Podcast appearances and mentions of Sarah Gerard

Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, a New York Times Critics' and NPR Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award; the novels True Love and Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Prize; a coauthored art book, Recycle; and the chapbook The Butter House. Her new book of investigative journalism is called Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on ‘The Write Question,' host Lauren Korn speaks with Sarah Gerard about ‘Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable' (Zando Projects).

This week on ‘The Write Question,' host Lauren Korn speaks with Sarah Gerard about ‘Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable' (Zando Projects).

Sarah Gerard is the author of Carrie Carolyn Coco: My Friend, Her Murder, and an Obsession with the Unthinkable, available from Zando Projects. Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, a New York Timescritics' choice; the novella Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times first fiction prize; two chapbooks; and the novel True Love. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, Granta, The Baffler, Vice, BOMB Magazine, and other journals, as well as anthologies. She's been supported by fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Tin House, PlatteForum, Ucross, and the Whiting Foundation. She lives in Denver. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Twitter Instagram  TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eurydice Eve speaks with Sarah Gerard, the author of CARRIE CAROLYN COCO as well as Sunshine State, the novella Binary Star, and the novel True Love. The Carolyn Bush true crime story is the modern face of femicide : a young woman doesn't need to be married or romantically linked to be murdered by her domestic live-in. Before she was brutally stabbed to death by her roommate in 2016, Carolyn Bush was a 25 year old poet and a founding member of the nonprofit reading group Wendy's Subway in New York City. She believed in astrology & studied at Bard College student, as did her killer, Render Stetson-Shanahan. She was a friend to many, including Sarah who gathered her text messages, emails, blog posts, poems, essays, social media, marginalia and interviewed many of her loved ones recollections of her for this book. Render Stetson-Shanahan admitted to getting drunk and “smoking weed” with his brother before the incident. He also admitted that Bush was speaking on the phone when he asked her, “Guess what?” before he began stabbing her to death. “It was a horribly disturbing case,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. “The knife sliced into her back and neck, puncturing her heart, lungs and a major artery.” The murderer, Render Stetson-Shanahan, 29, avoided second degree murder charges in Carolyn Bush's brutal murder in the Ridgewood apartment they shared, because his defense attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma painted a picture of Stetson-Shanahan as a “kind and gentle” man, who “went crazy” the night he killed Bush because of a “marijuana induced hysteria” or psychotic break. The gruesome story made national headlines because the killer is the son of New Yorker cartoonist Danny Shanahan and of Janet Stetson, the Director of Graduate Admissions at Bard College. Queens prosecutors said Stetson-Shanahan was aware of his actions the night of the stabbing assault but Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter rendered a verdict of guilty of manslaughter in the second degree. The verdict carries a five to fifteen year sentence which means that Stetson-Shanahan could be let free for time already served with good behavior. For more on Sarah's work, go to https://sarah-gerard.com @SarahNumber4 For more on Eurydice's work, go to https://Eurydice.net or https://SpeakwithEve.com or https://youtube.com/@EveEurydice. @EurydiceEve. Please support this podcast at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/speaksex/support or donate at https://www.paypal.me/Eurydice. We are 100% listener supported. Enjoy. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/speaksex/support

Lindsay Lerman is a writer and translator. Her new novel, WHAT ARE YOU (CLASH Books) is out now. Her first book I'm From Nowhere was published in 2019. Her essays, short stories, and poetry have been published in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Entropy, Hobart, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. She is currently adapting her short story Real Love—which first appeared in NY Tyrant Magazine—for the screen. She is represented by Abby Walters at CAA. In the intro David and I talk about Pascal Laugier's MARTYRS (2008). The interview with Lindsay starts at 27:42. In this conversation we get into: locating and living through the cusp of our time, the interconnection between nuance and chaos, dissolution, the unspoken rules of commodification, giving into the productivity of terror, giving yourself up to the universe, barfing into the void, celebrating the irrational, and the importance of play in the face of utility. We also talk about Bataille's philosophy around expenditure and waste as a way to explore Lindsey's outlook and work as an author. WHAT ARE YOU: Hypnotic, dreamlike, lyrical essays tell the story of a woman trapped in a destructive love affair with the universe. Her understanding of power, desire, and complicity must be transformed again and again. Addressed to an amorphous you, Lerman wrestles with the forces of birth and death, creation and destruction—going deep into the subterranean strata of consciousness and back. PRAISE: “An incantatory and hypnotic work of voice, What Are You exists at the apex of creation and destruction, desire and shame, innocence and experience, violence and tenderness, rapture and suffering, hunger and the denial of flesh. To read it is to feel the terror of falling from a great height—but wanting to; maybe even choosing to jump.” - SARAH GERARD, AUTHOR OF SUNSHINE STATE AND TRUE LOVE "Passionate, dispassionate, hypnotic, deadpan, ecstatic, Lindsay Lerman's What Are You, read it now. Now." - KATHE KOJA, AUTHOR OF THE CIPHER SOCIAL: Twitter: @WakeIslandPod Instagram: @wakeislandpod David's Twitter: @raviddice Lindsay's Twitter: @lindsaylerman Lindsay's Instagram: @lindsay.lerman --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wake-island/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/wake-island/support

Orlando's Burrow Press has published some of Florida's most well-known and renowned authors -- Kristin Arnett, Laura van den Berg, Sarah Gerard, and John Henry Fleming among them. Today I'm joined by the founder and publisher of Burrow Press, Ryan Rivas, to talk about the early years of the press, how its mission has evolved, and his views on the changing Florida literary scene.

Sarah Gerard is the author of three books. Her essay collection Sunshine State was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Her novel Binary Star was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a best-book-of-the-year at NPR, Vanity Fair, and Buzzfeed. Her novel True Love was a Best Book of 2020 at Glamour and Bustle, and winner of an Audiofile Earphones Award. Her short stories, essays, and interviews have appeared in The New York Times, T Magazine, Granta, The Baffler, The Believer, Vice, Electric Literature, and many others. Her paper collages have appeared in Hazlitt, BOMB Magazine, The Creative Independent, Epiphany Magazine, No Tokens Journal, and the Blue Earth Review. Recycle, a co-authored book of collages and text, was published by Pacific in 2018.

Listen to new faculty member Sarah Gerard read from her novel, "True Love." To learn more about Sarah, her book recommendations, and what courses she's teaching, visit The Lookout: https://www.lighthousewriters.org/blog/new-faculty-spotlight-book-sarah-gerard

Craig and Chadd begin this episode looking at Florida's checkered history of hosting political conventions. Craig wrote about the topic for Politico.com earlier in the summer as the Republicans were supposed to nominate Donald Trump in Jacksonville in late August before the event was cancelled due to COVID-19 health concerns.This episode's guest is author Sarah Gerard who penned a series of essay's collectively titled "Sunshine State: Essays." One of the essays shares the story of the Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary and its founder Ralph Heath. Heath oversaw the Tampa-area wildlife rehab facility from its heights as the largest nonprofit wild bird hospital and sanctuary in the United States and tourist attraction, to run down and under investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Every Florida story seemingly has a bright side and a dark side, this one brighter and darker than most.

A reading from the novel True Love by Sarah Gerard. Out now from Harper. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/true-love-sarah-gerard Nina is a struggling writer, a college drop-out, a liar, and a cheater. More than anything she wants love. She deserves it. From the burned-out suburbs of Florida to the anonymous squalor of New York City, she eats through an incestuous cast of characters in search of it: her mother, a narcissistic lesbian living in a nudist polycule; Odessa, a single mom with even worse taste in men than Nina; Seth, an artist whose latest show is comprised of three Tupperware containers full of trash; Brian, whose roller-coaster affair with Nina is the most stable “relationship” in his life; and Aaron, an aspiring filmmaker living at home with his parents, with whom Nina begins to write her magnum opus.

Joe is joined by Sarah Gerard to talk about her new book True Love.Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection SUNSHINE STATE, which was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the novel BINARY STAR, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seindenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism hhave appeared in the New Yor Times, T magazine, Granta, Baffler, and Vice, and in the anthologies Tampa Bay Noir, We Can't Help it If We're from Florida, and Small Blows Against Encroaching Totalitarianism. She lives with her true love, the writer Patty Yumi Cottrell.You can contact the show at noisemakerjoe@gmail.com - Just put WTR in the subject line.Contact for Sarah GerardFind True LoveWebsiteTwitterContact for Joe bieleckiTwitter and Instagram: @noisemakerjoeWebsiteOne time donationPatreonArt photo by Arielle Tipa

Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series. Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on May 9, 2017, with Megan Abbott (Give Me Your Hand), Julie Buntin (Marlena), and Sarah Gerard (Sunshine State). Listen to the last episode for this week's readings. About the Readers: Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels Die a Little, Bury Me Deep, The End of Everything, Dare Me, You Will Know Me, and The Fever. Her most recent book is Give Me Your Hand. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Believer. Her stories have appeared in multiple collections, including the Best American Mystery Stories of 2014 and 2016. Her work has won or been nominated for the CWA Steel Dagger, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and five Edgar awards. Formerly a staff writer on HBO’s David Simon show, The Deuce, she is now co-creator, executive producer and show-runner of Dare Me, based upon her novel, for the USA Network and, internationally, Netflix. Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan and received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She has taught at NYU, the State University of New York and the New School University. In 2013-14, she served as the John Grisham Writer in Residence at Ole Miss. She is also the author of a nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, and the editor of A Hell of a Woman, an anthology of female crime fiction. She has been nominated for many awards, including three Edgar Awards, Hammett Prize, the Shirley Jackson Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Folio Prize. Julie Buntin is from northern Michigan. Her debut novel, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, translated into ten languages, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including the Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Vogue, the New York Times Book Review, Guernica, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf and the MacDowell Colony, and is an editor-at-large at Catapult. Her novel-in-progress is the winner of the 2019 Ellen Levine Fund for Writers Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Michigan. Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, which was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the novel Binary Star, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, T Magazine, Granta, The Baffler, Vice, and the anthologies Tampa Noir, We Can’t Help it if We’re From Florida, and One Small Blow Against Encroaching Totalitarianism. She lives in New York City with her true love, the writer Patty Yumi Cottrell. * This event was made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series. Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on May 9, 2017, with Megan Abbott (Give Me Your Hand), Julie Buntin (Marlena), and Sarah Gerard (Sunshine State). Check back Thursday for the discussion! About the Readers: Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels Die a Little, Bury Me Deep, The End of Everything, Dare Me, You Will Know Me, and The Fever. Her most recent book is Give Me Your Hand. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Believer. Her stories have appeared in multiple collections, including the Best American Mystery Stories of 2014 and 2016. Her work has won or been nominated for the CWA Steel Dagger, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and five Edgar awards. Formerly a staff writer on HBO’s David Simon show, The Deuce, she is now co-creator, executive producer and show-runner of Dare Me, based upon her novel, for the USA Network and, internationally, Netflix. Born in the Detroit area, she graduated from the University of Michigan and received her Ph.D. in English and American literature from New York University. She has taught at NYU, the State University of New York and the New School University. In 2013-14, she served as the John Grisham Writer in Residence at Ole Miss. She is also the author of a nonfiction book, The Street Was Mine: White Masculinity in Hardboiled Fiction and Film Noir, and the editor of A Hell of a Woman, an anthology of female crime fiction. She has been nominated for many awards, including three Edgar Awards, Hammett Prize, the Shirley Jackson Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Folio Prize. Julie Buntin is from northern Michigan. Her debut novel, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, translated into ten languages, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including the Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Vogue, the New York Times Book Review, Guernica, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf and the MacDowell Colony, and is an editor-at-large at Catapult. Her novel-in-progress is the winner of the 2019 Ellen Levine Fund for Writers Award. She teaches creative writing at the University of Michigan. Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, which was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and the novel Binary Star, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, T Magazine, Granta, The Baffler, Vice, and the anthologies Tampa Noir, We Can’t Help it if We’re From Florida, and One Small Blow Against Encroaching Totalitarianism. She lives in New York City with her true love, the writer Patty Yumi Cottrell. * This event was made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Of all the terrible just-out-of-college jobs that have been described on TK, Julia Fine probably had the worst. Later, she ended up leaving a good position to pursue an MFA, and the result is WHAT SHOULD BE WILD, a (wild) combination of fairy tale, folklore, mystery, road trip, and countless other inspirations. She and James talk about how she managed to juggle so many influences while avoiding genre expectations. Plus, Julia's editor from Harper, Erin Wicks.  -  Julia Fine: https://www.julia-fine.com/ Julia and James discuss: Annie Hartnett  Columbia College Chicago Harper  Mercedes Lackey  Tamora Pierce  HIS DARK MATERIALS by Philip Pullman Angela Carter  WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson  Robert Graves  FROM THE BEAST TO THE BLONDE by Marina Warner  Erin Wicks  Carmen Maria Machado   Kelly Link  SWAMPLANDIA! by Karen Russell THE TIGER'S WIFE by Tea Obreht  MR. FOX by Helen Oyeyemi  Benjamin Percy  Stephen King  MARLENA by Julie Buntin - Erin Wicks: @Erin_Wicks Erin and James discuss:  WHAT SHOULD BE WILD by Julia Fine (obviously) SUNSHINE STATE by Sarah Gerard  BINARY STAR by Sarah Gerard  WAVE by Sonali Deraniyagala -  http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/

The year is 1999, and thirteen-year-old Elliot is a self-appointed "diet coach" who teaches her classmates how to survive on one stick of gum a day to get heroin-chic, Kate Moss thin. Elliot is obsessed with her best friend and former "client" Lisa, who is fresh out of inpatient treatment and dating a nineteen-year-old drug dealer. Meanwhile, Elliot's mother Anna, a capricious poetry professor, has a drug addiction and eating disorder of her own. When Lisa transfers her fixation from food to sex with her boyfriend, Elliot's fragile grip on reality begins to falter, at the same that time that Anna's fascination with the object of her own blind lust, the student who relinquishes his cocaine to her during office hours begins to consume her. I Must Have You is the story of what happens one three-day weekend in an explosion of desire, hunger, and lost innocence. JoAnna Novak's kaleidoscope of 1990s America, filled with vibrant imagery from riot grrl graffiti to Michael Jordan posters, offers a vision of the complexities of womanhood and the culture that keeps the modern girl sick. I Must Have You is a provocative debut of rare honesty from a daring new voice. Similar to the works of Miranda July, Novak's novel will appeal to a new generation of readers who hunger for raw female protagonists. Praise for I Must Have You "I Must Have You is a book about girls―their secret languages and private codes, their painful preoccupations and complex compulsions, and their scary tendency, when caught in the gazes of society, men, (and worst, each other), to diminish themselves―sometimes to the point of disappearing completely. With risky, confident prose and brazen psychological renderings―not to mention a knack for getting the 90's just right―Novak takes us on a seductive, uncharted journey through modern womanhood, obsession and illness. I can honestly say I have never read anything like this book." ―Molly Pretiss, author of Tuesday Nights in 1980 "I Must Have You is a devastating novel about loving and trying to destroy one’s own body."―Ramona Ausubel, author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty  "I Must Have You showcases JoAnna Novak's raw, real, and vivid voice in the character of Elliott, a sharp-tongued, sharp-witted, and complex young heroine unlike any we've met. Novak's intelligent, funny, frightening, and deeply felt novel bravely goes where this genre has not gone before: into the darker reaches of a culture that casts a long shadow across the lives of girls and women today. Novak explores the extent of our longing, and—ultimately—the source of our strength."—Marya Hornbacher, New York Times Bestselling Author of Madness, Wasted, and others. "JoAnna Novak's voice is unforgettable and her irreverent, addictive debut is sure to position her as one of the great stylists of her generation. I Must Have You is a brilliant and candid look at what it means to be a girl in this world; it's a meditation on hunger, on wanting, on the things and people that consume us, and on the things and people that we long to consume. A truly exciting, beautiful novel."—Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire and Skinny  “I Must Have You presents a harrowing and immersive story of compulsion and disorder, addiction and obsession, with frequent detours through the teenage cultural wasteland of the late nineties, all rendered in JoAnna Novak’s crazed, slang-stilted, glinting prose.”—Teddy Wayne, author of Loner  "JoAnna Novak's I Must Have You is a rhapsodic, tumbling, yet rigorously controlled excavation of the secret worlds within us all. Her characters hurtle toward the painful pleasure of self-destruction, uninterested in stopping themselves, determined to find the next prick to make them feel alive. It's a visceral process, like picking off a scab. This is a necessary book."—Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star  "I Must Have You is a tragic, funny, and moving coming-of-age story. It was impossible not to be swept up in JoAnna Novak's gorgeous, inventive prose, or to stop yourself from falling in love with her irreverent, wild, and ultimately human characters. I loved every word."—Anton DiSclafani, New York Times Bestselling author of The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls and The After Party "Novak looks unflinchingly at the precarious attachments between female peers, mother and daughters, during some dangerous, inchoate transitions. With exacting prose she explores the the shadow terrain of female attachment, one that is uncertain at best, dangerous at worst. This is a book you'll want to look away from for its familiarity and its honesty, but you won't be able to. This story is nothing if not a disorienting mediation on the tangle of self-loathing, loneliness, and a desire for oblivion that so many women privately hold."—Rebecca Rotert, author of Last Night at the Blue Angel JoAnna Novak's debut novel I Must Have You will be published in May 2017 and a book-length poem, Noirmania, will be published in 2018. She has written fiction, essays, poetry, and criticism for publications including Salon, Guernica, BOMB, The Rumpus, Conjunctions, and Joyland. She received her MFA in fiction from Washington University and her MFA in poetry from University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a co-founder of the literary journal and chapbook publisher, Tammy. She lives in Los Angeles.     

Today we’re connected with Sarah Gerard of BOMB Magazine. Producer: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Kevin Staniec Manager: Sarah Becker Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels Guest: Sarah Gerard

Sarah Gerard talks about her new collection of personal essays about her childhood & the state that she grew up in. We talk birds, writing, religion, dreams, water, astrology, music, art & addiction. Join us for this amazing moment with the author of the exciting & critically acclaimed Sunshine State.

Episode 261, I interview the prose writer Sarah Gerard about her essay collection, Sunshine State, and her novel, Binary Star.

Sarah Gerard is the author of the essay collection Sunshine State, the novel Binary Star, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times first fiction prize, and two chapbooks, most recently BFF. Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, Granta, Vice, BOMB Magazine, and other journals, as well as anthologies. She's been supported by fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Tin House, PlatteForum, and Ucross. She writes a monthly column for Hazlitt and teaches writing in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First Draft interview with Sarah Gerard, author of Binary Star and Sunshine State.

interview with Sarah Gerard

Sarah Gerard is the author of the novel Binary Star (Two Dollar Radio), the forthcoming essay collection Sunshine State (Harper Perennial), and two chapbooks, most recently BFF (Guillotine). Her short stories, essays, interviews, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine‘s “The Cut”, The Paris Review Daily, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Bookforum, Joyland, Vice, BOMB Magazine, and other journals, as well as anthologies for Joyland and The Saturday Evening Post. She writes a monthly column on artists' notebooks for Hazlitt and teaches writing in New York City.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The language of the stars is the language of the body. Like a star, the anorexic burns fuel that isn't replenished; she is held together by her own gravity. With luminous, lyrical prose, Binary Star is an impassioned account of a young woman struggling with anorexia and her long-distance, alcoholic boyfriend. On a road trip circumnavigating the United States, they stumble into a book on veganarchism, and believe they've found a direction. The Avid Reader Show is sponsored by Wellington Square Bookshop in Chester County, PA. The Show airs every Monday at 4PM EST on WCHE AM 1520. Please visit our website at www.wellingtonsquarebooks.com

The language of the stars is the language of the body. Like a star, the anorexic burns fuel that isn’t replenished; she is held together by her own gravity. With luminous, lyrical prose, Binary Star is an account of a young woman struggling with anorexia and her long-distance, alcoholic boyfriend. On a road trip circumnavigating the U.S., […] The post Sarah Gerard : Binary Star appeared first on Tin House.

Binary Star (Two Dollar Radio) Join us tonight at Skylight Books for the brilliant debut from a rising "star" (couldn't help it)  of fiction, Sarah Gerard! The language of the stars is the language of the body. Like a star, the anorexic burns fuel that isn't replenished; she is held together by her own gravity. With luminous, lyrical prose, Sarah Gerard's debut novel Binary Star is an impassioned account of a young woman struggling with anorexia and her long-distance, alcoholic boyfriend, John. On a road trip around the United States, they stumble into a book on veganarchism and believe they've found a direction. Though she has misgivings about their newfound ideology, the narrator's involvement becomes critical to the couple's plan to “take down the sick system.” Trapped in a self-destructive constellation of lies and self-defining, superficial obsessions, she forces herself to complete the semester while preparing the political “action” she and John have planned for the summer. Meanwhile, John's drinking is spiraling out of control with dangerous results, and they're closer together than ever. Sarah Gerard's Binary Star is an intense, fast-moving saga of two young lovers and the culture that keeps them sick; a society that sells diet pills and sleeping pills, magazines that profile celebrities who lose weight, or too much weight, or put on weight; and books that pimp diet secrets or recipes for success—a cataclysmic story of the quest for perfection. Praise for Binary Star "Sarah Gerard's star is rising."--The Millions "A bold, beautiful novel about wanting to disappear and almost succeeding. Sarah Gerard writes about love and loneliness in a new and brilliantly visceral way."--Jenny Offill "I felt a breathless intensity the whole time I read Sarah Gerard's brilliant Binary Star. I sped through it, dizzy, devastated, loving all of it."--Kate Zambreno "Two lost souls hurtle through a long dark night where drug store fluorescents light up fashion magazine headlines and the bad flarf of the pharmacy: Hydroxycut, Seroquel, Ativan, Zantrex-3. Gerard's young lovers rightly revolt against the insane standards of a sick society, but their pursuit of purity--ideological, mental, physical--comes to constitute another kind of impossible demand, all the more dangerous for being self-imposed. Binary Star is merciless and cyclonic, a true and brutal poem of obliteration, an all-American death chant whose chorus is 'I want to look at the sky and understand.'"--Justin Taylor "By now I've read Binary Star twice, and I've become so entwined with it that I'm reluctant to talk about the subject at length. Let me just say that I've never read anything like it."--Harry Mathews "Allegorized by the phenomena of binary stars, Sarah Gerard's first novel confronts the symptoms of modern living with beauty and courage."--Simon Van Booy Sarah Gerard's work has appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine's "The Cut," Paris Review Daily, Slice Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bookforum, and other journals. She is the author of the chapbook Things I Told My Mother and a graduate of The New School's MFA program for fiction.

*** UPDATE #2 - AFTER THE SHOW *** This episode is filled to capacity with awesomeness. First, you'll hear the rest of Associate Senior Editor Roxanne K. Young's interview about her work at the Journal of the American Medical Association and Dr. Andrew Bomback's essay "Errands" which ran in the "A Piece of My Mind Column" in JAMA. (BTW: His episode was named most popular writing episode by BlogTalkRadio. JAMA generously has made Andrew's episode available at no cost of a limited time.)  Next, we go behind the prose with Sarah Gerard, MFA whose novel Binary Star is blazing through the literary universe. SARAH GERARD WAS NAMED TO EIGHT BEST BOOKS AND WRITERS LISTS FOR 2015!!! Finally, her publisher and editor, Eric Obenauf of Two Dollar Radio, talks book numbers and how his company keeps on picking winners.

Frederick Barthelme is the guest. His latest novel, There Must Be Some Mistake, is available now from Little, Brown & Co. David Shields says "Very nearly alone among his peers, Frederick Barthelme has, over the last thirty-five years, written fiction about what it actually feels like to live in contemporary post-religious, hyper-mediated America. And—even more of a rarity—he works hard to find a way to somehow tolerate/celebrate, with enormous subtlety and without an ounce of sentimentality, our bare-bones existence. In There Must Be Some Mistake, Barthelme has distilled his brutal, crucial vision into useable essence." And Publishers Weekly says "Barthelme, a master of minimalist suburbia-set fiction, returns with a buoyantly offbeat murder tale that doubles as a meditation on everything from contemporary art to Google to mortality... Throughout the novel, his narration provides punchy, wry commentary on the banality of pop culture, but the tone is, ultimately, infectiously optimistic." Monologue topics:  mail, food, animal rights, Sarah Gerard, not voting, apathy, George Carlin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Gerard is the guest. Her debut novel, Binary Star, is due out from Two Dollar Radio in January 2015. Kate Zambreno says "I felt a breathless intensity the whole time I read Sarah Gerard's brilliant Binary Star. I sped through it, dizzy, devastated, loving all of it." And Jenny Offill calls it "A bold, beautiful novel about wanting to disappear and almost succeeding. Sarah Gerard writes about love and loneliness in a new and brilliantly visceral way." Monologue topics: Legoland, fear, masks, chaos, exhaustion, fire alarms, meth, cops, neighbors, pandemonium. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices