Theroux and Jodi Picoult. Besides narrating audiobooks, Edoardo  is also a regular contributor to Audm, where he narrates the best in long-form journalism for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Atlantic Monthly, The London Review of Books, and many other publications. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and lives in New York. Edoardo Ballerini reads an excerpt from Martin Eden by Jack London Edoardo Ballerini's Personal Website Edoardo Ballerini on Italics-”The Voice of God” Video Edoardo Ballerini Profile in The New York Times: "The Voice of God. (And Knausgaard, Whitman, Machiavelli..." May 13, 2020 Edoardo Ballerini reads Beautiful Ruins, Chapter One-YouTube excerpt -at about 4:35, Edoardo describes his life growing up among family in New York and Milan, as well as growing up with artsy and creative parents and their parents' artistic friends   -at about 6:45, Edoardo talks about his dual identities as Italian-American (or “Italian AND American”), as well as his love of language being fueled by growing up bilingual/multilingual   -at about 9:35, Edoardo talks about his reading interests as a kid, including myths, followed by a “dip away” into math and science, and then a return to poetry in high school and then his interest in being a writer in late adolescence   -at about 11:25, Edoardo talks about the importance of “place” in his writing, acting, and other art   -at about 14:05, Edoardo talks about the literature that has given him “chills at will,” especially the “book that changed [his] life”-Joyce's Ulysses   -at about 17:10, Edoardo talks about being a man of many talents and interests, and he hones in on audiobook narration and the importance and tough balance of being an interprete as an audiobook narrator   -at about 21:05, Edoardo talks about what it means on a daily basis to be a “creative”   -at about 24:25, Edoardo talks about his mom's influence on him as she was a photo historian, especially with regard to him becoming an actor, a visual and literary medium   -at about 25:55, Edoardo talks about his beginnings as an actor   -at about 27:45, Edoardo talks about his beautiful interaction with Aaliyah during the filming of Romeo Must Die   -at about 29:40, Edoardo talks about his run of four episodes on The Sopranos, including the incredible circumstances involved in filming a crucial scene with Michael Imperioli as a relapsing Christopher Moltisanti   -at about 34:45, Edoardo talks about his role as Ignatius D'Alessio in Boardwalk Empire, including how the run ended   -at about 36:25, Edoardo talks about the movie in which he starred and that he directed, Good Night, Valentino   -at about 44:05, Edoardo talks about how he got started as an audiobook narrator about 10 years ago, which coincided with the growth of the iPod, iPhone, Audible.com, etc.   -at about 47:35, Edoardo talks about continuity and recording long books   -at about 49:50, Edoardo talks about “one of the luckiest breaks of [his] life” in getting to narrate (and doing a stellar and award-winning job) Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins   -at about 54:00, Edoardo talks about his love for Martin Eden by Jack London, the wonderful recent Italian movie adaption, and Edoardo's recording of Martin Eden on audiobook   -at about 1:01:50, Edoardo thrills with a reading from Martin Eden   -at about 1:03:25, Edoardo talks future projects and laughs in response to The New York Times dubbing his voice “The Voice of God…”   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 Spotify and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. 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.

« America », c’est fini. Ce « mook », mélange hybride entre un magazine et un livre, était consacré à l’Amérique sous Donald Trump et il cesse de paraître alors que ce dernier a quitté la Maison Blanche. Julien Bisson, rédacteur en chef d'« America », raconte dans « L'Atelier des médias » l'aventure d'une revue où 150 écrivains ont pris la plume pour raconter les États-Unis. Au printemps 2017, le journaliste littéraire français François Busnel présentait America au micro de L'Atelier des médias. Il venait de lancer cette revue avec Éric Fottorino, fondateur d’un hebdomadaire français de référence, Le 1. Elle était sous-titrée « L'Amérique comme vous ne l'avez jamais lue » et devait ne paraître que durant quatre ans, durée du mandat présidentiel qu'entamait Donald Trump. Quatre ans plus tard, le 20 janvier 2021, est paru le 16e et dernier numéro. Au total, plus de 500 000 exemplaires de cette revue atypique ont été vendus durant ces quatre années, ce qui en fait un succès, chose qui n'était pas acquise lorsque ce mook a débarqué en kiosque et en librairies, sans publicité et au prix de 19 euros.  Dans America, on a lu Toni Morrison (marraine de la revue), Paul Auster, James Ellroy, Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Franzen, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, Jay McInerney, Jim Harrisson mais aussi Colum McCann ou Alain Mabanckou. Ces écrivains ont produit des enquêtes, des reportages, des essais ou se sont confiés dans des grands entretiens. Julien Bisson, qui a été le rédacteur en chef d'America, revient pour l'Atelier des médias sur cette aventure. Il décrit sa revue et la promesse des débuts, raconte comment les numéros étaient imaginés et les contributeurs choisis. Enfin il explique en longueur sa conviction de l'importance du temps long et d'une production de qualité.

In this episode we welcome a very special guest, Jay McInerney. Jay is a novelist, editor, screenwriter and columnist. He wrote the June 1996 "TV Guide" article, "Is Seinfeld the Best Comedy Ever?" "This Podcast Is Making Me Thirsty" is a podcast dedicated to "Seinfeld," the last, great sitcom of our time. Sit back and enjoy. Thank you for listening. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ThisThirsty

You talk about Jay McInerney's 1984 debut novel “Bright Lights, Big City” in an effort to explore the transition from the Long Seventies to the Eighties and what liminal properties you can pinpoint about this unique time period.

Edoardo Ballerini is a two time winner of the Audiobook Publishers Association’s Best Male Narrator Audie Award (2013, Beautiful Ruins, by Jess Walter; 2019, Watchers by Dean Koontz). He has recorded nearly 300 titles, from classic works by Tolstoy, Dante, Kafka, Whitman and Camus, to best-sellers by James Patterson and David Baldacci, and spiritual titles by The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn. On screen, Ballerini is best known for his role as junkie "Corky Caporale" on The Sopranos (HBO) and as the star chef in the indie classic Dinner Rush. He has appeared in over 50 films and tv shows, including a series regular role in the critically acclaimed Quarry, (Cinemax)  and recurring roles in Boardwalk Empire (HBO), 24 (Fox) and Elementary (CBS). Ballerini's work as a narrator has garnered international attention. Articles on his work and career have appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian (UK), Aftenposten (Norway) and MediaPost (US), among others. In 2019 he recorded Robert Alter’s translation of The Hebrew Bible in its entirety. In 2020 he added Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace to his growing list of titles. He is also a two time winner of the Society of Voice Arts Award, and was recently named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile Magazine, an honorific bestowed to only 30 narrators in the magazine’s 19 year history. Other authors Edoardo has voiced include Tom Wolfe, Eve Ensler, Italo Calvino, Carson McCullers, Jay McInerney, Stendhal, Stephen Greenblatt, Jeffrey Deaver, Danielle Steel, Chuck Palahniuk, Louis L’Amour, Adriana Trigiani, Isabel Allende, Stieg Larsson, James Salter, Paul Theroux and Jodi Picoult. Besides narrating audiobooks, Edoardo  is also a regular contributor to Audm, where he voices articles for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Atlantic Monthly, The London Review of Books, and many other publications. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and lives in New York. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/13/magazine/audiobooks-edoardo-ballerini.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/books/audiobook-narrators-diversity.html

I Don't Wanna Hear It PodcastEpisode 072 – One and One Are Five: Cut and Paste, BabaaayIt’s another One and One so here’s some things we love to hate and hate to love. That covers everything, right? HELP.Check out more of our stuff at I Don’t Wanna Hear It and join the Patreon, jabroni. I mean, if you want. Don’t be weird about it. Oh, and we publish books now at WND Press because we want to be bankrupted by a dying medium.Episode Links:InstilledDynamoMadonna’s a fucking idiotCold Bones by Bad LuckGoldfinger’s quarantine videosHalf Asleep In Frog PajamasBright Lights, Big City8th Round PickThe Hicks/Burke TheoryMusical Attribution: Licensed through NEOSounds. License information available upon request.“5 O’Clock Shadow,” “America On the Move,” “Baby You Miss Me,” “Big Fat Gypsy,” “Bubble Up,” “Here Comes That Jazz,” “I Wish I Could Charleston,” “It Feels Like Love,” “I Told You,” “Little Tramp,” “Mornington Crescent,” “No Takeaways.”

Jay McInerney lives in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Corriere della Sera, and his fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Granta, and The Paris Review. In 2006, Time cited Bright Lights, Big City as one of nine generation-defining novels of the twentieth century, and The Good Life received the Prix Littéraire at the Deauville Film Festival in 2007. How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (2009) “reminds us,” Sam Tanenhaus wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “how impressively broad McInerney's scope has been and how confidently he has ranged across wide swaths of our national experience. His third novel charting the lives of Corrine and Russell Calloway is Bright, Precious Days.

Bethenny Frankel is the Founder & CEO of Skinnygirl, a lifestyle brand offering practical solutions to everyday problems, which has grown from sensible, low-calorie cocktails into a branding empire that including clothing, vitamins, skincare and more. In addition to her long-standing role on Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York, Bethenny has been a guest shark on ABC's critically-acclaimed series Shark Tank, and runner-up in The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005. Today, Bethenny is focused on raising her young daughter and establishing her worldwide disaster relief initiative bstrong. This program provides much-needed real-time relief to disaster-stricken areas across the United States and beyond. While assessing and delivering supplies to the Australian bushfire crisis, her team has continued their support in Puerto Rico, which has been named one of the largest privately-run humanitarian efforts in US history. Bethenny shares how she balances motherhood, her Skinnygirl empire, the critical impact her philanthropy is providing worldwide and will ignite the question, "what more can I do?" SHOW NOTES: Always a survivor: Bethenny's turbulent childhood taught her life-long lessons of dedication and determination. "Coming in second place doesn't count. Ironically, I came in second on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart and it was the best thing." "Win. Don't complain or explain." Playing chess > grand plans: Bethenny notes she looks at her business + professional life as a game of chess rather than having one grand plan. Bethenny went from being a participant of Mark Burnett's The Apprentice to recently partnering with him + MGM Television on producing female-centric programs. Naively, Bethenny hoped in winning The Apprentice she'd democratize health the way Martha Stewart democratized style. Bethenny was cast as the oddball character on Real Housewives of New York, and she committed to being vulnerable and her authentic self, focusing on the opportunity it provided to launch her Skinnygirl empire. bstrong: Bethenny directly oversees her worldwide philanthropic initiative that provides real-time emergency assistance to individuals and their families after impacted by disaster with much-needed gift cards, bank cards and critical supplies. "What’s better? Pick up a broom and help clean up a mess or complain and look at the mess?" "You’re pretty blessed if the people you love are alive." To learn more or donate to Bethenny Frankel's philanthropy B Strong, visit their website. If you enjoyed learning from a female entrepreneur, you'll love my conversation with Dina Dwyer-Owens. Dina shares a three-part focus that has led to an incredibly successful business + inspired life. Listen to Dina Dwyer-Owens on ep. 49. BETHENNY FRANKEL'S LIVE INSPIRED 7 1. What is the best book you’ve ever read? Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer, Bright, Precious Days by Jay McInerney, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, and by Rhonda Byrne. 2. What is a characteristic or trait that you possessed as a child that you wish you still exhibited today? Not worrying so much. 3. Your house is on fire, all living things and people are out. You have the opportunity to run in and grab one item. What would it be? A tray of watches because they all have different memories from different times in my life, and my pictures are on my phone. 4. You are sitting on a bench overlooking a gorgeous beach. You have the opportunity to have a long conversation with anyone living or dead. Who would it be? Mark Zuckerberg and I'd ask, "how did you have the courage at a young age to turn down a billion dollars for your brand?" 5. What is the best advice you’ve ever received? Don't buy into the love and don't buy into the hate. 6. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self? I need to find a way to make her understand to absolutely not worry at all about relationships and just have fun. 7. It’s been said that all great people can have their lives summed up in one sentence. How do you want yours to read? I only sweat the small stuff.  *** Pre-order your copy of IN AWE today to receive access to fun, interactive bonus features emailed to you in the lead-up to the book’s release! Visit ReadInAwe.com.  *** Did you enjoy today's episode? Share it with your friends! Then subscribe, rate + review on Apple Podcasts. Live Inspired with John daily on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram + get his Monday Motivation email.

Erin, Lis, and Sara get a taste of the fast paced, cocaine fueled lifestyle of 1980's New York through Jay McInerney's debut novel. Listeners will get a taste of how little we understand or relate to his brand of fast lane living.

Story: Der talentierte, aber erst vor dem Durchbruch stehende Schriftsteller Jamie Conway ist neu in New York. Verblendet vom Genuss des Moments verliert er den Blick auf das Bleibende - und seine als Model aufstrebende Freundin Amanda. Gemeinsam mit seinem Kumpel Tad stürzt er sich in Bars, Diskotheken und Nachtclubs. Drogen, eine Frau nach der anderen - schneller Sex statt große Liebe. Doch sein wie im Rausch konstruiertes Kartenhaus beginnt zu wackeln. Der Einsturz scheint gewiss - zumal er den frühen Tod seiner Mutter nie verarbeiten konnte.

Story: Der talentierte, aber erst vor dem Durchbruch stehende Schriftsteller Jamie Conway ist neu in New York. Verblendet vom Genuss des Moments verliert er den Blick auf das Bleibende - und seine als Model aufstrebende Freundin Amanda. Gemeinsam mit seinem Kumpel Tad stürzt er sich in Bars, Diskotheken und Nachtclubs. Drogen, eine Frau nach der anderen - schneller Sex statt große Liebe. Doch sein wie im Rausch konstruiertes Kartenhaus beginnt zu wackeln. Der Einsturz scheint gewiss - zumal er den frühen Tod seiner Mutter nie verarbeiten konnte.

This week on the Maris Review, Maris talks to Erin Somers, the author of Stay Up with Hugo Best. The two discuss researching a book without any insider knowledge of late-night television, the timing of the #MeToo movement, the joy of an aging Jay McInerney, and the fact that the best books right now are being written by women. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jay McInerney lives in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Corriere della Sera, and his fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Granta, and The Paris Review. In 2006, Time cited Bright Lights, Big City as one of nine generation-defining novels of the twentieth century, and The Good Life received the Prix Littéraire at the Deauville Film Festival in 2007. How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (2009) “reminds us,” Sam Tanenhaus wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “how impressively broad McInerney's scope has been and how confidently he has ranged across wide swaths of our national experience. His third novel charting the lives of Corrine and Russell Calloway is Bright, Precious Days.

Daniel Johnnes is the multi-award winning wine impresario, Sommelier, and creator of La Fete du Champagne, Pressoir Wine, and La Paulee. He is the Corporate Wine Director for Daniel Boulud's Dinex Restaurant Group, a wine importer, and entrepreneur. Our friend Jay McInerney dubbed Daniel Johnnes "The Dean of American Sommeliers" mentoring a generation of wine people. Daniel is a true Francophile! The Grape Nation is Powered by Simplecast

This week Carey and Lauren discuss Jay McInerney's "Story of My Life," the two-party political system in America, and which character from "Real Housewives of New York" each of them embodies.

Author and artist Myriam Gurba joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf for a conversation about her new book Mean, which is receiving effusive praise across the literary, art, and mainstream presses - including a glowing review from last week's guest, Jonathan Alexander, in the LA Review of Books. Billed as part True Crime Tale, part Ghost Story, part Queer coming-of-age Memoir; with all parts deformed by an epidemic of sexual assault and violence in Myriam's hometown - it sounds a perfect fit for the Zeitgeist. Only it's the opposite; as Myriam explains, her love of language is disruptive, and empowering, a lifeline that even allows her to recognize, and commune with, the ghosts haunting our souls. Indeed, as Myriam, Kate, and Eric's conversation turns to our on-going #MeToo moment, Myriam insists we cannot continue to reduce people to good or bad caricatures, our team vs the enemy; rather, we need to talk to each other, have compassion for the traumatized, and, if you're really serious about trying to do some some good, deploy the type of deep psychological insight familiar to readers and writers of literature. Also, Jonathan Alexander drops by to recommend Jay McInerney's latest novel Bright, Precious Days, the third installment of the Calloway Saga; set in NYC in-and-around the (declining) publishing industry during last decade's financial collapse through the early Obama years. Jonathan says it's top notch Mcinerney: delicious junk food for the literati, plus a front row seat for the Decline of the American Empire!

Jay McInerney is the critically acclaimed author of 13 books including Bright Lights, Big City, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Good Life. He has written three wine books, Bacchus and Me, A Hedonist in the Cellar, and The Juice. Jay is currently the wine columnist for Town and Country magazine, a correspondent for the online site Prince Street, and was previously the wine critic for the Wall Street Journal and House and Garden. His current novel, Bright Precious Days was just released in paperback. The Grape Nation is powered by Simplecast

Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City and the recent Bright, Precious Days, was already a successful novelist when he started writing about wine more than two decades ago. This may be why his columns for House & Garden, the Wall Street Journal, and currently, Town & Country stand out from other writing on the subject and have been published as standalone volumes. On this week’s Eater Upsell, McInerney chats with Helen and Greg about possibly setting off the rosé craze, the trouble with maintaining a wine collection, and why New York is still the best restaurant city in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cette semaine à l'émission : Entrevue avec l'humoriste et animateur Jay Du Temple ; L'actualité culturelle avec Charles-Olivier Michaud et Catherine Richer ; Le spectacle multimédia Avudo:Entrevue avec Daniele Finzi-Pasca ; Entrevue avec David Laurin et Jean-Simon Traversy, directeurs artistiques du théâtre Duceppe ; La vie culturelle à Paris avec Katia Chapoutier:L'hôtel Yooma ; Suggestions musicales de Nabi Chartier et de Philippe Renaud ; La vie culturelle à New York avec Marie Bourreau:Le joaillier Tiffany ; Critique de livre avec René Homier-Roy:Les jours enfuis de Jay McInerney ; Musique et peinture:Entrevue avec l'artiste multidisciplinaire Laurence Nerbonne ; À surveiller au 5 à 7 aux îles avec... Julie Snyder

Cette semaine à l'émission : Entrevue avec l'humoriste et animateur Jay Du Temple ; L'actualité culturelle avec Charles-Olivier Michaud et Catherine Richer ; Le spectacle multimédia Avudo:Entrevue avec Daniele Finzi-Pasca ; Entrevue avec David Laurin et Jean-Simon Traversy, directeurs artistiques du théâtre Duceppe ; La vie culturelle à Paris avec Katia Chapoutier:L'hôtel Yooma ; Suggestions musicales de Nabi Chartier et de Philippe Renaud ; La vie culturelle à New York avec Marie Bourreau:Le joaillier Tiffany ; Critique de livre avec René Homier-Roy:Les jours enfuis de Jay McInerney ; Musique et peinture:Entrevue avec l'artiste multidisciplinaire Laurence Nerbonne ; À surveiller au 5 à 7 aux îles avec... Julie Snyder

On today's episode I talk to writer Jill Eisenstadt. Jill is the author of the novels From Rockaway, Kiss Out and Swell and with her sister, director Debra Eisenstadt, the co- writer and co-producer of the feature film, The Limbo Room. In the 1980s, she was part of the 'Literary Brat Pack' whose members included Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, and Tama Janowitz. Other work of Jill's has appeared in such publications as The New York Times, New York Magazine, Vogue, Elle, The Boston Review, as well as many others. Jill is also the recipient of a Columbia University Writing Fellowship, a National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts Teacher Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fiction Grant. This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on iTunes, follow me on Twitter.

Chaque soir, Nicolas Carreau nous emmène à la découverte des plus belles nouveautés littéraires.

“In the middle of life’s journey,” wrote Dante Alighieri, “I found myself in a selva oscura.” Host Jacke Wilson and frequent guest Mike Palindrome take stock of their own selva oscura in a particularly literary way: What books have they read? What books have been the most important to them? What do they expect to come next? It’s a celebration of reading – and friendship – on this episode of The History of Literature Podcast.  Authors discussed include: John D. Fitzgerald, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Elena Ferrante, Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, Jay McInerney, Rene Descartes, James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, Graham Greene, Patrick O’Brian, Marcel Proust, Javier Marias, Haruki Murakami, Paul Celan, and Leo Tolstoy.  FREE GIFT!  Write a review on iTunes (or another site), then send us an email at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com to receive your free History of Literature postcard as a thank you gift. Act now while supplies last!  Show Notes:  Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or by leaving a voicemail at 1-361-4WILSON (1-361-494-5766).  You can find more literary discussion at jackewilson.com and more episodes of the series at historyofliterature.com. Check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/historyofliterature. You can follow Jacke Wilson at his Twitter account @WriterJacke. You can also follow Mike and the Literature Supporters Club (and receive daily book recommendations) by looking for @literatureSC. Music Credits: “Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA).   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Part Two of this interview the senior culture writer for Buzzfeed News and author of the debut novel Startup, Doree Shafrir, took a few minutes to talk with me about the early days at Gawker, her highly-anticipated fiction debut, and her tips for getting words onto the page. Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! The veteran online journalist started out at the Philadelphia Weekly before taking a position at Gawker in 2006. She went on to work as an editor and staff writer for Rolling Stone, The New York Observer, and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, The Awl, New York Magazine, The Daily Beast, and WIRED. Her whip-smart debut novel is Startup, a satirical skewering of startup culture in New York City “…that proves there are some dilemmas that no app can solve.” Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton, former tech and business columnist for the New York Times, said of the book, “I was hooked from the first page and found myself lost in a beautifully-written fiction that so succinctly echoes today’s bizarre reality.” Doree also co-hosts a podcast with husband and Nerdist alum, TV writer Matt Mira, titled “Matt and Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure,” described as an “…unintentionally hilarious journey through the world of infertility.” If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of this file Doree Shafrir and I discuss: The reality and frustration of writer’s block Why she made the revelatory move from Microsoft Word to Scrivener How the author manages stress (hint: HGTV) The city as muse Why done is sometimes better than good Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes If you’re ready to see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — just go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress How Senior BuzzFeed Writer and Author of Startup Doree Shafrir Writes: Part One Doree-Shafrir.com Meet Startup Author Doree Shafrir – Tour Dates Startup: A Novel – Doree Shafrir Doree Shafrir is a culture writer for BuzzFeed Sex, Lies and Tech: How New Novel Skewers Startup Culture – Rolling Stone Episode 865: Nerdist Podcast – Doree Shafrir 24 Quotes That Will Inspire You To Write More – Doree Shafrir Doree Shafrir on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Senior BuzzFeed Writer and Author of Startup Doree Shafrir Writes: Part Two Voiceover: Rainmaker FM. Kelton Reid: Hey. Welcome back to the Writer Files. I’m your host, Kelton Reid, here to take you on another tour of the habits, habitats, and brands of renowned writers. In part two of this interview, the Senior Culture Writer for BuzzFeed News and author of the debut novel Startup, Doree Shafrir, took a few minutes to talk with me about the early days at Gawker, her highly anticipated fiction debut, and her tips for getting words onto the page. The veteran online journalist started out at the Philadelphia Weekly before taking a position at Gawker in 2006. She went on to work as an editor and staff writer for The Rolling Stone and the New York Observer and has contributed to publications including The New York Times, New Yorker, Slate, The Awl, New York Magazine, the Daily Beast, and WIRED. Her whip smart debut novel is Startup,” a satirical skewering of startup culture in New York City that proves there are some dilemmas that no app can solve. Vanity Fair’s Nick Bilton, former tech and business columnist for The New York Times, said of the book, “I was hooked from the first page and found myself lost in a beautifully written fiction that so succinctly echoes today’s bizarre reality.” Doree also cohosts a podcast with husband and nerdist alum TV writer Matt Mira, titled Matt and Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure, described as an unintentionally hilarious journey through the world of infertility. In part two of this file, Doree and I discuss the reality and frustration of writer’s block, why she made the revelatory move from Microsoft Word to Scrivener, how the author manages stress (hint: HGTV), the city as muse, and why done is sometimes better than good. If you missed the first half of this show, you can find it in the archives on iTunes on WriterFiles.FM and in the show notes. The Writer Files is brought to you by the all the new StudioPress Sites, a turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for authors, bloggers, podcasters, and affiliate marketers, as well as those selling physical products, digital downloads, and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress. And if you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. The Reality and Frustration of Writer s Block Kelton Reid: Have you ever run up against writer’s block? Is that something you believe in or is it a myth? Doree Shafrir: I think writer’s block is totally real. Yeah. I mean there were … I went on book leave for two months from BuzzFeed. I really wanted to make the best use of my time because I knew I only had two months. The days during those two months that I wasn’t able to write anything were so frustrating because I was like, “Ugh, I have this time.” Some days, I would just sit in front of the computer, and I was like, “I don’t know where this is going, what to write.” I just felt so stuck. People say like, “If you’re stuck, you should just try to free write.” I think that that can be helpful. I also often find it helpful to just go on a really long walk, do something that takes you away from the actual writing. I find that it is very rare that just staring at a computer or being in front of the computer and surfing the Internet, that does not tend to break writer’s block. Kelton Reid: No. All right. Well, let’s talk about your workflow as a journalist and fictionist. Now, are you a Mac or a PC user? Doree Shafrir: I am a Mac user. Why She Made the Revelatory Move from Microsoft Word to Scrivener Kelton Reid: When you were writing the book, were you doing it in Word or Scrivener or something else? Doree Shafrir: Actually a combination. I started the book in Word, and then, probably … I was quite far along in the book when a friend told me about Scrivener. It changed my life. I don’t think I would’ve been able to finish the book if I hadn’t switched everything over to Scrivener. I was kind of a pain in the ass to switch everything, because in Word, it was one big document. Scrivener doesn’t detect chapter separations from a big document in Word, so I had to kind of manually put each chapter in, but once I did that, and I could have a split screen and have an outline and also be working on the actual text at the same time, that was very revelatory. Kelton Reid: I’ve heard this before that getting up to speed with Scrivener at first is a little painful, but then, it’s, again, like you said, a kind of a revelation. Do you have some best practices for beating that dreaded procrastination when you’re on a deadline? Doree Shafrir: I am a big proponent of I guess it’s the Pomodoro method where you set a timer for … I forget what Pomodoro actually … Pomodoro has a specific amount of time. It might be like half an hour, but I find it very useful to set a timer for a specified amount of time and turn off the Internet. I use the Freedom app and just focus. That can be in as small a chunk of time as 15 minutes. If I have a dedicated amount of time that I know at the end I will be allowed to look at Twitter and check my email, then I can focus, but I find it very difficult to focus with large unstructured blocks of free time. Kelton Reid: I forgot to ask you before, but do you stick on headphones or are you someone who prefers silence? Doree Shafrir: It depends where I am. When I’m working in my house, I usually don’t wear headphones. If I’m in a public place, like if I go to a coffee shop or somewhere else, I will listen to … There’s a Spotify playlist called Deep Focus that I listen to. I can’t listen to anything with words, so that music is sort of calming, like vaguely electronica, not stuff I would ever really listen to just on my own. But, I find this kind of ambient noise of it to be very helpful. How the Author Manages Stress (Hint: HGTV) Kelton Reid: I’m with you on the ambient. How does Doree Shafrir unplug at the end of a long writing day? Besides blackjack. Doree Shafrir: If you ask my husband, he would say I can’t unplug. I’m not great at relaxing. I find it very hard to relax. Although last night, I was like, “Okay, I just need to just chill out and not get … ” I was feeling very anxious, so I just watched a couple of episodes of House Hunters, and that calmed me down. Kelton Reid: It is very calming that the … I actually don’t find that calming. The house hunting is cool. I’m very jealous of every home on those shows. That makes me kind of anxious, because I’m like, “Oh, man. Look at that cool place.” Doree Shafrir: I also watch Tiny House Hunters. I’m not jealous of those living spaces. I also do yoga. I do Pilates. I try to stay active, and that definitely helps with stress and kind of unwinding. I also read a lot. That is also just kind of like getting lost in a good book is like very … It’s good to take myself out of the world for a little while. Kelton Reid: For sure, for sure. How would you define creativity in your own words? Doree Shafrir: I would say being imaginative, being curious, being expressive. Those are all hallmarks of creativity, I think. The City as Muse Kelton Reid: I think for a lot of writers, creativity is kind of the bedrock of what you do, but do you have something that makes you feel most creative or like a creative muse right now? Doree Shafrir: Hmm. A creative muse … Kelton Reid: Something that spurs your interest. Doree Shafrir: For Startup, New York was a muse for me. Because I live in Los Angeles now, it was interesting for me to have that distance on New York and to be able to romanticize it a little bit, which I was not really able to do while I was living there. Los Angeles, I kind of want Los Angeles to be a muse in a similar way, but I’m not quite there yet. I love living here, but I … Yeah. I’m not totally there yet. Kelton Reid: Interesting, interesting. I’ve heard the New York muse story often, actually, by some story fictionists such as Jay McInerney for instance. That is his muse, for sure. Just kind of plugging into the city. And it seems like when you’re in Manhattan or really anywhere in New York, but especially in Manhattan, there’s that … I don’t know, there’s that kind of spirit of New York that you don’t sense in LA. I mean I did live in LA myself. Doree Shafrir: Totally. Oh, okay. Kelton Reid: This vast sprawling mini-mall, but … Manhattan has this history and these ghosts that you don’t sense in LA, but … Doree Shafrir: Yeah. I mean I guess if I were like living at the Chateau Marmont, I might feel differently, but I am not, and that’s probably not going to happen. Kelton Reid: Is that why every cool rock star lives at the Chateau Marmont? Doree Shafrir: Yeah because I think it is one of the places in Los Angeles that has that kind of mystique and feels old even though compared to stuff in New York, it’s not that old, but it has that kind of mysterious, cool vibe. Kelton Reid: Yeah. And the ghost of John Belushi … Doree Shafrir: Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Kelton Reid:The Sunset Strip is probably the beating heart of that weird universe. Doree Shafrir: Totally. What Makes a Writer Great Kelton Reid: What do you think makes a writer great? Doree Shafrir: Oh, boy. What do I think makes a writer great? Certainly having imagination and being able to create characters and worlds and narratives that take people out of their worlds, like kind of what I was just saying. I think it’s really hard to write a book that people feel completely engrossed in. I always admire writers in any genre who are able to do that. Of course, unlike a purely mechanical prose level, there is a way of writing prose that I think is instantly recognizable to people who appreciate good writing. You want someone who feels original, who has their own voice, who doesn’t resort to clichés or standard writing tropes, and who has an original story to tell. Kelton Reid: Do you have a couple faves that are sitting on your nightstand right now? Or in your Kindle, I should’ve said? Doree Shafrir: I actually I’m one of those people who has been going back and forth, ebook and paper. I kind of appreciate both of them for different reasons. Certainly, traveling is a lot easier with an ebook. There’s just no question about that. Often, when I’m traveling, I will load up my Kindle with long books that I would not want to lug around. I also really appreciate a hardcover book. I think especially now that I have written a novel, I appreciate a hardcover book even more. There is something really powerful about being able to hold a book, a physical object in your hands. For someone like me who has worked on the Internet for so long, that was really powerful when I first was able to hold my book in my hands. It had this power that I wasn’t expecting. To answer your question, some books that I really liked recently. I loved Jami Attenberg’s last book, All Grown Up. I just thought it was so smart and funny and poignant, really well done. I really liked Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. I thought that was such an amazing book. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book, Americanah, I loved. What else have I … My colleague, Scaachi Koul has a book of essays coming out called One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, which in my opinion is like the best title for a book of essays ever. Not just because I know Scaachi, but her book is just so good. I’m always a little bit skeptical of people in their 20s who write books of essays or memoirs, but she is so talented and so funny and so sharp. It’s such a good book. She is the daughter of Indian immigrants and grew up in Canada and has really smart things to say about race, and it’s in immigration, and Canada. It’s a really, really great book. Timeless Inspirational Quotes for Writers Kelton Reid: Nice, nice. All right. Before we wrap it up here, I could keep you all afternoon, I’m sure, but you have places to be. As most writers do, do you have a best love quote kind of floating over your desk or in your mind? Doree Shafrir: I don’t really have a quote like that, but I did … No, I saw that question on your list, and I was like, “Huh. Nothing really comes to mind,” But, I did once do a post for BuzzFeed called 24 Quotes That Will Inspire You to Write More. I actually worked pretty hard to find these quotes, but … Kelton Reid: I’m looking it up now. All right. We got it. I’ll link to it. Doree Shafrir: Okay. Cool. There’s Harper Lee saying, “I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent, he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” Kelton Reid: I love it. Doree Shafrir: Ray Bradbury, “Just write every day of your life, read intensely, then see what happens. Most of my friends who were put on that diet have very pleasant careers. Toni Morrison, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” So yeah, you know. All those kinds of quotes, I appreciate. Kelton Reid: I love it. I will link to it. I will link to it often. Before we wrap up with some advice to your fellow scribes, maybe we’ll do one fun one here. If you could choose any author from any era for an all expense paid dinner to your favorite spot in the world, who would you take and where would you take them? Doree Shafrir: It would definitely be Dorothy Parker because she’s just so fascinating and so funny and of a New York that I am fascinated by. I think I would take her to Keens Steakhouse in New York City, which is a very classic New York steakhouse. I would just kind of want to see what she was like in that environment. I think we would have a great time and probably get very drunk. Kelton Reid: That’s awesome. All right, I can picture it. Before you offer advice to your fellow scribes, we will mention the novel one more time. Startup. One of the most anticipated books of this year or any year, really, a hilarious debut novel that proves there are some dilemmas that no app can solve. It’s a lot of fun. I’m enjoying it, get sucked right in, and it’s definitely a page turner. Doree Shafrir: Thank you. Why Done is Sometimes Better than Good Kelton Reid: Listeners, find Startup: A Novel. Can you offer some advice to your fellow writers on how to keep going, how to keep the ink flowing, how to keep the cursor moving? Doree Shafrir: I think really writing everyday, which is something that I don’t always do, but I try to do is really important. I think that quantity influences quality. I think that if you are so concerned with always having everything perfect, you’re never going to write anything. It’s better to finish something than to not finish something because you’re worried that it’s not good. Kelton Reid: Very good, very good. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Best of luck with finishing up your tour out there. Doree Shafrir: Thank you. Kelton Reid: We hope you come back and chat with us again sometime. Doree Shafrir: Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks for having me. Kelton Reid: All right. Cheers. Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please subscribe to the show, and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes, or to just leave a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM. And you can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

November's edition is a Classic Bookclub as presenter James Naughtie chooses Robert Louis Stevenson's adventure story Kidnapped as his favourite from his own reading life, as part of the BBC's #LovetoRead Season. In the absence of Stevenson, our guide to the book is author Louise Welsh, who has written an opera inspired by him. Kidnapped is one Stevenson's best loved titles. It's an historical adventure novel set in Scotland after the Jacobite rising of 1745 and tells the adventures of the recently orphaned sixteen year old David Balfour, as he journeys through the dangerous Scottish Highlands in an attempt to regain his rightful inheritance. James Naughtie says : "As a young boy Robert Louis Stevenson was my guide to adventure. Kidnapped was always at hand and, like Treasure Island, it introduced me to great story-telling. A boy alone in a country torn apart by war, betrayed by a sad but wicked uncle, and a coming-of-age through adversity. Reading it again, I can still feel the thrill of the first time. That's what great books do". Author Louise Welsh has said "I think if you were to stop any Scottish writer and ask them to list their top three writers that made them want to write they would mention Stevenson. He's always been number one for me." Bookclub's #LovetoRead on Kidnapped is recorded as always with an audience of readers, including members of the RLS Club, local school children and university students, at the Hawes Inn, Queensferry, where Stevenson is thought to have started the novel in 1866. Presenter James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Louise Welsh Producer : Dymphna Flynn December's Bookclub Choice : Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney.

American writer Jay McInerney discusses his debut novel Bright Lights, Big City with James Naughtie and a group of readers. Bright Lights, Big City not only cemented Jay McInerney as a superstar among debut novelists, but came to define the culture of 80s New York in all its gritty yet glamorous glory. We follow the young unnamed narrator - he's 'You' throughout the book - during a whirlwind week in New York. He is bored with his job on a Manhattan magazine, wants to be a writer, and has been abandoned by his fashion-model wife. By night he roams the brightly lit streets of the city, hanging out in clubs and loft parties, powered by "Bolivian Marching Powder". By the time his crazy week is over the emptiness returns. Presenter : James Naughtie Interviewed guest : Jay McInerney Producer : Dymphna Flynn January's Bookclub choice : Capital by John Lanchester (2012).

Jay McInerney talks about his novel Bright Lights, Big City.

Christodora (Grove/Atlantic) In Christodora, Tim Murphy follows the lives of a diverse cast of characters who reside in and around an iconic apartment building in Manhattan’s East Village, the Christodora. Constructed in the 1920s, the Christodora has stood through New York City’s various cultural shifts, from the AIDS epidemic to the Tompkins Square Riots of the 1980s, from the destructive effect of hard drugs to the gentrification of a beloved Manhattan neighborhood. Murphy moves kaleidoscopically through these times and into New York City in the not-too- distant future in this poignant portrait of sex, drugs, art, and activism in this ever-changing city. On Avenue B in the East Village, the Christodora is home to Milly and Jared, a privileged young couple with artistic ambitions and parents to a young adopted son, Mateo. Their neighbor, Hector, a PuertoRican gay man once celebrated for his work as an AIDS activist, is now a lonely addict who becomes connected to Milly and Jared’s lives in ways none of them can anticipate. Meanwhile, Mateo grows to see the opportunity for both self-realization and oblivion that New York offers. As the junkies and protestors of the 1980s give way to the hipsters of the 2000s and they, in turn, to the wealthy residents of the crowded, glass-towered city of the 2020s, enormous changes rock the personal lives of Milly and Jared and the constellation of people around them, even as ghosts of the past cast a shadow on their future. A novel of great scope and ambition, Christodora is a closely-observed panoramic novel that powerfully evokes the danger, chaos, and wonder of New York City, as well as the strange and moving ways in which its dwellers’ can intersect. Praise for Christodora “[A] vivid account of the AIDS crisis and its aftermath . . . Murphy has written The Bonfire of the Vanities for the age of AIDS, using the same reportorial skills as Tom Wolfe to re-create the changing decades, complete with a pitch-perfect deployment of period detail. Skipping back and forth in time over 40 years, and projecting itself into the near future, the novel achieves a powerful evocation of the plague years.”—Publishers Weekly “An ambitious social novel informed by an extended perspective on the HIV/AIDS epidemic . . . In his debut novel, Murphy wants to bring [Larry] Kramer’s vision into the 21st century, though he goes about it with more artistry and less polemic . . . The author is expert at inhabiting a variety of mindsets . . . A poignant . . .exploration of a health crisis that hasn’t yet ended.”—Kirkus Reviews “Murphy, who has long reported on HIV/AIDS, LGBT issues, pop culture, travel, and the arts for a wide range of publications, here travels through New York City from the AIDS-scarred 1980s to the hipster-dominated 2000s to the wealth-drenched 2020s, all by focusing on a single East Village building.”—Library Journal “An intimate portrait of a bohemian family, Christodora is also a capacious historical novel that vividly recreates the lost world of downtown Manhattan in the eighties—a nuanced portrait of an era in which artists were unwitting agents of gentrification and the bright dawn of gay liberation was brutally interrupted by the AIDS epidemic.”—Jay McInerney   “A moving portrait of New York in the time of AIDS, Tim Murphy’s honest and insightful writing gives Christodora a particular vibrancy that causes the characters to leap, whole, into the reader’s imagination. This spectacular novel is an important addition to literature that captures New York in all its glory and despair.”—Candace Bushnell “An exuberant, ambitious, funny, gorgeously written epic, Tim Murphy’s Christodora not only makes us privy to the most intimate secrets and dreams of a group of unforgettable diverse characters, this brilliant tale also sweeps us up into the spirit of our age, from the AIDS crisis to now and even into the future, so that we can see and feel the devastating effects of time as it changes us forever.”—James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods Tim Murphy has dedicated the last twenty years to reporting on HIV/AIDS. He’s written on the subject for Out, Advocate, and New York Magazine, where his cover story on the new HIV-prevention pill regimen PrEP was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Magazine Journalism. He also covers LGBT issues, arts, pop culture, travel, and fashion for publications including the New York Times and Conde Nast Traveler.

Martha Frankel’s guests this week are Francine Prose, Jay McInerney, Kevin Smokler and Stephanie Gangi.   This week's sponsors: Fruition, Karmic, Women at Woodstock and Greer Chicago.  

In this special edition of the show, two writers joined me to opine the death of one of the most influential forms in the history of the written word. I posed the question that many great writers have pondered stretching across the last two centuries … Rainmaker.FM is Brought to You By Discover why more than 80,000 companies in 135 countries choose WP Engine for managed WordPress hosting. Start getting more from your site today! Is the novel dead? And maybe a more up-to-date version of that question is, did the Internet kill books? Of course these are famous — almost cliche — theoretical discussions that writers often chew on over stiff drinks, and they raise hackles for those of us who adore them. What you won’t find here is a highbrow literary dissertation, or even a very strict definition as to what the novel is or isn’t. But you will find a lively discussion between friends who care about the writing life and its future. Robert Bruce is a writer, voice actor, and copywriter, as well as the Vice President of Rainmaker Digital and the guy who runs the Rainmaker.FM podcast network. Adam Skolnick is an award-winning journalist, author, and a returning guest on the show. His first book, One Breath, was published by Crown last January, and his work has appeared in publications including Playboy, The New York Times, and many others. If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. In Part One of the file Robert, Adam, and I discuss: How Longer Works of Writing Have Been Forced to Compete with Disposable Culture Why Herman Melville Died Penniless How the Novel has Stood the Test of Time The Role of Podcasting for Modern Writers Author Hugh Howey’s ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ Model of Book Retail Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Audible is Offering a Free Audiobook Download with a 30-day Trial: Grab Your Free Audiobook Here – audibletrial.com/rainmaker Is the Novel Dead? Part Two Get More from Robert Bruce at RobertBruce.com Find more from Adam Skolnick at AdamSkolnick.com How Andy Weir (Bestselling Author of ‘The Martian’) Writes: Part One How Bestselling Author Jay McInerney Writes: Part One The Passive Voice – After Months of Strong Sales, Bookstores See Drop in July Hugh Howey – Rock, Paper, Scissors Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript Is the Novel Dead? Part One Voiceover: Rainmaker FM Kelton Reid: Welcome back to The Writer Files. I’m still your host, Kelton Reid, here to take you on another tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of renowned writers to learn their secrets. But in this edition of the show, two writers joined me to opine the death of one of the most influential forms in the history of the written word. I posed the question that many great writers have pondered stretching across the last two centuries, Is the novel dead? Maybe a more up to date version of that question is, Did the internet kill books? Of course, these are famous almost cliché theoretical discussions that writers often chew on over stiff drinks and they raise the hackles for those of us who adore them. What you won’t find here is a highbrow literary dissertation, or even a very strict definition as to what the novel is or isn’t but you will find a lively discussion between friends who care about the writing life and it’s future. Robert Bruce is a renowned voice actor, poet, fiction author, and copywriter, as well as the vice president of Rainmaker Digital and the guy who runs the Rainmaker FM network. Adam Skolnick is an award-winning journalist, author, and returning guest on this show. His first book One Breath was published by Crown last January and his work has appeared in publications including Playboy, The New York Times, and many others. In part one of this file Robert, Adam, and I discuss how longer works of writing have been forced to compete with disposable culture, why Herman Melville died penniless, how the novel has stood the test of time, the role of podcasting for modern writers, and author Hugh Howey’s Rock, Paper, Scissors model of book retail. If you are a fan of The Writer Files, please click “subscribe” to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. This episode of The Writer Files is brought to you by Audible. I’ll have more on their special offer later in the show but if you love audio books or you’ve always wanted to give them a try, you can check out over 180 thousand titles right now at Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. This episode of The Writer Files is also brought to you by Digital Commerce Summit. We’ll have more about that unique event for digital entrepreneurs later in the show but you can check out Rainmaker.FM/Summit for all the details on an amazing, educational, and networking event. And we are rolling today with some very special guests. I have more than one guest today, which is unusual for this show, but I think what we have is a special edition of The Writer Files. We usually call these Writer Porn when I get return guests, but I do have a new guest, Robert Bruce is joining us today. Welcome, Robert. Robert Bruce: Hey, Kelton, thanks for having me. Kelton Reid: If you don’t know Robert and his famous voice, he actually runs Rainmaker FM, and by night he files stories to the internet from an undisclosed location near you. Does that mean you’re actually writing stuff somewhere here in my neighborhood, Robert? Robert Bruce: It could be. It could mean that, Kelton. Kelton Reid: You’re very mysterious. Robert Bruce: The fact that you don’t know makes it so much better. Kelton Reid: We can find your writing and more of your very, very interesting voice over at RobertBruce.com. Robert is a poet, fictionist, copywriter, and a VP of Rainmaker Digital and a close confidant who has nurtured The Writer Files kind of since it’s inception, so welcome to the show. Robert Bruce: Thanks, man. Kelton Reid: And Adam Skolnick is back. The award-winning journalist, author, swimmer, I call him a backgammon hound. He’s actually a shark, so don’t play him for money, but he recently walked the marathon length of Sunset Boulevard for a story, is that right? Adam Skolnick: Yes. Kelton Reid: Tell us a little bit about that adventure. Robert Bruce: Where is that story, by the way? Where can we find that? Adam Skolnick: That story is still in mid-birth. I should be writing it instead of talking to you jokers right now. Kelton Reid: Sorry. Robert Bruce: Watch it, man, I might be in an undisclosed location near you. Kelton Reid: Robert’s also in L.A. Adam Skolnick: Oh nice, good, you could be in my house right now. Robert Bruce: Hey, you never know. Adam Skolnick: No, it’s going to be for Lonely Planet Traveller Magazine which is obviously a big travel guide publishing brand and they’ve got kind of a big magazine in the UK and it’s growing here in the US, and so it will be for both of those editions. I walked Sunset from Union Station in downtown L.A. to the beach seventeen years ago with a friend, right when I was first trying to become a writer. It was the first thing I did. It was the first story I wrote. Before that, I was kind of just like hiding in dark corners and scribbling down like stream of consciousness rants and occasionally foist them on unsuspecting people at open mic nights. Mostly it was kind of keeping it to myself. Then I started to really take it seriously, trying to write stories and travel stories in particular. A friend of mine said he was going to walk Wilshire, Santa Monica, and Sunset Boulevards from beginning to end and asked me if I was interested and so I tagged along. Then fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and an editor from the magazine said that they had a photographer on location, shooting Sunset for a feature, and they wondered if I wanted to write the text. And I told them what I did seventeen years ago and how I was thinking about doing it again, because so much has changed here in L.A., especially on the eastern stretch of that street. They went for it and that meant that I had the death march ahead of me and it was cool. It was fun to do it again, this time, I did it with a filmmaker named Tchaiko Omawale, a friend of mine, and she was with me for the first twenty miles and the last six miles I was trudging alone. Robert Bruce: Wow, so it literally is a marathon, yeah? Adam Skolnick: Yeah, yeah. It’s just under twenty-six miles and it was like, yeah, and it rained again. The first time around it rained for like the first few miles, or maybe even the first couple of hours straight, and then it was nice. This time, like out of nowhere it rained when we were in East Hollywood. It was great, you know, it’s always interesting to see things at that level, street level. See how much has changed, how the Sunset strip is kind of decaying while Eastside L.A. is booming and, you know, just to be able to think about all of that, what that means. And it’s just a privilege to be able to do it, and to do this for a living, to write stories. It’s always fun when I find one that I resonate with because that’s why we do this. It certainly is not the paycheck. Kelton Reid: You can see snippets of that story, actually if you pop onto Adam’s Instagram. I think it’s just Adam Skolnick on Instagram. Yeah, I just wanted to mention also that in addition to being a journalist, Adam recently published his first book, One Breath, last January. Published by Crown and he has written for some really big name marquee publications including Playboy, The New York Times and many others. He’s over at AdamSkolnick.com if you want to check out more of his stuff and see some of those great pictures too. How Longer Works of Writing Have Been Forced to Compete with Disposable Culture Kelton Reid: You may be wondering why the three of us are chatting today. As we often do, Robert and I, and Adam and I separately gnash our teeth about certain elements of the writer’s life and I thought I’d bring them on together today to do the Is the novel dead? edition of Writer Porn. To start out I think maybe we could talk about what this question actually means because it’s something that famous writers have written about and kvetched about, you know, throughout the ages. Famous writers, Philip Roth and many others have written some great pieces about it. But I think what we’re going to talk about today is maybe a little bit different as opposed to say like the highbrow, literary version of that argument. We’re going to talk maybe more about, well Robert, do you want to help me out on how we’re going to tackle this one? Robert Bruce: I have no idea how we’re going to tackle this, other than, yeah, I think this is a really interesting question. I think it’s … and it goes into a lot of, maybe a bigger subterranean question of, you know, How do you … what does it mean to get out into the world what you want to get out into the world in 2016 and 2017 rapidly coming up on us? You know, I mean ****, so maybe the novel, we could say, we’re going to talk specifically about the death of the novel, in my opinion. Maybe that, the idea of the novel can be a stand in for, you know, in a lot of ways whatever it is you are doing. Here’s the deal, here’s my short take on it. The novel is so last century, right? This beautiful form, whether literary or even genre pretty much for, I don’t know, at least a hundred years has stood alone as a piece of, to put it crassly, media, that had very few, for many of those hundred years, very few competitors. Now you come into a world where we’re still writing these novels which I think is a good thing and obviously there’s many great novels out there and many great novel readers of novels but all of a sudden it’s competing with, you know, the Kardashian’s, and it’s competing with Hillary’s thirty thousand deleted emails, and it’s competing with Adam Skolnick’s stroll down Sunset Boulevard. Not only that, but the entire history of art and media that is now available to us online, you know, the Beatles entire catalog, so on and so forth. It’s this really, to me, interesting problem that I actually don’t think that there’s an answer to it, but I think there are ways, you know, maybe one of the better questions is, How should a writer be thinking today, in the age of the Kardashians? Kelton Reid: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that’s a good point. You know, we kind of open it up. It’s not that kind of bleak … Robert Bruce: Oh, I think it is, Kelton. Kelton Reid: Sure, but when we’re asking the question, Is the novel dead? I think what we’re … you know, defining the novel as a little bit broader piece, you know, a longer fiction, obviously, including popular fiction, right? Literary fiction. Adam Skolnick: That’s what I was wondering if you were talking about the form of what a traditional novel is and like a reinvention of a form, or if you are talking about just the idea of releasing books in general, because you could make that same argument for any book, then. If you are saying that. Robert Bruce: Or any file. Adam Skolnick: I mean from the beginning of … I think there’s always been intense competition for readers, you know. In the days where there wasn’t the internet and social media, or even movies and TV, there were a million newspapers. There was a newspaper for almost every block of every city, so there’s always been kind of this democratized media. We just don’t really see it because we are so focused on, we’re so myopic with the present, nobody can really analyze it against anything else, especially now because everyone is so obsessed. I think social media is probably the greatest threat to people’s attention. I think that the Beatles example is really interesting, obviously, yes you can listen to as much music as you want to, so there’s so much media saturating but I think it’s social media that is a big drain on people’s attention spans. That’s a real issue, but there’s always been that issue and before there was the issue of, Is there enough literate people out there to buy the books? I mean, listen, Herman Melville had to get a job at the customs office after he wrote Moby Dick. Robert Bruce: That’s right, he died broke, penniless. Adam Skolnick: That is a little bit disconcerting. But I don’t think it’s ever been easy to make your living this way, ever. I think that these are interesting questions but I don’t think they prove the death of any form. I just think that it’s up to publishers and authors to figure out their way around it and to make their book relevant. A lot of that’s just like this having gone through the marketing process of a book in January through til, really, all the way almost til June and to see how it’s such a mystery. There’s really no formula that you can follow that will be 100% foolproof. It’s a real mystery and it takes the audience kind of finding the book in an organic way as much as it takes a publishing house putting all their ammo behind something. God, it’s kind of a mind bender, you know, for me, it’s interesting being invited to this. I’ve written a novel that didn’t sell and I wrote a nonfiction book that did sell and so what I do know is that it’s harder to sell fiction. That might be because of the shrinking audience or the competing media. That could have something to do with that. I don’t know for a fact, but that could have something to do with it. Or it could just be that, you know, people, publishers rather, make bets on true stories that they know there’s an audience for. Either way, it’s harder to sell fiction. That’s a fact. But, you know, according to my friends at HarperCollins their fiction sales are up. Hardcover fiction sales are up. Kelton Reid: We will be right back after a very short break. Thanks so much for listening to The Writer Files. This episode of The Writer Files is brought to you by Audible, offering over 180 thousand audiobook titles to choose from. Audible seamlessly delivers the worlds of both fiction and nonfiction to your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or computer. For Rainmaker FM listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a thirty-day trial to give you the opportunity to check them out. Grab your free audiobook right now by visiting Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. I just hopped over there to grab Stephen King’s epic novel 11/22/63 about an English teacher who goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. You can download your pick or any other audio book free by heading over to Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. To download your free audio book today, go to Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. To get all the details and the very best deal on tickets head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/Summit. How the Novel has Stood the Test of Time Robert Bruce: Right, harder to sell, but as you well know, as I think all of us do, and many people listening, it’s like, when fiction hits there’s nothing better, because it’s also then … it’ll last a hundred years, you know, if it’s really great of course. Adam Skolnick: Yeah. Robert Bruce: That’s rare, but we point to … and this whole eBook conversation now with Amazon and all these independent publishers going on and self-publishing and making, you know, you hear these grand stories of these people making all this money. I mean, Kelton, you interviewed Andy Weir and an incredible story of the self-publication of The Martian and then it got picked up and the movie and everybody knows that story. Those, we also know, are the rare stories. I think, what’s his name? Hugh Howey, he talks about he hit with a massive, massive fiction hit. But he makes a really interesting statement that people point to him and say, “Oh yeah, this is the new reality. We can all be like Hugh Howey.” He says, “Of course you can’t, but the thing to remember is, at least in the self-publishing arm of this conversation, is you can make life changing money, which is, to some people $200 a month is going to be life changing.” The Role of Podcasting for Modern Writers Robert Bruce: I mean, back to Harper Collins, I totally agree with you, Adam. I would like to talk for at least a minute about this idea of the form itself and its relevance in the culture. This, to me, is endlessly fascinating. Kelton, you and I talked about, well, it came up originally I think we were talking about Bret Easton Ellis. Here is arguably, of our generation, Bret Easton Ellis is maybe one of the last great novelists, you know, Less Than Zero, American Psycho, Glamorama, on and on. Here is, of the last waning glory days of the twentieth century, he pretty much, along with a smaller group of folks, owned the culture, the literary culture we’ll say. But today he’s running one of the greatest podcasts available on the face of the Earth. Kelton Reid: That’s right. Robert Bruce: He goes from culture shifting novelist to podcaster and interviewing, you know, incredible people in the culture and it’s this natural thing and he’s incredibly compelling. I’m not arguing that this is the way things should be it just it is what it is, right? Kelton Reid: Yeah. Robert Bruce: But here is one of our greats, who is now in this new medium and it’s the same with who you just interviewed … Kelton Reid: Jay McInerney, yeah, another Brat Packer. Robert Bruce: Bright Lights, Big City and now he’s a wine writer which I think is ****ing great and hilarious. I don’t think it’s like a loss, this great loss to art. I think these are two, you know, anecdotal stories. I think it’s interesting that, What does the audience want, right? That whole idea. And what do they want from them? McInerney just wrote another novel. It’ll hopefully do really well for him. But, I mean, he was talking pretty excitedly and I mean he’s interested in what he’s doing now, the podcast and the writing the wine stories. Kelton Reid: For sure. Robert Bruce: Which is, of course, Adam, right up your alley as well with the non-fiction stuff. Adam Skolnick: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, but there’s still, you know, there’s younger novelists that come out and wow. I don’t know, I mean, I loved Less Than Zero as much as everybody else. I loved Bret Easton Ellis’ work. I don’t consider him the last great novelist, though. I just don’t … I think that we are putting parameters on things that don’t … See, to me, as a writer, it doesn’t help. So I’m just not one of those people that’s over analytical, I think, in general, in terms of the work and how I do it and also where I put it. I’m just not that guy. I think I follow the story. I do the best I can with the story, find a home for the story, and then that’s it. You know, I could probably be more analytical than I am, but I’m just not that person. But at the same time, I think it’s dangerous to put parameters on things that we don’t fully understand. Just because someone’s podcasting now, I mean a lot of publishers are telling authors to podcast because they think, I mean, I get stuff from my publisher all the time saying, How to podcast, or How to sell your book. One way is to start a podcast, which is, you know, funny because it’s not like you can start a podcast and get listeners overnight. But that’s why a lot of people are doing that because they are trying to creatively sell it. That doesn’t mean the novel form itself is dead. It just means now, like everything else, radio is democratized. Now they can just go and get their voice out there, it doesn’t mean they re not writing and if Bret Easton Ellis isn’t writing, I don’t think it’s because he has a podcast. Robert Bruce: Yeah, no, I’d agree with you there. I think we’re, like in the case of Brett Easton Ellis, what’s interesting to me is that he’s not … I don’t know, obviously, I don’t know him. It appears to me that he’s not doing this to sell books or as a request in a marketing business kind of sense. He’s using it as a medium, an artistic medium in and of itself. I think that’s where a lot of people get offended at the idea. I’m not some huge, I mean, I am an advocate for podcasting, but in this case, I’m not like Everybody should have one and it’s this great, and you’re right, it’s just a logical extension from the days of radio. But to me, it’s interesting that, and maybe it’s just because I’m old and you know out of the culture in a lot of ways, it’s interesting that his podcast and certain moments of it, him in that medium, is almost more interesting to me and to many others, than any of his work in novels. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. It’s just a fascinating thing to think about. Kelton Reid: Do you think that’s the Marc Maron effect on podcasting? Just to kind of take a little detour? Robert Bruce: It probably has to be, I mean, and again, there’s nothing new here. It’s just the way we do it and the way it’s distributed, but it probably has to be. We know that however many billions are online and however many more billions in the next ten, twenty years, you know, I don’t know exactly if you are wanting to go somewhere specific with that, but … Kelton Reid: I don’t know, I mean, I think kind of just to compare Marc Maron for instance, who is not a novelist, he was like a washed up comedian who started a podcast interviewing his comedian friends in his garage and then a few years later he’s interviewing President Obama. You know, I don’t know, but I think Bret Easton Ellis may have been kind of on the skids and fearing the death of the novel saw a kind of an example of, as Adam puts it, this democratization of getting your voice out there and he probably kind of resurrected his career, both Maron, and Ellis. Robert Bruce: I think he’s been pretty straightforward in saying that it saved his, you know, career-wise at least, saved him. Adam Skolnick: Wow. I better start listening to it. Kelton Reid: To Maron? Adam Skolnick: No, I listen to Maron every once and awhile. Kelton Reid: Oh, okay. Adam Skolnick: To Ellis. Robert Bruce: Oh no, yeah, I was talking about Maron there, sorry. Adam Skolnick: Oh, you were? Okay, sorry. Kelton Reid: I mean I think both guys are … Robert Bruce: Ellis is definitely worth listening to, for the record, though, Adam. Kelton Reid: I think they are both fascinating characters. They are both like, kind of like the most interesting man in the room wherever they are. To listen to Ellis talk, you know, he is clearly a genius and I think Maron is too, and I think you know having a place to kind of put your energies that isn’t locked into a paper book is probably pretty good for a writer these days. Adam Skolnick: Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends on what you are looking for, you know? What I really liked about your interview with Jay McInerney, Kelton, was this idea of talking about writing into the dark, like you had said, and his idea that you know he doesn’t plan it he just shows up and then sees where it goes. Even, I’m someone that does outline but even when I’m writing something that I’ve outlined there’s moments like that where you kind of connect and it’s starting to make sense and all these ideas that have been rattling around in your head come out. I just don’t know that magic exists in podcast and that magic exists, definitely for a writer, and probably actors on stage as well, those are the kind of those magic moments that people … that’s what hooks us, you know? I think that’s also what comes across in a great novel to a reader and that’s the magic, you know? Everything else, to me, is noise and the rest of it is magic. Can you sell enough to sustain the medium so that, you know, can publishers sell enough to sustain the medium and the machinery so that those magic moments can come through to readers? I hope so, because I think there’s nothing better than quality fiction and even non-fiction and stories like that. As to other writers that are finding success in the podcast arena, I think Malcolm Gladwell’s recent podcast is amazing. I don’t think that mean’s he’s not a writer, he’s not in any way going to give up writing. I don’t see how he would. In fact, his podcast is not an interview podcast. It’s a scripted podcast. So it’s another way for him to write and it’s just as intriguing as his books. Yeah, so I don’t know, I don’t think the emergence of one form necessarily means the demise of the other. I don’t think TV killed radio, I don’t think film killed TV, I don’t think now this rise of kind of new distribution models for TV and movies which is Netflix and other, Amazon, and all these other ways to watch, Hulu, watch media on your computer, I don’t think that is destroying anything. I just see it as shifting and I think it will always be there. Author Hugh Howey s Rock, Paper, Scissors Model of Book Retail Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Okay, well to just kind of throw some fuel on the fire from Publisher’s Weekly, actually via your friend The Passive Voice blog. Robert turned me onto this great blog, Passive Voice. It’s a lawyer? Is that right? Robert Bruce: Yeah, I think he is a practicing attorney, but yeah, I don’t know where he finds the time to post like he does, but yep. Kelton Reid: Yeah, well, he posts a lot about publishing and the publishing industry. Anyway, this morning he posted a piece from Publisher’s Weekly. Just a blurb here, bookstore sales in July fell by under 1% compared to last year so according to preliminary estimates, the US census bureau, the decline marks the first month in 2016 of bookstore sales fell compared with last year. But, this is kind of a weird factoid, the drop reflects the fact July 2016 did not have a strong, as strong a selling title as Go Set a Watchmen which was released last July but as we know is not a book from this century, is it? Adam Skolnick: No, but then why is Amazon setting up showrooms and bookstores if they, you know what I mean, like why are they doing that? They don’t have to do that … Kelton Reid: I’ll tell you why. Adam Skolnick: Why? Kelton Reid: Well, Barnes and Noble is failing and this is something that Hugh Howey talks about. And actually to quickly segue into his Rock, Paper, Scissors theory about kind of the industry, he noted that the big five publishers are declining overall and Barnes and Noble sales are down 6% over the same period last year, also. So they are changing CEOs once again. What he’s saying, in a nutshell, Hugh Howey, on his great blog which you should check out I think he’s calling it Wayfinder … but HughHowey.com. He’s saying that Barnes and Noble will never be able to compete with Amazon on price or selection, right? So basically, Amazon killed Barnes and Noble and that’s why we’re seeing the rise, again, of these indie bookstores, right? Basically, the move of avid readers to digital, you know, less clutter, easier to carry around books like Ulysses, or David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, right? He’s saying physical books will never go away just like vinyl records will never go away. But there’s a problem of growth, so there’s not going to be any growth in that industry, is what he’s saying, at least in physical books. He’s saying that the future is going to be a mix of these indie bookshops that kind of keep the culture alive and foster community, and then Amazon. If Amazon wants a piece of that community then they are going to have to emulate the indie bookstore to get a piece of that homegrown feel. Adam Skolnick: Interesting. Kelton Reid: You know, but Barnes and Noble, essentially what he’s saying, is doomed. Thanks so much for tuning into this special edition of The Writer Files. For more episodes of the show, or to simply leave us a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM and please subscribe to the show to help other writers find us. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers, see you out there.

Before kicking off the next season of the show, we wanted to share with you some highlights from our previous seasons. I don’t want to shortchange the most recent interviews with inspiring guests including Jay McInerney (’80s defining author of Bright Lights, Big City), Stephanie Danler (the bestselling author of Sweetbitter), the co-founder of Wired magazine Kevin Kelly, or How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defined Writer’s Block for us. But I do want to dig into the archives with you and pull out a few of my favorites from a handful of the other 40 authors The Writer Files has cross-examined to learn how they keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. You’ll find links to the these shows in the show notes and past episodes are easy to find in the archives of your favorite podcast app, in iTunes, or at WriterFiles.fm. If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, click subscribe in iTunes, to automatically see new interviews. In this “Best of” Volume One, we’ll hear from a handful of past guests, including: Advice Columnist and Critic Heather Havrilesky on Social Media and Managed Procrastination NYTimes Bestselling Author of ‘The Martian’ Andy Weir on Productivity vs Laziness Bestselling Debut Novelist Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney on Beating Fear and Procrastination Bestselling Thriller Author Mark Dawson on How to Publish Over a Million Words in a Year And Bestselling Author Ann Handley on the Only Reason to Write a Book Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Audible is Offering a Free Audiobook Download with a 30-day Trial: Grab Your Free Audiobook Here – audibletrial.com/rainmaker How Advice Columnist and Author Heather Havrilesky Writes: Part Two How Andy Weir (Bestselling Author of ‘The Martian’) Writes: Part One How Bestselling Debut Novelist Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney Writes: Part Two How Bestselling Thriller Author Mark Dawson Writes: Part One How Bestselling Author Ann Handley Writes Kelton Reid on Twitter

The new film Captain Fantastic tells the story of a family whose left-wing patriarch has decided to raise his six children deep in the woods of the Pacific northwest of America. Viggo Mortensen talks about playing the idealistic but often dictatorial father in what's been called his best performance yet. The author Jay McInerney became an instant literary celebrity at the age of 24 with his 1984 novel Bright Lights, Big City set in New York's yuppie party scene. He talks about his latest book, Bright, Precious Days, the third volume in his trilogy following an Ivy League-educated Manhattan couple, and how the class of 1980 has fared in the 21st century. Academy Award-winning writer and Danish director Susanne Bier usually works on feature films but made her TV debut with The Night Manager, which aired earlier this year. The experience of working in television has led her to criticise the film industry for its treatment of women directors; restricting them to making movies that are categorised as 'women's films' or as arthouse and niche. She's now being talked about as the director of the next Bond movie - so has she changed her mind?In its 70s heyday, the horror comic for girls, Misty, sold over 160,000 copies per week. As two original stories are reissued, Misty's co-creator Pat Mills and critic Natalie Haynes discuss the comic's appeal and influence. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Rachel Simpson.

The bestselling author of 11 books, including the eighties defining Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney, took a break to chat with me about his new book, the writing process, and some timeless tips from his mentor, Raymond Carver. Vanity Fair called Mr. McInerney “Our modern-day Fitzgerald,” and his most recent book — Bright, Precious Days — is described as “… a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story — a literary and commercial triumph of the highest order.” The author is a renowned short story writer, screenwriter, and actor, who has lived in New York for three decades and rubbed elbows with a laundry list of literary lions, including his mentors Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. In addition to fiction, Jay writes a highly regarded wine column for Town & Country magazine, and has written several essay collections on wine. The author most recently joined the Prince Street podcast as a culinary and arts correspondent and has interviewed director Francis Ford Coppola, author Stephanie Danler, and celebrity chefs including Eric Ripert, to name a few. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe in iTunes to automatically see new interviews, and help other writers find us. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of the file Jay McInerney and I discuss: The Author’s Astute Anatomical Analogy for Writer’s Block How a Short Story Became a Series of Bestselling Novels Why Writers Need to Stretch the Boundaries of Their Genres The Big City as Creative Muse Some Timeless Advice from Raymond Carver on the Importance of Discipline Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes JayMcInerney.com Bright, Precious Days: A novel – Jay McInerney Prince Street Podcast Jay McInerney: why Gatsby is so great Jay McInerney on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Bestselling Author Jay McInerney Writes: Part Two Kelton Reid: The Writer Files is brought to you by StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Built on the Genesis Framework, StudioPress delivers state of the art SEO tools, beautiful and fully responsive design, air-tight security, instant updates, and much more. If you re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 177,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/studiopress right now. That s Rainmaker.FM/studiopress. These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I m your host, Kelton Reid, writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week we ll discover how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer s block. We return with the best-selling author of eleven books, including the 80s-defining Bright Lights, Big City. Jay McInerney, who took a break this week to chat with me about his new book, the writing process, and some timeless tips from his mentor Raymond Carver. Vanity Fair called McInerney “Our modern-day F. Scott Fitzgerald” and his most recent book Bright, Precious Days is described as a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story, a literary and commercial triumph of the highest order. The author is a renowned short story writer, screenwriter and actor, who’s lived in New York for three decades, and has rubbed elbows with a laundry list of literary lions, including his mentors Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. In addition to fiction, Jay writes a highly regarded wine column for Town & Country Magazine, and has also written several essay collections on wine. The author recently joined the Prince Street Podcast, as a culinary and arts correspondent, where he’s interviewed director Francis Ford Coppola, author Stephanie Danler, and celebrity chefs, including Eric Ripert, to name a few. Join us for this two part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please click “subscribe” to see new shows and help other writers find us. If you missed the first half of this show, you can find it on iTunes and in the show notes. A quick note that the show will take a short break for Labor Day, and we’ll return with more interviews with great writers very soon. In part two of the file, Jay and I discuss the author’s astute, anatomical analogy for writer’s block, how a short story became a series of bestselling novels, why writers need to stretch the boundaries of their genres, the big city as creative muse, and some timeless advice from Raymond Carver on the importance of discipline. There’s some really, really great contemporary blues, men and women, taking up the mantle now. Do you find yourself seeking out any … No names are popping into my mind, but I know that they come through New York at times. Jay McInerney: It’s true, although … I don’t know. I’m just sort of stuck with the classic, sort of, Chicago and Mississippi guys, at the moment. The Author’s Astute Anatomical Analogy for Writer’s Block Kelton Reid: Absolutely. One thing we talk about on this show quite often is writer’s block. Do you have an opinion? Jay McInerney: It’s terrible. It’s like talking about impotence. Kelton Reid: Right. No one wants to talk about it. Is it a thing? Is it real? Jay McInerney: Yeah. Well, you know, it has been for me. It’s funny because once I wrote Bright Lights, Big City, I felt like I had broken the curse, and that I would never have that problem again. For many years, I didn’t really seem to have a problem. I seemed to go from one project to the next, and in a relatively smooth fashion. But then around 1999, 2000, I just experienced this terrible writer’s block. I just couldn’t write fiction. I couldn’t get started on anything new. It was a real struggle for me, and it was a terrible feeling, because that’s what I do. That’s who I am. I’m somebody who writes fiction, who writes novels. I think it’s something that most writers deal with at one time or another, except for maybe Joyce Carol Oates. Kelton Reid: Right. Have you ever … Sure, sure. Have you talked with other writers … You’ve rubbed elbows with a who’s who of literary giants. Has anyone ever spoken about it with you, or is it just something that’s like, “Hmm, no. Let’s not talk about it.” Jay McInerney: You know, it’s funny, but I feel it really is something that writers don’t want to talk about at all, the same way men don’t want to talk about impotence. It’s kind of an embarrassing subject. It’s kind of like saying, “I can’t do the thing that allegedly defines me.” It just calls your whole identity into question. It’s very frustrating, day after day, to not be able to produce anything. It makes for some bad days and nights with the people that one lives with. Kelton Reid: Well, let’s not talk about it anymore. Just sweep that one under the rug. Jay McInerney: I’m happy to say that I haven’t felt that in quite a while now, and I’m already working on some short stories, which is about all I can do right now, because I have a fair amount of promotion to do for this book. But for some reason, I feel like the next one is going to come to me before too long. How a Short Story Became a Series of Bestselling Novels Kelton Reid: Yeah. The latest, I mean the series that incorporates the lives of the Calloways, started as a short story. Is that right? It started as a short story Smoke I believe? Jay McInerney: Yeah. Actually, the first thing I wrote after Bright Lights, Big City was a short story called Smoke. It was published in The Atlantic, and it had this couple … I don t know, I just sort of created this couple. The couple was kind of based on there were two or three couples in New York, at that time, that I kind of idealized a little bit. These people were smart and good looking, and threw glamorous cocktail parties, and seemed to have it all together in a way that the rest of us, perhaps, didn’t. Of course, as it turns out, all of those couples broke up before too long. But I wanted to explore this idea of “the perfect couple,” because, of course, there is no such thing. Russell and Corrine were kind of … I thought of them as representative figures of the time, in a way. Some people would call them yuppies. They were very well educated. They went to Brown University together, got married shortly after they got out of college, went to New York to pursue their fortunes. And also as somebody who was on his second marriage by that time, I was intrigued to explore the idea of monogamy. Also Russell was kind of an alter-ego, for me, because if I hadn’t been a novelist, I’m pretty sure that what I would’ve done is I would’ve become an editor. He was living the life that I might have lived. Kelton Reid: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Like an alternate universe. Jay McInerney: Yeah. What Philip Roth called The Counterlife. Kelton Reid: We will be right back after a very short break. Thanks so much for listening to The Writer Files. Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/Summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer. For now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us: Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference, for me, is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference, for me, is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps them pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree. One of the biggest reasons we host the conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers people like you more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by “Which session should I go to?” And, “Am I missing something?” Attendee 6: The training and everything the speakers have been awesome but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with both people who are putting it on and the other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit. I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/Summit. Why Writers Need to Stretch the Boundaries of Their Genres Kelton Reid: Well I know that you’re a busy man, and you’ve got places to be, and people to see, so I’d love to pick your brain about creativity a little bit. Certainly … Creativity is at the core of what you do. You intertwine fiction, wine, writing, food, all the senses. Do you have a definition of creativity floating around out there, somewhere? Jay McInerney: I think, specifically, in my case … That is to say, in the case of my life as a novelist, that I think … What I look for, what I hope for, in my own work, and what I look for in other people’s work, is reinventing the tradition, and stretching, taking a form … In this case, let’s say the novel or the short story, and applying your own imagination to it in such a way, that it becomes something that it never was before. It becomes … That you stretch, that you stretch the boundaries of the genre, just a little bit. None of us has ever really completely reinvented the novel, or the … Except possibly James Joyce. But that’s the goal, to deploy imagination in a way that something new under the sun has been created. The Big City as Creative Muse Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Do you personally have a creative muse, at the moment, outside of promoting your baby? Jay McInerney: Well, honestly, I’m speaking to you from my apartment in Greenwich Village, in New York City, and I feel like the city is my muse. I feel like every day, I walk out there, and I fully expect to see something that I’ve never seen before, and to hear something I’ve never heard before. I don’t know. Just today I was walking back from lunch, and somebody was saying, “Man. Can you believe those neo-Nazis in Chipotle?” I didn’t hear the rest of that conversation, but I don’t know. I’m always picking up fragments on the street, and insights, and weird juxtapositions … New York continues to inspire me. I guess really that’s my muse. I occasionally write about other settings, but I always come back to this city. Specifically, my city is Manhattan. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Jay McInerney: There are many wonderful younger writers who are coming out of Brooklyn, who live in Brooklyn. They’ve made it sort of the new mecca of urban literature. Kelton Reid: For sure. Jay McInerney: For me, it’s Manhattan. I moved here in 1980, and I will probably die here. Kelton Reid: Awesome, awesome. Jay McInerney: I’ll continue to write about it. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. All right, I’m going to give you one fun one before we wrap. If you could choose one author from any era, for an all-expense paid dinner to your favorite spot, who would you take, and where would you take them? Jay McInerney: Huh, let’s see. Well, I don’t know. I think it’d like to take Jane Austen. I think she would be a dazzling conversationalist. There’s any number of New York restaurants that I might take her to, but if I were taking her to a place to show her New York, and its great social panorama, I would probably take her to Balthazar. Kelton Reid: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jay McInerney: Which has, in the last twenty years or so, become one of the great New York institutions. If it turned out that she was a foodie, I would take her to Le Bernardin, the three star Michelin restaurant operated by my friend Eric Ripert up in Midtown. Some Timeless Advice from Raymond Carver on the Importance of Discipline Kelton Reid: For sure. It’s funny, because you chatted with him on your show, on your podcast interview, and he was kind of riffing with you about writing and writing rituals, so I will encourage listeners to find that one on the Prince Street Podcast. I’ll link to it. Finally, do you have any advice for your fellow scribes on how to just keep going, keep the cursor moving, keep the ink flowing? Jay McInerney: Well, I would just go back to what Raymond Carver said to me when I started to study with him. He had already gathered, from visiting me in New York City, which is where we first met, that I was living a fairly undisciplined and irregular life. He told me “You’ve got to do it every day. You’ve got to write every day. When you don’t write, you go backwards. Even if you don’t write, you have to be there, at your desk. You have to be in place. You have to be waiting. Even if nothing comes out of it. You have to be ready for inspiration, and you have to be ready for the muse. You have to keep pushing those words around, until suddenly, you see some kind of flash of light, or you hear some kind of music, that makes you realize that you’ve started down the right path.” Kelton Reid: Yeah. I love that. Lock, stock, and barrel. The latest, from Jay McInerney is Bright, Precious Days, out now. You can find everywhere reputable books are sold. It’s a fantastic read. Congratulations on the latest, and best of luck with all of your future work. I really appreciate you coming on the show. Jay McInerney: Thanks, Kelton. It was great to talk to you. Kelton Reid: Thanks again. Jay McInerney: All right. Take care. Kelton Reid: Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files Podcast please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes or to just leave a comment or a question you can drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

The bestselling author of 11 books, including the eighties defining Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney, took a break to chat with me about his new book, the writing process, and some timeless tips from his mentor, Raymond Carver. Vanity Fair called Mr. McInerney “Our modern-day Fitzgerald,” and his most recent book — Bright, Precious Days — is described as “… a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story — a literary and commercial triumph of the highest order.” The author is a renowned short story writer, screenwriter, and actor, who has lived in New York for three decades and rubbed elbows with a laundry list of literary lions, including his mentors Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. In addition to fiction, Jay writes a highly regarded wine column for Town & Country magazine, and has written several essay collections on wine. The author most recently joined the Prince Street podcast as a culinary and arts correspondent and has interviewed director Francis Ford Coppola, author Stephanie Danler, and celebrity chefs including Eric Ripert, to name a few. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe in iTunes to automatically get new interviews, and help other writers find us. In Part One of the file Jay McInerney and I discuss: Why It’s Not a Bad Thing to Be Compared to Your Betters How to Incorporate Your Passions into Your Writing Why You Need to Sit at Your Desk Every Day and Listen to the Voices in Your Head The Author’s Process of Discovery at the Level of Language How the Right Soundtrack Can Inspire Your Writing Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How Bestselling Author Jay McInerney Writes: Part Two JayMcInerney.com Bright, Precious Days: A novel – Jay McInerney Prince Street Podcast Jay McInerney: why Gatsby is so great Book Excerpt: Jay McInerney on Joy Division’s Heyday Jay McInerney on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Bestselling Author Jay McInerney Writes: Part One Kelton Reid: The Writer Files is brought to you by StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Built on the Genesis Framework, StudioPress delivers state of the art SEO tools, beautiful and fully responsive design, air-tight security, instant updates, and much more. If you re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 177,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/studiopress right now. That s Rainmaker.FM/studiopress. These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I m your host, Kelton Reid, writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week we ll discover how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer s block. The best selling author of eleven books, including the ’80s defining Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney took a break this week to chat with me about his new book, the writing process, and some timeless tips from his mentor Raymond Carver. Vanity Fair called McInerney “Our modern-day F. Scott Fitzgerald.” His most recent work Bright, Precious Days is a novel that’s described as “…a sexy, vibrant, cross-generational New York story a literary and commercial triumph of the highest order.” The author is a renown short story writer, screenwriter and actor, who’s lived in New York for three decades and rubbed elbows with a laundry list of literary lions including his mentors Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. In addition to fiction Jay writes a highly regarded wine column for Town & Country Magazine and has written several essay collections on wine. The author recently recently joined the Prince Street podcast as a culinary and arts correspondent and has interviewed director Francis Ford Coppola, author Stephanie Danler and celebrity chefs including Eric Ripert, to name a few. Join us for this two part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show please click “subscribe” to automatically see new shows and help other writers to find us. In part one of the file Jay and I discuss why it’s not a bad thing to be compared to your betters, how to incorporate your passions into your writing, why you need to sit at your desk every day and listen to the voices in your head, the author’s process of discovery at the level of language, and how the right soundtrack can inspire your writing. We are rolling today on The Writer Files with an especially special guest, that sounds terrible as an intro, but Jay McInerney is here, the esteemed author of eleven books now it would seem. Best selling author, short story master, screenwriter I guess you could put on your resume as well. Jay McInerney: Yeah, yeah. Done a few of those. Kelton Reid: Wine columnist and now podcast interviewer I understand. Jay McInerney: Yeah, I’ve been participating in a podcast called Live From Prince Street, which is supposed to be food and wine centric, although actually I’ve ended up interviewing Francis Ford Coppola, Stephanie Danler the novelist. Veered more in the direction of the arts than food and wine. Kelton Reid: It’s really cool to hear, actually I’m a big fan of the show, at least your McInerney minute there when you are rapping with, it seems like it’s like some of your friends, some of your peers from both the culinary and the arts world, which is really fantastic to hear. Jay McInerney: Yeah, it’s nice. It’s a nice medium. Why It s Not a Bad Thing to Be Compared to Your Betters Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I’ll put that in the show notes so that listeners can seek that out as well, but we’re really here to talk about your latest, which just arrived yesterday as of this recording. The new one, which is Bright, Precious Days, is getting a lot of buzz, a lot of amazing, amazing press. Do you find it intimidating at all that Vanity Fair has compared you to one of your, I think, favorite authors? Do you know who I’m talking about? Jay McInerney: Yeah. I think you’re talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald. Kelton Reid: Yeah. Jay McInerney: Yeah, that freaked me out a little bit. In fact that comparison came up quite a bit when I published Bright Lights, Big City, probably because, I guess because I was relatively young, because the book was wildly successful, and somewhat in the manner of Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side Of Paradise. It was about young people going wild essentially, and I don’t know, I guess we’re both Irish-American writers. It was funny because I was not that much of a Fitzgerald fan at the time. In college I really gravitated toward Hemingway, potentially for The Sun Also Rises. Then I started to really re-read Fitzgerald and found that I really did love his work, and yet it was a comparison that was a little hard to live up to. Not many people write a novel as great as The Great Gatsby. It s a little, you know, you don’t want to necessarily compare yourself to your betters. On the other hand I am a great admirer and I actually think that he did somewhat influence my later work. How to Incorporate Your Passions into Your Writing Kelton Reid: That’s really cool. Our modern day Fitzgerald, a title that you are kind of in awe of. It’s really cool to see the response to the latest one. It’s amazing to me that you’ve had this career and you’ve done so many different things, that seemingly incorporate your passions, which between the wine and the culinary world, incorporating into this New York world, which obviously you paint very vividly. It’s really cool to see. Actually you mentioned Stephanie Danler who I also had on the show recently, and of course she’s a huge fan of yours as well. She kind of pays homage to you actually in the first paragraph of her latest, which is amazing. I found it interesting that she’s almost a different point of view of that same time frame, 2006/2008 in Manhattan. Anyway, great stuff. The newest one, Bright, Precious Days, just came out, a really amazing read. I’d love to dig in your process a little bit. I know you’ve had some amazing mentors in your past, Raymond Carver coming to mind as one of the antecedents of your writing career. As you look back on bigger projects like your latest, I’m not talking about your wine columns, how much time per day do you think you’re taking to research or read or remember that time in history, that world? Jay McInerney: I don’t do that much conscious research, that is to say I tend to write about relatively contemporary history and specifically New York history. This book is set in the … As you mentioned, the year is 2006, 7, 8. These years form the center of the book. I was in New York for that period and I guess mentally I’m always taking notes, and then I would research specific things. One of the characters in the book is a retired private equity guy, and that’s not a world that I spend much time in or thinking about. I research somewhat in terms of specific professions, things that fall outside of my ken, but most of this work is just drawn from my experience living in New York. Which is not to say that this latest novel is particularly autobiographical. There’s no figure that really represents me and my specific experience, but all of the characters are drawn from the world around me that I’m observing every day. Kelton Reid: We will be right back after a very short break. Thanks so much for listening to The Writer Files. Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/Summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer. For now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us: Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference, for me, is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference, for me, is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps them pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree. One of the biggest reasons we host the conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers people like you more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by “Which session should I go to?” And, “Am I missing something?” Attendee 6: The training and everything the speakers have been awesome but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with both people who are putting it on and the other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit. I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/Summit. Why You Need to Sit at Your Desk Every Day and Listen to the Voices in Your Head Kelton Reid: It seems a little bit different than the wine writing and the culinary writing that you do because that seems incredibly detailed in its research when you’re talking about something specific as like how rosé came to be so popular. Ok, so before you … when you’re working on a novel, before you get started do you have some pre-game rituals, some warm ups? Jay McInerney: I’m always, especially when I’m between novels, I’m always hoping that something springs into my brain, springs forth from my brain, I’m not sure which. It’s a process that, you have to be ready, I think, for inspiration. One of the things that Raymond Carver taught me was that you need be sitting at your desk virtually every day. You need to be in front of your, at that time it was a typewriter but now, in front of your computer, and you have to be trying. If you aren’t there, you aren’t trying, the muse is less likely to visit you if you’re just taking your dry cleaning downstairs or trying to flag a taxi. It’s about showing up every day and it’s about trying and it’s about being ready for the muse. Some days I sit down and I can’t seem to really get anywhere, but I have to keep doing it until something occurs to me, a sentence, a voice, a memory that sparks a flight of imagination. Frankly I’m not sure what I’m going to do next. I’m going to be pretty busy talking about this book for a little while. I’m hoping that I’m going to hear a voice, or even overhear an anecdote at the dinner table that sort of sets my mind. The Author s Process of Discovery at the Level of Language Kelton Reid: That’s cool. Are you a morning writer? Are you an evening writer? Jay McInerney: Yeah, I’m not a morning person but for some reason I find that when I wake up I need to have copious amounts of coffee and then immediately get in front of the computer. Somehow if I don t get going, if I’m not doing it by noon I just feel like the day’s getting away from me, I get discouraged and I don’t seem to be able to start up. I sit down about 9:30 in the morning and I try to stay there until I get really hungry. Obviously when I’m in the middle of a novel, this process is a little easier and I am often aware of what I’m going to be doing for three or four hours because I’m in the middle of a chapter or story. Other times I’m struggling to figure out the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next turn of events. It’s always great once you’re in the middle and you know to some extent where you’re going. I seldom know more than a chapter or two ahead where I’m going. I think that there are those writers who outline and who know what they’re doing in advance but for me it’s always a process of discovery. I think a lot of the interesting stuff happens at the level of language. I can never I’ve never sat down with an entire book in my head, beginning, middle, and end. I’m always kind of improvising. Kelton Reid: Right. Yeah I’ve heard you talk about this before, improvisation over planning. I think it’s another author called it kind of writing into the dark, which I like that idea a lot. Jay McInerney: Yeah, it’s good. How the Right Soundtrack Can Inspire Your Writing Kelton Reid: You’ve written about at least your process while you were writing Bright Lights, Big City, one of my favorites, honestly. I always thought of a soundtrack while I was reading it, that ’80s sound. I read that piece that you did where you’re talking about Joy Division which I loved so much. Do you still like to crank up the stereo to inspire yourself? Jay McInerney: Yeah I do. You’re right, Bright Lights, Big City really did have a pretty distinct period soundtrack, some of which I actually put into the novel like the Talking Heads and, I don’t know, The Cure, I guess, and bands that were contemporary. With this novel I was listening mostly to jazz and blues. Blues has been a really big passion of mine for many, many years. In fact Bright Lights, Big City comes from a Jimmy Reed song. Kelton Reid: That’s right. Jay McInerney: Lately I’ve done something I never thought I would do, which is I’ve got interested in jazz, or at least I’m a fledgling in jazz. Somebody gave me a set of these Blue Note reissues, right about the time that I was starting to write this book. I found Miles Davis, John Coltrane, I found it kind of conducive to the tone of this particular book. Along with my usuals, like Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson and Skip James, the blues guys. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files Podcast please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes or to just leave a comment or a question you can drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers, talk to you next week.

The instant national bestselling author of the acclaimed debut novel Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler, stopped by the show to chat with me about her not-so-overnight success as a rising literary star. Ms. Danler signed a six-figure deal with Knopf for her first book, the coming-of-age story of a young woman transplanted into New York City’s upscale, cutthroat restaurant world. Bestselling author Jay McInerney called Sweetbitter “… a stunning debut novel, one that seems destined to help define a generation,” and the book has been compared to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Before returning to her love of writing, and earning an MFA in Fiction from The New School in NY, Ms. Danler spent much of her life working in the food and wine industry. Stephanie has also written essays for The Paris Review, Vogue, Literary Hub, and Travel + Leisure. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe in iTunes to automatically see new interviews, and help other writers find us. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of the file Stephanie Danler and I discuss: The Dichotomy of Procrastination and Deadlines Why Relationships Are Important to Writers On the Deconstruction and Sanctity of Creativity How Great Writers Leave ‘Blood on the Page’ Some Great Advice on Why You Just Need to Finish Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How ‘Sweetbitter’ Author Stephanie Danler Writes: Part One Sweetbitter: A novel – Stephanie Danler StephanieDanler.com with Links to Essays by Stephanie Danler This is Water – David Foster Wallace Stephanie Danler on Instagram Stephanie Danler on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Sweetbitter Author Stephanie Danler Writes: Part Two Kelton Reid: The Writer Files is brought to you by StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins built on the Genesis Framework. StudioPress delivers state of the art SEO tools, beautiful and fully responsive design, air-tight security, instant updates, and much more. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 177,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/studiopress right now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/studiopress. These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid, writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week we’ll discover how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. The instant national best-selling author of the acclaimed debut novel Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler, stopped by the show this week to chat with me about her not-so-overnight success as a rising literary star. Ms. Danler signed a six figure deal with Knapf for her first book, the coming of age story of a the young woman transplanted into New York City’s upscale, cut-throat restaurant world. Best-selling author Jay McInerny called Sweetbitter a stunning debut novel, one that seems destined to help define a generation. The book has been compared to Anthony Bourdain‘s Kitchen Confidential. Before returning to her love of writing and earning an MFA in fiction from The New School in New York, Ms. Danler spent much of her life working in the food and wine industry. Stephanie has also written essays for The Paris Review, Vogue, Literary Hub, and Travel + Leisure. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please click “subscribe” to automatically see new interviews with your favorite authors and help other writers to find us. If you missed the first half of this show, you can find it at WriterFiles.FM and in the show notes. In part two of the file, Stephanie and I discuss the dichotomy of procrastination and deadlines, why relationships are important to writers, on the deconstruction and sanctity of creativity, how great writers leave blood on the page, and some sound advice on why you just need to finish. Let’s talk about your work flow a little bit. Are you working on a Mac or a PC there? Stephanie Danler: Oh, a MacBook. I had this ancient one that was so heavy that I used to lug around the world, and this one is so light and fancy. I adore it. Kelton Reid: They get lighter by the day, don’t they? Stephanie Danler: I’m very happy about that. Kelton Reid: Are you a Microsoft Word, or a Scrivener disciple? Stephanie Danler: What’s Scrivener? I have no idea. Microsoft Word. I’m not, like, a software person. Kelton Reid: I just assume that there are two camps, and the Scrivener’s like a new … It’s a newer software that incorporates a lot of kind of organizational tools that a lot of writers are using now. But you sound like a classic, dyed in the wool Microsoft Word-er. Stephanie Danler: Yeah, and lots of notebooks. Not structured or an outline person, or an organized person at all. The Dichotomy of Procrastination and Deadlines Kelton Reid: Do you have any best practices, kind of going back to block and whatnot, for beating procrastination? Stephanie Danler: I mean, no, on procrastination. I don’t know how to beat that. I would welcome any tips that you have. I should listen to the other podcasts. Kelton Reid: I think a lot of writers lean into it because it’s part of their creative process. Stephanie Danler: I think that deadlines are incredible, extremely helpful, and I think adrenaline is extremely helpful. Maybe that’s because I worked in restaurants for so long that it feels very familiar to me. For beating block, I think there’s just reading. I think that when you’re feeling bored or uninspired by your own mind, I think it’s time to visit someone else’s mind. I was just recently rereading Susan Sontag’s journals, and she’s admonishing herself. She’s like, “You will not read anymore. You are procrastinating.” I was like, “Okay. I could just be so lucky to procrastinate like Susan Sontag. I’ll take the reading.” Why Relationships Are Important to Writers Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. For sure. So Campari and soda, a glass of wine. How else does Stephanie Danler unplug at the end of a long writing day? Stephanie Danler: There’s definitely a beverage involved, and I think that it really does signal that you’ve exited the work day in a way. I like to be outside. It’s part of the reason that I moved to Southern California, even though I’d barely been here. But I think it’s important to actually be in nature as much as possible. You miss that in the city, by just contact with the world. I need to talk to people. It’s a very intense experience to sit alone with your many voices all day, trying to decide which to listen to. I think that calling someone and getting out of your own head and your own problems is the reminder that, “Oh, I’m just a human. I’m just a regular human being in the world, and I’m going to go to sleep, and this doesn’t matter so much.” It does. It’s art, and it’s what I’ve dedicated my life to, but there’s also just living, and being a good friend, and a good partner, and making meals. That’s equally as important. On the Deconstruction and Sanctity of Creativity Kelton Reid: For sure. Well, I’d love to dig into your creativity if you have time. Stephanie Danler: Yeah. That’s like, the vaguest word. It’s like one of those catch-alls, and it’s like a branding tool now, that I don’t even know what it means. But yes, ask away. Kelton Reid: How do you personally define creativity? Stephanie Danler: As I was just being so cynical about creativity, I was thinking also about how sacred it really is. When I think about real creativity, I think about that moment when you’ve been staring at the same material, or the same words, or the same landscape, or building, or face, and you feel like you know it. You feel like everything about it is staid and formulaic, and it’s dead. Then these synapses connect, and it’s new. Then I think about Ezra Pound’s slogan, “Make it new.” I think that that’s creativity. There is no new material. There’s only new ways of perceiving, and that is where original, exciting thought comes from. Kelton Reid: When do you personally feel the most creative? You may have already answered this, but can you nail it down? Stephanie Danler: Yeah. I think that it’s really important to remember how much of writing takes place away from the desk and off the page. I find that I’m very creative where I’m having those synapses firing, where I’m seeing connections, when I’m in transit. Whether I’m driving, or walking, or riding the subway, those are extremely fertile times for thought, because you can wander. That’s all writing, for me. That’s all work. I’m not always even in a rush to write those things down. I kind of observe the thoughts, and if they’re important, and if they’re going to add to whatever dialogue I’m having, they’ll come back to me at the desk. I think in transit is a really lovely time. Kelton Reid: Do you have a creative muse right now? Stephanie Danler: I have been walking a lot since I’ve been back, and I live in Laurel Canyon, so I’m surrounded by trails. I used to walk a lot in New York as well. I used to walk the bridge. I found that to give me a really great mental space. I’m always reading poets, and I read poetry first thing in the morning, and that is such a huge part of my practice. They, whoever they are, never fail to make me excited about language again, which, excitement is one step away from inspiration. Usually that works. How Great Writers Leave ‘Blood on the Page’ Kelton Reid: Very nice. In your estimation, what makes a writer great? Stephanie Danler: That’s a huge question. I really value honesty. Not just honesty, but sincerity in writing. I find, in a lot of modern or postmodern fiction, I feel this distance from the reader, this lack of sincerity, where I’m supposed to be appreciating how clever something is, but the writer hasn’t actually left any blood on the page, so to speak. There isn’t this authenticity, and I’m drawn towards writers in which I can really feel their pulse right behind the page. I don’t know whether that’s lived experience, and there are plenty of fiction writers who make everything up that can give you that feeling, but that’s a mark of talent. Kelton Reid: Completely. Do you have a couple of favorites right now that you’re just kind of stuck on? Sitting on your bedside table? Stephanie Danler: I have such an insane stack on my bedside table. I am so bored of hearing myself praise Maggie Nelson, because I do it all the time, but Maggie Nelson is a critic, essayist, poet. She most recently put out The Argonauts, which is a masterpiece. Then, we have her book of poetry. It’s really a poetic essay called Bluets. At this point, I’ve read everything that she’s written, and she does not care about genre. She does not care about the rules, and I find it so inspiring. Kelton Reid: That’s awesome. Do you have a best-loved quote floating there somewhere over your desk, like so many authors? Stephanie Danler: Yeah. I have a bunch. I actually have a bunch of poems. But my real quotes are on my body. I have some tattoos that are quotes that I carry with me. I have, “This is Water,” from David Foster Wallace, which was a speech he gave at my university, Kenyon College, which has now turned into, like, a manifesto of sorts. What else do I have? I have Clarice Lispector, the last line of her book The Passion According to G.H., is, “And so I adore it,” which is really just an affirmation, after you’ve gone through this novel of destruction, really. It’s really allegorical and very Kafkaesque, even though I hate it when people call things Kafkaesque. That’s the easiest way for me to put it. After you’ve gotten to the bottom of this hole, where there’s no meaning, it ends with this kind of cry, “And so I adore it.” I think of that one often. Kelton Reid: Very cool. I’ve got a couple of fun ones for you, to wrap it up. We will be right back after a very short break. Thanks so much for listening to The Writer Files. Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail, as it gets closer. For now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us: Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference, for me, is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps them pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree one of the biggest reasons we host the conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by Which session should I go to? and, Am I missing something? Attendee 6:The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with those people who are putting it on and the other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit. I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/summit. Kelton Reid: Are you a paper or an e-book lover? Stephanie Danler: I don’t have an e-book thing. I can’t do it. I can’t even talk about it. Kelton Reid: Should we cut this? Stephanie Danler: It makes traveling so difficult. No. I love that people read, and my friends have their Kindles, and they love their Kindles, and it’s made them more voracious readers, and I’m so happy about that, but that’s repulsive. I can’t. You have no sense of weight or where you are in a book, and you can’t dog-ear the pages, and you can’t write in them. It’s just, no, no, no. Not for me. Kelton Reid: Well, I believe that you can make marginalia in some Kindles now, but of course it doesn’t look the same years and years down the road when somebody else opens the book. Stephanie Danler: There’s something about reading, even on a computer screen, where you have no idea of where you are in the novel. I love reading a passage and knowing that I’m one-third of the way in, and that sense of expectation that it builds. The way you engage with it knowing that you’re five pages away from the ending, you’re just lost on the screen in cyberspace. It’s terrible. Kelton Reid: It sounds like an alternate dimension. Stephanie Danler: You don’t have to cut this. I really believe in everything I’m saying. I’m very comfortable with this. Kelton Reid: We’ll leave it all in. It’s great. It’s good stuff. Do you have kind of a favorite literary character of all time? Stephanie Danler: That’s such a fun one. I love Henry James‘ women. I love Isabelle Archer from Portrait of a Lady, followed closely by Madame de Vionnet in The Ambassadors. One is like, the young, intelligent, optimistic heroine of the novel, and then Madame de Vionnet is the older, manipulative, cynical, slightly toxic character. Obviously, if you have read my book, I’ve drawn from both of those. I love his women. Kelton Reid: If you could choose an author from any era for an all expense paid dinner to your favorite restaurant in the world, who would you take, and where would you take them? Stephanie Danler: I would take this writer M.F.K. Fisher. She wrote in the mid-20th century. She’s ostensibly a cookery writer, but she’s one of the most underrated writers of the 20th century. She’s incredible. She basically writes personal essays that are centered around food, but at the end you’re crying and you don’t know why. She’s incredibly powerful and very dark and funny. M.F.K. Fisher and I … Where would I take her? She lived in France for so long. I would love to take her to Spain. I’ve been to Spain. I was a Spanish wine buyer for a moment, and I’ve traveled extensively throughout that country, and I think she would be shocked by the quality of food in places like San Sebastian and Barcelona. Yeah, I would take M.F.K. Fisher on a tapeo, a tapas crawl. Kelton Reid: Nice, nice. Love that idea. Actually, it’s making me very hungry and thirsty thinking about that. Do you have any writer s fetishes? I know a lot of writers have collections and rare artifacts of the trade, and many don’t. Do you have anything that kind of hangs around or follows you around the world? Stephanie Danler: I mean, I have my notebooks, and I’ve been writing in them forever. I have my ridiculous library, but I think that every writer has a ridiculous library. My collection of old magazines and old Paris Reviews and old Kenyon Reviews, those are kind of special and idiosyncratic. I have a small collection of The Partisan Review, which was really powerful in the 40s and 50s. It was more powerful intellectually than The New Yorker at the time. Those are so special. You have Jean-Paul Sartre writing for The Partisan Review next to Robert Lowell. Those are incredible. Kelton Reid: Going back to the notebook really quick, what kind of notebook is it? Stephanie Danler: They’re Moleskine notebooks. Black. Kelton Reid: Aha. Stephanie Danler: “Aha.” I know. So boring. I keep a small one for personal, private, nonsensical writing. Then, I keep a larger one for thoughts pertaining to work. If anyone ever tries to sell you the small notebook, you don’t want that. You want the big notebook. Some Great Advice on Why You Just Need to Finish Kelton Reid: Can you offer advice to your fellow scribes, fellow writers, on how to keep the ink flowing, how to keep the cursor moving? Stephanie Danler: I think I go back to reading. I think you need to be reading as much as you’re writing, if not more. I also often tell fellow writers that you have to finish. I remember a professor told me that at The New School, Darryl Pinckney. He said, “You need to finish your projects.” I was like, “Well, duh. Of course, I’m trying to finish.” His point is that so many of us start things. There’s so much energy in, “I have written the opening sentences of the great American novel.” But we never finishing it is an entirely different beast. I think another facet of that is not to be too precious about it because writers do not realize that your first draft is almost meaningless. It doesn’t matter how good it is, how bad it is. You’re going to revise it 1,000 times, and until you write the last sentence, you have no idea what you’re looking at. Whether it is the great American novel, or whether it has to be burned. Get to the end. Kelton Reid: Well, Sweetbitter is a great novel. Congratulations. I love this blurb by Jay McInerney, who, that’s impressive alone, said, “A stunning debut, destined to help define a generation.” It really captures that fast paced, kind of late night, sexy subculture of the restaurant world, but it’s so much more. It’s incredibly well written, and I encourage the listeners to seek it out. I’m sure they can’t miss it at this point because it’s kind of everywhere. Congrats on that. I did have a question about kind of, any of your peers from that period, if you are still in touch with them, did they have any thoughts on kind of how you captured the world? Stephanie Danler: Yeah. I am, as you probably know, having worked in restaurants, your restaurant family, you see them around forever. I’ve had so many different restaurant families, and they’ve all shown up at one event or another. Even when I was in Portland, Oregon, where I knew no one, someone showed up who I used to work with who was living there. Everyone’s been so gracious and supportive, and the notes that I receive are so kind, and I think it’s because it’s fiction. I think that probably everyone I’ve ever worked with picked up the book and was like, “Oh, I bet I’m in here.” They’re not. I think that it makes it easier for them to read, and also, so many times, they’re like, “This took me back. This is like a love letter to our lives in that moment.” That is exactly what I wanted. It really is a deeply nostalgic work, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was in the process of leaving New York, and Union Square Café was closing, and it really is a tribute to that moment of youth, and that moment in New York City. Kelton Reid: That s cool. Stephanie Danler: Yeah, they have been so lovely. Kelton Reid: That’s awesome to hear. Well, congratulations on all of the successes, and we look forward to more. Hope you come back and talk with us again. Where can writers and listeners connect with you out there? Stephanie Danler: I am very active on Instagram, which seems strange for a writer, because I cannot Tweet. I don’t understand anything about it. But there’s an incredible book loving community on Instagram, where people are sharing writers and recommendations, and I post a lot of poetry that I’m reading, and try to give it as much visibility as possible, and yeah. People seem to like reading it on Instagram, so that’s where I am. Kelton Reid: Neat, neat. Very cool. All right, Stephanie. Well, thanks again, and it has been a true pleasure chatting with you about writing. Stephanie Danler: Thank you so much. Kelton Reid: Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes, or to just leave a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM, and you can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

The instant national bestselling author of the acclaimed debut novel Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler, stopped by the show to chat with me about her not-so-overnight success as a rising literary star. Ms. Danler signed a six-figure deal with Knopf for her first book, the coming-of-age story of a young woman transplanted into New York City’s upscale, cutthroat restaurant world. Bestselling author Jay McInerney called Sweetbitter “… a stunning debut novel, one that seems destined to help define a generation,” and the book has been compared to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Before returning to her love of writing, and earning an MFA in Fiction from The New School in NY, Ms. Danler spent much of her life working in the food and wine industry. Stephanie has also written essays for The Paris Review, Vogue, Literary Hub, and Travel + Leisure. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please subscribe in iTunes to automatically see new interviews, and help other writers find us. In Part One of the file Stephanie Danler and I discuss: Why You Should Write What You Know and Love The Unglamorous Yet Rewarding Work of Promoting a New Book Why Cultural Artifacts Are Great for Research An Author’s Careful Balance of Daily Beverage Consumption Why the Old Rules of Productivity Shouldn’t Apply to Writers Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How ‘Sweetbitter’ Author Stephanie Danler Writes: Part Two Sweetbitter: A novel – Stephanie Danler StephanieDanler.com with Links to Essays by Stephanie Danler One Writer on Loving and Letting Go of Her Drug-Dependent Father – Stephanie Danler for Vogue Stephanie Danler on Instagram Stephanie Danler on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Sweetbitter Author Stephanie Danler Writes: Part One Kelton Reid: The Writer Files is brought to you by StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins built on a the genesis framework. StudioPress delivers state of the art SEO tools, beautiful and fully responsive design, air-tight security, instant updates, and much more. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 177,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/studiopress right now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/studiopress. These are the Writer Files, a tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of working writers from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host, Kelton Reid, writer, podcaster, and media file. Each week we’ll discover how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. The instant national best-selling author of the acclaimed debut novel Sweetbitter, Stephanie Danler, stopped by the show to chat with me this week about her not so overnight success as a rising literary star. Ms. Danler signed a six-figure deal with Knopf for her first book, the coming of age story of a young woman transplanted into New York City’s upscale, cut-throat restaurant world. Best-selling author Jay McInerney called Sweetbitter a stunning debut novel, one that seems destined to help define a generation. The book has been compared to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Before returning to her love of writing and earning an MFA in fiction from the New School in New York, Ms. Danler spent much of her life working in the food and wine industry. Stephanie has also written essays for The Paris Review, Vogue, Literary Hub, and Travel + Leisure. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, do click “subscribe” to automatically see new interviews and to help other writers find us. In part one of this file, Stephanie and I discuss why you should write what you know and love, the unglamorous yet rewarding work of promoting a new book, why cultural artifacts are great for research, an author’s careful balance of daily beverage consumption, and why the old rules of productivity shouldn’t apply to writers. We’re rolling with author Stephanie Danler. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to rap with us about your process. Stephanie Danler: Of course. Thank you for having me. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I am a big fan of this new book, Sweetbitter. I have to say it’s my new favorite. I don’t say that very often. I know it might sound like maybe I say that to every author, but I loved and hated it. I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’ve waited tables for many, many years of my life, and it’s giving me flashbacks. Stephanie Danler: I hear that all the time. I hear the PTSD that people start to sweat a little bit, especially in some of the more intense service scenes, which I imagine are really boring for a lot of readers. They’re like, “I get it. She carries three plates. This is not that difficult.” But for people in the industry, that kind of crush and intensity of service, I still get PTSD, and I didn’t stop waiting tables that long ago. Kelton Reid: Yeah, it’s amazing that it’s been years for me as well, but I still kind of get those waiting tables dreams where I have a nightmare, which is totally kind of like a PTSD response. Of course, it’s a stress response, but it’s … Stephanie Danler: What’s yours? Everyone has a different one. Kelton Reid: Yeah, oh yeah. It’s like the restaurant fills up, and you’re the only server, and you can’t do anything right, and everyone’s speaking a different language. You just want to get one coffee to a table, and you can’t span this football field sized restaurant. How about that? Stephanie Danler: That’s a great one. Kelton Reid: What’s yours? Stephanie Danler: God, mine is so specific, and it’s that I go into the wine room to pull a bottle of wine, and none of the bottles have labels on them. They’re all just black. I’m digging through this endless pile of glass, and I’m sweating the whole time. Kelton Reid: Oh my. Yeah. Okay, cool. It’s definitely something that waiters get, but you waited tables in a very specific type of restaurant, like a fine dining place. The book is amazing, the language and the prose really, really captures that setting, so kudos on the success of the book. I understand it’s doing very well, getting a lot of great buzz. Stephanie Danler: Thank you. Yeah. Totally has surpassed any of my wildest expectations. I’m ready to go home now, but not quite yet. Kelton Reid: Are you still in New York City, or are you… Stephanie Danler: No. I just got back to LA where I am currently camped out. Technically this is home, but I’m still working for Sweetbitter, constantly. Why You Should Write What You Know and Love Kelton Reid: Okay, yeah. Cool, cool. That’s exciting. Maybe for listeners who aren’t familiar with your story, can you give us kind of a little bit of your origin from maybe just from waiting tables in New York City, or being a back waiter in New York City to best-selling novelist? Stephanie Danler: That is such a clean trajectory. I wish that it went like that. I moved to New York City at the same age as my protagonist in the novel. She moves when she’s 22 in 2006. That is in fact when I moved to the city and the age that I was. Unlike my protagonist, I’d been working in restaurants my entire life. I started when I was 15 years old, and I never had another job. I knew when I got to New York that I needed to find restaurant work quickly and that that was what would support me while I wrote because I did move to become a writer. I had just finished undergrad, and I had two parts of a very bad novel that I thought was going to be a great novel. I think the most autobiographical part of Sweetbitter is the experience of falling head over heels in love with an industry, and it giving you a life that is very full and that is not a means to an end, but is immensely gratifying in and of itself. That’s what I found when I got to New York. And so, after my first job, which was at a landmark restaurant that’s no longer there, Union Square Café. Danny Meyer’s first restaurant. After that, I went to wine school. I helped open wine stores. I was the beverage director for a small restaurant group. I was the general manager. I helped open new businesses. I was a food and wine professional and very attached to that identity. It wasn’t until I was almost 30 that I remembered why I had moved to New York City. At that point, I had this idea. I wanted to tell a coming of age novel that subverted the genre in a few ways. First by being about a woman, and second by being not about age 14 or age 18, but about this extended adolescence that we’re experiencing now in our 20s where we’re not married. We’re not supposed to have careers yet, and we have this period where we’re actually just supposed to be figuring out how to be. I married that with what I knew, which is 15 years in the restaurant industry. I had this expertise, and I had this world that was so rich. I went back to graduate school, and I was getting my MFA, and the first thing I wrote was the first sentence of Sweetbitter. Two years later I had the first draft finished. Kelton Reid: That’s cool. That’s really, really cool. Stephanie Danler: Yeah, and there was a lot of messy, awful stuff in the middle of that, so it wasn’t so clean. I do love that story, waitress turns into best-selling author. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. It’s a good one. Stephanie Danler: I just woke up one day, and poof, there was a book. Kelton Reid: I noticed that you quoted Sappho in the opening there. Is that where the title comes from? Stephanie Danler: Yeah. Sappho famously was the first writer to call love bittersweet, but there’s a more recent translation by the poet Anne Carson, in which she looks at the word in Greek and says, “No, it’s actually sweet bitter.” That’s also the order in which we experience love, the sweet first, and then the bitter. Kelton Reid: That’s cool. Stephanie Danler: I love Anne Carson, so I just went with that. Kelton Reid: Very cool. The world is so ripe for that subculture. I love how you’re kind of going through the palate, the flavors, the everything, the appetite of that world. It’s an amazing read, so kudos on that. Where else can we find your writing out there? I know you’ve written for some kind of bigger name publications. Have you done travel writing? Is that right? Stephanie Danler: Yeah, I do. I have two other types of writing going on. I occasionally, with much angst, write personal essays. It’s not my natural habitat, but I also have had a really great run with Travel + Leisure. I have an incredible editor there, Jesse Ashlock. We’ve done three pieces together now. I’ve always been travelling. It’s a huge part of my life, and it’s what I’ve spent all my money on, and what I always will spend all my money on. It has turned out that I get to write about it. It’s not always that glamorous, but it’s incredibly rewarding. Then the personal essays have found homes on The Paris Review website, Vogue, and Lit Hub, Literary Hub, all sites that I’m so honored to be on. The Vogue thing was insane. No one thinks they’re going to be in Vogue. It’s so weird. I’ve never even read Vogue. Kelton Reid: That’s crazy. Stephanie Danler: Again, I had a genius editor who pulled out this personal essay for me. I think I get more feedback about that essay which talks about drug addiction and developing boundaries with addicts. I get more feedback on that than anything I’ve written, including Sweetbitter. Kelton Reid: Wow. Yeah, all great stuff. I’ll link to those. You also have a personal website, which I’ll link to. That’s StephanieDanler.com. We’ll put that in the show notes for listeners also. What are you working on right now? Stephanie Danler: I am working on this podcast, and then I am working for Sweetbitter. I do have two essays that are close. Then there’s that dreaded second novel that Knopf is waiting for, which I will turn my attention to shortly, but I just got back from touring. I think I need a little bit of mental space. Kelton Reid: We will be right back after a very short break. Thanks so much for listening to the Writer Files. Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/summit. We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer. For now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us: Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work. Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before. Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps them pick the best tools. Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host a conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events. Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun. Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by Which session should I go to? and, Am I missing something? Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with both people who are putting it on, and the other attendees. Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/summit. That’s Rainmaker.FM/summit. Why Cultural Artifacts Are Great for Research Kelton Reid: We’ll look forward to hearing more about that as it develops. I’d love to just kind of dig into your process a little bit and learn a little bit more about your creative and writing process. Stephanie Danler: Yeah. Kelton Reid: Let’s talk about productivity a little bit. When you were working on the book, how much time were you kind of putting into research? I know that you did a lot of personal research over those years as a server and industry worker. Did you find yourself doing a lot of research while you were writing the book? Stephanie Danler: It’s interesting. People ask me often whether I had to research the industry or the food and the wine. Those things were so second nature to me, but what I could not remember was 2006, probably because I was drunk and working at the restaurant, but also I was 22, and it was a decade ago. I keep notebooks, but my notebooks are, “I woke up sad today. I woke up happy today.” They’re useless. I found myself very grateful for my hoarding tendencies and all of these old New Yorkers and New York magazines, and a collection of old Gourmet magazines, which is now out of print, but was the most beautiful food magazine in the world. I have a storage unit full of these print magazines. All of the information is online, but what you don’t get is the ads and the feel of what was happening in 2006; what restaurants were opening, what menus looked like, what songs were popular. Those were so helpful in jogging my memory. Kelton Reid: That’s cool. Stephanie Danler: That counts as research, I think. An Author s Careful Balance of Daily Beverage Consumption Kelton Reid: For sure. Before you actually sit down to get going, do you have any pre-game rituals to kind of get you into the mood? Stephanie Danler: Yes. I’m big on beverages, like multiple, multiple beverages. There is usually a cup of coffee that is lukewarm and anyone else would think is disgusting, but I drink it all day. Then there’s tea, and there’s water. Then at some point, there’s a Campari soda. Then at some point, there’s a white wine. I think the beverages are twofold because you need to be hydrated while you write, right? Everyone knows that. But you get to get up from the desk every 20 to 30 minutes to refill something or fidget with something. I find that very valuable. Kelton Reid: Oh, for sure. Yeah, taking breaks is important. Staying caffeinated, also important, up to a point. Stephanie Danler: Yeah, such a delicate art with caffeination, being caffeinated. Caffeination, I made that up. Why the Old Rules of Productivity Shouldn t Apply to Writers Kelton Reid: When you’re working on a bigger piece, or even an essay, are you working on it every day? Are you scheduling or blocking out times or word counts? Stephanie Danler: I think that when I am lucky, I’m obsessed by a project enough that I’m working on it every day. I’m not a fantastic multi-tasker. I really do need to focus in on one project. I very rarely am juggling two pieces of writing at the same time. I do block off whole days. I find that I cannot dip in and dip out. Maybe that also goes back to being a bad multi-tasker. My social self and my writing self are so far away from each other. Like, even just to talk to you today, it means that I can’t write. I’m in a different head space. Maybe later today, if a shift occurs. I have to block off whole days. That means, no, I cannot go to lunch. No, I cannot go get a drink. No, I cannot work out. No, I cannot go to the market. You just really have to put strict boundaries around that time. I do. Kelton Reid: Yeah, so that gets you into the flow. It sounds like you’re working big stretches, in marathon stretches. Stephanie Danler: Yeah, that is how I work. Yeah. Kelton Reid: Cool. Do you find that you’re getting more stuff done in the mornings, or are you kind of just whatever time of day? Stephanie Danler: Yeah, mornings are hard, because I do get up early, and I read. I have a handwriting journal practice that I’ve had for my entire life, but really there are so many emails. There’s the business of life, and that always feels most pressing in the morning. I find that I have a productive period around 10am after that stuff has fallen away, or I have a better sense of my day. Then around 4pm, anything leading up to a meal, I am like, “I’ll write for two hours, and then I get to eat.” Kelton Reid: Yeah, absolutely. Do you like to work with headphones on, or are you somebody who prefers silence? Stephanie Danler: I like music. I have a hard time with music that has words, though. I think when you’re dealing with words, and I have worked in silence before and found it very productive, but it’s also a little frightening, especially if you’re working for ten hours with no noise. That is a little intense for me. There’s something about music where I feel like I’m in touch with the world still. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I find it interesting, actually, that kind of in the restaurant on a busy night, there’s a sound that kind of a busy restaurant makes that’s almost like brown noise or something where all conversations just kind of melt into one thing. Then you’ve got that soundtrack underneath that’s like an ambient soundtrack or something like that. Do you have memories of some of those tracks that would come on at the restaurant during a service night? Stephanie Danler: Oh my God, of course. Don’t you? Kelton Reid: Yeah, totally. It’s really interesting. I’ve tried to make playlists that incorporate songs from different eras of different restaurants to kind of remember those times. Stephanie Danler: The last job I had was at a restaurant called Buvette, and “Slippin’ and a Slidin ” by Little Richard would come on at midnight when things were beginning to break apart, when people had gotten too drunk, and we got this late night rush that we weren’t expecting. Everyone’s so tired and hungry. I would always look at the bartender and just shake my head, because that song was like, “We’re doomed.” Kelton Reid: That’s awesome. When you hear it now, you kind of… Stephanie Danler: I have not listened to that song since I left that restaurant. Kelton Reid: You can’t. Stephanie Danler: No, I would never. Is Writer s Block a Thing? Kelton Reid: Gotcha, gotcha. Let’s hear your thoughts on writer’s block. Do you believe in it? Is it a thing? Have you ever experienced it? Stephanie Danler: Oh God, it’s like one of the most powerful myths about writing. Every writer is asked about it, and it’s been endlessly discussed, but what’s interesting … I don’t think writer’s block exists. I think that the way that we measure productivity is not applicable to writing. Usually, you have active time equal to your production to the amount of money you’re getting paid. None of those rules apply. This idea that you’re blocked makes an assumption that there is another way that you should be working, that there are goals that you have to hit. However, I have had the experience of having so much energy for a piece and diving into it, and running into literally a wall, a mental wall, and being like, “Oh, what is this doing here? I’m just going to bang my head against it, and I’m sure it will disappear.” Then finally saying, “I have to walk away.” That’s what I think of when I think of writer’s block, but it’s actually something else, which is some wiser, less egotistical self that is also me looking down and saying, “This isn’t working. Walk away.” That’s your instinct. That’s not really a block. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. I like that summation. Thanks so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy the Writer Files Podcast, please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes or to just leave a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

Jay McInerney lives in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian and Corriere della Sera, and his fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy, Granta, and The Paris Review. In 2006, Time cited Bright Lights, Big City as one of nine generation-defining novels of the twentieth century, and The Good Life received the Prix Littéraire at the Deauville Film Festival in 2007. How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (2009) “reminds us,” Sam Tanenhaus wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “how impressively broad McInerney's scope has been and how confidently he has ranged across wide swaths of our national experience. His third novel charting the lives of Corrine and Russell Calloway is Bright, Precious Days.

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