Podcasts about person be

The Work of Art is a series of in-depth conversations from artists, poets, musicians and more on how they make their art and what goes on inside their heads with Adam Moss, former editor of New York magazine. Moss joins us to talk about his time as a painter, how he decided the composition of the book, changing how we appreciate art over time and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                     New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app Featured Books (Episode): The Work of Art by Adam Moss How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Angels in America by Tony Kushner The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Beth Blum, Associate Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today

Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke with John about how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus of today, who preach male and female versions of “stop apologizing!” You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll either help yourself or learn how to stop caring. Mentioned Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) Rachel Hollis, Girl, Stop Apologizing (2019) Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k (2016) Richard Carlson, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff…. (1997) Alain de Botton, How Proust Can Change Your Life (2012) New Thought (philosophy? religious movement?) Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) Orison Swett Marden, How to Succeed (1896) David Riesman et al. The Lonely Crowd (1950) Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1945) Helen Gurley Brown, Having It All (1982) Micki McGee, Self-Help Inc. (2007; concept of”self-belabourment”) Tiffany Dufu, Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing (2019) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic Art of Not Giving a Fuck (2015) Recallable books Epictetus, Handbook (125 C.E.) Sheil Heti, How Should a Person Be (2012) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Joseph Conrad Nostromo (1904) Read Here: 38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 19, 2024 is: nonplus • nahn-PLUS • verb To nonplus someone is to perplex them, or in other words, to cause them to be at a loss as to what to say, think, or do. // The stranger's odd question about the town where my grandfather was born nonplussed me. See the entry > Examples: "Motherhood is only somewhat less likely to nonplus the reader than How Should a Person Be? On one level, it's a feminist disputation over art versus maternity—whether a female writer must be a mother or whether she can get away with being just (just!) a writer. But this is also a book about life with a capital L." — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 10 Feb. 2022 Did you know? Does nonplus perplex you? You aren't alone. Some people believe the non in nonplus means "not," and assume that to be nonplussed is to be calm and poised, but in fact the opposite is true. If you are among the baffled, the word's history may clarify things. In Latin, non plus means "no more." When nonplus debuted in English in the 16th century, it was used as a noun synonymous with quandary. Someone brought to a nonplus had reached an impasse in an argument and could say no more. In short time, people began applying nonplus as a verb, and today it is often used in participial form with the meaning "perplexed" (as in "Joellen's strange remark left us utterly nonplussed").

In this episode of the Granta Podcast, we speak to the novelist Sheila Heti, author of the books How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood and Pure Colour. Her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, was published in 2024.We discuss her new book, along with her interview with the academic Phyllis Rose that appeared in Granta 166: Generations. You can find all of Heti's contributions to the magazine here.Follow these links to subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Leo Robson is a cultural journalist whose work has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New Yorker, and the New Left Review. Josie Mitchell is senior editor at Granta. 

Last week we were joined by the wonderful Sheila Heti to celebrate the launch of her Alphabetical Diaries. In taking a decade of her journals, sorting the sentences alphabetically, then paring them down to about a tenth of their original length, Sheila Heti has freed a slice of her life from the shackles of time and in doing so has extracted some other, deeper kind of meaning from it. Alphabetical Diaries is a work that provokes vertiginous reflections on the construction of the self; that reveals how our psychological ticks and day-to-day fixations weigh heavily on our lives; that leads us to reconsider how we see, treat, judge and misjudge our friends and lovers; and that even makes us question how the book as an object works. In conversation with Adam Biles.Buy Alphabetical Diaries: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/alphabetical-diaries-2*Sheila Heti is the author of eleven books, including the novels Pure Colour, Motherhood, and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the New Classics of the twenty-first century. Her books have been translated into twenty-four languages. She lives in Toronto, Canada. Alphabetical Diaries is her first book with Fitzcarraldo Editions. Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. His latest novel, Beasts of England, a sequel of sorts to Animal Farm, is available now. Buy a signed copy here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/beasts-of-englandListen to Alex Freiman's latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How does the past live on within our experience of the present? And how does our decision to speak about or write down our recollections of how things were change our understanding of those memories--how does it change us in the present? Asking those questions back in 2019 brought RTB into the company of memory-obsessed writers like Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. Discussing autofiction by Rachel Cusk, Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard, John and Elizabeth begin to understand that the line between real-life fact, memory, and fiction is not quite as sharp as we had thought. Joining Recall This Book for this conversation is philosopher Helena De Bres, author of influential articles including “The Many, not the Few: Pluralism about Global Distributive Justice”, “Justice in Transnational Governance”, “What's Special About the State?” “Local Food: The Moral Case” and most recently "Narrative and Meaning in Life". (Her website contains links to her many fine articles for fellow philosophers and for the general public). She has recently begun to work on moral philosophy, especially the question of what makes a life meaningful, and on philosophy of art. John ranks his favorite anthropologists, while Elizabeth wonders whether autofiction necessarily takes on the affect of an academic department meeting--and what that affect has to do with Kazuo Ishiguro. Discussed in this episode: "A Sketch of the Past," Virginia Woolf "Finding Innocence and Experience: Voices in Memoir," Sue William Silverman The Outline Trilogy, Rachel Cusk My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausgaard How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life, Sheila Heti An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro The Moth The Day of Shelly's Death: The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief, Renato Rosaldo Memoir: An Introduction, G. Thomas Couser The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell Or Orwell: Writing and Democratic Socialism, Alex Woloch Listen and Read Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

How does the past live on within our experience of the present? And how does our decision to speak about or write down our recollections of how things were change our understanding of those memories--how does it change us in the present? Asking those questions back in 2019 brought RTB into the company of memory-obsessed writers like Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. Discussing autofiction by Rachel Cusk, Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard, John and Elizabeth begin to understand that the line between real-life fact, memory, and fiction is not quite as sharp as we had thought. Joining Recall This Book for this conversation is philosopher Helena De Bres, author of influential articles including “The Many, not the Few: Pluralism about Global Distributive Justice”, “Justice in Transnational Governance”, “What's Special About the State?” “Local Food: The Moral Case” and most recently "Narrative and Meaning in Life". (Her website contains links to her many fine articles for fellow philosophers and for the general public). She has recently begun to work on moral philosophy, especially the question of what makes a life meaningful, and on philosophy of art. John ranks his favorite anthropologists, while Elizabeth wonders whether autofiction necessarily takes on the affect of an academic department meeting--and what that affect has to do with Kazuo Ishiguro. Discussed in this episode: "A Sketch of the Past," Virginia Woolf "Finding Innocence and Experience: Voices in Memoir," Sue William Silverman The Outline Trilogy, Rachel Cusk My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausgaard How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life, Sheila Heti An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro The Moth The Day of Shelly's Death: The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief, Renato Rosaldo Memoir: An Introduction, G. Thomas Couser The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell Or Orwell: Writing and Democratic Socialism, Alex Woloch Listen and Read Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How does the past live on within our experience of the present? And how does our decision to speak about or write down our recollections of how things were change our understanding of those memories--how does it change us in the present? Asking those questions back in 2019 brought RTB into the company of memory-obsessed writers like Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust. Discussing autofiction by Rachel Cusk, Sheila Heti and Karl Ove Knausgaard, John and Elizabeth begin to understand that the line between real-life fact, memory, and fiction is not quite as sharp as we had thought. Joining Recall This Book for this conversation is philosopher Helena De Bres, author of influential articles including “The Many, not the Few: Pluralism about Global Distributive Justice”, “Justice in Transnational Governance”, “What's Special About the State?” “Local Food: The Moral Case” and most recently "Narrative and Meaning in Life". (Her website contains links to her many fine articles for fellow philosophers and for the general public). She has recently begun to work on moral philosophy, especially the question of what makes a life meaningful, and on philosophy of art. John ranks his favorite anthropologists, while Elizabeth wonders whether autofiction necessarily takes on the affect of an academic department meeting--and what that affect has to do with Kazuo Ishiguro. Discussed in this episode: "A Sketch of the Past," Virginia Woolf "Finding Innocence and Experience: Voices in Memoir," Sue William Silverman The Outline Trilogy, Rachel Cusk My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausgaard How Should a Person Be?: A Novel from Life, Sheila Heti An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro The Moth The Day of Shelly's Death: The Poetry and Ethnography of Grief, Renato Rosaldo Memoir: An Introduction, G. Thomas Couser The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell Or Orwell: Writing and Democratic Socialism, Alex Woloch Listen and Read Here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Acclaimed Canadian writer Sheila Heti speaks with Molly Cross-Blanchard in this conversation from our 2024 Incite series, presented in partnership with the Vancouver Public Library. Her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, collects lines from a decade's worth of her journals—rearranged in alphabetical order to create something entirely fresh and sublime. Heti is the author of ten previous books, including experimental and philosophical works such as Motherhood, Pure Colour, and How Should a Person Be?

In this fantastic recent episode from our colleagues at Novel Dialogue, Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and John to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Colour (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be” )–as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why “auto-fiction” strikes her as a “bad category” and “a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally” since “the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience.” if you enjoyed this Novel Dialogue crossover conversation, you might also check out earlier ones with Joshua Cohen, Charles Yu, Caryl Phillips, Jennifer Egan, Helen Garner and Orhan Pamuk. Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House (overlap of reality and recollection): “When I look into the Æneid now, I can always see two pictures: the one on the page, and another behind that: blue and purple rocks and yellow-green piñons with flat tops, little clustered houses clinging together for protection, a rude tower rising in their midst, rising strong, with calmness and courage–behind it a dark grotto, in its depths a crystal spring.”) William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Listen and Read: Transcript: 6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this fantastic recent episode from our colleagues at Novel Dialogue, Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and John to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Colour (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be” )–as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why “auto-fiction” strikes her as a “bad category” and “a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally” since “the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience.” if you enjoyed this Novel Dialogue crossover conversation, you might also check out earlier ones with Joshua Cohen, Charles Yu, Caryl Phillips, Jennifer Egan, Helen Garner and Orhan Pamuk. Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House (overlap of reality and recollection): “When I look into the Æneid now, I can always see two pictures: the one on the page, and another behind that: blue and purple rocks and yellow-green piñons with flat tops, little clustered houses clinging together for protection, a rude tower rising in their midst, rising strong, with calmness and courage–behind it a dark grotto, in its depths a crystal spring.”) William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Listen and Read: Transcript: 6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this fantastic recent episode from our colleagues at Novel Dialogue, Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and John to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Colour (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be” )–as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why “auto-fiction” strikes her as a “bad category” and “a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally” since “the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience.” if you enjoyed this Novel Dialogue crossover conversation, you might also check out earlier ones with Joshua Cohen, Charles Yu, Caryl Phillips, Jennifer Egan, Helen Garner and Orhan Pamuk. Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House (overlap of reality and recollection): “When I look into the Æneid now, I can always see two pictures: the one on the page, and another behind that: blue and purple rocks and yellow-green piñons with flat tops, little clustered houses clinging together for protection, a rude tower rising in their midst, rising strong, with calmness and courage–behind it a dark grotto, in its depths a crystal spring.”) William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Listen and Read: Transcript: 6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In this fantastic recent episode from our colleagues at Novel Dialogue, Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and John to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Colour (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be” )–as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why “auto-fiction” strikes her as a “bad category” and “a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally” since “the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience.” if you enjoyed this Novel Dialogue crossover conversation, you might also check out earlier ones with Joshua Cohen, Charles Yu, Caryl Phillips, Jennifer Egan, Helen Garner and Orhan Pamuk. Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House (overlap of reality and recollection): “When I look into the Æneid now, I can always see two pictures: the one on the page, and another behind that: blue and purple rocks and yellow-green piñons with flat tops, little clustered houses clinging together for protection, a rude tower rising in their midst, rising strong, with calmness and courage–behind it a dark grotto, in its depths a crystal spring.”) William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Listen and Read: Transcript: 6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Sheila Heti is a beacon of contemporary literature, renowned for her unique narrative voice and groundbreaking novels such as "Pure Colour," "Motherhood," and "How Should a Person Be?" This week, Sheila joins host Charlotte Alter to discuss her latest literary endeavor, "Alphabetical Diaries," a profound exploration of life distilled from a decade's worth of diary entries, showcasing her innovative approach to storytelling. The pair delve into the intricate relationship between fiction and reality in Heti's work, and unpack the concept of "autofiction," a term frequently associated with her inventive writing style. Sheila reflects on the evolution of her writing style and her recent experiments with artificial intelligence in crafting narratives. Join Charlotte, Sheila, and Sheila's dog Feldman for a deep dive into the art of writing, the blurring of life and literature, and the relentless pursuit of authenticity in modern storytelling.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Around 40 percent of people who marry eventually get a divorce. Almost half of children are born to unmarried women. The number of close friends Americans report having has been on a steep decline since the 1990s, especially among men. Millions of us are growing old alone. We are living out a radical experiment in how we live, love, parent and age — and for many, it's failing.That's partial context, I think, for the recent burst of interest and media coverage of polyamory. People want more love in their lives, and opening their relationships is one way to find it. A poll from last year found that one-third of Americans believe their ideal relationship would involve something other than strict monogamy.But polyamory, for all its possibilities, isn't right for many, and it doesn't have that much to say about parenting or aging or friendship. As radical as it may sound, it's not nearly radical enough. It's not just romance that could be imagined more expansively. It's everything.“If this is such a significant relationship in my life, why is there no term for it?” wonders NPR's Rhaina Cohen about a relationship that transcends the language we have available for friendship. Her forthcoming book, “The Other Significant Others: Reimagining Life With Friendship at the Center,” is a window into a world of relational possibilities most of us never even imagined existed. It's a call to open up what we can conceive of as possible. Some of these models might appeal to you. Others might not. But they all pose a question worth asking: What kinds of relationships would you want in your life, if you felt you could ask for them?Mentioned:“Men's Social Circles are Shrinking” by Daniel A. CoxThe Two-Parent Privilege by Melissa S. KearneyHow Should a Person Be? by Sheila HetiBook Recommendations:Far From the Tree by Andrew SolomonWe All Want Impossible Things by Catherine NewmanThy Neighbor's Wife by Gay TaleseThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on X @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld with additional mixing from Efim Shapiro. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show's production team also includes Michelle Harris, Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Sonia Herrero.

“I'm interested in the limitations of the mind — like that your brain really does only go down so many paths, and then there's a million paths that for some reason, it never goes down…”  Sheila Heti's Alphabetical Diaries is a memoir in a form all its own. Told in order, sentence by sentence from A to Z, to tell a story of identity and change in a lyrically constructed way. Heti joins us to talk about the inception and writing of this book, intense and purposeful editing, creative process and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.  This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Featured Books (Episode):  Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti Pure Colour by Sheila Heti How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Ticknor by Sheila Heti 

In this episode, we speak to author Sheila Heti about her brilliant new book, Alphabetical Diaries, in which she alphabetizes her diaries over a ten-year period, creating parallels and juxtapositions between past and present versions of the self. We speak about the role of formal constraints in her work and her resistance of linear time, progress and the notion of a complete, continuous narrative of selfhood. We think about rhythm and the materiality of language in relation to associative narrative structure. We chat about Heti's body of work, from How Should a Person Be? to Motherhood and Pure Colour, exploring the myriad ways in which she interrogates time and selfhood through hybrid forms, pushing the boundaries of the novel. Sheila Heti is the author of eleven books, including Alphabetical Diaries, Pure Colour, Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times; a list of fifteen writers from around the world who are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her books have been translated into twenty-five languages. She is the current Alice Munro Chair of Creativity at Western University in London, Ontario. In 2022, she was the Franke Visiting Fellow at Yale, and an Associate Research Scholar and Lecturer in Religious Studies, teaching Fate and Chance in Art and Experience with ⁠Noreen Khawaja⁠. References Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti Pure Colour by Sheila Heti Motherhood by Sheila Heti How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti

On this week's episode, I have author Shelia Heti, book writer of Pure Color, Motherhood, Alphabetical Diaries, and many many more. We talk about how I discovered her writing and why Pure Color meant so much to me. She also explains her writing process and how she approaches a story. There is so much more.Show NotesSheila Heti Website: https://www.sheilaheti.com/Sheila Heti on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_HetiMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Newsletter - https://michaeljamin.com/newsletterAutogenerated TranscriptSheila Heti:That's what I was thinking.Michael Jamin:It was work harder.Sheila Heti:I was like, I got to work harder than any other writer alive.Michael Jamin:And what did that work look like to you?Sheila Heti:Just always writing and always not being satisfied and being a real critic of my work and trying to make it better and trying to be more, try to get it to sound and more interesting and figure out what my sentences were and letting myself be bad and repeat myself until I got better. And I don't think that I ever let that go. I'm not sitting here today saying, I work harder than any other writer alive. I do remember having that feeling when I was young. That's what I need to do. That's the only wayMichael Jamin:You're listening to What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity. I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts.Michael Jamin:What the hell is Michael Jamin talking about today? Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about, honestly, one of the greatest, I feel, one of the greatest writers of my generation. Yep, yep. Her name is Sheila Hedy. She's the author of I guess 11 books, including Pure Color, although it's spelled with a U, the Canadian Way, a Garden of Creatures, motherhood, how Should a Person Be? And her forthcoming book, alphabetical Diaries. And she's just an amazing talent. So she's an author, but I don't describe her this way. And by the way, I'm going to talk about Sheila for about 59 minutes, and then at the end I'll let her get a word and then I'll probably cut her off. But I have to give her a good proper introduction. She's really, really that amazing of a writer. So author isn't really the right word. She really is, in my opinion, an artist who paints with words.And if you imagine going up to a Van Gogh painting, standing right up next to it, and then you see all these brushstrokes, and then you take a step back and you're like, okay, now I see the patterns of the brushstrokes. And you take a little step back, oh, the patterns form an image. Then another step back, you say, oh, that's a landscape. It really is like that with her writing. She has these images that she paints with words, and then they form bigger thoughts and you pull back and it's really amazing what she does and how she kind of reinvents herself with each piece. And so I'm so excited and honored she for you to join me here so I can really talk more about this with you. Thank you for coming.Sheila Heti:Yeah, thanks. That introduction made me so happy. Thank you for saying all that.Michael Jamin:Lemme tell you by the way, how I first discovered you. So I have a daughter, Lola, she's 20, she's a writer, and we trade. I write something we trade. It's really lovely that we get to talk about. And so she's off at school, but she left a book behind and I'm like, all right, what's this book she left behind? Because that way I can read it and we can talk about that, have our book club. And she left Pure Color. And I was like, oh, I like the cover, so I'll take a look at it. And what I didn't realize, it was the perfect book to discover you by because it's book about among other things, about a father's relationship with his daughter. So I text her, I say, I'm reading pure color. She goes, Sheila Hedy's, one of my favorite authors. If I could write anybody, it would be her. I'm like, all right, well, I got to continue reading this. And then a couple of days later, I get to the part and I send her a text. I say, you and me would make a great leaf. And she goes, that's my favorite part. The tree. That's my favorite part.You're also an interviewer. You've interviewed some amazing writers. Joan Didion, Margaret Atwood, big shots. And so I'm sure as an interviewer, you give a lot of thought to your first question. So I was trying to, I better give a lot of thought to my first question, and I kept coming back to the same one, which is pure color. It's such a big swing. If you were to pitch me this idea, you'd say, I'm going to write a book. It's about a father's relationship with his daughter, but it's also about a woman's unrequited love with her friend, but it's also about the soul and what it means to have a life. I'd say, I don't know, Sheila, that's kind of a big swing. I don't know about this, but you hit it out of the park, you did it. It was beautifully done. And so my first question is, you come up with an idea like this, where do you get the nerve to think that you can actually pull this off? This is really where do you get the nerve to think that, okay, I'm going to do this.Sheila Heti:The nerve.Michael Jamin:Well, it's such a big swing. It's like, how do you know you can do this? Do you know what I'm saying?Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I could do it. So it's nice to hear. I mean, I don't think that you ever think you're going to be able to finish the book that you start, and then when you finish a book, you never think you're ever going to start a new one. That's sort of where I am right now. In that confused place. There's a part of it that always feels like, I dunno how to explain it. I mean, I don't know how to answer that question. It's a weird process. There's no process. There's no system to doing it, and then you hope you did it. You feel good and it feels done, but you dunno how you ever got there.Michael Jamin:And how do you know you arrived? How do you know when it's time to quit on something? And do you ever quit on something?Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah, A lot. A lot. But usually not like three or four years in, usually 60 pages in or something like that.Michael Jamin:60Sheila Heti:Pages is when you start thinking this is not working.Michael Jamin:Is it a gut feeling? How do you knowSheila Heti:Your curiosity runs out?Michael Jamin:Your curiosity runs out. Okay, so you get bored by it yourself?Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Is that what you're saying?Sheila Heti:Yeah, it's just like, that was fun. That was nice. That was a good couple of weeks. I was really excited. I really thought this was going somewhere. And then it just ends. It's like a relationship. You think, oh, this is so great, I'm going to be with this person. And then after six months you're like,Michael Jamin:I was kidding myself. But you're writing. I have so much I want to say, it seems like you reinvent yourself with each piece. You know what I'm saying? It's like pure color is very, very different from how should a person be, which I was like, okay, I want to read this. I'm not sure how should a person be, which is extremely different from alphabetical diaries, which is almost like an experiment. And I wonder, do you get pushback from your agent or your publisher? Do they want you to do the same thing? We know it works.Sheila Heti:No, I think that at this point there's no expectation of that. When I wrote my second book, there was a feeling like that's not the first one. And there was some disappointment and the publisher said, this book doesn't count as your next book. In part, I think it was so different, but I think at this point that's, I mean, I've been publishing for 20 years. That's not really what people say to me anymore.Michael Jamin:Really? What do they say? They say, oh good, this is fresh. And it's more from you.Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I guess I changed publishers a lot more than other people do. So my publisher of motherhood didn't like pure color, so they rejected it. So I found a different publisher and the publisher of Tickner, my second book didn't like how should a person be? So I found a different publisher. So I think I move around a lot for that reason.Michael Jamin:Is that common with authors? You have to tell me all about this author thing? No, it's not really common.Sheila Heti:No. Usually you have one publisher and one editor and you just stick with them for a long time. SoMichael Jamin:It seems though you came up through the art. Alright, I have this idea of who you are from reading your books. You have, it's all very personal what you write and which makes it brave. It's brave for a couple of reasons. It's brave because you're being so vulnerable, you're putting yourself out there, but it's also brave. I feel like you're trying something new each time and that could fail. And so that to me is part of what makes your writing so exciting. But do you have any expectation when you're writing something which is so different, do you have an expectation of your reader how you want them to react?Sheila Heti:I mean, I want them to get to the end of the book. That's what I want. I want to draw them through, but I don't think I have a feeling like, oh, I want them to be sad on this page and I want them to be curious of this page and feel this way on this page. I just want them to be interested enough to get to the end. So how do I keep that momentum up and how some people conversation, they have long monologues, they're like a monologue, but I'm not because I'm always afraid people are going to lose interest. So I kind of feel like the same with my book. I'm always afraid that somebody's going to lose interest. So I'm always trying to keep it moving,Michael Jamin:But it's not an emotional reaction. I mean, your writing is very philosophical to me. When I'm reading your work, I feel like maybe this is my theory about what you have, and I'm sure it's not right, but it's that there are passages which I feel are so rich and so smart, and I have so much thought that I have to go back and read it again. So I'm wondering if that's what you're thinking. I want to write something that makes people have to read it again.Sheila Heti:No, I never think that because a very fast reader, and I don't reread passages and I don't read slowly. So for me, I'm always thinking that people are reading. I'm always imagining the person reading kind of fast,Michael Jamin:But thought. I mean some of them are really, some of your thoughts are very deep and very profound, and I'm like, I'm not sure if I understood all this. I got to read it again. I mean, don't you think? No.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. I don't really think about that. I don't really think about the person, the reader in that way of like, are they going to have to read this again? Is this going to be hard for them to understand? I think my language is very straightforward. Yeah. I don't know how I think about the reader. I think of myself as the reader. So I'm really writing it so that I like every sentence. I like the way it turns. I like the pictures it makes.Michael Jamin:But when you say I want them to get to the end, what are you hoping they'll do at the end? Is there any hope or expectation?Sheila Heti:Well, I think especially in pure color, the end is really important. It kind of makes the whole book makes sense. And motherhood too, and maybe less how should a person be and less alphabetical diaries. But I think in some cases, a book, I'm somebody who doesn't always read books to the end. I like getting taste of different author's minds and so on. But I think in the case of some books, you have to read it to the end to really understand the whole, so that's in the case of pure color, why I wanted people to get to the endMichael Jamin:BecauseSheila Heti:It makes the beginning mean something different. If you've read.Michael Jamin:It does. I mean it is, and it's about processing grief. So do you outline when you come up with an idea, where do you begin?Sheila Heti:Well, with pure color, I thought I want to write a book about the history of art criticism. So I always start off really far away from where I end up. I always think that I want to write a book of nonfiction and I'm not a good nonfiction writer, so it always ends up being a novel. But I think I usually start off with an, well, in the case of this book, I also started off with this title that I had in my dream. The title was Critics Bayer, BARE. So I was thinking about art criticism and so on, but then I don't know, the books kind of take on their own direction. I never really understood when people said that they had characters that sort of did things that they didn't expect. But I feel like that is true sometimes of the book as a whole. It moves in a direction I didn't expect, so I couldn't outline.Michael Jamin:You don't outline all. And so does it require you to discover what the story is then once you find it, toss out the stuff that's not the story orSheila Heti:Yeah, I basically write way too much and then just cut and try to find the story and move things in different orders and try to find the plot after. I've written a ton of stuff already,Michael Jamin:Because I know from reading, you come from the art world, you're an artist and I think you hang out with artists, people, so you talk about what art is, is that right or no, do not shatter what I think of now. That's not itSheila Heti:Mean and relationships and all that kind ofMichael Jamin:Stuff and relationships. Because I mean, I don't know, it seems like that's why I say you're an artist. You have these conversations even about what art is. And do you draw inspiration from paintings when you approach?Sheila Heti:Yeah, I'm interested in the book as art. I think more than storytelling. I'm interested in the book as sort of an experience that you're undergoing in different way from just the experience of being told a story. I don't think that I'm so interested probably in the things that a lot of other novelists are interested in, character and plot and conflict and all those things.Michael Jamin:Well, it's really, I've heard you say this, it's really, you're writing various forms of you and it's very personal and very intimate. But you also made the distinction in something I read where there's Sheila, the author, then there's Sheila, the character. Is that right?Sheila Heti:Yeah. I mean, in two of the books there's kind of a character that sort of stands in a way for me, but it never really, it doesn't feel like a direct transcription of myself or my life or my thoughts. There's always this feeling of maybe it's like how actors are, there's a part of yourself that goes into the character and there's other parts of yourself that are left out.Michael Jamin:And so I was going to say, is there stuff about you that you leave out, for example? I mean, how should a person be? Or alphabetical diaries, it feels like we're talking about you, right?Sheila Heti:Yeah. Well, how should a person be felt? A lot like a character pretty, I was thinking about Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. This was like 2005, and Britney Spears and these kind of women in culture that were bad girls and doing things sort of the subject of so much attention and so narcissistic or considered Narcissistic and the Hills, which was a show that I really loved. And sort of thinking about this character in the book being a voice that was somewhere between me and those girls. So there was this, this layering on of personalities, which I'm not thinking about. What does it mean to try to be a celebrity? What does it mean to be one? To be looked at, to idolize oneself? Those are my diaries. So there wasn't a sense of a character in the same way, but because the sentences are separated from one another, I guess it's like I don't feel like I'm telling anybody anything about my life. There's no anecdote in there.Michael Jamin:But I see that's the thing. And we'll just talk about alphabetical diaries because you're telling with such an, let me tell people what it's, so it's basically an ordinary diary is chronological. This is what I did today and this is tomorrow, whatever. But you grouped your diary by the first letter of each sentence, which organized, and this is again, another high degree of difficulty. This could have easily been gimmicky, but it was a rethinking of what a diary is. And when I say patterns emerge, so for example, when you get to D, these was do not whatever or do this or that. So you hear, okay, so here's a person creating rules for themselves. And then an E was even though, so now they're creating rules, but creating exceptions for these rules, making allowances. And so what you have is, and was so interesting about it, many of these thoughts were contradictory.So you're painting a picture of this person, but in one sentence, okay, maybe she's dating this guy. And the next sentence, this other guy, I'm like, well, what's going on here? Then I realize, oh, this is not chronological. And so I'm getting a complete picture of this person, which is so interesting, but, so I know who I guess know who you are, but I don't know who you are today. I know who you are as this arching thing in your life, which is so fricking interesting. And that was where the thought process going into this,Sheila Heti:Yeah, mean. So it's like 10 years of diaries and I put it into Excel and the a z function. So it's completely alphabetical first letter of the sentence and then the second letter and the third letter. And it was just, I mean, I guess I wanted to see exactly that. What happens if you look at yourself in that way? Do you see patterns? Do you understand yourself in a different way? Not narratively, but as a collection of themes or Yeah, exactly. That a scientific or sort of a cross section of yourself.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Sheila Heti:And it worked that way. I think with the diaries, what you do see is, oh, there are sort of these recurring thoughts and these recurring themes and these recurring ways of perceiving the world and perceiving yourself that persists over 10 years. That actually the one self, you think of yourself as this thing that's constantly changing through time and especially a diary gives you that feeling, but then when you do it alphabetical, the self looks like a really static kind of thing in way, no, I'm actually just these few little bubbles of concerns that don't change,Michael Jamin:That keep recurring when, by the way, when people say everything's been done before everything's been written, it's like, well, you haven't read Sheila Heady. Start reading hers. This is different. This why's so interesting about, that's why I think you're such an amazing writer, and it totally worked. Totally. You get a picture of this person and the recurring themes and recurring worries and, and even one of them, some things that struck me, there was one passage where it's like you go into a bookstore and you're like, isn't this also novels? Isn't it also unimportant? And I'm like, no, if it was, you wouldn't be doing this. So this was just a thought that you had at one point. It's not how you feel. It's how you felt at this one moment, right?Sheila Heti:Yeah, yeah. Literary fiction. Yeah. Like what a little tiny thing that is.Michael Jamin:But when people, okay, so now we have this picture of you and when you go do, let's say book signings or whatever, and people come up to you, they must have a parasocial relationship with you where they feel they know you. Your writing is so intimate. And what's your response to that?Sheila Heti:I think that's nice. I mean, I think that that's kind of the feeling you want people to have is it is your soul or your mind or whatever that you're trying to give people. And so if somebody feels that they know you well, in a certain sense they do. I mean, obviously not that well, they knowMichael Jamin:What you share, but there's, okay, I don't know what kind of music you like. I've read to all this stuff, but I know your insecurities and fears, but I don't know what you think is funny. I don't know what music you like. There's stuff you held back.Sheila Heti:Yeah, absolutely. But I think that's like, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. People aren't really very weird with me. Ed books or things, people are just pretty nice. And I never get this. I, I've rarely had interactions that feel creepy or weird or presumptuous or any of those things.Michael Jamin:Well, I'm not even going even that far, but they feel like they must feel like they know you certainly, but they know what you share. They know as much as you share. Right?Sheila Heti:TheseMichael Jamin:Kind of brave, bold decisions you make to create all this stuff. Is there a writer whose work you emulated in the beginning? Where do you begin to come up with this stuff? Was there someone who you wanted to write? Just like,Sheila Heti:I mean, I really loved Dostoevsky and Kafka and the heavy hitters. Yeah, I mean, I just loved all the greatest writers,Michael Jamin:But did you want to write like them?Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I think the closest I ever felt like I wanted to write a writer was, do you know Jane Bowles? BOW Elliot? She was married to Paul Bulls.Michael Jamin:No, to me, much of your work felt a little bit like it. Tall Cals, some of it works. Some of it was very ethereal and meditative.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I mean, I think Jane Bowles was the only one that I really felt myself imitating her sentences. She wrote a book called Two Serious Ladies, which I still really love. That was the only time when I felt like I was falling into somebody else's cadences and rhythms and so on. AndMichael Jamin:What happened whenSheila Heti:That was with my first book, the Middle Stories, and then the second book was written was so different. The second book I wrote was in such a different style that left me, but maybe there's still a way in which I still do. I think she's probably the writer that I write the most, if anyone. But I mean, she only wrote one book. So it's a very different kind of life than the one that I've had. No, I'm just always just trying to keep myself interested. So I think that I don't ever want to, I a very, I just want it to be fun for me. And so if I was to write the same book again, it wouldn't be fun. And books take five years to Write, or this diary book took more than 10 years to edit. So by the time I'm done a book, no, I'm such a different person than I was in some way when I started, even though I just said that you don't really change, but there's a way in which you get tired of thinking about the same things over,Michael Jamin:But then you think it would be hard to not constantly tinker with it. Isn't that part of the problem?Sheila Heti:I like constantly tinkering with it. That's fun.Michael Jamin:But then you have to let go. But how do you let go of it though?Sheila Heti:Well, at a certain point you start making it worse. You're like, oh, I think I'm starting to make it worse. You start to become self-conscious, and then you start to want to correct it, and then you start to want it to sort of be the person that you are today rather than the person you were five years ago. But you've got to honor the person that was five years ago that started the book. So you can't carry it on so far that you become, you've changed so much that now you're a critic of the book that's going to destroy the book.Michael Jamin:Yeah. See, that's so interesting. That's something I think about quite a bit. Yeah. How do I just let it go? And that someone else, it's funny when you talk about the language, because that's one thing that struck me about pure color. Your sentences are written in very, they're very, it's kind of brief, very, I dunno what the best way to describe it, but it's almost terse. And to be honest, if you had told, as I'm reading this, I could have thought this was said 150 years ago, and then occasionally you say you make a reference to something modern Google, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute, this takes space today. So that was a conscious, obviously decision that you made to kind of give it a timelessness.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I always kind of want that because I think that's my hope for a book is that it could be understood in a hundred years or 500 years, or you need Plato today, you want to write something that people could understand in a thousand years.Michael Jamin:But you know what I'm saying, the language, it almost felt, but your language is different though, in an alphabetical diary. Well, obviously since it's a diary, but man, so to me it's like you're not doing, like I said, you're not doing the same thing. I don't know, it could have been two different authors. That's what I'm saying. I guess it felt like two very different pieces and it was just wonderful. But when you say, so what then? Because like I said, you have these art friends, I have this whole life for you, you have these because you went to art, you studied art, and you hang out with a bunch of artists and you talk about art, and I want to know what these conversations are because we don't talk about art and TV writing. No one, we don't think we're doing art, but I feel like that's what you guys are doing. So do you talk about what the whole point of art is?Sheila Heti:I think I did when I was younger,Michael Jamin:Right? Then you grewSheila Heti:Out of it when I was in my twenties. And then you kind of figure that out for yourself in some way. Well, then you have your crises and whatever, and then you got to think about it and talk about it again. But no, I think these days what I talk about with my friends is just whatever the specific project is, whatever problems you're having with a specific thing, mostly complaining, the difficulty of not being able to pull it off or feeling like you are stuck or you're never going to be able to write it. I have these three other writers that I share my work with we're meeting tomorrow. So before I got on the call with you, I just sent something off to them, and tomorrow we're just going to have read each other's things and talk about how we feel about it. But for me, I'm just like, I think what I need at this point from them is reassurance, honestly.Michael Jamin:Reassurance,Sheila Heti:Yeah. Because you're so lost in the middle and you don't know what you're communicating and if you're communicating anything, and is it worth continuing? Should it just all be thrown out? There's so much doubtMichael Jamin:Because it's so very humble of you. You're a master writer, and yet you make it sound like you're still a student. You know what I'm saying?Sheila Heti:I mean, you think, I don't know if it's the same for you, but don't you think you're always kind of a student? BecauseMichael Jamin:Whenever you start, yeah, yeah. Look, yes. When every time you're looking at that blank page, I dunno how to do any of this.Sheila Heti:Yeah, exactly. You always feel like you're back at square one somehow.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Sheila Heti:Although now, not exactly square one. I've been starting this new book this week, and again, it may get to 60 pages and fall away from me, but now I have a different feeling that I had when I was in my early twenties. The feeling I have now is like, oh, I did that. Oh, I've had that thought before. Oh, I've written senses in that way before. What I'm trying to do now is none of the things that I've already done. They just, and so, yeah, where is this part of myself that I haven't written from yet? So that's kind where I'm now. So it's not really starting from square one, but it's still just as hard,Michael Jamin:Right? Because you feel like you've said everything you had to say or done everything you wanted. Is that what it is? Or,Sheila Heti:I know what my sentences sound like, so I feel like, oh, I'm not surprised by that sentence. That sounds like a sentence that my, I feel like I'm, you get this rhythm that is very pleasurable to write if the sentences have a rhythm, but now I'm just like, I'm tired of that rhythm. That rhythm can only give me one kind of sentence or one kind of thought. So I'm trying to figure out what else is there inside.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I imagine that's hard for someone. Basically, you're a physician who's made a hit and another hit, and what if I don't do it again? How do I do it differently? Or how do I reinvent myself now?Sheila Heti:And even just what's the meaning in this for me now? With every book, there's a different phase of life you're at. And I'm 46 now, so I dunno how old you are.Michael Jamin:How dare you? I'm 53.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I figured you were just a few years older than me. So it's a very different age to write from because you are not hungry in the same way you were when you were 23 and you were both in houses. You have accomplished certain things. And so what's the deepest part of yourself that still needs to do this when you're 23? Every part of yourself needs to do it in this extreme way. You've got to make a life for yourself. You've got to prove to yourself, you can do it. You've got to make money, you've got to all this kind of stuff. So what's the place at 46 or 53 that you're writing from that is just as vital and urgent as that place at 23?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think actually that's why I started changing mediums. I've kind of done this headcount thing. What else can I do?Sheila Heti:So the essay, the podcast? Yeah.Michael Jamin:Well, most of the essays, the essay started the whole thing. It was like, it's funny, in your book or a couple of times, you mentioned, should I go to LA? And I'm thinking, why does she want to go to la? What was that about? What'sSheila Heti:That about? I've got family there. When I was a little kid, my parents used to put me on a plane. I was five years old and I'd be sent to LA and I had relatives and I would stay with them. And it was just, to me, it's such happy childhood memories and I just love Los Angeles. Whenever I go back, I think this is a place in the world besides Toronto that I'd most like to live.Michael Jamin:Really? So different.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I just love it. Yeah, so I love everything. I love it.Michael Jamin:Oh my God, I don't what, I've been to Toronto. I had, well, then ISheila Heti:Remember that LA's in America, and then I like, no, maybe not.Michael Jamin:Yeah, good point. Good point. So there's something else. I remember what I wanted, what I want to say. You had in one book, it was like, you're lamenting. I hope I never have to teach. And now you're teaching, right?Sheila Heti:Yeah, just for this one year.Michael Jamin:Okay. What was that about that decision?Sheila Heti:Well, I love teaching and I wanted the money because I didn't want to have to feel like I had to rush to start a new book. So I just wanted a year where I didn't have to have that anxiety of what's my next book going to be like, I've got to start. I've got to get a certain ways in and then sell it. And I like teaching a lot, and I just felt excited about the idea, but it was supposed to be a two year position, and now I've just changed it to a one year position. It becomes too much, even one day. And teaching a week is like, there's no point to writeMichael Jamin:Because you have to read all the whatever they write on the side. You're saying, well,Sheila Heti:I've got to commute two hours to get there, and then two hours home, and then, I don't know. And then your brain just sort of stays in that university space with your students for three or four days, and then you have two days where you're not with them and then you go back to school.Michael Jamin:So what does your life really look like? Your writing life? What is it like to be an author on a dayday basis?Sheila Heti:What your life is all day long? You're either writing emails or you're writing writing. Probably spend more time writing emails and doing correspondence and businessy stuff than writing. Writing, and then all the life stuff, walking the dog, doing household chores. I don't have a very regimented existence, but I just sitting in bed and being on my computer, that's sort of myMichael Jamin:Favorite. That's where you write on laptop. Oh my God, my back would kill me. But something else you said, because I really was turning to you for answers as I was reading it. I'm like, she's got the answers. And you said, and you're like, I don't have the answers, but no, I'm like, no, she's got the answers. And you said, art must have at one point, art must have humor. I think you said that in How should a person be? And I was like, really? That's what you guys think. There has to be humor in art.Sheila Heti:Oh yeah. You got to know where the funny is. Yeah, I think,Michael Jamin:Sure. I don'tSheila Heti:Understand. It's the two. I read your essay. It was very funny.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But thank you. But I have an intention. I have an intention when I write, but I don't understand why you think there has to be humor. Alright. Why do you think there has to be humor it in art?Sheila Heti:Humor's such a part of life. I mean, if you don't have humor in life or art, you're missing a huge part of the picture. I mean, it's all, it's just the absurdity of being a human. It's,Michael Jamin:Well, see the thing as a sitcom writer, look, I'm grateful to have made a living as a sitcom writer. It's what I wanted to do, but it's not like anyone looks at what we do. It's like, oh, that's high art. They go, it's kind of mostly, people think it's kind of base. And I think, and when you think about even at the Oscars, when they're fitting the best picture, it's never a comedy. It's that the comedies are not important enough. And so that's why I had this feeling like, well, can humor be an art? Can it be, ISheila Heti:Mean, I think great art always has humor in it, but it's the same thing in literature. The funny writers are not as respected as the serious ones, but I think that they're wrong. I mean, Kurt Vonnegut, I love Kurt Vonnegut. He's extremely funny, but he's never had the same status as somebody like, I dunno, Don DeLillo or whatever, because he's not serious enough. But I think it's a very, who are the people that are making that judgment? That the solemn writers that have no humor are the best writers. They're just idiots. I mean, it's not the case.Michael Jamin:I gave my manuscript to one publisher. I was rejected from him, and he wrote, he was very kind. He goes, oh, this book really works. I like it, but it's not high literature. And we do high literature here. And I was like, how dare you? I was like, well, I totally agree. It's not high literature. Not that I could write high literature, but I didn't set out to do. But there was still that sting of what you're doing is not important because it's funny.Sheila Heti:Yeah. That's a stupid editor.Michael Jamin:Well, he got the last laugh. Wait a minute, wait a minute. But yeah, I don't know. Okay. But is humor in painting and humor in all art? I mean,Sheila Heti:Yeah, levity. Well, just that scent, that aspect of life. That is the laugh that is that bubbling up laughing. Yeah. I mean, I think that that's joy. Joy and humor are very closely connected. And a work of art without humor is a work of art without joyMichael Jamin:AndSheila Heti:Wants to take that in.Michael Jamin:Then what is art? I'm honest here. You learned this when you're 20 and I haven't learned it yet. So what is art to you and what's the difference between good art and bad art?Sheila Heti:It's a reflection of the human experience. It's like an expression of what it feels like to be a human, that a human is making for another human.Michael Jamin:Okay, so it's this interpretation of what you feel, what it means to be human, is that right?Sheila Heti:It's an expression of what you feel like it means to be human.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. And then how do youSheila Heti:That in an object?Michael Jamin:And then how do you know if it's good art or bad art?Sheila Heti:I mean, there's no consensus, right? You liked pure color, but a lot of people don't. There's just no consensus because it touched you, but somebody else thinks it's the worst book they've ever read, and that's okay. I mean, I think that that's right. We can't all speak to each other. We're not all here for all of each other.Michael Jamin:Oh, just because you mentioned that it was so touching this one moment, it really hit me where you explain how you felt the father, how his love for his daughter was so much that it put pressure on her not to have her life because her life was so important to him. And I thought, oh crap, I hope I'm not doing that because my feeling is no, it's just pure love. It's an expression of pure love. But from the other side, I can see that.Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's what I was thinking about in that book. That's the sort of tragedy ofMichael Jamin:Yes,Sheila Heti:Families and friendships and so on, that we want to love each other, but we can't in the way that we want to.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content, and I know you do because you're listening to me, I will email it to you for free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, actors, creative types, people like you can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com. And now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about?Michael Jamin:It was just so beautiful to express that as two souls stuck in a leaf, where is this coming from? It felt completely appropriate, but also almost out of the blue. And that's what was so amazing about that whole section. Thanks.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't even remember where that idea came to me. I don't know if you feel like this with your writing, but sometimes you remember exactly where an idea came from. You can even picture yourself being right there having it, and sometimes you almost have anesia around it,Michael Jamin:Really? And what about the part? There was so many lovely moments of this woman working in a lamp store, and she has to turn the lamps on every single lamp on, and it's almost like, I got to do this, but there's her counterpart who has to turn the lamps off at the end of the day, something equally horrible. It was really funny, and it was just, I don't know. Did you ever work in a lamp store?Sheila Heti:No. No. But there was this lamp store that I used to pass on the way to one of my first jobs, and I would look in the window, and I did eventually buy a lamp from that store with all the money I had in the world. But I never worked in a lamp store, but I was obsessed with this lamp. I really thought it was going to change my life.Michael Jamin:And do you still have it?Sheila Heti:No. It got broken in aMichael Jamin:Fit ofSheila Heti:Rage situation. Yeah, it got broken rage.Michael Jamin:I was stuck on a paragraph I wrote against this important list. ItSheila Heti:Was in the box on the floor, and somebody stepped on it. And anyway, it's sad, but whatever.Michael Jamin:Okay. But alright. So much of it felt like, yeah. Okay. So it was a version of you that wasn't exactly, but where was this coming from? You said you had a point you were making. I don't rememberSheila Heti:Where, because at some parts you remember where they came from and some parts you justMichael Jamin:Kind of pull out of, pullSheila Heti:Out of. You don't remember how they came about?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know. I always feel like when I'm writing, if there's an idea that has a strong emotional reaction, like, okay, maybe there's something there.Sheila Heti:A strong emotional reaction in you.Michael Jamin:Yeah. In me. I have a terrible memory, but if I remember something, why do I remember it? There must be a reason.Sheila Heti:You have a terrible memory too,Michael Jamin:And you wouldn't know it, but I guess you document everything in your diary.Sheila Heti:I mean, the diary is usually not about things that happened. It's more about the feelings that I'm having in the moment that I'm writing it. I wish that my diary was more about things that happenedMichael Jamin:Really Well, you get to decide what you put in your diary.Sheila Heti:I know usually when one writes a diary, it's because you're in a moment of high emotion that you need to get your feelings out.Michael Jamin:Do you write every day in your diary?Sheila Heti:No. No, no. Just when I need to. And I don't even really do it anymore now.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Yeah, there is. There's something else you said about it. Yeah. There's so many moments that were so interesting. Like you said at one point that the men you date don't understand you. I'm like, well, don't they read your book? I mean, why don't you just give 'em your book and didn't understand you?Sheila Heti:No, I mean, I don't know.Michael Jamin:You don't know. We'll get back to, I don'tSheila Heti:Even think that it's really all Yeah, like you were saying earlier, it's not really you. It's just an expression of a corner of you.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't know. But do you really feel that? I mean, I'm going back and forth. You'll see I contradict myself, but what you write is so to me, it feels so personal. I don't know how it cannot be you.Sheila Heti:I mean, I don't know. When I'm working on it, it doesn't feel like me. It just feels like writing on a page. It feels very plastic. I don't feel like it's me.Michael Jamin:So there's no, wow, because there's no inhibition there because it's very intimate. There's no inhibition. You don't feel to be judged. This is just a character named Sheila, by the way.Sheila Heti:I mean, I just don't think about it. Just I have this, that part of my brain is not awake when I'm editing or writing that people that are going to think it's meMichael Jamin:Or whatever. Well, that's bold. That really is bold because the notion that you're not worried about being judged, you're not worrying about expressingSheila Heti:Yourself. I worry about being judged for an email that I send. That's a stupid email much more than I ever worry about a book.Michael Jamin:Really? Really? Yeah. Your book is permanent and it's your art.Sheila Heti:But I have so much control over it. I have so much. I take so much time with it. It's not spontaneous. It's really thought through. So I'm not, and it's art. It's not me. An email is me. A book is not, it's its own thing.Michael Jamin:Okay. How should a person be? I mean, this to me felt like this is your struggle. It was really interesting when it was a narrative struggle about a woman trying to find herself in a brief period of time. And I felt like, no, this is you. Right?Sheila Heti:I mean, it doesn't really feel like that. No.Michael Jamin:Alright. This interview's over. That's why I think when I said, you're brave, I think that's what makes you brave, is that this fearlessness of I can put it out there and I'm not really worried about it.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I just don't care. I care about being judged as a human in the world, as a person, but not through my books, not through your I care about it and Oh, she's wearing a really stupid outfit. I care about it in all those ways that everybody does, but not via the books. Not as the books as a portal to judgment about me.Michael Jamin:Wow. Wow. I I don't know if you know how profound that is. To me. It really is. Yeah, because it gives you so much freedom to write then.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I mean, but fiction is different from essays. I think with essays you do feel like it's you, but with novels you don't. Or I don't,Michael Jamin:Yeah. But I guess, and I didn't really know this term, it's auto nonfiction, which I guess is this term. I was not familiar withSheila Heti:Auto fiction. They call itMichael Jamin:Auto fiction. That's what I meant. Auto fiction. Yeah. And soSheila Heti:I like auto nonfiction though. I think that's how it should start to be called.Michael Jamin:Really? Yeah. Just by my dumbest. Yeah. But when you call it auto itself, so I don't know.Sheila Heti:Yeah, I didn't give it that term. The critics give it that term, auto fiction, but all writing is auto fiction. All writing comes from yourself. It's a really silly term, but I mean, they guess they use it for people that write characters that have their name. Which again, that's only, and how should a person be? Does the character have my name? None of the other books.Michael Jamin:Well, okay, but Well, theSheila Heti:Diaries, obviouslyMichael Jamin:The diaries, but also I also know that pure color was taken from your life. I mean, we know that inSheila Heti:A lot ofMichael Jamin:Ways. So I also want to know about this, and I know I'm concentrating on how should person, well, on both of 'em I guess. But this play that you were commissioned to write, how does that work that you were tortured by throughout the whole book? You felt like you couldn't come up with anything good. How does that come about? So a local theater said, will you write us a play?Sheila Heti:Yeah, yeah.Michael Jamin:And it was their idea.Sheila Heti:Yeah. Yeah. They commissioned a play for me,Michael Jamin:But they said, I mean, this is what we want it to be about. Or they said right aboutSheila Heti:It was a feminist theater company, and they said it could be about anything as long as it was about women in it. And I really had the hardest time. I mean, I wrote a play, I'm sure you experienced this in Hollywood, and then there was a lot of notes. And in theater we call it dramaturgy. And I got so confused and I just couldn't make the play better from the notes. And it was just this torture, because when you're writing a book, or at least in my case, editors aren't like that. They're not giving you their notes to make the book something other than what you want it to be. But in theater, what's this character's motivation? Why does this happen here? There was just so much feedback and I just lost my sense of what I liked about it and what it was.Michael Jamin:And then how did you find it ultimately? You were happy with it, weren't you?Sheila Heti:Ultimately, I just, when it got put on a couple years after, how should a person be was published, it was just my original draft. So I never ended up editing it according to any of the notes in the end.Michael Jamin:Wow. So you won that battle?Sheila Heti:I guess so you did. It wasn't them who put it on. It was some other, some kid.Michael Jamin:Oh,Sheila Heti:I mean, he's not a kid anymore, but he seemed like a kid at the time.Michael Jamin:But you also do something called trampoline hall, which struck me as really fun. It seems like you're just part of this artwork. You make art. Well, I don't care what it is. Let's just do something weird and interesting until trampoline hall, which I love the premise of it's you say people deliver lectures on subjects they don't know anything about.Sheila Heti:Is that what it's, it's not their area of professional expertise. So they can do, oh,Michael Jamin:So they are experts.Sheila Heti:They can do research for their talk. It's just that it can't be their professional expertise.Michael Jamin:So they're not talking out of the rests. They're talking to about if they know No. Oh, okay.Sheila Heti:They do the research. Yeah. And then there's, so the talk lasts about 15 minutes, and then there's a q and a, and then So there's three of those and night, and yeah, it's been running once a month in Toronto since December, 2000 or 2001. Them. I haven't been involved in it. You them? Oh, no, no. I mean, I started it, and my friend Misha Goberman is and was the host, but after about three or four years, I left around 2005 or so. But he still keeps it going. So now I used to pick the three people every month, and I just used to, when I was in my twenties, I had crushes on people all the time. And it was fascinated by people in such a way that it was a way of having these friendships where I would go out with them and talk about what their talk was going to be about, and then I'd see them on stage.And it was just a way of being with people. My life is not really like that anymore, where I'm coming into contact with so many people that I just have to have a show and put them on stage. I find 'em so fascinating. And the culture's changed because again, in the early two thousands, there weren't, the internet wasn't what it is. And I just felt like there's all these smart people with all these interesting things to say, and nobody's paying any attention to them. And here's a venue for them. You obviously don't need that, a barroom lecture series for people to have a voice in this culture anymore. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Right. That's right. Now you deal with students, young people. And so what's your take then, as an artist, as you deal with people of this younger generation? What do you see?Sheila Heti:I don't know. I mean, I only see them through a very narrow lens. You don't show your teacher that much of your life. I see them sitting in a classroom for two and a half hours once a week. I've only done it for seven weeks.Michael Jamin:But you read their work or you pretend to?Sheila Heti:I read it. There's not that much. I mean, I don't know. You can't really generalize about a generation. Every person's different.Michael Jamin:One of the stories in my book is about that. It was about me trying to, being in a creative writing class, trying to impress my teacher, and just having no idea how to write, just none. And feeling complete. You're smiling. You can relate or you see it.Sheila Heti:Well, because I'm smiling, because yeah, that's how people feel. And it's sort of a failure of the way that creative writing is taught that makes a person feel like they can't writeMichael Jamin:Well. Okay. So what's the first thing you tell? What's the most important thing you tell your students then maybe?Sheila Heti:Well, I try to show them all these examples of, so-called bad writing and stuff that's intentionally boring and that's badly put together because I just think it's a better route. You're more likely to become a good writer if you are trying to do something bad than if you're trying to do something good. If you're reading the greatest writers and you're trying to emulate them, and you're all intimidated and blocked and nervous, and you're trying to write in a style that has nothing to do with yourself.Michael Jamin:So then how does showing them something bad help? Do you say, go ahead and write or write. What's the point of showing them somethingSheila Heti:Bad? I don't want 'em to try to write. WellMichael Jamin:Write Well, you don't, but you don't want 'em to write schlocky or poorly written stuff either.Sheila Heti:I'd rather have them write basic. I don't know. I just think when you're trying to impress, when you're writing to try to impress somebody, it's just you're starting off on completely the wrong foot. I want them their writing. So for example, in this class, one of the first experiments we did was I told them to go into their messages, their text messages, threads, and to copy out every single text message that they'd sent and put that in a document and make it a long sort of monologue, because that is actually what they write. That is what they're writing. You got to start from what you're actually saying and what you're actually writing, not this imaginary idea of what writing is.Michael Jamin:Right, right, right. That's exactly right. So there's this thought of what writing should be and what writing, how get, I guess, how did you get over that, especially when you were writing your favorite authors were the greats. How did you find the confidence to have your own voice, I guess?Sheila Heti:Well, when I was young, when I was a teenager, I read all the Paris Review interviews, and I just got the sense like, oh, there's no way to do it no one way. Everyone has their own way. Faulkner has his way, and Dorothy Parker has her way, and John au has his way, and there's just no consensus. And so you just have to figure out your own way. That's what they all did. I just sort of saw that's what each one of them had done.Michael Jamin:See, that's where I struggled with, and you're getting my therapist now and my creative writing teacher when I was starting to write this book. Because as a TV writer, my job is not to have a voice. My job is to emulate the voice of the show or the characters. And I'm a copy. I'm a mimic. That's what I do. And that's what I've been doing for 27 years. And then to write, this was an experiment to me. What would it be like to write just whatever I want to write with no notes, no one telling me what to do. And it was very scary in the beginning. And it was very, I loved David Sari. How can I do him? And so I wrote a couple of pieces. I studied him, I read all, I've studied books over and over again. He was so entertaining. He writes so beautifully. And I read it over and over again, and I wrote my first pieces, almost like I was doing him. And I felt, oh, this is good. And then I let it sit for a couple of weeks, and then I read it with fresh eyes. And this is terrible. It sounds like someone pretending to be him is terrible.Sheila Heti:Yeah, yeah. But that's a stage that you still probably learned a bunch by doing that, maybe about structure or about something.Michael Jamin:No, not that I learned that I felt like I was a pretender, but my thought was, well, he's doing it. He's successful. I write and now I perform my pieces as well, which is what, and I tore a little bit, and I thought, well, if it works for him, why reinvent the wheels? He's obviously got a market. And then I realized I had to come to the conclusion that it was almost heartbreaking. I can never write like him. I can't, no matter much. I want to, it'll never happen. And then I had to let go of that, and then had to come to the more, even a larger, heartbreaking realization was like, oh, I have to write me. And who the hell is that?Sheila Heti:And how did you find it?Michael Jamin:It was a lot of just drafts after draft. And then the problem, and this is something else, but I find some of the earlier pieces are very different from the later pieces. And I've tempted to go back and change the earlier ones. But like you're saying, I'm also tempted. I feel like I can't, can't, it's time to let 'em go.Sheila Heti:Right. That was that person.Michael Jamin:But it's all in the same book, and it felt like, well, should there be any kind of, is that okay? Is it okay to feel like each one's a little different from the other? I don't know.Sheila Heti:Yeah. I don't know. I mean, are the early ones still good, even if they're different?Michael Jamin:Yeah, I think they're good. I'm not sure if anyone else would notice except for me, but I noticedSheila Heti:Maybe not. Yeah, probably. Yeah. And I think it's okay if they're a little different from each other.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I don't, well, we'll find out. But that was very difficult for me to figure out how to, and I turned a lot to, and I wonder if you do this, you kind of answered a little bit. I didn't want to turn to other writers. I turned to musicians to music. Do you do that asSheila Heti:Well? Which musicians?Michael Jamin:It was turning to musicians to find out what is art? What am I supposed to be doing here? Yeah.Sheila Heti:I always look to painters for that.Michael Jamin:So painter, is it contemporary painters orSheila Heti:Contemporary or not contemporary?Michael Jamin:And how do you pull, what are you looking for them? Yeah. When you look at a painting, how does that help you?Sheila Heti:Well, how does it help you to look at musicians?Michael Jamin:Well, there's two things with music, and I feel like music is too, they're telling us, they get to tell a story with lyrics and with music. So if you didn't hear the lyrics, maybe you'd still get the sentiment of it. And so I feel like they have two tools where we only have one because they can set a mood just for the tune. And so I looked to them for the intimacy in their bravery. You'd look, okay, Stevie Nicks, she's singing about herself. That's all she's doing. And okay, you can do that. It just felt so vulnerable to be doing this.Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:And that's why I'm shocked that you're so brave about it.Sheila Heti:I mean, it's the only job is to not care about yourself in relation to it, that the book matters. And you don't matter.Michael Jamin:Right. That's your job is to put the art first. Right.Sheila Heti:To not do things because worried about what people will think of you. That's the first. And I guess when I was younger, I was reading so many avant-garde writers that did that in such flamboyant ways. It just seemed to me the only Henry Miller, it just seemed to me maybe the first lesson, not even a conscious lesson, just like, oh, clearly he's not worried about what people are going to think of him or his reputation among decent people.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Right. And so you don't have that, obviously, you don't have that worry.Sheila Heti:No, but I don't know. A lot of decent people.Michael Jamin:Yes, you do. But yeah, I don't know. Again, it's what makes you, I don't know, such a fantastic writer. I mean, I want everyone to read your work because it's really fantastic. I have some questions here that I have to ask from. So my daughter, Lola, I tell her she's a way better writer than I was at her age. But the truth is, she may be a better writer than I'm now, but I don't tell her that part. But she has these questions. She put down some questions like, damn, you've got some good questions. So I can't take credit. I can't take credit for this question. GiveSheila Heti:Me Lowes questions.Michael Jamin:Okay. First of all, she says, what are your dreams for your writing, and how do you let them go while also keeping them alive? Oops. I dropped a rock.Sheila Heti:My dreams. You dropped a rock.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I dropped. I have magic crystals by my computer that are supposed to make my work better.Sheila Heti:Oh, what kind of rock is that?Michael Jamin:It came out of my head. You want some? Yeah. I don't know. They're magic, but they're on my computer. So what are your dreams for your writing, and how do you let them go while also keeping them alive? And I guess what she means is, I guess, ambitions at the age You were talking about that young age.Sheila Heti:Young. Yeah. How old is she? 20.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Sheila Heti:When I was 20, my dream was to be the best living writer, just to be the best novelist, just to work harder than any other writer alive. That's what I was thinking. ItMichael Jamin:Was work harder.Sheila Heti:I was like, I got to work harder than any other writer alive.Michael Jamin:That's what I was. And what did that work look like to you?Sheila Heti:Just always writing and always not being satisfied, and being a real critic of my work and trying to make it better, and trying to try to get it to sound more interesting and figure out what my sentences were, and letting myself be bad and repeat myself until I got better. And I don't think that I ever let that go. I am not sitting here today saying, I work harder than any other writer alive. But I do remember having that feeling when I was young. That's what I need to do. That's the only way it's going to work.Michael Jamin:Yeah. That importance. Yeah, becauseSheila Heti:It's just so hard. It's just so hard to write. Well, to write anything good for people.Michael Jamin:I think you give the perfect answer on that. I'll give her another theSheila Heti:Parental answer. In any case, work hard.Michael Jamin:Work hard. Well, but it was really,Sheila Heti:It's true. I think it's true that, and I remember being her age and interviewing this older Canadian writer, Barbara Gowdy, who I really loved, and she told me, and she's terrific. She told me, I was writing for the student newspaper, and she said, it's funny, I've got my students who have talent, clear talent, and then I've got these other students who don't seem to have so much talent, but the ones who don't so much talent work really hard, and they end up doing better than the ones that have talent. And I thought, oh, I never even would've known that. I would've thought that. I didn't know that hard work meant could mean more than talent. So hopefully you have talent, and then you can also make the choice to talentMichael Jamin:Work. And you learned this at a young age, you're saying thisSheila Heti:Part? I mean, my mother was also just very strict about working hardMichael Jamin:Right.Sheila Heti:Studies and stuff.Michael Jamin:Interesting. Yeah. She's a delian mom. Hungarian.Sheila Heti:Yeah.Michael Jamin:Do you speak any Hungarian?Sheila Heti:No. Do you? No.Michael Jamin:No, I don't. But I do know there's a Hungarian expression that really helped me. I'll tell you what it is. So do you speak any other languages?Sheila Heti:No,Michael Jamin:No, no. That's your next task. I wrote about this in one of my stories as well. There's a Hungarian expression where it says, okay, so let me take it back. So I learned to speak Spanish as a teenager and then Italian as an adult. So each time when you learn a new language that you're not born into, there's that moment where it's like it's really hard to talk. It takes months and months, and then finally one day you open your mouth and the words just come out without thinking just like that magic. And it's turning on a light bulb. And I've had a hard time explaining to people what that feels like. But then I discovered a Hungarian expression, which said it perfectly. It says, when you learn a little language, you gain a new soul. And I thought, that's exactly what it feels like, because you're talking, you're like, who is this? I don't speak this language. Who am I? That's incredible. And you talk about soul so much in your work. I thought maybe that's something you had experienced.Sheila Heti:I never got that far. I mean, I studied French and I never got close to a new soul. I didn't have always translation.Michael Jamin:You're always translating in your head,Sheila Heti:Right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:It's just that moment, like, I don't know who I am. And then you find yourself reacting differently. And also using, if I find myself, I can't say, I don't know how to say this, so I'll say it this way, which is not how I

Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and ND host John Plotz to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Color (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be" )--as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why "auto-fiction" strikes her as a "bad category" and "a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally" since "the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience." Sheila's response to the signature question was both textual and hilarious. A true writer's weirdness! Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Find out more about Novel Dialogue and its hosts and organizers here. Contact us, get that exact quote from a transcript, and explore many more conversations between novelists and critics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and ND host John Plotz to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Color (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be" )--as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why "auto-fiction" strikes her as a "bad category" and "a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally" since "the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience." Sheila's response to the signature question was both textual and hilarious. A true writer's weirdness! Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Find out more about Novel Dialogue and its hosts and organizers here. Contact us, get that exact quote from a transcript, and explore many more conversations between novelists and critics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and ND host John Plotz to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpack the implicit and explicit theology of her recent Pure Color (Sheila admits she “spent a lot of time thinking about …what God's pronouns are going to be" )--as well as the protagonist's temporary transformation into a leaf. The three also explore how life and lifelikeness shape How Should a Person Be. Sheila explains why "auto-fiction" strikes her as a "bad category" and "a lazy way of thinking about what the author is doing formally" since "the history of literature is authors melding their imagination with their lived experience." Sheila's response to the signature question was both textual and hilarious. A true writer's weirdness! Mentioned in this Episode: By Sheila Heti: Pure Colour How Should a Person Be? Alphabetical Diaries Ticknor We Need a Horse (children's book) The Chairs are Where the People Go (with Misha Glouberman) Also mentioned: Oulipo Group Autofiction: e.g. Ben Lerner, Rachel Cusk, Karl Ove Knausgard Craig Seligman, Sontag and Kael George Eliot, Middlemarch Clarice Lispector (e.g. The Hour of the Star) Kenneth Goldsmith Soliloquy Willa Cather , The Professor's House William Steig, Sylvester and The Magic Pebble. Find out more about Novel Dialogue and its hosts and organizers here. Contact us, get that exact quote from a transcript, and explore many more conversations between novelists and critics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In September, I hosted a webinar called "How To Write A Great Story" where I talked about what a "story" really is, as well as how to use personal stories to help your writing. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.Show NotesFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutogenerated TranscriptMichael Jamin:It's not that The stakes of rocky areas are not about will Rocky win the fight? Who caress? Will Rocky win the competition? The contest who caress? No one cares if he wins. The stakes are, will Rocky finally feel like he's not a loser? Will he finally feel like he's not a bum? And that's something something all of us can relate to. You're listening to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about? I'll tell you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about creativity, I'm talking about writing, and I'm talking about reinventing yourself through the arts. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of, what the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, today I'm talking about, I'm answering questions. Phil, I'm back here with Phil Hudson. Hey Phil. What up? So why do these webinars every three weeks? And I try to answer questions during them and we don't have time to get to all of them. So I'm going to be answering them right now and Phil's going to feed 'em to me.Phil Hudson:That's right. He'sMichael Jamin:Going to baby bird them to me. He's going to chew them up and dip 'em into my mouth.Phil Hudson:I'm going to spit 'em into your mouth. Regurgitate 'em. Love it. Yeah. You guys know the thing. We've been doing this for two years now, so we've got plenty of these episodes in the Can questions came up. We're going to dive into 'em Again, some of these things that were asked, we're not going to go over Michael because we've talked about 'em a thousand times,Michael Jamin:ButPhil Hudson:There are always some of those things that are still being asked that worth talking about a bit. So we'll go through 'em. I've broken 'em up into kind of categories just to make sure that it's easy to get through. Just be more, there are a couple of questions about your course in this I thought were worth bringing up because that was a lot of the questions that came up in September.Michael Jamin:Let's do it.Phil Hudson:Alright, let's dive into craftMichael Jamin:Michael.Phil Hudson:Dr. Adam wants to know, and these are YouTube. YouTube usernames forMichael Jamin:Anybody interested? Yes. Doctor IPhil Hudson:Help you with Dr. Adam wants to know how important is it for someone else to edit your writing,Michael Jamin:Edit? Well, when we work in television, it's very collaborative, so your work will be rewritten often heavily by the showrunners or the writing staff. But it's a very collaborative process from the beginning. We all work together to break the story, meaning figuring out what the story is, and I teach this in the course, how to break a story, and then you get notes in the outline, the first draft, the second draft, and the table draft, blah, blah, blah. So it's very collaborative. But if you're talking about, I dunno if the doctor's talking about some other kind of work other than television writingPhil Hudson:The Good Doctor.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I don't know, doctor, I'm not really sure what you mean other than I hope I answered your questionPhil Hudson:To me. Either way.Michael Jamin:You're getting my bill.Phil Hudson:Yeah, if you're billing the doctor, I love it. For me, this is a question more about, it's a common question I've seen with people starting out, which is getting feedback or peer review, if you will on things. I had a couple of friends over Mike Rap who's a writer on Tacoma d and Kevin who will feature the podcast soon and is in the screenwriting course. There were football and we talked a lot about this kind of stuff in writer's room stuff. They both work in writer writer's rooms and getting notes from peers even outside of the writer's room at our level, Kevin and I have probably spent 40 or 50 hours on Zoom now giving each other notes onMichael Jamin:Writing.Phil Hudson:That's incredibly helpful, but it's not so much that they're editing my writing, it's more of them talking about This didn't work for me, or Hey, I got confused here. And that's the feedback that you always talk about, which is the valid feedback is someone gets lost, they don't understand. It's not compelling. It's not really on page three. You have this ticky tack note where you overcapitalize a word or something like that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, editing could be not so much getting answers from someone, but just getting questions. And the questions could be, if someone's reading your work, they could say, I, what were you going for here? I didn't get what you were going for. And then you get to decide whether you want to clarify or keep it muddy. And probably keeping it muddy is probably not the greatest choice. So you just want to make sure that your audience is along for the ride. And I was going to do a post about this soon where I think part of your responsibility as a writer is to make sure you're holding your audience's hand and taking them along for the ride and not letting go because you don't want them to get lost. If they get lost, they're going to find something else to do.Phil Hudson:Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, it's an interesting too, when you work with people who know story structure and they've been in writer rooms and they're giving you these notes. There are times where this thing didn't make sense to me, but I understand what you're going for there. Or I would consider this doing a different way. But then you get a note from the other guy and they're like, I loved this part. And so that conflicting thing is like, okay, I can keep this one. That's a choice. But when they're both like, Hey, I got really bogged down in this piece, that's a clear sign. You've got to fix something.Michael Jamin:Yeah, right. Thank you DoctorPhil Hudson:Alex Kier, any tips on writing a story with multiple characters and stories like love? Actually?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, first of all, stories have multiple characters, but you're talking about multiple storylines. And so love actually is not that uncommon. It's a fun movie, but it's not that uncommon. You're basically just having multiple storylines and all the storylines are united by this one thread, which is love during Christmas. That's it. And there's different types of love. There's Brotherly Love. The way the Rock Star character had for his manager, what was that guy's name? But there's brand new love the way the two characters who met on the porn set. That's like an awkward way of meeting. And there's other romantic love between a couple that's been married for a long time, and that was Emmett Thompson's character with Alan Rickman's character. Then there's Love, new Love Upstairs, downstairs, love, which was, what's his name? Hugh? Hugh Grant, come on. Hugh Grant, thank Hugh Grant's character.I don't remember her name, but he was the prime minister and she was the lowly chambermaid or whatever she was supposed to be. And then you have another Love one character was a love where they can't communicate. So it was Colin Firth's character and I don't remember her name, but she didn't speak. She was the Portuguese maid and she didn't speak English. So you're just examining love over Christmas between different types of love and that's how they're all united. So that was the theme. And every story has to tell a version of that. Oh, then there's one of the love there was brand new love, like puppy love, right? There was a storyline between the kid and what's his name? He was like the young kid and his stepfather, Liam Neeson. And he's trying to coach him into, wasn't that in love actually, or is that somethingPhil Hudson:Else? I have never seen love actually.Michael Jamin:Oh, you got to watch it. So yeah. So those are my tips. So that's it. And you're just kind of integrating these very stories so each one can stand on its own. Each story can stand on its own. And you're probably, if I had to time it, I would imagine that most stories, so there was one other, there was unrequited love where the guy had a crush on his best friend's, new wife, Kira Knightly, and so all different kinds of love. And I imagine if you took a stopwatch and you timed out each storyline you'd get to, they, they're all approximately the same amount of weight in terms of screen time and that's it. And if they weren't, I imagine it's because some of the stories got cut down because we weren't quite as compelling on camera as they were in the script. But I talk about this a lot. Maybe I should do a breakdown in the course of love. Actually, I talk aboutPhil Hudson:This. People love that. And you brought love actually up in stuff in the courseMichael Jamin:I did. Okay. We already talked about it.Phil Hudson:Well, I don't think you've done a case study. And for those who are unfamiliar, Michael has these awesome case studies in where you'll talk about movies you love Amle, and you'll talk about, I think, did you do Rocky Ferris Bueller's Day Off Castaway, just looking at films and TV shows and kind of breaking 'em down for story structure and talking about what works, what doesn't. And then you also hypothesized this, I imagine got cut in editing becauseMichael Jamin:AsPhil Hudson:A writer, there's a thing here that could be here or was missing, that kindMichael Jamin:Of thing. Yeah, there was a scene that I think that was missing from love actually, that I imagine they shot, but they just cut it for the sake of time.Phil Hudson:But I think it would be worth doing that. I think the members in the course would be pumped to get another case study,Michael Jamin:But there you go. Take the course if you want to learn more. But that, it's a good question.Phil Hudson:You hit on something that you talk about in one of your webinars that we're going to be putting back into the cycle because people really liked it, which is how do professional writers create great characters? And there's this nuance you talked about in the September webinar thatMichael Jamin:BecamePhil Hudson:A full webinar, and it's about how you pick your characters. So I'll leave that a bit nebulous. So anybody's interested in that, come attend the nextMichael Jamin:Webinar. Yeah, please do. Because free in the next one, I'm talking about either character or story structure.Phil Hudson:So when this podcast drops, it'll be like tomorrow, literally tomorrow, that's going to be the podcast that we're talking, the webinar we're talking about. And you can sign up at michaeljamin.com/webinar to get notified.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Cool. Leanne Allen, how important is it for the goal to be broadly relatable?Michael Jamin:Well, it's very important. I mean, the goals should be hugely important to the character, and it should be something that we could all hopefully relate to. I mean, if the goal is redeeming yourself in your mother's eyes, that's very relatable. If the goal is, I know if the goal is winning first prize, first place in a contest, who caress, it has to be more than that. It has to be more relatable than that. To be honest, I don't really care about winning contests, so I don't really care if your character wins a contest, but if winning the contest is a way for this person to finally feel good about themselves and their lives because it's validation, because they're a loner and because no one's ever looked at them twice and win this contest as a way of them being able to hang their head up high publicly, that's a relatable goal. Understand. But winning a contest in itself, who cares?Phil Hudson:And that's the value of what you teach in these webinars and in the course is the difference between plot and story. Plot point would be they have to win this contest. The story is like, why does this matter? ToMichael Jamin:Why?Phil Hudson:How is this going to affect them? It's the internal need versus the external need. Winning the contest is the external, but the internal is the reason we watch it. And that's the relatable piece.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Desmond Bailey, how do you not front load the pipe?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, boy, I talked about this a lot. I wonder why they're askingPhil Hudson:This. And just to clarify for people, this will be helpful. These are questions directly coming from the chat in the webinar when people are asking questions and they're questions we didn't get to in the q and a portion of the webinar, so this is something you had related to, or they're setting something you set in the webinar, which was don't front load your pipe or don't be pipe. And so maybe explain pipe and expedition to people.Michael Jamin:So pipe is what we call in the business, we call it exposition. So it's all the stuff that you need to know. It's the background story. It's the story before the story begins. And generally it's boring. Pipe is just like something you need to hear, not you don't want to hear it. You need to know to the characters. And so generally, the faster you can get to the pipe, the better, or you have to be artful about the pipe. So here's a bad version. You'll watch a show and you'll say, Susie, you're my sister. Why would I ever do that with you? My sister? A character would never tell another character, you're my sister. That's pipe. Because that character, she knows her sisters, Frankie, we've been best friends for 18 years, Frankie knows this. And so there are ways to get through the pipe artfully so that your audience doesn't feel like, Ugh, why people don't talk like that. Often a way to do this is by introducing a third character. So when a third character comes on the screen, the person who are you just talking to? Ugh, I was just talking to my sister. Now we know who that person is. Right? Sis, anytime you hear someone, a character calling the character sis, you roll your eyes. I've never met anyone who called her sister Sis.Yeah, and I talk more about that in the course, but I just happened to watch, I was sent a short to potentially work with someone and they shot a miniature TV show. I guess it was sent to my agent or somebody. There was a lot of pipe in it. It was a lot of clunky pipe because they just didn't know how to do it Every time it just stops the story cold.Phil Hudson:So the question is, how do you not front load the pipe? Do you have any tips for how to do that? I mean,Michael Jamin:ObviouslyPhil Hudson:The character, but if I've got to get this stuff out, and maybe you don't need to get it out at the front, because I saw someone do this masterfully where a character was introduced very late in the film, and it added this beautiful plot point that tied back to something at the beginning and explained something. But it was intriguing enough that I got through two thirds of the film before this part mattered. But it's rare to see that. It seems like people are just, act one is laying down the pipe and getting you set in your wall.Michael Jamin:YouPhil Hudson:Understand? And I don'tMichael Jamin:ThinkPhil Hudson:What you teach us is that that's the wrong way to do that.Michael Jamin:Yeah, because pipe is so boring. All that exposition is boring and you think it's important. You think you need it, and I'm telling you, you better figure another way around it. No one wants to hear it. So you could drip it out slowly as the audience needs it, or you could burn through it fast or you could, there's just a number of ways of doing it, but giving me entire scenes of pipe is not the way to do it. That's going to bore the hell out of everybody. No one wants to watch pipe.Phil Hudson:Yeah, makes sense.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Awesome. So those are our craft questions for this episode or for this, but we've got breaking in one question on this, Kelli Art, what's the best way to get paid to learn writer's assistant? How do you get such a competitive job?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Well, so writer's assistant is a fantastic way, but it's not an entry level job because you have to know how to do it. I've talked about this before. I'm not qualified to be a writer's assistant. I don't really know the ins and outs of the job, even though I've been a showrunner several times. So the way you learn how to be a writer's assistant is you start off often as a production assistant and you hang out with the writer's assistant. You ingratiate yourself and you ask, Hey, can I watch you work? And then you learn how they do it. Then hopefully that writer's assistant falls deathly ill, and you take their job away from them, and that's how you do it. Then once you're in the writer's room, that's the best way to get paid to learn. You will learn so much that you'll get lost. And so it's a long process. But yeah, that's a wonderful way to do it.Phil Hudson:And if you're a writer's pa, we've talked about it on the podcast many times, you still get to learn. You're sitting outside of the room within ear, so if they need something, they call you. So you're sitting outside the room listening to them, break the story and tell jokes. And I had this moment where Kevin Heffernan walked in one time and he's just like, and I still really knew it was maybe a month into me being a writer's assistant. This is the showrunner for people who don't know. And he's like, how's it going? You watching a lot of shows? And I was like, Nope. He's like, man, why not? You're sitting here all day. And I was like, I'm just riding. He's good for you. And he just walked away because that's what most people do is they get in that room and they sit there and they just watch Netflix or they do something. But I treated it, and this is probably because of advice you gave me from what you did, is that is craft time. You're sittingMichael Jamin:Down,Phil Hudson:You are riding. So when they're breaking stories, I'm listening to how they're breaking stories. I'm listening to pitch things when they're not in or somebody's out, then I'm working on my stuff. It's just taking advantage of every moment.Michael Jamin:I learned this from my first roommate when I moved out here. I had one of these PA jobs and I was not happy with it. And he's said, just think of it like you're getting paid a lot of downtime. Think of it. You're getting paid to learn how to write. And I was like, okay, you're right. You're right about that. So in that downtime, I just started. And then of course you could read scripts, you could talk to writers, you could ask them, why did you make this change? You get to talk to people and they'll give you little tips hopefully.Phil Hudson:And by the way, Michael, this is advice. You kind of gave me the preamble to this advice really before I even got to la. But then there was a moment where you kind saw, it was two years in three years into doing this stuff, and you gave me that same advice. Just look at it as you're getting paid to learn. I dunno if you could see it in my face or something, but it was like,Michael Jamin:Well, it's hard. I know what it was. It's a souls. It can be so frustrating. You're so close to the job you want. Literally, you are three feet away from the job you want and you're there for years. And it's like, when do I get to move up to that other seat that I want to sit in? So it's very, how is it not frustrating? But it's just how it is.Phil Hudson:But it's not individual either. Like I said, I was just here with Mike Rapp and Kevin, and they're both worst. One has been a script coordinator. The other was a script coordinator who bumped and broken as a staff writer,Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:They were talking, they'd never met each other, so they're just kind of giving each other the resume. And it's like, yeah, I moved here and I was at Disney working in the parks for four years, and then I met someone whose husband was an executive and AB, C, and he brought me in for the pilot season. And then I got hired as a writer's PA on the Muppets. And I was like, this is it. I'm in, because it's the Muppets, it'll never get canceled. And then it got canceled, and then it was hopping between show to show from different job to different job for seven years until he finally got the bump. And Mike rep was not really any different. He moved here and he was in a production company and always dangling the carrot of, we ever get a show, we'll get you into, be in the writer's room. And six years finally got a show and got the job.Michael Jamin:But you know what though? I've been on shows where PA has worked on the show and the PAs have gone to some of the PAs who worked for me. One is big in Chuck Laurie's world, so he's like a exec or, and he's directed several episodes of Sheldon or Big Bang, one or the other. And the other one has done a lot of, it's always Sunny in Philadelphia. And another one is co-executive producer of Bob's Burgers. And these are all people who started off as PAs underneath me. And so that's where they are. So it's like it'sPhil Hudson:Just a process.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it's a process. You got to hang in there.Phil Hudson:I was thinking on my drive today, I went out and had to get some stuff and I drove around and I was like, yeah, I think people just think that this stuff is beneath them, and you can't have that attitude. I came at it thinking, look, this is just the path. This is the apprenticeship model. I want to learn from these people. And you talk about this, people always want to jump further ahead in their careers and become a showrunner and sell their first thing and do that. And we all want that because the dream, but you're kind like, you kind of don't want that. What you want is to learn how to do the jobMichael Jamin:Because you'll get fired so fast if you don't have to do the job. I was going to answer a post like that on social media soon, but someone had a showrunner question. So I'll do a post about that soon.Phil Hudson:Awesome. Cool. Couple of questions about the course here. Tank a Soar. Do you have a lesson on how to write a French farce? And this is a topic that came up in theMichael Jamin:Webinar? Yes, goodPhil Hudson:Question. So maybe define what that is for people. I don't think that's a term many people know.Michael Jamin:A farce is three's company did a lot of Farces, Frazier did a lot of farces. So it's a lot of slamming doors, people overhearing things, misinterpreting things, and only hearing the conversation and assuming that this person wants this thing. And it's a lot of doors slamming and just people crossing and misinformation. It's a lot of fun. And I said in the webinar that I wrote for Joe Keenan, who was one of the Frazier writers, and he created with Chris Lloyd, a show called Out of Practice that I wrote on for a year. And Joe is brilliant, brilliant at writing FARs. I don't know anybody better. I watched a show, a famous episode of Frazier, just to study for this. What could I talk about FARs? I watched an episode, I think it was, I dunno what it's called, the Ski Cabin episode or something. It was very funny. In my opinion, FARs is a really, they're hard to do well and they're hard to sustain. The stakes are always, to me, they're hard to sustain because the stakes are always, it's always about a misunderstanding. And so it's always silly. And so very, very hard in my opinion, to really write a really good farce. And I wouldn't necessarily start there if that was what your goal is, I'd start writing something a little easier. I don't know.It is hard. And they're a little tortured, and that's okay. But yeah, I don't know. You're asking me how do I hit a grand slam? Well, let's talk about how they get on base first.Phil Hudson:Yeah. And the question was, do you have a lesson on how to write a French forest in the course?Michael Jamin:Yeah, there is no, and I thought about after I watched that episode of Frazier, I go, maybe I should do a lesson on that. And then I watched, I go, nah,Phil Hudson:I don't think I should. I think it personally, I just think it would be a mistake. You're going to send all the hundreds of people in your course down a rabbit hole of riding French farces, and they're going to get lost in that, I think.Michael Jamin:And there's no demand for it. Like I said, I think it's just don't start there. Don't start there.Phil Hudson:Shiny object syndrome. We find something new and that's what we want to do. And then the reality is you got to focus on the fundamentals. That'sMichael Jamin:All thatPhil Hudson:Matters.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Keith Shaw wants to know is the beat board, the unpacking of the crate? And for context, everybody, Michael has this story he's talked about on the podcast and brings up in the webinar occasionally about how to unpack a story. And there's this crate of parts, and then it's how you unpack that, and that's what a story is. I don't want to give too much away, but whatever you want to give away, Michael.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I mean, so every writer room I've ever been in has a big whiteboard, and the s showrunner will send the whiteboard and we'll start pitching the idea and then we'll figure out how to break it on the board, figuring out what the act break is. First act break is second, act break middle to two top, you lay it out all the parts, and you look at it as a whole and does it hold together? And then that could take a week, and then you start writing an outline off of the board. So when they say the analogy, I talked about unpacking a crate. Yeah. It's similar to what a board is. The whiteboard is. It's like what's the order in which we're going to unfold all the, unpack the elements of the crate to tell an engaging story.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. James Moore, what's the difference between a log line and an outline?Michael Jamin:Oh, well, a log line is one or two sentences. And outline could be 10 pages if you're talking about a half hour TV show. So that's the difference.Phil Hudson:And line is you've alluded to, everyone needs a log line. If you don't understand it, you don't know what you're writing. And an outline is a step in the writing process. And it typically, it's a couple steps after you break a story.Michael Jamin:And the log line, a lot of people don't know if I ask you, what's your story about? And they go, well, it's about this and also about this, and also about this. It's like, okay, if you can't explain what your story is in one or two clear, succinct sentences, if you can't explain your story, then you don't understand your own story. And if you don't understand it, the audience isn't going to understand it. So it's really important to have a clear log line about what your story is about one or two sentences. That's it. Simple. Einstein said it. If you can't explain something simply, chances are you don't understand it.Phil Hudson:Yep. David Campbell asked a very similar question about the order. I think we answered that. So David, that should answer that question for you. JY Tau, does the course teach you how to get your work produced?Michael Jamin:Oh, no. And a matter of fact, that shouldn't be the goal. The goal, that course teaches you how to write a great script. And that's the only thing you have control over here. Most people want to skip that step. This guy's asking me, will the course teach me how to become a millionaire? No, the course doesn't teach you that. Does the course teach you how to give an acceptance speech at the Oscars? No. It won't teach you that. The course, all that is look, that comes later. Hopefully the course will teach you how to write a good script or hopefully a grade script. And everyone skips that step. They assume they already have it. And I'm here to tell you, you don't. And maybe you're the 1% that does great, but 99% of the people think they're in that 1%. And most people who go through the course say, oh, thank God, I wish I know. Now I have to go back and rewrite that script because I thought it was great. And now I'd realize it's not so.Phil Hudson:Amen. I'm one of those people. And this is a bit of the Dunning Kruger effect, which is this moment where you learn a little bit of something and you think you're an expert in it.Michael Jamin:AndPhil Hudson:Then the more you learn, you realize there's a lot to learn. And then there's a certain point where you know more than you think. And Michael, even at your level, I hear you say this, sometimes I'm not as good as that guy, or I'm not that. And that may be factually true in terms of talent, but it's also, that's the humility of being an expert is knowing how little in this space,Michael Jamin:That's another thing is if you were to ask almost any showrunner I've worked with or worked for, they'll all tell you, oh, writing is so hard. It's the people who are just starting out who will tell you, Hey, I'm good at this. And you don't know what you don't know yet. And the more you do it, and now I'm at the point where I'll look at something, I'm like, oh God, I'm starting to unravel and I have to trust myself because it's like, is this the best way to tell the story? Maybe there's a better way.Phil Hudson:That's no different than my career in digital marketing though. I'm at the point where I can say I'm an expert. I've been doing it for how many years? Over a decade. But there's plenty of time still where I'm like, oh man, I don't know. Is this going to work? And then you have toMichael Jamin:JustPhil Hudson:Go back and say, there is a pattern and a history here of results that back up what I think I need to do. And I just have to go with that because million different caveats and details you got to pay attention to in all of this. And Michael, by the way, this is a big thing you helped me with was just focusing on the detail. Stop being so, I don't want to call it lazy writing, so much time and energy that goes into it, but it's the passing over the detail and the detail is the devil. It's in theMichael Jamin:Detail. Yeah, the little things stand out.Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my content And I know you do because You're listening to me, I will Email it to you for Free. Just join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos of the week. These are for writers, Actors, Creative types, people like you can Unsubscribe Whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and the price is free. You got no excuse to join. Go to michaeljamin.com/and now back to, what the hell is Michael Jamin talking about Mishu Pizza.Phil Hudson:So if we take the course, do we get certified?Michael Jamin:Phil has tried to convince me to offer certification.Phil Hudson:I think there's a good certification. I want to be clear.Michael Jamin:Its thePhil Hudson:Type of certification we'll explain after yours. SoMichael Jamin:Here's the thing, if I were, I have said over and over again that if you got a degree in screenwriting and MFA in screenwriting or certificate, whatever, the degree itself is worthless. You're not going to go into a meeting, you flash your degree. When I go into a meeting, I don't even talk about my college education. No one caress. No one caress where I went to college. It doesn't come up. All they care is, can I put words on the page that compel people to turn the pagePhil Hudson:And the fight you got into with your wife the previous day? That's the story.Michael Jamin:Oh, we'll talk about that. Yeah, the degree, if I offered a degree, I think I'd be hypocritical. Hey, I have a degree from Michael Jamin University, or whatever the hell it is. I know some people want that, but I feel like, again, it's that's not going to open doors. Your script's going to open doors. And if I can teach you how to write a great script, that's more important than a gold star for me,Phil Hudson:My pitch for everybody was that Michael put out a certificate. So when you complete the course, you get that says, congrats, here's your fancy certificate, it's worthless. Go write something good. You goMichael Jamin:Write something. Yeah, we could do something like thatPhil Hudson:That I thought would be kind of just chef'sMichael Jamin:OnPhil Hudson:The whole thing. Desmond Bailey question, do you build this story? I wonder if his name's Desmond Bailey question or if this is just Desmond Bailey has aMichael Jamin:Question.Phil Hudson:Do you build the story world first and then inject the characters or focus on characters and let the world procedurally generate as they navigate it?Michael Jamin:So I spoke about this though in the webinar, so I feel like he probably was jumping the gun. IPhil Hudson:Think it's a good question. I think it'sMichael Jamin:Worth, yeah. Well, I answered it and I basically say you do it at the same time. And I think about what the world is first and who are the best characters to put in this world, or as I've said in the webinar, who's the worst character to put in this situation? And if you want to know what I mean by that, you're going to have to come to the next webinar where I talk about character. But that's the way I look at it. Who's the worst person to put in this situation?Phil Hudson:Yeah, there you go. Alec Cuddle back. My stuff is usually story driven and people criticize preferring character driven. Why is that?Michael Jamin:Oh, because plot is boring. Okay, what's this person's name?Phil Hudson:Alec Cuttle.Michael Jamin:Alec, alright, Alec. Okay. So I dunno if you're young or old, but there's a movie called Rocky, starring Sylvester Stallone. The first Rocky was fantastic. It won the Oscar put Sylvester Stallone on the map after they did Rocky, they did eight more Rocky, eight more. I don't know how many Rockies they did, including Creed and Creed One and Creed two or whatever. They've made countless sequels to Rocky. Every single rocky has the same exact plot. You put someone in a boxing ring and they get the shit kicked out of them, and then maybe at the end they're alive. So the plot itself for Rocky and most of the Rockies are not considered great. Only one won the Oscar, and that was the first one, even though the plot is virtually identical. So the difference between Rocky won and Rocky a hundred is the story. One had a just amazingly compelling small story, and the other ones lacked that. And so what this guy's Alec is talking about is it sounds like he's just got, I got a lot of plot. Well, who caress the plot is not the good stuff. You got to have a good plot. But it's, the story is what makes people cry. And if you want to know the difference between plot and story, you have to come to my next free webinar because I talk. It's an hour long discussion.Phil Hudson:Excellent. Cameron Billingsley, how do you know you have drawn out the anticipation enough when you're building anticipation in yourMichael Jamin:Storytelling? Yeah. Well, I wonder if the person's talking about any kind of reveal or I guess we don't really know.Phil Hudson:I think this was specifically tying back to the crate, unpacking the crate.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. Well, how do you know? It's like these moments have to be built to anytime you have a big reveal or a moment in Act three, whatever it is, the big fight scene, the fight scene in Rocky or whatever, you have to build to it. And it's literally putting the steps on a pyramid and then you get to the top. And then if you skip a step or if each step doesn't build, you're not going to get to the top of that pyramid. And the top is the view, the top is everything. And so how do you know? Well, that's the process of writing is taking your, how do you know when you've built the anticipation? That's all of it. So if I were to write Rocky, I'm thinking in my mind, I'm building to the moment when Rocky, at the end, when Rocky's getting the shit kicked out of him, boom, time after time again by Apollo.And he keeps getting up and he keeps getting up. And I want to build that last moment where they're both down on the mat, or I don't even remember which Rocky it was. But when Rocky, the fight's almost over and Rocky's on the mat and he stands up again, just this guy won't go down. And that is even thinking about it, I get chills, but you have to build to that. That's what you're building to, which is a guy who will not quit. And why is it so important? When we talked about earlier in this podcast, it's not that the stakes of Rocky are not about will Rocky win the fight? Who cares? Will Rocky win the competition? The contest? Who cares? No one caress. If he wins, the stakes are, will Rocky finally feel like he's not a loser? Will he finally feel like he's not a bum? And that's something all of us can relate to, is that feeling, that self-worth. And so you have to build to that. How do you know? Well, that's everything. That's what you focus on. And if does help, if you're seen does not add one step on that pyramid, then to build to that final moment, then why are you have it in there? Why is it in the script?Phil Hudson:The next question from Willow is how do you know the difference between true story that should be included versus minutia and unnecessary information? I think you just answered that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Because if you don't need it, why is it in it? Why is it in there?Phil Hudson:So tying all this together for people who are newer, and good recap for me, because again, you got to remind yourself of the fundamentals every day. You even talk about how you have to remind yourself, oh yeah, this is hero, obstacle, goal, kind of that stuff. So we have a log line, and the log line helps me understand what I'm trying to accomplish with this story. But that's typically based off of a theme and that theme, my opinion generally included inside of that log line, so that I understand this is what I'm trying to accomplish with this. So the log line for Rocky is, can a bum from Philly go the distance with the champ? It's not even, can he beat the champ? It's can he go the distance? And so everyone tells him he can't think he can, and then at the end, there's that moment when he gets up, you're talking about, and Apollo creed's like, soul is taken. Are you kidding me? He'sMichael Jamin:StillPhil Hudson:Getting up. This guyMichael Jamin:Won't get down.Phil Hudson:And that's the moment where it's like, that's him getting up. And then he, Apollo wins and he's like, I did it. And it's like a victory for him because this guy won't stop and everyone's celebrating Rocky. And Rocky goes, Adrian, I did it. Right? Yeah.Michael Jamin:And I think the last line, Apollo says, there ain't going to be no rematch. And Rocky goes, don't want one. He doesn't want, he got what he wanted, and of course they made 10 more. But yeah, a beautifulPhil Hudson:Story. But they all stack and build all of these details build, like you said, you're building them to this and all of them play off the theme and the log line. And that's why all of these details, breaking the story, outlining the story, they all have to be there. Because if you're just, and we talk about how all these writers have different styles, and for some people it's making it up as you go. But professional writers, there's a process. You break the story and you do your thing, and then you do your outline, you do all these things, and then you do your rewrites and many rewrites because you're still figuring out those tiny details. But it's not like I'm going to make it up as I go because you need plant and payoff. You need these things and these symbols almost that allude to the theme and the theme plays throughout the whole thing. And if you're not structuring that like an architect, it's going to feel very hodgepodge Frankenstein. And that's a note you gave me Frankenstein together.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Phil Hudson:So there you go. People are going to be pissed. I talked to you not long on your podcast, Michael,Michael Jamin:I'll tell you. No, no, no,Phil Hudson:No, no,Michael Jamin:No.Phil Hudson:Couple more questions here.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Phil Hudson:Justin had another question for short comedy films on YouTube. Max lengths is one minute. That's shorts.Michael Jamin:That's for shorts. Clarify.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Does short structure still apply to any length film? Curious how you would approach writing a story for a one minute film? This is a format question for people who are not in the know. YouTube stories are the equivalent of Instagram reels or Facebook reels,Michael Jamin:YouTube shorts.Phil Hudson:YouTube shorts,Michael Jamin:Right?Phil Hudson:And they are, excuse me. Yeah, so they're 60 seconds, and then IMichael Jamin:Think there's 90. You're saying there's 60,Phil Hudson:That's Instagram. Instagram is expanded to 90, but YouTube is 60. And that's what this is referring to, which is a medium on YouTube, not necessarily a cap on what you can put on YouTube.Michael Jamin:Yeah. So I would say it's really hard to tell a complete story in 60 seconds, but you could tell one part of a story in 60 seconds and then another part, another 60 seconds. You could stretch it out. You might be able to tell a compelling scene in 60 seconds and a scene should have a shape to it, but don't think, can it be done? Yeah. I don't think it could be done that well. I don't think anyone's going to be that satisfied. I think you need more time to get that plane up in the air and land it. But think a bit of it like this, if a story is a journey, how far can you go in 60 seconds on a journey? Not very far at all. You can go to the end of the block. The view at the end of the block is pretty much the same, the view from my house. So I think you need more time. That's just my opinion now.Phil Hudson:Yeah. To see good shorts that you've recommended to me was go back and watch the Broad City original shorts that were put on YouTube.Michael Jamin:Okay. How long are they?Phil Hudson:They can be 90 seconds to three minutes, but they're not full stories necessarily. They're more kind of skits and you introduce your characters and we learn more about them and more interactions in different episodes of,Michael Jamin:That's just really, I never saw those. I saw the TV show Broad, which I love, but I didn't watch the shorts. Got it.Phil Hudson:Someone had a question. Again, these are miscellaneous. Someone wanted to know when they could see your CNN interview. So the day we did this webinar, you had just gotten off with CNN and joined the thing. But yeah, you've been on CNNA couple times now, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. I think you can go to my website, Phil, right? Isn't it upPhil Hudson:There? Yep. It'll be live is MichaelJamin.com And then you can just go to the About tab and you'll see it.Michael Jamin:Is it on the bound? I thought it was going to be on the pressPhil Hudson:Or something. It's press tab. Yeah, but we don't have the URL final right now, but by the time this comes out, it'll be out because we're doing some cleanup. We redesign on michaeljamin.com.Michael Jamin:Oh, it's Jill's doing a great job. It's going to be exciting. Appreciate that.Phil Hudson:AppreciateMichael Jamin:That.Phil Hudson:Jill Hargrave, she inMichael Jamin:The, oh, wait, hold on. If anybody wants their website redesigned, go check out Rook Digital, which is Phil's company. This is what he does.Phil Hudson:Yeah, Shannon was plugged. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate that. Jill Hargrave, she's in the course, right? Jill?Michael Jamin:I don't know.Phil Hudson:I believe she is. Yeah. If you're writing a biopic, does the story definition apply as the story is at least one event in the person's life and sometimes many more events than just one?Michael Jamin:So ifPhil Hudson:You're writing a biopic, does the story definition apply? I'm guessing is a biopic, is it the whole person's life, or is it a moment in this person's life?Michael Jamin:I don't know. It's kind of what you decide to write it about, I would assume. Yeah, it is what you want to decide. I've seen it both ways. You might write about JFK the early years, and maybe you're following his life in college in Harvard, I think, and that could be a whole thing. Or you could tell JFK's entire life story up until the moment he died. I mean, you could do that as well. But either way, you have to know how, and I talked about this as well. I spoke about, I really hope people come to this next webinar. I use an example of Amadeus, which is, in my opinion, the best biopic ever made. It's a beautiful movie. It's probably three hours long. There's an intermission. There's an intermission fucking movie. That's how long it is. It's myPhil Hudson:Amazing, my wife's favorite movie, by the way,Michael Jamin:Is it, isPhil Hudson:She wants me to name one of our children, Wolfgang. And I was like, come on, man. Wolfgang Hudson.Michael Jamin:I don't know Wolf. I don't know. I don't know. I'm Amm on her side.Phil Hudson:I'll let her know. She'll be pumped.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. So I spoke about that, about come listen to, I hope they come to the webinar. Well, she did. She heard it where I spoke about You're still just telling one aspect of his life of Wolfgang Mozart's life. You're not, there's a lot. They left out, the guy lived, I dunno how long he lived, but the movie's three hours and the guy lived longer than three hours. So there's a lot they left out. They only just filed this one thread of his life. And that's how you tell the story. So don't tell. In other words, don't tell. I feel like you don't want to tell the story. Someone's life story. You want to tell one story from their life.Phil Hudson:And Oppenheimer, I think is the very current version of that that did a great job. It is building up to help us understand why this person was uniquely put in this position, why it was taken from him, and then how ultimately he got justice with having to, because of his character.Michael Jamin:And there's a lot they left out, and I'm sure, I think it got some criticism for that, but what are you going to do? You can't tell everything. You have to pick a story.Phil Hudson:Yep. Yeah, adaptation. Right? It's a whole different segment of screenwriting. That is brutal. Absolutely brutal. Because you're just cutting things and combining things, and it's just a different part of the world. Helga G. How do you deal with the other characters in your life that might not be comfortable being in your story?Michael Jamin:You don't put 'em in. You don't put 'em in it. It's not your story to tell. I'm actually reading, I'm just about to finish a wonderful book by this Canadian author, Sheila Hetty, and it's called How Should a Person Be? And in this book, which is an auto fiction, so it's a true story. She uses some of her friends as characters in the story, and she talks about the blowback she got from that, which is so interesting. And I'm going to have her on my podcast soon, but I don't do it for that reason. I don't do it exactly for that reason, but I'll talk to her about it.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Awesome. Last question, Rob Kao, CAO might be C Chao, I don't know. Is that Italian? CAO? It's like CI. AoMichael Jamin:Would C-C-I-A-O.Phil Hudson:Yeah. Sorry, Rob, ruin in your name. Within the last year, I've had an idea of writing a script with two specific actresses in mind. What do you recommend that I do?Michael Jamin:Well, they're not going to do it. Just know that, right? I mean, I write for actors all the time. It's just for them having someone in my mind as a placeholder. But I don't think if they're famous, unless they're the people actors in your apartment complex, then that's fine. And they're going to be in your movie, that's fine. But if you think if it's a star, they're not going to do it. So use them as a placeholder, as a template to give you as a muse. I do that as well, but I don't think I've ever written a role for someone. And they actually wound up taking itPhil Hudson:In the Tacoma FD spec that I wrote. I alluded to a famous actor who plays this type of person. I was like, just think this person. And the comment I got back, I was, oh, that was so helpful. And I know you have to be a bit careful with that because you don't want to, it can derail your script a bit.Michael Jamin:Actually, I want to take that back. We wrote an episode of Marin that we wrote it with Chet Hanks in mind, who's Tom Hanks' son. And we reached out to him and he took it. I got to say the guy killed it. He killed it. He was perfect and a really good actor.Phil Hudson:That's awesome. If you guys haven't seen Marin, go watch Marin. That show's incredible.Michael Jamin:That show's fun. Yeah.Phil Hudson:Is there anywhere to go see The Hidden? Because they were two pilots, right? There was the first pilot and thenMichael Jamin:It was a presentation, so it was only a few scenes. Got it. I don't know if I have it.Phil Hudson:Yeah, I thought it was on Prime. I think I got it on Prime originally.Michael Jamin:Wow. Was part of what theyPhil Hudson:Were doing. I'll go check. I'll see if I still have it. But yeah, it was, it's just a great show. Just massive show. And I was at an influential time when I was just really learning this stuff at a deeper level. So just seeing it play out in really tight scenes with limited characters and justMichael Jamin:Amazing, amazing. That's what was so fun about that. And I tried, we wrote some one episode where there wasn't enough of a stakes, and it was the one on dead possum where he finds a dead possum.Phil Hudson:I love that episode. That's the one I think of every time.Michael Jamin:That was a good one. But the original draft didn't have the storyline of him apologizing to his dying stepfather, not stepfather, his dying. It was missing from that. And we turned that draft into the network, and they thought, she was like, there's nothing here. There's nothing. The story's not about anything. And I'm like, don't you get it? That's the whole thing. I was trying to pull a fast one on her. I was like, but it's like waiting for Gau. She's like, no, I'm not buying it. The studio exec. And she was right. And so we wound up talking, Seaver and I, pardon? We ended up talking about it. We came up with this storyline where when Mark was afraid to go under the house to get a dead possum, that's just enough. There's not enough there. There's not enough debate for a story. And so instead, we had a concurrent storyline where he was afraid to confront his dying Father-in-Law because Mark broke up with his daughter. And in so doing, he kind of destroyed, he, mark was a coward. He didn't want to apologize to his father-in-Law for that. And so it was really a symbol. So when Mark was afraid to go under the house to get the dead possum, but he was really afraid of, was apologizing to his father-in-Law, those stakes are much higher.And so those stories kind of work really nicely together, but that was not in the original draft. Yeah,Phil Hudson:That's a great episode. There's one of the biggest laughs I've ever had. I think it was like your, might've been your end of act two, your act two, bottom of Act two with the kid fromMichael Jamin:When he says,Phil Hudson:Yeah, I was molested himMichael Jamin:Some. I think that was Seavers line.Phil Hudson:It's just like,Michael Jamin:What?Phil Hudson:Not making light of that degree. It's just theMichael Jamin:Context ofPhil Hudson:It, the setting.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It was like, you shouldn't have said that. That'sPhil Hudson:Funny. Alright, Michael, there you go. There's a bonus episode for everybody.Michael Jamin:Yeah, we're not making light of it. It was just that the guy confessed to having been molested as good, but it was like, no, we weren't talking about any of this.Phil Hudson:And then they have to talk and he's having this breakdown where this realization of he's a coward, and then now he has to be a surrogate father and listen to this kid. He's talking about his assistant and it's just like, the timing is just excellent. You guys handled it well. It's not disparaging or mean-spirited at all. It's just great. That was aMichael Jamin:Funny one. Alright, everyone. Yeah. Come to my webinar. Go watch that episode of Marin Dead Possum.Phil Hudson:Awesome.Michael Jamin:If you can find it somewhere,Phil Hudson:Michael, anything you want these guys to do other than come to the webinar,Michael Jamin:There's that. I'll be dropping my book soon. A paper orchestra, if you want to know more about that, that'sPhil Hudson:Michaeljamin.com/book.Michael Jamin:Oh, is that what it is? It'll be book. Book. Okay. TherePhil Hudson:Are a couple pages. You got AP Orchestra touring, you've got an events page, you got this. So I figured that was the easiest way to get people to the page is michaelJamin.com/book.Michael Jamin:And so the book is a collection of personal essays. If you want to learn more about what it's like to actually be a writer in Hollywood, but that's not what it's about. It's really about the premise is what if the smallest, almost forgotten moments were the ones that shaped us most. And so in the end, I have a little bonus section of the book where I talk about, so I perform the book as well. And if you want to come see that seem, be on the road, go to michael jamin.com/upcoming. And at the end of every performance, I do a talk back where I talk to the audience and they ask questions. And so I decided at the end of the book, there should be something like that where I talk about, it's basically a virtual talk back, right? I'm preemptively answering questions that people have asked me that I think people found interesting about the writing process. So that'll be in the book as well. So a little bonus for those of you who are interested in learning about writing, that'll be the last chapter. Yeah,Phil Hudson:Great. And the live performance still great. It almost a year. I can't believe it was almost a year ago. And it still sits with me as a father. It still sits with me.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Thank you. I want to start performing again. That'll hopefully start in February or March or whatever. Once that book is out, we'll start performing again.Phil Hudson:Great. Cool. All right, Michael, anything else? Thank you.Michael Jamin:I think that's it. Get on the newsletter. We're rev revamping the newsletter. We've revamped the podcast so there's more stuff, but better,Phil Hudson:More better, better streamlined, a little bit easy to get around. It kind of outgrew itself. So we talked about that on episode 1 0 4. But yeah,Michael Jamin:We didn't know what this was going to turn into, so we had to evolve it.Phil Hudson:Yeah, it's a good spot. Great to be back on the podcast, Michael. Thanks for having me.Michael Jamin:Yeah, thank you Phil. Alright, until next time, keep writing everyone.So now we all know what The hell Michael Jamin's talking about. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for my free monthly webinars@michaeljamin.com/webinar. And if you found this podcast Helpful or entertaining, please share it with a friend and consider leaving Us a five star Review on iTunes that really, really helps. For more of This, whatever the hell this is for Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. And You can follow Phil Hudson on Social media @PhilAHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It Was Edited by Dallas Crane and music Was composed By Anthony Rizzo. And remember, you can have Excuses or you can have a Creative life, But you Can't have both. See you next Week.

Emma chats with Monica Heisey about her novel, Really Good, Actually. They also discuss divorce at a young age, the triumph of oat milk, writing for television versus writing fiction, the best advice, Toronto Public Library's reading challenge, and how to find the funny in writing and life. Books mentioned: Birds of America by Lorrie Moore Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Garbielle Zevin Georgia Nicolson series How Should a Person Be? By Sheila Heti  We hope you enjoy this episode of the Professional Book Nerds podcast. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen! You can follow the Professional Book Nerds on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok @ProBookNerds. Want to reach out? Send an email to professionalbooknerds@overdrive.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alyssa Songsiridej (Little Rabbit) chats with Jordan about moving to a new city, the scary-freeing experience of being away from one's community, and how letting a book out into the world is a process of letting go. MENTIONED: Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel how cold winters get in Boston Alyssa Songsiridej is an editor at Electric Literature. Her fiction has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Indiana Review, The Offing, and Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and has been supported by Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the VCCA and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Little Rabbit is her first novel. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, she lives in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drama. Faux feminism. Gaslighting. It's all here. Olivia Wilde's follow-up to Booksmart is here and it isn't good! Caitlin and Laura return to the show to discuss the cooler stories this film could have told, its tired politics, some juicy behind-the-scenes Hollywood gossip, and the interior design choices we liked. ReComradationsEvan: Hold the Girl - Rina SawayamaCaitlin: How Should a Person Be? by Shiela HetiLaura: Catch Me If You Can, dir. Steven Spielberg (2002)Check out Cailtin's SubStack!Rate + review the show on the podcatcher of your choice!Join the Kino Lefter DiscordJoin the Kino Lefter Facebook group "Kino Lefter VIP Cinema Experience"Get access to Primo Lefter, our weekly bonus show on our Patreon for just $3 per month. 

My guest today is the brilliant Sheila Heti, author of Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? In this episode we discuss her latest book Pure Colour, a new novel l about art, love, loss and time. It has been described as a galaxy of a novel: explosive, bright, huge and streaked with beauty. Sheila Heti has also been described as philosopher of modern experience - and I really enjoyed this conversation. Motherhood, her novel which grapples with the question of whether or not to have kids was a huge inspiration on me - and I think Sheila is one of the most talented artists of our time. Enjoy this conversation, I loved it and was on cloud nine after recording! My Substack! https://thehyphen.substack.com/Sheila Heti's Pure Colour: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/153/9781787302808Sheila Heti's books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/sheila-hetiMy books: https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/emma-gannonBooks Mentioned On Ctrl Alt Delete Podcast: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/books-mentioned-on-ctrl-alt-delete-podcastTwitter: Twitter.com/emmagannonInstagram: Instagram.com/emmagannonuk See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

With How Should a Person Be? Sheila Heti merrily and unforgettably extended our notions of what a novel might or ought to contain. In Pure Colour (Harvill Secker), brilliantly described by Kirkus Reviews as ‘that rarest of novels—as alien as a moon rock and every bit as wondrous,' she continues her extraordinary project of expanding our minds to where they ought to be. Heti was in conversation about that project with Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sheila Heti reads her story “Just a Little Fever,” from the April 18, 2022, issue of the magazine. Heti is a Canadian writer, whose books of fiction and nonfiction include the novels “How Should a Person Be,” “Motherhood,” which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and “Pure Colour,” which was published earlier this year.

We're still alive! And at the incessant nagging of the Our Struggle Office of Diversity and Inclusion, joined by Canadian woman writer Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be?, Motherhood, and the newly out PURE COLOUR (note the canadian spelling). This was a great episode - we didn't talk about Knausgaard so much (although Sheila had a good story about hanging with the man at an Australian continental breakfast), or even Craft (although there was some craft chat), but you all know the drill by now -- the pleasure is in the digression etc. Thanks so much to our new friend Sheila for coming on the show! Look forward to hanging in Toronto soon with Margaret, Alice and the whole gang

Sheila Heti joins Jordan to talk about grief, god, the shape of her novel, and what it means to be rooting for the snail. Mentioned: "The Unknown Masterpiece" by Honoré de Balzac The Masterpiece by Émile Zola Sarah Ruhl Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro Sheila Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the “New Classics of the 21st century.” She was named one of “the New Vanguard” by the New York Times book critics, who, along with a dozen other magazines and newspapers, chose Motherhood as a Best Book of 2018. Her novels have been translated into twenty-four languages. She is the former Interviews Editor of The Believer magazine. She lives in Toronto. For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.com Be sure to rate/review/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the podcast, Angela is joined once again by Sheila Heti, whose book, Pure Color, is available now. Sheila is also the author of many other books, including How Should a Person Be? and Motherhood. This episode is about beards, birds, fish, and which one you are. Sheila and Angie also talk about being critical, not wanting to be 18 again, and why looking at your phone may be as important as looking at the sky. Delightfully, they are jointed by Feldman, Sheila's loyal dog who is asleep beside her. You can hear him snoring, softly. Sheila's serialized diaries are available on The New York Times. Next time: Jason Diamond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on the podcast, Angela is joined once again by Sheila Heti, whose book, Pure Color, is available now. Sheila is also the author of many other books, including How Should a Person Be? and Motherhood. This episode is about beards, birds, fish, and which one you are. Sheila and Angie also talk about being critical, not wanting to be 18 again, and why looking at your phone may be as important as looking at the sky. Delightfully, they are jointed by Feldman, Sheila's loyal dog who is asleep beside her. You can hear him snoring, softly. Sheila's serialized diaries are available on The New York Times. Next time: Jason Diamond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sheila Heti is the author of the novel Pure Colour, available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the "New Classics of the 21st century." She was named one of "the New Vanguard" by the New York Times book critics, who, along with a dozen other magazines and newspapers, chose Motherhood as a Best Book of 2018. Her novels have been translated into twenty-four languages. She is the former Interviews Editor of The Believer magazine and lives in Toronto. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  YouTube Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

can we be "in love" with our friends? we say, certainly! in this episode we discuss how our love lives have grown, supported, and expanded us when we've opened to the experience of non-sexual romantic love.  art picks: Cait: Real Estate by Deborah Levy How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler the books above were recommended as a response to watching Yellowstone from Paramount cat: Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown also mentioned in this episode: Stef Streb: Goddess Photographer Extraordinaire (located in Columbus, OH)  connect w/us: team: @weadmittedpod Cait: web: caitweissorcutt.com ig: @caitcameraface cat: coaching @ cathbradley.com   + more audio stories at chBeing   questions, show ideas? you can go to weadmittedpod.com and drop them there. better yet, share your thoughts and become a part of our growing community on Patreon. there are some great new benefits to joining us there this season. be sure to check them out!

RIP Eve Babitz. Here's our episode on her from September 2020.  Books mentioned: Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming, Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A, Lili Anolik; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West; Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion; Essays, Michel de Montaigne; Paradise Lost, John Milton;Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood; Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney; How Should a Person Be?, Sheila Heti; Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino. Resources:  All About Eve--And Then Some (Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair) Eve Babitz is Better Than Ever (OLIVIA AYLMER, Vanity Fair) Jia Tolentino on Eve (New Yorker) The Eve Babtiz Revival (Penelope Green, NYT) My Favorite Year: In Los Angeles with Eve Babitz in 1971 (Dan Wakefield, LA Review of Books) Eve Babitz's Vision of Total Freedom (Marie Solis, The Nation) L.A. Confidential (Holly Brubach, NYT Style Magazine) Germans in L.A. (Alex Ross, New Yorker)

When artists get together, conversation flows! Antics, disco, cocktails and more in this week's celebration of our upcoming Yaddo Artist Reunion. Three fantastic writers who met at Yaddo discuss how peers influence each other: Lauren Groff, the bestselling author of six books of fiction, including Fates and Furies, Florida and her latest, Matrix; the ever-brilliant Sheila Heti, author of the novels Motherhood, How Should a Person Be and her forthcoming book, Pure Colour; and Sarah Manguso, the luminous author of eight books, including her upcoming novel, Very Cold People. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Destiny's Child (“Independent Women,” the Charles J Remix). Special thanks to Glenfiddich for sponsoring our Yaddo Artist Reunion.

Bonus mini-episode, brought to you by my mini-coached Patrons! Question include: Should I write a book proposal? What’s fictionalized memoir, anyway? And how can I learn to revise my book? Books mentioned: Moonglow, Michael Chabon - https://amzn.to/3dmmg3ZHow Should a Person Be, Sheila Heti - https://amzn.to/3dm81fHDept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill - https://amzn.to/3abGUlhFor revision: Story Engineering, Larry Brooks - https://amzn.to/3gi8RfcAnatomy of Story, John Truby - https://amzn.to/3tq38HXIntuitive Editing, Tiffani Yates Martin - https://amzn.to/3tntJoVNovel Editing Workbook - https://amzn.to/3tA9DZ3*Amazon affiliate links - please order local if you can! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

First Draft Episode #274: Justin Reynolds Justin Reynolds, author of The Opposite of Always, talks about his new young adult contemporary novel, Early Departures. This episode is brought to you by Everything I Thought I Knew, by Shannon Takoaka, out from Candlewick Press October 13, 2020. Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode Hear Justin’s mailbag episode of First Draft here Hear Justin on the live episode recorded at YAhooFest 2019, along with Rick Yancey, New York Times bestselling author of the Fifth Wave series, the Monstrumologist series, and more; Cindy Pon, Want and its sequel Ruse, the Silver Phoenix series and more. John Grisham, author of The Firm, Camino Winds and many more Michael Crichton, author of Sphere, Jurassic Park, and many more How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti I want to hear from you! Have a question about writing or creativity for Sarah Enni or her guests to answer? To leave a voicemail, call (818) 533-1998 or send an email to mailbag @ firstdraftpod dot com! Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jason Reynolds; Leigh Bardugo, author of Ninth House and the Grishaverse series; Creator of Sex and the City Candace Bushnell; YouTube empresario and author Hank Green; Actors, comedians and screenwriters Jessica St. Clair and Lennon Parham; author and host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast Linda Holmes; Bestselling authors and co-hosts of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast, Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish and co-host of the Sciptnotes podcast; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Track Changes If you’re looking for more information on how to get published, or the traditional publishing industry, check out the Track Changes podcast series, and sign up for the Track Changes weekly newsletter. Support the Show Love the show? Make a monthly or one-time donation at Paypal.me/FirstDraft. Rate, Review, and Recommend Take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you! Is there someone you think would love this podcast as much as you do? Just click the Share button at the bottom of this post! Thanks again!

This week: uber L.A. woman Eve Babitz. How do you talk about a woman who knew everyone and did everything there is to do?? We give it a shot--covering her life, her work, and her recent revival on #bookstagram. Books mentioned: Eve’s Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming, Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A, Lili Anolik; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West; Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion; Essays, Michel de Montaigne; Paradise Lost, John Milton; Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood; Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney; How Should a Person Be?, Sheila Heti; Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino. Resources:  All About Eve--And Then Some (Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair) Eve Babitz is Better Than Ever (OLIVIA AYLMER, Vanity Fair) Jia Tolentino on Eve (New Yorker) The Eve Babtiz Revival (Penelope Green, NYT) My Favorite Year: In Los Angeles with Eve Babitz in 1971 (Dan Wakefield, LA Review of Books) Eve Babitz’s Vision of Total Freedom (Marie Solis, The Nation) L.A. Confidential (Holly Brubach, NYT Style Magazine) Germans in L.A. (Alex Ross, New Yorker) Email us at thatbookpod@gmail.com. Friend us on Goodreads and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook and check out our website.

In times of difficulty, which certainly describes our current world, how do we place our hope on a living Person? Be holy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89hjwKiT5NA&t=15s

This week it's a classic rabbit hole conversation. Becky and Laird start off discussing how breweries and whiskey distillers are telling their stories, then pivot into the stories that insurance can tell and where/how those stories can be told. Plus, Laird has a new nickname. Can a Person Be a Brand? (https://www.insurancehappyhour.com/19) What is Your Why? (https://resources.getitc.com/modern-agency/what-is-your-why) Old (Insurance) Sales Road (Old Town Road Parody) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x8aQsvI7W0) Oak & Eden Finished Whiskey (https://www.oakandeden.com/)

Josh and Ingrid podcast for the first time. They don't have a microphone or a plan. Next time they'll be better. [Turn your sound waaaay up except turn it way down every time either of us laugh.] Books mentioned in this episode: How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Sean Penn :-/ Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood Monstrous Affections edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant The End of the End of the Earth: Essays by Jonathan Franzen Final Girls by Riley Sager (A MAN!!!) The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn (A MAN!!!) Herding Cats by Sarah Andersen Song: Bookstore by Tendon Levey

Several media outlets publish insane Thanksgiving-themed op-eds, Ivanka gets in trouble for email issues, the caravan hits the border, Chipotle fires an employee over racism accusations before backing off the decision, the Daily Mail publishes a list of insane 'hate crime' investigations in London, and Gavin McInnes quits the Proud Boys in the hope of helping members being prosecuted in New York. Support the show! Streamlabs (Superchat alternative): https://streamlabs.com/skagg3    Become a Patron: http://www.patreon.com/beautyandthebeta  Make a one-time contribution on PayPal: http://www.paypal.me/beautyandthebeta  Beauty & the Beta merchandise shop: http://bit.ly/2nxSaj6  (If there are items absent that you'd like to request, email us and we can accommodate) Blonde's channel: http://bit.ly/23RrR3z  Blonde's Twitter (RIP): http://bit.ly/2t41Wvc  Blonde's Gab: http://bit.ly/2jQFS4a  Matt's Twitter: http://bit.ly/2ib6eKr  Matt's BitChute channel: http://bit.ly/2P9UrxT  Our Discord server: New users use this link: https://discord.gg/Uhattun   Existing users use this link: https://discord.gg/4rkxcZv  Beauty & the Beta on demand: http://bit.ly/1TUcepj  Listen on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/23YM9rM  Listen on Google Play: http://bit.ly/2iFWOqD  Listen on Soundcloud: http://bit.ly/1TUce8E  Listen on Stitcher: http://bit.ly/1TlubhE  Listen on Podbean: http://bit.ly/1TUcnJ8  ARTWORK by Facepalm Reality Facepalm Reality's Twitter: http://bit.ly/2AZfI4V  Facepalm Reality's YouTube channel: http://bit.ly/2uxbrr9  MUSIC Semi-charmed life remix: https://youtu.be/nCIqnB7sIaw   Bearing and SugarTits' cover of "Catch the Wind" https://youtu.be/DPZtCSScFWM  "Dog Park" and "Odahviing" written and performed by AENEAS: http://bit.ly/2sibPZ7  ITEMS REFERENCED CNN editorial says thanksgiving just like migrant caravan: https://cnn.it/2R8gd5r   Vice editorial says pilgrims were queer: http://bit.ly/2R8mn5O   Thinkprogress says guns should be banned like lettuce: http://bit.ly/2PTqSo2   University of Oregon 'Thanks But No Thanks-Giving' event: http://bit.ly/2Rdvmmi   Students comment on the event: https://youtu.be/QGMjNJa4Xbk  Ivanka sent government business emails on her private account: https://wapo.st/2KABxOU   The Entitled Hypocrisy of Ivanka Trump's Personal E-mail Account http://bit.ly/2ReUoRN   ‘The View's' Joy Behar Rips Ivanka's Email Hypocrisy: ‘How Stupid Can a Person Be?' https://thebea.st/2RcNa0V   Ivanka Trump's email hypocrisy is especially grating — and reeks of sexism http://bit.ly/2RdT15Z   Colbert bit rips Fox coverage, unwittingly acknowledges differences from Hillary's emails: https://youtu.be/jMtT_tPl_F0   9th circuit overrules Trump on asylum seekers https://cnn.it/2Rd6x9S  Migrant activist says caravan members may cross border en masse soon: https://fxn.ws/2R8mKwZ   Tear gas and rubber bullets deployed on border crossers: https://dailym.ai/2PTF40r   Migrant impales herself crossing border fence: https://dailym.ai/2PS0gUx   Chipotle original tweets/videos: http://bit.ly/2RccQdQ   Company statement firing the manager: http://bit.ly/2RdxBWP  GoFundMe for Chipotle manager: http://bit.ly/2R9znbe   Rando Tony's tweets: http://bit.ly/2R6dfhY  Chipotle reverses, offers job back to manager: https://wapo.st/2P2GosG   Manager tweet in response to Chipotle's offer: http://bit.ly/2Rb9qbh  The dogsh*t 'hate crime': https://dailym.ai/2PFNA2Y   FBI classifies the Proud Boys as an extremist group: http://bit.ly/2R9BTOI   Proud Boys prosecuted in New York: https://nyti.ms/2r3mpQX   Gavin quits the Proud Boys in video: https://youtu.be/DGrPjx2V_TA   

[Podcast in English] Er det mulig å leve et fullverdig kvinneliv uten å bli mor? Å få eller ikke få barn, det er spørsmålet. Sheila Heti utforsker forholdet mellom kunst, kropp og kvinneliv i sin siste roman, Morskap. Hovedpersonen er i slutten av trettiårene, og er livredd; både for å få barn, og å angre på at hun ikke fikk det. Er det mulig å leve et fullverdig kvinneliv uten å bli mor? Og er det mulig å bli mor uten å oppgi sin frihet? Sheila Heti er en kanadisk forfatter. I 2012 utga hun How Should a Person Be, som ble kåret til årets beste bok i New York Times. Journalist og kritiker Karin Haugen samtaler med Heti på scenen. Det blir boksalg og signering etter arrangementet.

Guest Host Sheila Heti(Motherhood, How Should a Person Be?) speaks with fellow "autofiction" author Rachel Cusk (A Life's Work, Aftermath, et al). The Giller-nominated writers discuss receiving harsh criticism, why memoir is a dead end, and how Cusk is reimagining the novel, and making art and meaning out of mid-life crisis and divorce with her critically-acclaimed trilogy (dubbed a "literary experiment"). Support CANADALAND: http://canadalandshow.com/join See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sheila Heti's new novel 'Motherhood' (Henry Holt/Harvill Secker, 2018) is a formally inventive, deeply personal exploration of a woman's decision about whether to have children. It builds on the success of her 'novel from life', 'How Should a Person Be?' and confirms her as one of the most interesting and exciting authors of the 21st century. In our June 2018 episode, Juliet talks to Sheila about her new book and her life in writing. WORKS BY SHEILA HETI The Middle Stories (2001) Ticknor: A Novel (2005) How Should a Person Be? (2010) The Chairs are Where the People Go (2011) We Need a Horse (2011) Women in Clothes (2014, co-edited with Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton) All Our Happy Days are Stupid (2015) Motherhood (2018) Kathy Acker Thomas Bernhard Cool Runnings (dir. Jon Turteltaub, 1993) Rachel Cusk Dave Eggers 'The Hills' (TV series, 2006-10) JULIET JACQUES, Trans: A Memoir (2015) JULIET JACQUES, 'The Woman in the Portrait' Karl Ove Knausgaard CHRIS KRAUS, I Love Dick (1997) Ben Lerner Herman Melville Henry Miller Joe Orton Willam H. Prescott - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Prescott NATHALIE SARRAUTE, 'The Age of Suspicion' (1963) - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/03/05/nathalie-sarraute/ George Ticknor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ticknor Margaux Williamson - http://www.margauxwilliamson.com/

Sheila Heti’s latest novel Motherhood (Harvill Secker) confronts, in the characteristic fiction cum essay style which she pioneered in How Should a Person Be? one of the fundamental dilemmas of early womanhood – to have children or not. She read from her work and discussed it with Sally Rooney, bestselling author of Conversations with Friends (Faber). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Writers Sheila Heti, Jessie Greengrass and Jacqueline Rose compare notes on motherhood & presenter Anne McElvoy looks at depictions of Mrs Noah with New Generation Thinker Daisy Black.Jacqueline Rose has written Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty. Her previous books include Women in Dark Times Sheila Heti's latest book is called Motherhood. Her previous books include How Should a Person Be? and Women in Clothes. Jessie Greengrass' novel, Sight, has been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018.Daisy Black, Lecturer in English at the University of Wolverhampton, is one of the ten academics selected as New Generation Thinkers for 2018 in the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to help academics turn their research into radio programmes.Producer: Fiona McLean

Sheila Heti's intentionally "ugly" novel of creative anxiety and ethical quandary, "How Should a Person Be?" If this wets your whistle, you can hear more about the book tomorrow on the Ark Audio Book Club podcast, or just swing by the store and pick up a copy.

American writer, publisher and filmmaker Chris Kraus joins Juliet to talk about the difficulties of experimental filmmaking, her work with Semiotext(e)'s Native Agents series, critical responses to her work on Kathy Acker and the pressures of mainstream success. WORKS REFERENCED: Works by Chris Kraus Books CHRIS KRAUS, I Love Dick (1997) CHRIS KRAUS, Aliens and Anorexia (2000) CHRIS KRAUS, Torpor (2006) CHRIS KRAUS, Summer of Hate (2012) CHRIS KRAUS, L.A. Artland: Contemporary Art from Los Angeles (2005) CHRIS KRAUS, Video Green: Los Angeles Art and the Triumph of Nothingness (2004) CHRIS KRAUS, Where Art Belongs (2011) CHRIS KRAUS, After Kathy Acker (2017) Films In Order to Pass (1982) Terrorists in Love (1985) Foolproof Illusion (1986) How to Shoot a Crime (1987) Gravity & Grace (1996) Other works PENNY ARCADE, Bad Reputation: Performances, Essays, Interviews (2009) - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=213 Bruce Benderson - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=188 BERNADETTE CORPORATION, Reena Spaulings - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=26 ALBERT CAMUS, L'Étranger (The Outsider) (1942) CHARLES DICKENS, Bleak House (1852-53) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleak_House Marguerite Duras Justin Fashanu - https://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/lifestyle/2012/05/justin-fashanu-and-politics-memory GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, L'Éducation sentimentale (Sentimental Education) (1869) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentimental_Education Emily Gould Pierre Guyotat - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=51 RAYNER HEPPENSTALL, The Connecting Door (1962) - http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-connecting-door/ SHEILA HETI, How Should Be a Person Be? - http://www.sheilaheti.com/how-should-a-person-be/ Michel Houellebecq I Love Dick (TV series) Gary Indiana THE INVISIBLE COMMITTEE, The Coming Insurrection (2007) - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=135 Glenn Beck talks about 'The Coming Insurrection' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY7Yvd3cuY0 CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD, Goodbye to Berlin (1939) LARS IYER, Spurious (2011), Dogma (2012) & Exodus (2013) - http://spurious.typepad.com/ JULIET JACQUES, Trans: A Memoir (2015) - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/06/juliet-jacques-trans-a-memoir JULIET JACQUES, You Will Be Free (2017) - http://www.studiovoltaire.org/exhibitions/archive/juliet-jacques/ B. S. JOHNSON, Trawl (1966) - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2336211.Trawl Franz Kafka Wyndham Lewis Sylvère Lotringer COOKIE MUELLER, Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/302243.Walking_Through_Clear_Water_in_a_Pool_Painted_Black COOKIE MUELLER & VITTORIO SCARPATI, Putti's Pudding (1989) Alain Robbe-Grillet NATHALIE SARRAUTE, 'The Age of Suspicion' - http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1964/03/05/nathalie-sarraute/ Claude Simon MICHAEL SNOW, Wavelength (1967) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBOzOVLxbCE LINDA STUPART, 'Chris Kraus and the Empathetic Exchange of Objects' in MIRA MATTAR (ed.), You Must Make Your Death Public: A Collection of Texts and Media in the Works of Chris Kraus - http://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/You-Must-Make-Your-Death-Public-Chris-Kraus-9781906496647.pdf Lynne Tillman - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=162 JEAN-PHILIPPE TOUSSAINT, Self-Portrait Abroad Transparent (TV series) MASHA TUPITSYN, Beauty Talk & Monsters (2007) - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=163 Jackie Wang DAVID WOJNAROWICZ, A Definitive History of Five or Six Years on the Lower East Side (1991) - http://semiotexte.com/?page_id=168 Kate Zambreno

PHILADELPHIA — Beth, 24, was born and raised in rural Kentucky, lives in Philadelphia, and works in nonprofit food distribution. Also makes a mean jalapeño margarita. She read How Should a Person Be? over the past couple months, primarily while at jury duty and while on a train. I first read it in late 2014. Sheila Heti, 40, conducts and edits interviews for the Believer. She was born, and still lives, in Toronto. Intro/outro music from FILADELPHIA YAMZ: https://soundcloud.com/yams_npotatoes/sets/filadelphia-yamz

Back in Episode 15, we talked about Sheila Heti's novel How Should a Person Be, which neither of us loved. This week we're giving Heti a second chance, reading a recent story of hers from The New Yorker.  We talk about whether we were too quick to judge her book based on its marketing materials, and what it is we want from fiction. If certain types of novels feel stale, for instance, is the problem with the form itself, or just books that aren't doing enough within that form? Also: Mike shares some lessons learned from spending his summer reading novel manuscripts, and Tom shares some thoughts on snacks. You can read the Heti story here, via the New Yorker. And for more, you can always visit us online at bookfightpod.com. 

Talk (New York Review of Books)Friendships are built on chatter, on gossip, on revelations—on talk. Over the course of the summer of 1965, Linda Rosenkrantz taped conversations between three friends (two straight, one gay) on the cusp of thirty vacationing at the beach: Emily, an actor; Vince, a painter; and Marsha, a writer. The result was Talk, a novel in dialogue. The friends are ambitious, conflicted, jealous, petty, loving, funny, sex- and shrink-obsessed, and there’s nothing they won’t discuss. Topics covered include LSD, fathers, exes, lovers, abortions, S&M, sculpture, books, cats, and of course, each other.Suffusing the characters’ banter are the feelings of freedom, indolence, and ennui that accompany summer. But despite its summery stillness, Talk takes place at a turning point for Emily, Marsha, and Vince, who are nearing 30 and for American culture at large. The sixties are in full swing, social mores are being thrown aside, and the three friends are fully caught up in this spirit of change. Talk was ahead of its time in recognizing the fascination and significance of nonfamily ties in contemporary life. It may be almost fifty years since Emily, Vince, and Marsha spent the season in East Hampton, but they wouldn’t be out of place on the set of Girls or in the pages of a novel like Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be?Praise for Talk"Cool, astringent...something new, something beyond black humor or pop fiction." --The New Republic"Utterly hip, utterly frank, utterly amoral." --New Haven Register"The rawest of raw material is hashed over in detail, but with such clinical openness and enthusiasm that one is far more often delighted and stimulated than embarrassed or shocked." --James Leo Herlihy, author of Midnight Cowboy "The three [main characters] mercilessly dissect themselves and each other. Ostensibly everything goes in, with sudden realistic swerves of attention from the state of their souls and their sex-lives to the cooking--from egos to eggs, so to speak, which is very much the way life is...The pattern of self-revelation is far from coarse: it is eloquent and convincing, with its insights suddenly stumbled upon, its slender bridges of nervous sympathy that join each private island to the threatening outside world." --Norman Shrapnel, The Guardian "The characters are defined by speech alone, and the talk is of a kind that has been missing from literature...Miss Rosenkrantz's importance as a writer is to have shown, right away in her first book, that exact data can go into a novel without the pressures of conventional plot and character requirements." --VogueLinda Rosenkrantz is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Telegram, a history of the telegraphic communication, and her memoir, My Life as a List: 207 Things About My (Bronx) Childhood, and the co-author of Gone Hollywood: The Movie Colony in the Golden Age. She was also the founding editor of Auction magazine, a long-time syndicated columnist, and a founder of the popular baby-naming site Nameberry.com. She currently resides in Los Angeles.

Women in Clothes (Blue Rider) Skylight Books is thrilled to present three phenomenal writers -- Sheila Heti (How Should a Person Be?), Heidi Julavits (The Vanishers), and Leanne Shapton (Important Artifacts) -- for a discussion on their highly anticipated new book, Women in Clothes. This event will feature a clothing swap!  Attendees are encouraged to bring one special item of clothing that you'd like to swap, with your name and an interesting detail about the garment pinned to the piece. Men are welcome to participate in the swap, too. You don't have to bring an item to attend, but we encourage it. All leftover clothing will be donated. Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities--famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old--on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives.  It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations.  Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, or function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women's style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.  Praise for Women in Clothes: "Thoughtfully crafted and visually entertaining.... A provocative time capsule of contemporary womanhood, this collection is highly recommended." --Publishers Weekly "Poems, interviews, pieces that read like diary or journal entries—all these responses help the editors fulfill their aims: to liberate readers from the idea that women have to fit a certain image or ideal, to show the connection between dress and 'habits of mind,' and to offer readers 'a new way of interpreting their outsides.' 'What are my values?' one woman asks. 'What do I want to express?' Those questions inform the multitude of eclectic responses gathered in this delightfully idiosyncratic book." --Kirkus Reviews Sheila Heti is the author of five books, including the critically acclaimed How Should a Person Be? She writes regularly for the London Review of Books, and collaborates frequently with other writers and artists. She lives in Toronto. Heidi Julavits is the author of four novels, most recently The Vanishers, winner of the PEN/New England Fiction Award. She is a founding editor of The Believer and an associate professor at Columbia University. Leanne Shapton is a Canadian artist, author, and publisher based in New York City. She is the author of Important Artifacts and Swimming Studies, winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography.

Gideon Lewis-Kraus’s memoir A Sense of Direction is an account of three pilgrimages – the Camino de Santiago, a tour of Buddhist temples on the island of Shikoku, and a journey to the tomb of a Hasidic Rabbi in the Ukraine – undertaken in the wake of a family crisis. Gideon was at the shop to talk about pilgrimage, writing and reconciliation with Sheila Heti, author of How Should a Person Be? and Christian Lorentzen, senior editor at the London Review of Books. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Is How Should a Person Be? a novel, a memoir, a self-help manual, or a book of philosophy? It is all of these things and more.  Host David Naimon talks with Sheila Heti about her new book, which Bookforum dubs “a raw, startling, genre-defying novel of friends, sex, and love in the new millennium—a compulsive read that’s like spending […] The post Sheila Heti : How Should A Person Be? appeared first on Tin House.

Sheila Heti is today's guest.  She is the Interviews Editor at The Believer magazine, and her new novel, How Should a Person Be?, is now available in the United States from Henry Holt. Miranda July raves: A new kind of ... Continue reading → Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices