Podcast appearances and mentions of Joan Didion

Kimberly Farr has had a long and distinguished career as an actor on stage and screen and as a celebrated audiobook narrator. A gifted performer with an impressive range, Kimberly has brought characters and stories to life, in fiction and nonfiction alike. Whether it's Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge novels, Joan Didion's essays, the biography of Julia Child, or the poetry of Mary Oliver, Kimberly captures their voices with rare clarity, nuance, and a deep understanding of language. So it's no surprise that AudioFile named her a 2025 Golden Voice narrator. In this bonus episode, host Jo Reed and Kimberly Farr speak about Kimberly's path to audiobook work and what it means to inhabit every voice on the page. Read reviews of Kimberly Farr's audiobooks on AudioFile's website Support for AudioFile's Behind the Mic comes from HarperCollins Focus, and HarperCollins Christian Publishing , publishers of some of your favorite audiobooks and authors, including Reba McEntire, Bob Goff, Kathie Lee Gifford, Max Lucado, Lysa TerKeurst, and so many more!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Through her sharp and biting political commentary—whether as host of the podcast Fast Politics, as a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, or as a political analyst on MSNBC—Molly Jong-Fast has, over the past decade, become something of a household name. But, as the daughter of the once-famous author and second-wave feminist Erica Jong—whose 1973 novel Fear of Flying catapulted her into the literary limelight—she has actually been in the public eye for much longer, decades before this more recent notoriety of her own making. Jong-Fast's latest book, the searing, heartbreaking (but also, at times, hilarious) memoir How to Lose Your Mother, is in some sense an effort to take her story back after being in the shadow of her narcissistic, too often out-of-reach mother for so long. It's also a book about aging and frailty, and an extremely difficult, gut-wrenching year: In 2023, Erica was diagnosed with dementia, right around the same time that Molly's husband learned he had a rare cancer.On the episode, Jong-Fast talks about her own actual fear of flying, in addition to her mother's book of the same name; 27 years of sobriety and how her time in A.A. has transformed her life; and the importance of confronting the vicissitudes of aging and one's passage through time.Special thanks to our Season 11 presenting sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.Show notes:Molly Jong-Fast[4:28] “Fear of Flying” (1973)[4:28] Erica Jong[4:49] “How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir”[7:53] “Spartacus” (1951)[7:53] “April Morning” (1961)[7:53] “The Immigrants” (1977)[9:15] Lee Krasner[10:04] Susan Faludi[10:04] “Backlash” (1991)[12:09] “Fear and Flying Erica & Erotica in Connecticut” (1980)[12:09] “Fanny” (1980)[14:57] Marty Seif[18:26] Special Guest: Erica Jong (2023)[19:39] Pan Am Flight 001[21:11] “The Year of Magical Thinking” (2005)[21:11] “Notes to John” (2025)[26:54] “The Sex Doctors in the Basement” (2005)[36:46] “Normal Girl” (2000)[38:52] Jacob Bernstein[38:52] Carl Bernstein[38:52] Stalin Peace Prize[46:05] Michael Tomasky[48:55] Hazelden[49:57] “How Molly Jong-Fast Tweeted Her Way to Liberal Media Stardom”

(01:27) Programmamaker Willem Alkema over muzikant Sly Stone (19:48) Journalist Jutta Chorus over auteur en journalist Joan Didion (53:04) Wat blijft lijn: Rianne Oosterom over Nelly van Bommel-Den Hartog (56:40) Muziek van The Beach Boys (01:00:56) Grote Geesten: Nathan de Vries maakte deze podcastaflevering over Sophie Oluwole (01:46:13) Muziek van Ibeyi (01:49:59) Zin van de Dag

With mundane items, from a collection of seashells kept by writer Joan Didion and several coffee machines owned by director David Lynch fetching extreme interest and top dollar from fans, what is it that attracts buyers to certain celebrity auctions? Co-founder of Julien's Auctions, Martin Nolan talks to Dearbhail.

Note: This episode contains strong language. Griffin Dunne is Jack Goodman in John Landis’ classic horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London and Paul Hackett in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours and Loudon Trout in the Madonna-starring screwball comedy Who’s That Girl. He’s Uncle Nicky on This Is Us and Professor Dudenoff on Only Murders in the Building and Dr. Alon Parfit on Succession and Sylvére on I Love Dick. He produced After Hours and Running on Empty and Once Around. He directed Practical Magic and Addicted to Love and the documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold. His father was the journalist and novelist and movie producer Dominick Dunne. His aunt and uncle were the journalists and novelists and screenwriters Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. His sister was the actress Dominique Dunne. His grandfather was a famous heart surgeon from West Hartford, Connecticut. In November, 2024, we recorded a conversation with Griffin Dunne on stage at The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford. It’s a lot about that complicated, sometimes tragic, often hilarious family. And it’s about movies and TV and writing. And Hartford. This hour: Griffin Dunne. GUEST: Griffin Dunne: An actor, producer, and director and the author of The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir The Colin McEnroe Show is available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Listen Notes, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe and never miss an episode! Subscribe to The Noseletter, an email compendium of merriment, secrets, and ancient wisdom brought to you by The Colin McEnroe Show. Join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter. Colin McEnroe and Dylan Reyes contributed to this show, which originally aired November 15, 2024.Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today on the Rarified Heir Podcast, we are talking to novelist  Matthew Specktor, whose new book, The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood, is out now and getting rave reviews. Matthew spoke to us about growing up behind the scenes in Hollywood as the son of an icon of the film industry, Fred Specktor, a super-agent of A-list Hollywood talent who is still going strong at 92 years old. With a roster of clients that included everyone from Robert DeNiro, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Danny Devito and many, many more, Matthew was brought up in and around the film business and had a firsthand look. Part memoir, part biography, part cultural history & part fiction, The Golden Hour has been priases in outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Kirkus Review, the LA Times and many more for it's unique look into Hollywood and the battle between art vs. commerce and much more. As this is his third book based on his take on Hollywood, Matthew is getting name-checked alongside iconic LA based, Hollywood centric authors such as Joan Didion and William Goldman and getting praise from authors like Jonathan Lethem and Griffin Dunne. High praise indeed. We get into that as well as how Matthew formed the book and the basis of his exploration into his family and the city formed him, shortly. Matthew's behind-the-scenes stories of how Hollywood was created in the second half of the twentieth century at Tinseltown institutions like MCA, William Morris and CAA beginning in the 1950s and where we are today, 70 years later a a large part of this episode. But we also hear personal stories about pranks the pre-rat pack played on him and his best friend Renee Estevez (daughter of Martin Sheen) in high school, what LA restaurants his family ate on special occasions, the cars and vanity plates of super agents in the City of Angelss and the movie theaters and books that shaped his youth on the Westside of Los Angeles. This is the Rarified Heir Podcast and if you've never had David Lynch tell you, you were more an artist than a deal maker at 13, take a listen because Matthew Specktor has. Everyone has a story.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.comSam is a biographer, historian, and journalist. He used to be the editor of the New York Times Book Review, a features writer for Vanity Fair, and a writer for Prospect magazine. He's currently a contributing writer for the Washington Post. His many books include The Death of Conservatism and Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, and his new one is Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America.It's a huge tome — almost 1,000 pages! — but fascinating, with new and startling revelations, and a breeze to read. It's crack to me, of course, and we went long — a Rogan-worthy three hours. But I loved it, and hope you do too. It's not just about Buckley; it's about now, and how Buckleyism is more similar to Trumpism than I initially understood. It's about American conservatism as a whole.For three clips of our convo — Buckley as a humane segregationist, his isolationism even after Pearl Harbor, and getting gay-baited by Gore Vidal — head to our YouTube page.Other topics: me dragging Sam to a drag show in Ptown; the elite upbringing of Buckley during the Depression; his bigoted but charitable dad who struck rich with oil; his Southern mom who birthed a dozen kids; why the polyglot Buckley didn't learn English until age 7; aspiring to be a priest or a pianist; a middle child craving the approval of dad; a poor student at first; his pranks and recklessness; being the big man on campus at Yale; leading the Yale Daily News; skewering liberal profs; his deep Catholicism; God and Man at Yale; Skull and Bones; his stint in the Army; Charles Lindbergh and America First; defending Joe McCarthy until the bitter end and beyond; launching National Review; Joan Didion; Birchers; Brown v. Board; Albert Jay Nock; Evelyn Waugh; Whittaker Chambers; Brent Bozell; Willmoore Kendall; James Burnham; Orwell; Hitchens; Russell Kirk; not liking Ike; underestimating Goldwater; Nixon and the Southern Strategy; Buckley's ties to Watergate; getting snubbed by Reagan; Julian Bond and John Lewis on Firing Line; the epic debate with James Baldwin; George Will; Michael Lind; David Brooks and David Frum; Rick Hertzberg; Buckley's wife a fag hag who raised money for AIDS; Roy Cohn; Bill Rusher; Scott Bessent; how Buckley was a forerunner for Trump; and much more. It's a Rogan-length pod.Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson on the Biden cover-up, Walter Isaacson on Ben Franklin, Robert Merry on President McKinley, Tara Zahra on the last revolt against globalization after WWI, N.S. Lyons on the Trump era, Arthur C. Brooks on the science of happiness, and Paul Elie on crypto-religion in ‘80s pop culture. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

Entre artistas, roqueiros e Hollywood, Eve Babitz retratou com leveza e humor a era de sexo, drogas e rock and roll da Los Angeles dos anos 70. A redescoberta da escritora norte-americana nos últimos anos e seu livro Dias Lentos, Encontros Fugazes (Amarcord), recém-publicado no Brasil, são o tema deste episódio do 451 MHz. Paulo Werneck e a colunista Bruna Beber recebem duas grandes leitoras de Babitz, a jornalista Adriana Ferreira Silva e a escritora e tradutora Cecília Madonna Young, para falarem sobre os casos curiosos, a mistura de gêneros literários e ainda da amizade e rivalidade entre Babitz e Joan Didion, precursora do novo jornalismo americano.   O episódio foi realizado com apoio da Lei Rouanet – Incentivo a Projetos Culturais. Seja um Ouvinte Entusiasta e apoie o 451 MHz: https://bit.ly/Assine451  

Moira and Adrian tackle the longstanding conservative fixation on the city of San Francisco, its people and its mores. From demographic anxieties, via Joan Didion's hippie-hate, to disaster movies, doom loops, and progressive prosecutors -- the history of SF-hate is a history of US politics. Books and media cited in this episode: Joseph Plaster, Kids on the Street: Queer Kinship and Religion in San Francisco's Tenderloin (2023)Susan Stryker, Victor Silverman (dirs.), Screaming Queens (2005)Thom Andersen, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love (2013) Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968)Eve Babitz, Eve's Hollywood (1974)Mike Davis, City of Quartz (1990)

Did you know the towering career of Joan Didion included several novels, many of which were driven by the same acerbic wit and insight that helped to anoint her as an essential voice in the New Journalism movement? Her second novel, Play It As It Lays, traffics in much of the same Hollywood/Los Angeles social destruction that powered her essays, but instead focuses in on the maddening, maddened Maria Wyeth - an actress whose star is waning with the gravitational force of a black hole.This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squarespace.com/overdue for 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain.Our theme music was composed by Nick Lerangis.Follow @overduepod on Instagram and BlueskyAdvertise on OverdueSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dan Reiter reads from his new book, On a Rising Swell: Surf Stories from the Space Coast, with the jazz piano accompaniment of Daniel Tenbusch, touching the bohemian spirit of Jack Kerouac, who wrote the first draft of The Darma Bums at that very venue. John and Dan share notes about the writing life, the freedom of constraints, the careers of Joan Didion, Jack Kerouac, and Hunter S. Thompson, and physical transcendence—with the occasional contribution from Dr. Truth.

Episode 538 - Tony Stewart - Carrying the Tiger - Living With Cancer, Dying With Grace and Finding Joy While GrievingAbout the authorTony Stewart has made award-winning films for colleges and universities, written software that received rave reviews in The New York Times and the New York Daily News, designed a grants-management application that was used by three of the five largest charities in the world, and led the development of an international standard for the messages involved in buying and selling advertisements, for which he spoke at conferences across Europe and North America. Tony and his late wife Lynn Kotula, a painter, traveled extensively in India and Southeast Asia, staying in small hotels off the beaten track and eating delicious food with their fingers when cutlery wasn't available. Carrying the Tiger is his first published book.An inspiring story of love, loss and recovery“[A] beautifully devastating memoir… a remarkable odyssey of learning to ‘live fully in the shadow of death.'” — Publishers Weekly BookLife (Editor's Pick)In the spirit of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking and Paul Kalanithi's When Breath Becomes Air comes Carrying the Tiger, a life affirming memoir about the full circle of life and death.When Tony Stewart's wife, Lynn, receives a sudden and devastating diagnosis, they scramble to find effective treatment, navigate life threatening setbacks, learn to live fully in the shadow of death, and share the intimate grace of her departure from this world. Then Tony slowly climbs out of shattering grief and, surprisingly, eases toward new love.There is uncertainty, fear, and sorrow, but also tenderness and joy, along with a renewed perspective on what it means to live and love with one's whole heart.“Captures emotions and experiences that will be familiar to anyone who's stood by a loved one facing a cancer diagnosis... this is a work that will strengthen all who read it.” — Khalid Dar, MD, Oncologist, Mount Sinai Morningside“A beautiful and very human love story which breathes an extraordinary generosity of spirit.” — David Newman, author of Talking with Doctorshttps://www.tonystewartauthor.com/Support the show___https://livingthenextchapter.com/podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/Coffee Refills are always appreciated, refill Dave's cup here, and thanks!https://buymeacoffee.com/truemediaca

In the new book “We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine,” “New York Times” Film Critic Alissa Wilkinson, examines Didion's influence through the lens of American mythmaking.

Veðmálasíður verða sífellt fyrirferðarmeiri. Áhrifavaldar og hlaðvarpsstjórnendur auglýsa þær og veðmál á íþróttaleiki virðast færast í aukana hjá ungu fólki. KSÍ stendur fyrir málþingi um veðmál og áhrif þeirra á íþróttir og samfélagið. Ásdís Sól Ágústsdóttir veltir því fyrir sér hvort það sé í lagi að lesa Notes to John, bók Joan Didion sem kom út eftir andlát hennar. Er mikilvægara að svala forvitni lesenda en að virða einkalíf látins fólks?

Andres Lokko och Ulrika Milles har läst och samtalar om den amerikanska författaren Joan Didions postumt utgivna bok Anteckningar till John. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. Den amerikanska författaren och journalisten Joan Didion gick bort 2021. Nu är precis en postum bok av denna legendariska röst utgiven – hundrafemtio sidor som hittades i hennes arbetsrum i New York. Boken heter Anteckningar till John och är översatt till svenska av Erik MacQueen.Boken tar sin början i november 1999 när Joan Didion börjar gå till en psykiater. Hennes make John Gregory Dunne vill inte gå med, så hon går dit själv, mycket för att tala om deras dotter Quintana, som är i trettioårsåldern och kämpar med alkoholism och ångest. Didions utlämnande anteckningar i boken sträcker sig fram till januari 2003.Författaren och musikjournalisten Andres Lokko och författaren och litteraturkritikern Ulrika Milles har läst Anteckningar till John och samtalar med Marie Lundström, som intervjuade Joan Didion i hennes hem i New York, 2005.Skriv till oss! bokradio@sverigesradio.seProgramledare: Marie LundströmProducenter: Nina Asarnoj och Andreas Magnell

The girlies dive into some of Hollywood's most infamous celebrity feuds — Joan Didion vs Eve Babitz, Joan Crawford vs Bette Devis, Kim Cattrall vs Sarah Jessica Parker, and the recent lawsuits between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. Digressions include Kim Cattrall's scatting, Ryan Murphy being a constant threat to society, and the age-old pattern of women fighting over the worst man you've ever heard of. We're going on tour!!!! Find tickets at (https://linktr.ee/binchtopia) This episode was originally released on January 22, 2025 as a Patreon exclusive, and we're unlocking it for you to make the most of the extra week in April. Become a patron today to support the show, keep us ad-free and unlock our backlog of over 50 bonus episodes at patreon.com/binchtopia. SOURCES Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik Why Gossip Is Fatal to Good Writing  Joan Didion, Eve Babitz, and the Biographer Who Missed the Point  Joan Didion and Eve Babitz Shared an Unlikely, Uneasy Friendship—One That Shaped Their Worlds and Work Forever Everything You Need To Know About Kim Cattrall And Sarah Jessica Parker's Famous Feud  Inside Joan Didion And Eve Babitz's Rivalry.  Joan Didion vs Eve Babitz  A Timeline of Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker's Rumored Sex and the City Feud  ‘Sex and the City' Director Details Kim Cattrall Drama, Tension Began Over Parity You Truly Won't Believe How Much Money the Cast of 'And Just Like That...' Is Making The Sex and the City Cast Salary Explains SJP & Kim Cattrall's Feud  ‘Sex and the City' Salaries: How Much Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon and Kim Cattrall Made From the Show, Movies and Revival  The Story Behind Joan Crawford and Bette Davis's Storied Feud  Feud: The Craziest Joan Crawford and Bette Davis Stories That Didn't Make the Show What “Feud” Misses About Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and the Art of Movies Bette Davis v. Joan Crawford: The Hateful History Behind Old Hollywood's Nastiest Feud Joan Crawford Quotes About Bette Davis Are Savage    A Timeline of the Real Feud Between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford   Behind Hollywood's biggest feud  

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to develop a habit. Even when you don't feel like writing, you show up—and the mind begins to wake up. – Tracy DaughertyIn this episode of What's Your Why?, host Emy DiGrappa welcomes acclaimed author and biographer Tracy Daugherty for a deep and thoughtful conversation about the craft of writing, the influence of landscape, and the shaping power of culture. From his West Texas upbringing to his literary inspirations like Larry McMurtry and Joan Didion, Tracy shares his journey into storytelling, his disciplined writing habits, and the physicality of language.They discuss what it means to grow up in a place that feels “unliterary,” how personal and public histories intersect in the writer's work, and why Tracy is drawn to biography as a form of cultural history. He also opens up about his current project on Cormac McCarthy and the ethical complexities of writing about real lives.Whether you're a writer, reader, or lover of Western landscapes and literary voices, this episode offers rich insights into the rhythms of a writing life—and the meaning we find in the stories we tell.Key topics:Writing habit vs. inspirationLarry McMurtry's legacy and the myths of the American WestBiography as cultural historyAI and authorship in the digital ageSky watching, family, and finding your place through storyResources:

As the journals of the American writer Joan Didion (based on conversations with her psychiatrist) are published, writer and journalist Rachel Cooke and Alan Taylor, editor of actor Alan Rickman's diaries, discuss the challenges, responsibilities and ethics of posthumously publishing the diaries of great writers, artists and actors. Acclaimed German pianist Pianist Igor Levit talks about his own challenge - that of performing Erik Satie's pioneering piece Vexations, in a performance at the Multitudes arts festival at London's Southbank Centre. The performance is directed by leading performance artist Marina Abramovic and is expected to last approximately 15 hours, as Levit repeats Satie's one-page score 840 times. And how should great women be memorialised? Cultural critic Stephen Bayley and author and activist Sara Sheridan discuss what a memorial to Queen Elizabeth II might look like, and why, in comparison to their male counterparts, so few women have grand memorials in our towns and cities. Presenter: Kirsty Wark Producer: Mark Crossan

Dreams really do come true as we finally welcome one of the most requested guests in StraightioLab herstory, the one and only Hari Nef! And she came PREPARED with a full list of topics, which we dissect one by one before landing on a winner. Questions include: Can male actors be actresses? Can drag brunch be a site of resistance? Are we "sat" for Ari Aster's latest? Should we FaceTime Lena Dunham? And are parents of LGBTQ+ children gagging from all the fabulosity? Sometimes! Plus: Hari debuts her impression of "Cher doing Joan Didion." STRAIGHTIOLAB MERCH: cottonbureau.com/people/straightiolab SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PATREON at patreon.com/straightiolab for bonus episodes twice a month and don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Investigators, it is a double drop week here on Done and Dunne! We turn our focus in this episode to Nick's sister-in-law Joan Didion, wo is really having a moment this month! The archives of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne are available now at the New York Public Library, after their acquisition in 2023. Additionally, there is a whole new work from Joan dropping April 22 – today – titled Notes to John. This release gives an alternative insight into Joan Didion about her work, motherhood, and the loss of her daughter, Quintana Roo, just two short years after the death of John Gregory Dunne. Lots of moments happening with our favorite sister-in-law – all the details happening here in this springtime bonus! See sources and more at doneanddunne.com. Continue your investigation with ad-free and bonus episodes on Patreon! To advertise on Done & Dunne, please reach out to info@amplitudemediapartners.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mati nos trae un texto de Joan Didion, "EL AÑO DEL PENSAMIENTO MÁGICO"dualar y sus menudencias literariasEnjoy!

It’s Public Intellectual Day at StraightioLab HQ as we welcome The New Yorker’s Doreen St. Félix to the lab to talk about, quite simply, EVERYTHING: the semiotics of handbags, Lizzo’s Pass, the many of Joan Didion, and of course the state of religion in the United States of America. StraightioLab: Live! at the Bell House: https://concerts.livenation.com/straightiolab-live-brooklyn-new-york-04-16-2025/event/3000626340673C34STRAIGHTIOLAB MERCH: cottonbureau.com/people/straightiolab SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PATREON at patreon.com/straightiolab for bonus episodes twice a month and don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's episode, I'm joined by New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson to discuss her new book about Joan Didion, We Tell Ourselves Stories. I mentioned the book in a newsletter a couple of weeks back, but I wanted to focus on the ways in which the political world has borrowed showbiz's penchant for image calibration, from the ways in which issues are decided upon to the means by which politicians decide which voters to target. Didion, of course, was a natural observer of these shifts, having spent years in Hollywood before becoming one of the nation's most interesting political observers. If you enjoyed this episode, I hope you both pick up a copy of Alissa's book and share this with friends!

Laura Piñero dedica esta entrega de #Cartagrafías al increíble archivo de la pareja de periodistas Joan Didion y John Gregory Dunne adquirido por la Biblioteca Pública de Nueva York.  Permite conocer sus vidas e investigaciones desde un punto de vista nuevo. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Topics for Tuesday, April 8, 2025: - WFUV's Avery Loftis breaks down President Trump's tariffs - WFUV's Andrew McDonald looks at how Queens is using the Census Bureau - WFUV's Alexandra Pfau discusses New York City Council's proposal to make libraries more accessible to students - WFUV's Brenda Plascencia reports on author Joan Didion's legacy in New York - WFUV's Ben Oppenheimer gives us this week's sports update, from the end of March Madness to the Knicks win over the weekend

Welcome, writers and book lovers. The Bleeders is a podcast about book writing and publishing. Make sure you subscribe to the companion Substack: https://thebleeders.substack.com/welcomeToday's guest Alissa Wilkinson wrote her book Salty during the first year of the pandemic, which left its mark on both the process and the content. Alissa tells us about how Salty: Lessons on Eating, Drinking, and Living from Revolutionary Women and her first book came to be and a little bit about her current Joan Didion-related project. We also talked about how book writing fits in amid her daily journalism grind, her unique publishing path from academic to more traditional, and more in today's episode. Follow Alissa on Instagram @alissawilkinson.The Bleeders is hosted by Courtney Kocak. Follow her on Instagram @courtneykocak and Bluesky @courtneykocak.bsky.social. For more, check out her website courtneykocak.com.Courtney is teaching some upcoming workshops you might be interested in:Land Big Bylines by Writing for Columns: https://writingworkshops.com/products/land-big-bylines-by-writing-for-columns-zoom-seminarThe Multi-Passionate Writer's Life: https://writingworkshops.com/products/the-multi-passionate-writers-life-zoom-seminar-with-courtney-kocakHow to Build a “Platform” for Writers Who Shudder at the Thought: https://writingworkshops.com/products/how-to-build-a-platform-for-writers-who-shudder-at-the-thought-zoom-seminarPodcasting for Writers: How to Start, Sustain & Grow Your Podcast: https://writingworkshops.com/products/podcasting-for-writers-how-to-start-sustain-grow-your-podcast-4-week-zoom-workshop

Wes Kao is an entrepreneur, coach, and advisor. She co-founded the live learning platform Maven, backed by First Round and a16z. Before Maven, Wes co-created the altMBA with best-selling author Seth Godin. Today, Wes teaches a popular course on executive communication and influence. Through her course and one-on-one coaching, she's helped thousands of operators, founders, and product leaders master the art of influence through clear, compelling communication. Known for her surgical writing style and no-BS frameworks, Wes returns to the pod to deliver a tactical master class on becoming a sharper, more persuasive communicator—at work, in meetings, and across your career.What you'll learn:1. The #1 communication mistake leaders make—and Wes's proven fix to instantly gain buy-in2. Wes's MOO (Most Obvious Objection) framework to consistently anticipate and overcome pushback in meetings3. How to master concise communication—including Wes's tactical approach for brevity without losing meaning4. The art of executive presence: actionable strategies for conveying confidence and clarity, even under pressure5. The “sales, then logistics” framework—and why your ideas keep getting ignored without it6. The power of “signposting”—and why executives skim your docs without it7. Exactly how to give feedback that works—Wes's “strategy, not self-expression” principle to drive behavior change without friction8. Practical ways to instantly improve your writing, emails, and Slack messages—simple techniques Wes teaches executives9. Managing up like a pro: Wes's clear, practical advice on earning trust, building credibility, and aligning with senior leaders10. Career accelerators: specific habits and tactics from Wes for growing your influence, advancing your career, and standing out11. Real-world communication examples—Wes breaks down real scenarios she's solved, providing step-by-step solutions you can copy today—Brought to you by:• WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security• Coda—The all-in-one collaborative workspace—Where to find Wes Kao:• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weskao/• Website: https://www.weskao.com/• Maven course: https://maven.com/wes-kao/executive-communication-influence—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Wes Kao(05:34) Working with Wes(06:58) The importance of communication(10:44) Sales before logistics(18:20) Being concise(24:31) Books to help you become a better writer(27:30) Signposting and formatting(32:05) How to develop and practice your communication skills(40:41) Slack communication(42:23) Confidence in communication(50:17) The MOO framework(54:00) Staying calm in high-stakes conversations(57:36) Which tactic to start with(58:53) Effective tactics for managing up(01:04:53) Giving constructive feedback: strategy, not self-expression(01:09:39) Delegating effectively while maintaining high standards(01:16:36) The swipe file: collecting inspiration for better communication(01:19:59) Leveraging AI for better communication(01:22:01) Lightning round—Referenced:• Persuasive communication and managing up | Wes Kao (Maven, Seth Godin, Section4): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/persuasive-communication-wes-kao• Making Meta | Andrew ‘Boz' Bosworth (CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-meta-andrew-boz-bosworth-cto• Communication is the job: https://boz.com/articles/communication-is-the-job• Maven: https://maven.com/• Sales, not logistics: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/sales-not-logistics• How to be more concise: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/how-to-be-concise• Signposting: How to reduce cognitive load for your reader: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/sign-posting-how-to-reduce-cognitive• Airbnb's Vlad Loktev on embracing chaos, inquiry over advocacy, poking the bear, and “impact, impact, impact” (Partner at Index Ventures, Airbnb GM/VP Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/impact-impact-impact-vlad-loktev• Tone and words: Use accurate language: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/tone-and-words-use-accurate-language• Quote by Joan Didion: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/264509-i-don-t-know-what-i-think-until-i-write-it• Strategy, not self-expression: How to decide what to say when giving feedback: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/strategy-not-self-expression• Tobi Lütke's leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook• The CEDAF framework: Delegating gets easier when you get better at explaining your ideas: https://newsletter.weskao.com/p/delegating-and-explaining• Swipe file: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swipe_file• Apple Notes: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notes/id1110145109• Claude: https://claude.ai/new• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/• Arianna Huffington's phone bed charging station (Oak): https://www.amazon.com/Arianna-Huffingtons-Phone-Charging-Station/dp/B079C5DBF4?th=1• The Harlan Coben Collection on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/browse/genre/81180221• Oral-B Pro 1000 rechargeable electric toothbrush: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003UKM9CO/• The Best Electric Toothbrush: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-electric-toothbrush/• Glengarry Glen Ross on Prime Video: https://www.amazon.com/Glengarry-Glen-Ross-James-Foley/dp/B002NN5F7A• 1,000,000: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/1000000—Recommended books:• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548/• Stein on Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies: https://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210/• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Memoir-Craft-Stephen-King/dp/1982159375• Several Short Sentences About Writing: https://www.amazon.com/Several-Short-Sentences-About-Writing/dp/0307279413/• High Output Management: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/dp/0679762884• Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Brain-Work-Revised-Updated/dp/0063003155/—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson discusses her new book, "We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine," which explores the California author's prescient understanding of how entertainment would colonize American political life. Wilkinson examines Didion's work through the lens of a Hollywood insider and cultural critic, revealing how she anticipated our drift toward manufactured realities and endless performance — from Ronald Reagan's performative presidency to modern reality television-style governance.

Mayor Eric Adams says he'll bypass the June 24th Democratic primary and run as an independent in November's general election, just one day after a judge dismissed his federal corruption case for good. Meanwhile, the New York Public Library's new Joan Didion archive is drawing researchers and fans from across the country. Plus, WNYC's Jon Campbell joins us to explain how Adams' decision could reshape the mayoral race.

As a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Hilton Als's essays and profiles of figures like Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, and Richard Pryor have redefined cultural criticism, blending autobiography with literary and social commentary. Als is also a curator. His latest gallery exhibition is The Writing's on the Wall: Language and Silence in the Visual Arts, at the Hill Art Foundation in New York. The exhibit brings together the works of 32 artists across a range of media to examine how artists embrace silence. The show asked a powerful question: What do words — and their absence — look like? The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer spoke with Tonya Mosley. Also, Ken Tucker reviews new music from Lucy Dacus and Jeffrey Lewis.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

As a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Hilton Als's essays and profiles of figures like Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, and Richard Pryor have redefined cultural criticism, blending autobiography with literary and social commentary. Als is also a curator. His latest gallery exhibition is The Writing's on the Wall: Language and Silence in the Visual Arts, at the Hill Art Foundation in New York. The exhibit brings together the works of 32 artists across a range of media to examine how artists embrace silence. The show asked a powerful question: What do words — and their absence — look like? The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer spoke with Tonya Mosley. Also, Ken Tucker reviews new music from Lucy Dacus and Jeffrey Lewis.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Joan Didion famously chronicled California's culture and mythology in works like “Slouching Towards Bethlehem” and “The White Album.” And it's Didion's relationship with Hollywood in particular that New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson explores in “We Tell Ourselves Stories,” her new analysis of the California writer. “The movies,” Wilkinson writes, “shaped us — shaped her — to believe life would follow a genre and an arc, with rising action, climax and resolution. It would make narrative sense. The reality is quite different.” We talk to Wilkinson about how Didion saw an American political landscape that was molding itself after the movies — and came to value story over substance. Guest: Alissa Wilkinson, movie critic, New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joan Didion opened The White Album (1979) with what would become an iconic line: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Today this phrase is deployed inspirationally, printed on T-shirts and posters, and used as a battle cry for artists and writers. But Didion had something much less rosy in mind: our tendency to manufacture delusions to ward away our anxieties whenever society seems to be spinning off its axis. And nowhere was this collective hallucination more effectively crafted than in Hollywood. Alissa Wilkinson examines Joan Didion's influence through the lens of American myth-making. As a young girl, Didion was infatuated with John Wayne and his on-screen bravado, and was fascinated by her California pioneer ancestry and the infamous Donner Party. The mythos that preoccupied her early years continued to influence her work as a magazine writer and film critic in New York, offering glimmers of the many stories Didion told herself that would eventually unravel. Wilkinson traces Didion's journey from New York to her arrival in Hollywood as a screenwriter at the twilight of the old studio system. Didion became embroiled in the glitz and glamor of the Los Angeles elite, where she acutely observed―and denounced―how the nation's fears and dreams were sensationalized on screen. Meanwhile, she paid the bills writing movie scripts like A Star Is Born, while her books propelled her to personal fame. Join us to hear Wilkinson dissect the cinematic motifs and machinations that informed Didion's writing, detail Hollywood's addictive grasp on the American imagination, and delve into Didion's legacy, whose impact will be felt for generations. Organizer: George Hammond   A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lara is joined by actor and writer Clark Moore to discuss the allure of moving to Europe, how to be an artist in 2025, reflections on the literary genius of Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, and the ever-complex tapestry of life in Los Angeles. You can subscribe to Clark's substack and watch him in Not An Artist, streaming on iTunes and Amazon Prime. Listen to this episode ad-free AND get access to weekly bonus episodes + video bonus episodes by joining the SUP Patreon.  Watch video episodes of the pod on Mondays and Fridays by subscribing to the SUP YouTube.  Relive the best moments of this iconic podcast by following the SUP TikTok. Production Services Provided by: Tiny Legends Productions, LLC Executive Producer: Stella Young Tech Director: Guy Robinson Art Director & Social Media: Ariel Moreno Sexy Unique Podcast is Edited by: Audio Editor: Ness Smith-Savedoff Video Editor: Case Blackwell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By Walt HickeyDouble feature today!Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition.This week, I spoke to Alissa Wilkinson who is out with the brand new book, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine.I'm a huge fan of Alissa, she's a phenomenal critic and I thought this topic — what happens when one of the most important American literary figures heads out to Hollywood to work on the most important American medium — is super fascinating. It's a really wonderful book and if you're a longtime Joan Didion fan or simply a future Joan Didion fan, it's a look at a really transformative era of Hollywood and should be a fun read regardless.Alissa can be found at the New York Times, and the book is available wherever books are sold.This interview has been condensed and edited. All right, Alissa, thank you so much for coming on.Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to be back, wherever we are.Yes, you are the author of We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. It's a really exciting book. It's a really exciting approach, for a Joan Didion biography and placing her in the current of American mainstream culture for a few years. I guess just backing out, what got you interested in Joan Didion to begin with? When did you first get into her work?Joan Didion and I did not become acquainted, metaphorically, until after I got out of college. I studied Tech and IT in college, and thus didn't read any books, because they don't make you read books in school, or they didn't when I was there. I moved to New York right afterward. I was riding the subway. There were all these ads for this book called The Year of Magical Thinking. It was the year 2005, the book had just come out. The Year of Magical Thinking is Didion's National Book Award-winning memoir about the year after her husband died, suddenly of a heart attack in '03. It's sort of a meditation on grief, but it's not really what that sounds like. If people haven't read it's very Didion. You know, it's not sentimental, it's constantly examining the narratives that she's telling herself about grief.So I just saw these ads on the walls. I was like, what is this book that everybody seems to be reading? I just bought it and read it. And it just so happened that it was right after my father, who was 46 at the time, was diagnosed with a very aggressive leukemia, and then died shortly thereafter, which was shocking, obviously. The closer I get to that age, it feels even more shocking that he was so young. I didn't have any idea how to process that emotion or experience. The book was unexpectedly helpful. But it also introduced me to a writer who I'd never read before, who felt like she was looking at things from a different angle than everyone else.Of course, she had a couple more books come out after that. But I don't remember this distinctly, but probably what happened is I went to some bookstore, The Strand or something, and bought The White Album and Slouching Towards Bethlehem off the front table as everyone does because those books have just been there for decades.From that, I learned more, starting to understand how writing could work. I didn't realize how form and content could interact that way. Over the years, I would review a book by her or about her for one publication or another. Then when I was in graduate school, getting my MFA in nonfiction, I wrote a bit about her because I was going through a moment of not being sure if my husband and I were going to stay in New York or we were going to move to California. They sort of obligate you to go through a goodbye to all that phase if you are contemplating that — her famous essay about leaving New York. And then, we did stay in New York City. But ultimately, that's 20 years of history.Then in 2020, I was having a conversation (that was quite-early pandemic) with my agent about possible books I might write. I had outlined a bunch of books to her. Then she was like, “These all sound like great ideas. But I've always wanted to rep a book on Joan Didion. So I just wanted to put that bug in your ear.” I was like, “Oh, okay. That seems like something I should probably do.”It took a while to find an angle, which wound up being Didion in Hollywood. This is mostly because I realized that a lot of people don't really know her as a Hollywood figure, even though she's a pretty major Hollywood figure for a period of time. The more of her work I read, the more I realized that her work is fruitfully understood as the work of a woman who was profoundly influenced by (and later thinking in terms of Hollywood metaphors) whether she was writing about California or American politics or even grief.So that's the long-winded way of saying I wasn't, you know, acquainted with her work until adulthood, but then it became something that became a guiding light for me as a writer.That's really fascinating. I love it. Because again I think a lot of attention on Didion has been paid since her passing. But this book is really exciting because you came at it from looking at the work as it relates to Hollywood. What was Didion's experience in Hollywood? What would people have seen from it, but also, what is her place there?The directly Hollywood parts of her life start when she's in her 30s. She and her husband — John Gregory Dunn, also a writer and her screenwriting partner — moved from New York City, where they had met and gotten married, to Los Angeles. John's brother, Nick Dunn later became one of the most important early true crime writers at Vanity Fair, believe it or not. But at the time, he was working as a TV producer. He and his wife were there. So they moved to Los Angeles. It was sort of a moment where, you know, it's all well and good to be a journalist and a novelist. If you want to support yourself, Hollywood is where it's at.So they get there at a moment when the business is shifting from these big-budget movies — the Golden Age — to the new Hollywood, where everything is sort of gritty and small and countercultural. That's the moment they arrive. They worked in Hollywood. I mean, they worked literally in Hollywood for many years after that. And then in Hollywood even when they moved back to New York in the '80s as screenwriters still.People sometimes don't realize that they wrote a bunch of produced screenplays. The earliest was The Panic in Needle Park. Obviously, they adapted Didion's novel Play It As It Lays. There are several others, but one that a lot of people don't realize they wrote was the version of A Star is Born that stars Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. It was their idea to shift the Star is Born template from Hollywood entities to rock stars. That was their idea. Of course, when Bradley Cooper made his version, he iterated on that. So their work was as screenwriters but also as figures in the Hollywood scene because they were literary people at the same time that they were screenwriters. They knew all the actors, and they knew all the producers and the executives.John actually wrote, I think, two of the best books ever written on Hollywood decades apart. One called The Studio, where he just roamed around on the Fox backlot. For a year for reasons he couldn't understand, he got access. That was right when the catastrophe that was Dr. Doolittle was coming out. So you get to hear the inside of the studio. Then later, he wrote a book called Monster, which is about their like eight-year long attempt to get their film Up Close and Personal made, which eventually they did. It's a really good look at what the normal Hollywood experience was at the time: which is like: you come up with an idea, but it will only vaguely resemble the final product once all the studios get done with it.So it's, it's really, that's all very interesting. They're threaded through the history of Hollywood in that period. On top of it for the book (I realized as I was working on it) that a lot of Didion's early life is influenced by especially her obsession with John Wayne and also with the bigger mythology of California and the West, a lot of which she sees as framed through Hollywood Westerns.Then in the '80s, she pivoted to political reporting for a long while. If you read her political writing, it is very, very, very much about Hollywood logic seeping into American political culture. There's an essay called “Inside Baseball” about the Dukakis campaign that appears in Political Fictions, her book that was published on September 11, 2001. In that book, she writes about how these political campaigns are directed and set up like a production for the cameras and how that was becoming not just the campaign, but the presidency itself. Of course, she had no use for Ronald Reagan, and everything she writes about him is very damning. But a lot of it was because she saw him as the embodiment of Hollywood logic entering the political sphere and felt like these are two separate things and they need to not be going together.So all of that appeared to me as I was reading. You know, once you see it, you can't unsee it. It just made sense for me to write about it. On top of it, she was still alive when I was writing the proposal and shopping it around. So she actually died two months after we sold the book to my publisher. It meant I was extra grateful for this angle because I knew there'd be a lot more books on her, but I wanted to come at it from an angle that I hadn't seen before. So many people have written about her in Hollywood before, but not quite through this lens.Yeah. What were some things that you discovered in the course of your research? Obviously, she's such an interesting figure, but she's also lived so very publicly that I'm just super interested to find out what are some of the things that you learned? It can be about her, but it can also be the Hollywood system as a whole.Yeah. I mean, I didn't interview her for obvious reasons.Understandable, entirely understandable.Pretty much everyone in her life also is gone with the exception really of Griffin Dunn, who is her nephew, John's nephew, the actor. But other than that, it felt like I needed to look at it through a critical lens. So it meant examining a lot of texts. A lot of Didion's magazine work (which was a huge part of her life) is published in the books that people read like Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album and all the other books. What was interesting to me was discovering (I mean, not “discovering” because other people have read it) that there is some work that's not published and it's mostly her criticism.Most of that criticism was published in the late '50s and the early '60s when she was living in New York City, working at Vogue and trying to make it in the literary scene that was New York at that time, which was a very unique place. I mean, she was writing criticism and essays for both, you know, like National Review and The Nation at the same time, which was just hard to conceive of today. It was something you'd do back then. Yeah, wild stuff.A lot of that criticism was never collected into books. The most interesting is that she'd been working at Vogue for a long time in various positions, but she wound up getting added to the film critic column at Vogue in, '62, I want to say, although I might have that date slightly off. She basically alternated weeks with another critic for a few years, writing that until she started writing in movies proper. It's never a great idea to be a critic and a screenwriter at the same time.Her criticism is fascinating. So briefly, for instance, she shared that column with Pauline Kael. Pauline Kael became well known after she wrote about Bonnie and Clyde. This was prior to that. This is several years prior to that. They also hated each other for a long time afterward, which is funny, because, in some ways, their style is very different but their persona is actually very similar. So I wonder about that.But in any case, even when she wasn't sharing the column with Pauline Kael, it was a literal column in a magazine. So it's like one column of text, she can say barely anything. She was always a bit of a contrarian, but she was actively not interested in the things that were occupying New York critics at the time. Things like the Auteur Theory, what was happening in France, the downtown scene and the Shirley Clark's of the world. She had no use for it. At some point, she accuses Billy Wilder of having really no sense of humor, which is very funny.When you read her criticism, you see a person who is very invested in a classical notion of Hollywood as a place that shows us fantasies that we can indulge in for a while. She talks in her very first column about how she doesn't really need movies to be masterpieces, she just wants them to have moments. When she says moments, she means big swelling things that happen in a movie that make her feel things.It's so opposite, I think, to most people's view of Didion. Most people associate her with this snobbish elitism or something, which I don't think is untrue when we're talking about literature. But for her, the movies were like entertainment, and entering that business was a choice to enter that world. She wasn't attempting to elevate the discourse or something.I just think that's fascinating. She also has some great insights there. But as a film critic, I find myself disagreeing with most of her reviews. But I think that doesn't matter. It was more interesting to see how she conceived of the movies. There is a moment later on, in another piece that I don't think has been republished anywhere from the New York Review of Books, where she writes about the movies of Woody Allen. She hates them. It's right at the point where he's making like Manhattan and Annie Hall, like the good stuff. She just has no use for them. It's one of the funniest pieces. I won't spoil the ending because it's hilarious, and it's in the book.That writing was of huge interest to me and hasn't been republished in books. I was very grateful to get access to it, in part because it is in the archives — the electronic archives of the New York Public Library. But at the time, the library was closed. So I had to call the library and have a librarian get on Zoom with me for like an hour and a half to figure out how I could get in the proverbial back door of the library to get access while the library wasn't open.That's magnificent. That's such a cool way to go to the archives because some stuff just hasn't been published. If it wasn't digitized, then it's not digitized. That's incredible.Yeah, it's there, but you can barely print them off because they're in PDFs. They're like scanned images that are super high res, so the printer just dies when you try to print them. It's all very fascinating. I hope it gets republished at some point because I think there's enough interest in her work that it's fascinating to see this other aspect of her taste and her persona.It's really interesting that she seems to have wanted to meet the medium where it is, right? She wasn't trying to literary-up Hollywood. I mean, LA can be a bit of a friction. It's not exactly a literary town in the way that some East Coast metropolises can be. It is interesting that she was enamored by the movies. Do you want to speak about what things were like for her when she moved out?Yeah, it is funny because, at the same time, the first two movies that they wrote and produced are The Panic in Needle Park, which is probably the most new Hollywood movie you can imagine. It's about addicts at Needle Park, which is actually right where the 72nd Street subway stop is on the Upper West Side. If people have been there, it's hard to imagine. But that was apparently where they all sat around, and there were a lot of needles. It's apparently the first movie supposedly where someone shoots up live on camera.So it was the '70s. That's amazing.Yes, and it launched Al Pacino's film career! Yeah, it's wild. You watch it and you're just like, “How is this coming from the woman who's about all this arty farty stuff in the movies.” And Play It As It Lays has a very similar, almost avant-garde vibe to it. It's very, very interesting. You see it later on in the work that they made.A key thing to remember about them (and something I didn't realize before I started researching the book)was that Didion and Dunn were novelists who worked in journalism because everybody did. They wrote movies, according to them (you can only go off of what they said. A lot of it is John writing these jaunty articles. He's a very funny writer) because “we had tuition and a mortgage. This is how you pay for it.”This comes up later on, they needed to keep their WGA insurance because John had heart trouble. The best way to have health insurance was to remain in the Writers Guild. Remaining in the Writers Guild means you had to have a certain amount of work produced through union means. They were big union supporters. For them this was not, this was very strictly not an auteurist undertaking. This was not like, “Oh, I'm gonna go write these amazing screenplays that give my concept of the world to the audience.” It's not like Bonnie and Clyding going on here. It's very like, “We wrote these based on some stories that we thought would be cool.”I like that a lot. Like the idea that A Star is Born was like a pot boiler. That's really delightful.Completely. It was totally taken away from them by Streisand and John Peters at some point. But they were like, “Yeah, I mean, you know, it happens. We still got paid.”Yeah, if it can happen to Superman, it can happen to you.It happens to everybody, you know, don't get too precious about it. The important thing is did your novel come out and was it supported by its publisher?So just tracing some of their arcs in Hollywood. Obviously, Didion's one of the most influential writers of her generation, there's a very rich literary tradition. Where do we see her footprint, her imprint in Hollywood? What are some of the ways that we can see her register in Hollywood, or reverberate outside of it?In the business itself, I don't know that she was influential directly. What we see is on the outside of it. So a lot of people were friends. She was like a famous hostess, famous hostess. The New York Public Library archives are set to open at the end of March, of Didion and Dunn's work, which was like completely incidental to my publication date. I just got lucky. There's a bunch of screenplays in there that they worked on that weren't produced. There's also her cookbooks, and I'm very excited to go through those and see that. So you might meet somebody there.Her account of what the vibe was when the Manson murders occurred, which is published in her essay The White Album, is still the one people talk about, even though there are a lot of different ways to come at it. That's how we think about the Manson murders: through her lens. Later on, when she's not writing directly about Hollywood anymore (and not really writing in Hollywood as much) but instead is writing about the headlines, about news events, about sensationalism in the news, she becomes a great media critic. We start to see her taking the things that she learned (having been around Hollywood people, having been on movie sets, having seen how the sausage is made) and she starts writing about politics. In that age, it is Hollywood's logic that you perform for the TV. We have the debates suddenly becoming televised, the conventions becoming televised, we start to see candidates who seem specifically groomed to win because they look good on TV. They're starting to win and rule the day.She writes about Newt Gingrich. Of course, Gingrich was the first politician to figure out how to harness C-SPAN to his own ends — the fact that there were TV cameras on the congressional floor. So she's writing about all of this stuff at a time when you can see other people writing about it. I mean, Neil Postman famously writes about it. But the way Didion does it is always very pegged to reviewing somebody's book, or she's thinking about a particular event, or she's been on the campaign plane or something like that. Like she's been on the inside, but with an outsider's eye.That also crops up in, for instance, her essays. “Sentimental Journeys” is one of her most famous ones. That one's about the case of the Central Park Five, and the jogger who was murdered. Of course, now, we're many decades out from that, and the convictions were vacated. We know about coerced confessions. Also Donald Trump arrives in the middle of that whole thing.But she's actually not interested in the guilt or innocence question, because a lot of people were writing about that. She's interested in how the city of New York and the nation perform themselves for themselves, seeing themselves through the long lens of a movie and telling themselves stories about themselves. You see this over and over in her writing, no matter what she's writing about. I think once she moved away from writing about the business so much, she became very interested in how Hollywood logic had taken over American public life writ large.That's fascinating. Like, again, she spends time in the industry, then basically she can only see it through that lens. Of course, Michael Dukakis in a tank is trying to be a set piece, of course in front of the Berlin Wall, you're finally doing set decoration rather than doing it outside of a brick wall somewhere. You mentioned the New York thing in Performing New York. I have lived in the city for over a decade now. The dumbest thing is when the mayor gets to wear the silly jacket whenever there's a snowstorm that says “Mr. Mayor.” It's all an act in so many ways. I guess that political choreography had to come from somewhere, and it seems like she was documenting a lot of that initial rise.Yeah, I think she really saw it. The question I would ask her, if I could, is how cognizant she was that she kept doing that. As someone who's written for a long time, you don't always recognize that you have the one thing you write about all the time. Other people then bring it up to you and you're like, “Oh, I guess you're right.” Even when you move into her grief memoir phase, which is how I think about the last few original works that she published, she uses movie logic constantly in those.I mean, The Year of Magical Thinking is a cyclical book, she goes over the same events over and over. But if you actually look at the language she's using, she talks about running the tape back, she talks about the edit, she talks about all these things as if she's running her own life through how a movie would tell a story. Maybe she knew very deliberately. She's not a person who does things just haphazardly, but it has the feeling of being so baked into her psyche at this point that she would never even think of trying to escape it.Fascinating.Yeah, that idea that you don't know what you are potentially doing, I've thought about that. I don't know what mine is. But either way. It's such a cool way to look at it. On a certain level, she pretty much succeeded at that, though, right? I think that when people think about Joan Didion, they think about a life that freshens up a movie, right? Like, it workedVery much, yeah. I'm gonna be really curious to see what happens over the next 10 years or so. I've been thinking about figures like Sylvia Plath or women with larger-than-life iconography and reputation and how there's a constant need to relook at their legacies and reinvent and rethink and reimagine them. There's a lot in the life of Didion that I think remains to be explored. I'm really curious to see where people go with it, especially with the opening of these archives and new personal information making its way into the world.Yeah, even just your ability to break some of those stories that have been locked away in archives out sounds like a really exciting addition to the scholarship. Just backing out a little bit, we live in a moment in which the relationship between pop culture and political life is fairly directly intertwined. Setting aside the steel-plated elephant in the room, you and I are friendly because we bonded over this idea that movies really are consequential. Coming out of this book and coming out of reporting on it, what are some of the relevances for today in particular?Yeah, I mean, a lot more than I thought, I guess, five years ago. I started work on the book at the end of Trump One, and it's coming out at the beginning of Trump Two, and there was this period in the middle of a slightly different vibe. But even then I watch TikTok or whatever. You see people talk about “main character energy” or the “vibe shift” or all of romanticizing your life. I would have loved to read a Didion essay on the way that young people sort of view themselves through the logic of the screens they have lived on and the way that has shaped America for a long time.I should confirm this, I don't think she wrote about Obama, or if she did, it was only a little bit. So her political writing ends in George W. Bush's era. I think there's one piece on Obama, and then she's writing about other things. It's just interesting to think about how her ideas of what has happened to political culture in America have seeped into the present day.I think the Hollywood logic, the cinematic logic has given way to reality TV logic. That's very much the logic of the Trump world, right? Still performing for cameras, but the cameras have shifted. The way that we want things from the cameras has shifted, too. Reality TV is a lot about creating moments of drama where they may or may not actually exist and bombarding you with them. I think that's a lot of what we see and what we feel now. I have to imagine she would think about it that way.There is one interesting essay that I feel has only recently been talked about. It's at the beginning of my book, too. It was in a documentary, and Gia Tolentino wrote about it recently. It's this essay she wrote in 2000 about Martha Stewart and about Martha Stewart's website. It feels like the 2000s was like, “What is this website thing? Why are people so into it?” But really, it's an essay about parasocial relationships that people develop (with women in particular) who they invent stories around and how those stories correspond to greater American archetypes. It's a really interesting essay, not least because I think it's an essay also about people's parasocial relationships with Joan Didion.So the rise of her celebrity in the 21st century, where people know who she is and carry around a tote bag, but don't really know what they're getting themselves into is very interesting to me. I think it is also something she thought about quite a bit, while also consciously courting it.Yeah, I mean, that makes a ton of sense. For someone who was so adept at using cinematic language to describe her own life with every living being having a camera directly next to them at all times. It seems like we are very much living in a world that she had at least put a lot of thought into, even if the technology wasn't around for her to specifically address it.Yes, completely.On that note, where can folks find the book? Where can folks find you? What's the elevator pitch for why they ought to check this out? Joan Didion superfan or just rather novice?Exactly! I think this book is not just for the fans, let me put it that way. Certainly, I think anyone who considers themselves a Didion fan will have a lot to enjoy here. The stuff you didn't know, hadn't read or just a new way to think through her cultural impact. But also, this is really a book that's as much for people who are just interested in thinking about the world we live in today a little critically. It's certainly a biography of American political culture as much as it is of Didion. There's a great deal of Hollywood history in there as well. Thinking about that sweep of the American century and change is what the book is doing. It's very, very, very informed by what I do in my day job as a movie critic at The New York Times. Thinking about what movies mean, what do they tell us about ourselves? I think this is what this book does. I have been told it's very fun to read. So I'm happy about that. It's not ponderous at all, which is good. It's also not that long.It comes out March 11th from Live Right, which is a Norton imprint. There will be an audiobook at the end of May that I am reading, which I'm excited about. And I'll be on tour for a large amount of March on the East Coast. Then in California, there's a virtual date, and there's a good chance I'll be popping up elsewhere all year, too. Those updates will be on my social feeds, which are all @alissawilkinson on whatever platform except X, which is fine because I don't really post there anymore.Alyssa, thank you so much for coming on.Thank you so much.Edited by Crystal Wang.If you have anything you'd like to see in this Sunday special, shoot me an email. Comment below! Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for supporting Numlock.Thank you so much for becoming a paid subscriber! Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips or feedback at walt@numlock.news. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.numlock.com/subscribe

Alissa Wilkinson joins Jeff to talk about her new book, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. Subscribe to First Edition via RSS, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. For episode extras, subscribe to the First Edition Substack. This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. Discussed in this episode: We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine by Alissa Wilkinson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On local economies, health, Jane Jacobs, Joan Didion, The Idiot by Dostoevsky, Frugal Hedonism, and more.hotliterati.com

Dave and Alonso welcome New York Times film critic Alissa Wilkinson to discuss her fascinating new book about author Joan Didion, her encounters with Hollywood, and her understanding of how show-business became the dominant language of the 20th century and beyond. We Tell Ourselves Stories is on sale now. Join our club, won't you?

This conversation with Alissa Wilkinson is a fascinating exploration of how the stories we tell ourselves - through Hollywood, through politics, through the media - shape the very fabric of our culture and our history. Wilkinson's work on the iconic writer Joan Didion provides a powerful lens to examine how the narratives we construct, often unconsciously, can profoundly influence the way we see the world and the decisions we make as individuals and as a society. What's so compelling about this discussion is the way it peels back the layers on these deeply ingrained stories - the myths of the American West, the heroic narratives of World War II, the celebrity-driven politics of the Reagan era. Wilkinson shows how these cultural touchstones don't just reflect our values, but actively shape them, often in ways that obscure uncomfortable truths or justify harmful actions. In an age where the very notion of objective reality is under assault, this conversation reminds us of the vital importance of interrogating the stories we tell ourselves. Because the stories we choose to believe - whether about our national identity, our political leaders, or our own personal histories - have real consequences. They determine how we see the world, how we make decisions, and ultimately, the kind of future we create for ourselves. So I encourage you to listen closely, to wrestle with the questions Wilkinson raises about the power of narrative, and to consider how the stories you've internalized might be shaping your own understanding of the world. It's a conversation that gets to the heart of what it means to be human in a complex, ever-shifting cultural landscape. Alissa Wilkinson is a movie critic at the New York Times and the author of "We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine," which will be published by Liveright on March 11, 2025.Alissa's Book:We Tell Ourselves StoriesAlissa's Recommendations:PredatorsZodiac Killer Project Subscribe to Our Substack: Shifting CultureConnect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.usGo to www.shiftingculturepodcast.com to interact and donate. Every donation helps to produce more podcasts for you to enjoy.Follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Threads, Bluesky or YouTubeConsider Giving to the podcast and to the ministry that my wife and I do around the world. Just click on the support the show link belowEmail jjohnson@allnations.us, so we can get your creative project off the ground! Faith That Challenges. Conversations that Matter. Laughs included. Subscribe Now!Breaking down faith, culture & big questions - a mix of humor with real spiritual growth. Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the show

We began this episode talking about Joan Didion as a Hollywood figure and the importance of John Wayne, as well as her importance as a political writer with early strong conservative political views. Didion's portrayal of Hollywood and her lesser-known film criticism also came up for discussion, followed by a consideration of the work of the legendary film critic Pauline Kael and how Wilkinson, a film critic for The New York Times, decides what films to review or critique. Alyssa Wilkinson then spoke of what she views as the job of the film critic, and she spoke of her strong admiration for "Nickel Boys," which she called this year's best film. She and Krasny spoke of blockbusters, disaster and apocalyptic films, and Spielberg's "Jaws," and the larger question of the effect on our imaginations of the so-called Hollywood dream machine.Krasny and Wilkinson discussed villains and evil in contemporary films and Martin Scorsese's notion of too many films being like thrill rides and avoiding ordinary people and nuanced drama. They spoke, too, of the Oscars and discussed the history of the Oscars, and then went on to the impact of social media and streaming platforms and technology shifts and the question of misunderstood and too-long films and the tensions between art and commerce. They returned to Didion and her overall importance and concluded with a discussion of Wilkinson's view on faith and how she became a film critic and her film critic-filled Brooklyn neighborhood.

Lecture by Swami Tyagananda, given on December 15, 2024, at the Ramakrishna Vedanta Society, Boston, MA

Staff writers and contributors are celebrating The New Yorker's centennial by revisiting notable works from the magazine's archive, in a series called Takes. The writer Jia Tolentino and the cartoonist Roz Chast join the Radio Hour to present their selections. Tolentino discusses an essay by a genius observer of American life, the late Joan Didion, about Martha Stewart. Didion's profile, “everywoman.com,” was published in 2000, and Tolentino finds in it a defense of perfectionism and a certain kind of ruthlessness: she suggests that “most of the lines Didion writes about Stewart, it's hard not to hear the echoes of people saying that about her.” Chast chose to focus on cartoons by George Booth, who contributed to The New Yorker for at least half of the magazine's life. You can read Roz Chast on George Booth, Jia Tolentino on Joan Didion, and many more essays from the Takes series here.  

Lili Anolik, author of the new book "Didion & Babitz," delves into the complex and largely unexplored relationship between literary icons Joan Didion and Eve Babitz in 1960s Los Angeles. Through newly discovered letters and extensive research, Anolik explains how these contrasting personalities — Didion's calculated reserve and Babitz's uninhibited sensuality — shaped our understanding of them and the era. Their story illuminates broader themes about women's voices in American letters, the nature of literary persona, and the price of artistic ambition.

The girlies open the Binchtopia Valentine Hotline once again to offer listeners advice for navigating the ups and down of love. Binchies around the world call in with important questions like: why do I always find myself dating older men? How do I escape a six year situationship? Why does my boyfriend only pay for things in cash? Plus, so much more! Digressions include the queen of Pakistan's incredible press tour, whether or not we'll be reading Joan Didion's diary, and asking ourselves: is Kylie Kelce okay? If you're over 18 and you'd like to be matched with a Binchie near you, please fill out the form here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc7CC21MxpV02CGpRx5Vg7N4KgYeK_GcF7Mi_EATesUuWBiaA/viewform This episode was produced by Julia Hava and Eliza McLamb and edited by Allison Hagan.  To support the podcast on Patreon and access 50+ bonus episodes, mediasodes, zoom hangouts and more, visit patreon.com/binchtopia and become a patron today.  

Styrktaraðilar þáttarins: Myntkaup, Stjörnugrís og Saltverk. Hlustaðu í fullri lengd inni á www.patreon.com/skodanabraedur Joan Didion skrifaði skýrt og fallega. Hún kjarnaði 60s í Kaliforníu og tjúnaði sig inn í hjarta Ameríku á sínum 70 ára rithöfundaferli. Hérna er farið yfir hennar vision, pælingar og áhrif. Hún byrjaði mikið af þessu sem við þekkjum vel í dag og hefur m.a inflúensað Lana Del Rey sérstaklega. Guð blessi ykkur kæra bræðralag.

We are excited to welcome Alissa Wilkinson back to the show. Alissa is an author and staff film critic for the New York Times. It has been a few years since we had her on the show to talk about the 2019 Greta Gerwig adaptation of Little Women and since then she's written two wonderful books, the most recent being We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. We talk Joan Didion, John Wayne, old Hollywood, growing up in fundamentalism, the subversive spirituality of Martin Scorsese, what Jackass has to say (or show) about male friendship, and much more! If you enjoy the episode, please be sure to share it with a friend or two! Jackass Article Pre-Order We Tell Ourselves Stories *Pre-order from your local bookseller if possible! Shoutouts: Frederick Wiseman films (Available on Kanopy) How to Do Nothing A Different Man The Apprentice Follow Alissa Website Instagram BlueSky Follow Us ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Philip's Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠ Share Your Questions/Suggestions/Feedback With Us: Email: thesubstancepod@gmail.com DM on Instagram Support Us: Support the show with an individual donation on CashApp to $TheSubstancePod or become a monthly Patreon supporter at patreon.com/TheSubstancePod

The girlies dive into some of Hollywood's most infamous celebrity feuds — Joan Didion vs Eve Babitz, Joan Crawford vs Bette Devis, Kim Cattrall vs Sarah Jessica Parker, and the recent lawsuits between Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. Digressions include Kim Cattrall's scatting, Ryan Murphy being a constant threat to society, and the age-old pattern of women fighting over the worst man you've ever heard of. This is a teaser for a Patreon-exclusive episode. To listen to the full episode and access over 50 bonus episodes, mediasodes, and monthly zoom hangs visit patreon.com/binchtopia and become a patron today.

Vanity Fair’s Lili Anolik examines her book Didion Babitz, which delves into Joan Didion’s fascinating life and her relationship with writer Eve Babitz. Author Ken Follett discusses cathedrals and the reopening of Notre Dame.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John is joined by the actor, director, writer, and producer Griffin Dunne to discuss The Friday Afternoon Club, his recent memoir about his famous literary family. Dunne offers intimate portraits of his sister Dominique, an actress on the rise four decades ago (having starred in Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist in 1982) who was strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend; his father, Dominick, whose coverage of Dominique's murder trial in Vanity Fair turned him into the marquee chronicler of celebrity true-crime cases of the Eighties and Nineties, from O.J. Simpson to Claus von Bulow to the Menendez brothers; and his aunt, the legendary Joan Didion, about whom Griffin made an acclaimed Netflix documentary. Dunne also discusses the highlights of own acting career, from playing the lead in the Martin Scorsese cult classic After Hours to his memorable cameo in the first season of Succession.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices