Podcast appearances and mentions of Teddy Wayne

I read 40 books this summer! In episode 130, I share some of my favorites. This episode of Books Are My People is sponsored by Darrin Doyle's Let Gravity Seize the Dead. Books Recommended:This Strange Eventful History by Claire MessudBear by Julia Phillips Cutting for Stone also by Abraham VergheseLula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten MillerThe Winner by Teddy WayneEnter my Anita De Monte's Last Laugh book giveaway here on Instagram. Read Caoilinn Hughes' The Alternatives with me on Substack during the months of September/October.Support the Show.I hope you all have a wonderfully bookish week!

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels The Winner, The Great Man Theory, Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A former columnist for the New York Times and McSweeney'sand a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has developed films and series from his novels with Columbia Pictures, HBO, MGM Television, and others. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Kate Greathead, and their children. Teddy joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about his path to writing, how to make unlikeable characters empathetic, writing characters who are outsiders, his unusual way of plotting, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We've stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You'll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners. (Recorded on July 12, 2024)  Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novel The Winner, available from Harper. Wayne is the winner of a 2011 Whiting Writers' Award and a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He writes regularly for the New Yorker, New York Times, Vanity Fair, McSweeney's, and other publications. *** 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

Purchase on Bookshop: https://bit.ly/45b6It5Share, rate, & review the podcast, and follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens! Now there's more! Subscribe to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books on Acast+ and get ad-free episodes. https://plus.acast.com/s/moms-dont-have-time-to-read-books. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels The Winner (coming May 2024), The Great Man Theory, Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A former columnist for the New York Times and McSweeney's and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has developed films and series from his novels with Columbia Pictures, HBO, MGM Television, and others. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Kate Greathead, and their children. Subscribe to our newsletter today A note from Lev:I am a high school teacher of history and economics at a public high school in NYC, and began the podcast to help demystify economics for teachers.  The podcast is now within the top 2% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week.  The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.  The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy. Best, Lev

On Today's Show "I'm just being real. I'm telling my story. I think Nikki Giovanni calls it dancing naked on the floor. I am unafraid and I'm doing my dance… I don't feel like I can go wrong if I'm just being me.” - Kwame AlexanderExciting reluctant middle school kids about reading (or really, anything) can be a battle. Getting them to think reading is cool is another. Kwame Alexander excels at both. His ability to authentically relate to his readers is a skill around which he has built his career.Kwame is beloved by parents, educators, and students, for his ability to ignite a love of reading (especially middle school boys) through poetry and characters who reflect their real experiences. But his impact extends beyond just an introduction to books, he also opens the door for readers to explore their own emotional depths. As he tells us, “I think part of my job is just to show a different side of masculinity.”Kwame is best known "The Crossover," "The Undefeated," "The Door of No Return," and numerous other novels and poetry collections. He also recently authored his memoir "Why Fathers Cry at Night." He won the Newbery Medal and Coretta Scott King Book Award among many other awards, and this year "The Crossover" was adapted into a Disney Plus original TV series. In this episode, he tells us about his own upbringing surrounded by Black storytelling and literature, reveals his secret to making middle-schoolers think he's “cool”, and shares about a letter he received (which was “not fan mail”) that inspired a surprise visit to an unsuspecting kid.***Connect with Jordan and The Reading Culture @thereadingculturepod and subscribe to our newsletter at thereadingculturepod.com/newsletter. ***In his reading challenge, "Blackout,"  Kwame wants listeners to utilize their favourite books to look inward and make some art of their own.You can find his list and all past reading challenges at thereadingculturepod.com.This episode's Beanstack Featured Librarian is Kirsten, the programming specialist for the Indianapolis Public Library. She shares some moving stories about a book club she runs for teens at a residential treatment facility. ***ContentsChapter 1 - Glasses first (2:10)Chapter 2 - Mom's stories, dad's garage (3:53)Chapter 3 - Love After Love (9:11)Chapter 4 - The “Reluctant” Readers (14:01)Chapter 5 - Kwame Shows Up (17:50)Chapter 6 - America's Next Great Authors (24:18)Chapter 7 - Blackout (27:34)Chapter 8 - Beanstack Featured Librarian (28:09)Links The Reading Culture Kwame Alexander Folly Island NYT article by Teddy Wayne about the potential benefits of clutter Beef, No Chicken Love After Love by Derek Walcott Kwame's Newbery Banquet Speech Why Fathers Cry: The Podcast | Kwame Alexander #KwameShowsUp Nikki Giovanni Collected Poems, 1948-1984 -  Derek Walcott The Crossover | Official Trailer | Disney+ America's Next Great Author The Reading Culture on Instagram (for giveaways and bonus content) Beanstack resources to build your community's reading culture Host: Jordan Lloyd BookeyProducer: Jackie Lamport and Lower Street MediaScript Editors: Josia Lamberto-Egan, Jackie Lamport, Jordan Lloyd Bookey

Being a mother who works from home and wears claw clips. The challenge of transitions. Solo parenting. A local government chestnut follow-up. The healing powers of nature and loved ones. Intimate partner violence. Probative value. People who don't read anymore and how reading fosters empathy. Meghan's search for the right synthesizer. Layered trauma. Obsessive thinking. Becoming an energy vampire. How much stories matter in determining how we view each other.Then we go for it with an advice column write-in before we rant and rave about people who rant. Your body belongs to you.All in Her Head by Jessica ValentiMeghan McDonnell on MediumRead along in Listless: Volume Eleven – The Journals of Meghan McDonnellPlaylist on SpotifyFollow us on InstagramEmail us at thefeelingspodcast@gmail.comFind us on Pinterest: @thefeelingspodcastThe Feelings (buzzsprout.com)Music: “When it All Falls” by Ketsa* Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect identities. We have solely recorded our interpretations and opinions of all events. Certain place names have been changed

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novel The Great Man Theory, available from Bloomsbury. Wayne's other novels include Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A former columnist for the New York Times and McSweeney's and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has developed films and series from his novels with HBO, MGM Television, and Mad Dog Films. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Kate Greathead, and their children. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  YouTube Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels The Great Man Theory (July 12, 2022), Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A former columnist for the New York Times and McSweeney's and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He has developed films and series from his novels with HBO, MGM Television, and Mad Dog Films. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, the writer Kate Greathead, and their children. Buy the bookA note from Lev:I am a high school teacher of history and economics at a public high school in NYC, and began the podcast to help demystify economics for teachers.  The podcast is now within the top 2.5% of podcasts worldwide in terms of listeners (per Listen Notes) and individual episodes are frequently listed by The Syllabus (the-syllabus.com) as among the 10 best political economy podcasts of a particular week.  The podcast is reaching thousands of listeners each month.  The podcast seeks to provide a substantive alternative to mainstream economics media; to communicate information and ideas that contribute to equitable and peaceful solutions to political and economic issues; and to improve the teaching of high school and university political economy. I am looking to be able to raise money in order to improve the technical quality of the podcast and website and to further expand the audience through professionally designed social media outreach. I am also hoping to hire an editor. Best, LevDONATE TODAY

in episode 07 of season 02, Nicole, Carly, and Jazzlyn discuss the difference between Trauma vs. trauma, the long-term effects and disorders that can arise from them and how the media impacts society on these topics.Rate, subscribe, follow the podcast on instagram @thesourandsaltyProduced + edited by Nicole Zollner @nicolezllnrOriginal music by Steve Vásquez Alcaraz @acarelesscalmhydrojug affiliate linkpoly&bark affiliate link + listen to the episode for the code"The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, MD"Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy" by Francine Shapiro"Internal Family Systems Therapy" by Richard Schwartz"Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition" by American Psychiatric Association The National Child Traumatic Stress Network"If Everything Is 'Trauma,' Is Anything?" by Jessica Bennet"The Age of Trauma" by By S.I. Rosenbaum "The Trauma of Violent News on the Internet" by Teddy Wayne"Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services" by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration "Dissociative Disorders" by National Alliance on Mental Illness"Dissociation and Dissociative disorders" by MINDSplit (2016) Movie

In questa puntata andiamo ad Asti per conoscere Alessandro Minnella e la sua libreria dal nome molto evocativo: Pagine Erranti. La traduttrice Chiara Baffa ci suggerisce un libro tra quelli che ha tradotto, infine, il consiglio d'autore ci arriva dal giovane scrittore Gianmarco Perale.Libri consigliati nella puntata: LA PAROLA PAPÀ di Cristiano Cavina, BompianiFRENESIA di Flavio Nuccitelli, FandangoLE STELLE MOBILI DEL SOTTOSUOLO di Enrico Prevedello, NeoIl libraio Alessandro Minnella della libreria Pagine Erranti di Asti (ma non solo) ci consiglia:AMIANTO, UNA STORIA OPERAIA di Alberto Prunetti, Alegre edizioniLA TRILOGIA DELLO SPRAWL di William Gibson, MondadoriLa traduttrice Chiara Baffa fra i libri che ha tradotto ci consiglia:LA BALLATA DI JONNY VALENTINE di Teddy Wayne, MinimumfaxInfine, il giovane scrittore Gianmarco Perale ci invita alla lettura di:COLLOQUIO CON GIULIO EINAUDI, di Severino Cesari, Einaudi

bob wasn't available for this episode so joey and “shred” (or “shreds”) do their best in his absence to cover loner by teddy wayne. we discuss following an unlikeable narrator in david federman (and compare him to bruce bennett-jones of the virgins) in a surprise (?) thriller this season. we compare it to the netflix series “you.” we shout out chris christie and talk about lessons learned from american pie. shreds shares a fun fact about reddit, then leads an interlude while joey takes a kitten break. egg outs herself as a nerd in the mailbag segment. reading list for season two the bell jar by sylvia plath, 11/4 prep by curtis sittenfeld, 11/18 the art of fielding by chad harbach, 12/2 nickel boys by colson whitehead, 12/16 the virgins by pamela erens, 12/30 my education by susan choi, 1/13 giles goat-boy by john barth, 1/27 end zone by don delillo, 2/10 loner by teddy wayne, 2/24 the secret history by donna tartt, 3/10 sweet days of discipline by fleur jaeggy, 3/24 college novel by blake middleton, 4/7 real life by brandon taylor, 4/21 the instructions by adam levin, 5/5 the idiot by elif batuman, 5/19

A Nation Imploding: Digital Tyranny, Insurrection and Martial Law   By John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead January 12, 2021 “In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort … to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”—Robert F. Kennedy on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. This is what we have been reduced to: A violent mob. A nation on the brink of martial law. A populace under house arrest. A techno-corporate state wielding its power to immobilize huge swaths of the country. And a Constitution in tatters.   We are imploding on multiple fronts, all at once.   This is what happens when ego, greed and power are allowed to take precedence over liberty, equality and justice.   Just to be clear, however: this is not a revolution.   This is a ticking time bomb. There is absolutely no excuse for the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.   Yet no matter which way you look at it, the fallout from this attempted coup could make this worrisome state of affairs even worse.   First, you’ve got the president, who has been accused of inciting a riot and now faces a second impeachment and a scandal that could permanently mar his legacy. While the impeachment process itself is a political beast, the question of whether President Trump incited his followers to riot is one that has even the best legal experts debating. Yet as First Amendment scholar David Hudson Jr. explains, for Trump’s rhetoric to be stripped of its free speech protections, “The speaker must intend to and actually use words that rally people to take illegal action. The danger must be imminent—not in the indefinite future. And the words must be uttered in a situation in which violence is likely to happen.”   At a minimum, Trump’s actions and words—unstatesmanlike and reckless, by any standards—over the course of his presidency and on Jan. 6 helped cause a simmering pot to boil over.   Second, there were the so-called “patriots” who took to the streets because the jailer of their choice didn’t get chosen to knock heads for another four years. Those “Stop the Steal” protesters may have deluded themselves (or been deluded) into believing they were standing for freedom when they stormed the Capitol. However, all they really did was give the Deep State and its corporate partners a chance to pull back the curtain and reveal how little freedom we really have. There is nothing that can be said to justify the actions of those who, armed with metal pipes, chemical irritants, stun guns, and other types of weapons, assaulted and stampeded those in their path.   There are limits to what can be done in the so-called name of liberty, and this level of violence—no matter who wields it or what brand of politics or zealotry motivate them—crossed the line.   Third, you’ve got the tech giants, who meted out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship. Yet there can be no freedom of speech if social media giants can muzzle whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. As Edward Snowden warned, whether it was warranted or not, the social media ban on President Trump signaled a turning point in the battle for control over digital speech. And that is exactly what is playing out as users, including those who have no ties to the Capitol riots, begin to experience lock outs, suspensions and even deletions of their social media accounts.   Remember, the First Amendment is a steam valve. It allows people to peacefully air viewpoints, vent frustrations, debate and disagree, and generally work through the problems of self-governance. Without that safety mechanism in place, self-censorship increases, discontent festers, foment brews, and violence becomes the default response for resolving disputes, whether with the government or each other. At a minimum, we need more robust protections in place to protect digital expression and a formalized process for challenging digital censorship.   Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Once you start using social media scores coupled with surveillance capitalism to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society, anything goes. In China, which has been traveling this road for years now, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.   Fourth, you’ve got the police, who normally exceed the constitutional limits restraining them from brutality, surveillance and other excesses. Only this time, despite intelligence indicating that some of the rioters were planning for mayhem, police were outnumbered and ill prepared to deal with the incursion. Investigations underway suggest that some police may even have colluded with the rioters.   Certainly, the lack of protocols adopted by the Capitol Police bear an unnerving resemblance to the lack of protocols in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, when police who were supposed to uphold the law and prevent violence failed to do either. In fact, as the Washington Post reports, police “seemed to watch as groups beat each other with sticks and bludgeoned one another with shields… At one point, police appeared to retreat and then watch the beatings before eventually moving in to end the free-for-all, make arrests and tend to the injured.” Incredibly, when the first signs of open violence broke out, it was reported that the police chief allegedly instructed his staff to “let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”   There’s a pattern emerging if you pay close enough attention: Instead of restoring order, local police stand down. Without fail, what should be an exercise in how to peacefully disagree turns ugly the moment looting, vandalism, violence, intimidation tactics and rioting are introduced into the equation. Tensions rise, violence escalates, and federal armies move in.   All that was missing on Jan. 6 was a declaration of martial law.   Which brings us to the fifth point, martial law. Given that the nation has been dancing around the fringes of martial law with each national crisis, it won’t take much more to push the country over the edge to a declaration and military lockdown. The rumblings of armed protests at all 50 state capitals and in Washington, D.C., will only serve to heighten tensions, double down on the government’s military response, and light a match to a powder keg state of affairs. With tens of thousands of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement personnel mobilized to lock down Washington, DC, in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots and in advance of the Jan. 20 inauguration, this could be the largest military show-of-force in recent years.   So where do we go from here?   That all of these events are coming to a head around Martin Luther King Jr. Day is telling. More than 50 years after King was assassinated, America has become a ticking time bomb of racial unrest and injustice, police militarization, surveillance, government corruption and ineptitude, the blowback from a battlefield mindset and endless wars abroad, and a growing economic inequality between the haves and have nots.   Making matters worse, modern America has compounded the evils of racism, materialism and militarism with ignorance, intolerance and fear.   Callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance and injustice have become hallmarks of our modern age, magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality.   “Despite efforts to curb hate speech, eradicate bullying and extend tolerance, a culture of nastiness has metastasized in which meanness is routinely rewarded, and common decency and civility are brushed aside,” observed Teddy Wayne in a New York Times piece on “The Culture of Nastiness.”   Every time I read a news headline or flip on the television or open up an email or glance at social media, I run headlong into people consumed with back-biting, partisan politics, sniping, toxic hate, meanness and materialism. Donald Trump is, in many ways, the embodiment of this culture of meanness. Yet as Wayne points out, “Trump is less enabler in chief than a symptom of a free-for-all environment that prizes cutting smears… Social media has normalized casual cruelty.”   Whether it’s unfriending or blocking someone on Facebook, tweeting taunts and barbs on Twitter, or merely using cyberspace to bully someone or peddle in gossip, we have become masters in the art of meanness.   This culture of meanness has come to characterize many aspects of the nation’s governmental and social policies. “Meanness today is a state of mind,” writes professor Nicolaus Mills in his book The Triumph of Meanness, “the product of a culture of spite and cruelty that has had an enormous impact on us.”   This casual cruelty is made possible by a growing polarization within the populace that emphasizes what divides us—race, religion, economic status, sexuality, ancestry, politics, etc.—rather than what unites us: we are all human.   This is what writer Anna Quindlen refers to as “the politics of exclusion, what might be thought of as the cult of otherness… It divides the country as surely as the Mason-Dixon line once did. And it makes for mean-spirited and punitive politics and social policy.”   This is more than meanness, however.   This is the psychopathic mindset adopted by the architects of the Deep State, and it applies equally whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans.   Beware, because this kind of psychopathology can spread like a virus among the populace.   As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, “[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.”   People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil. To this end, “we the people” have become “we the police state.”   By failing to actively take a stand for good, we become agents of evil. It’s not the person in charge who is solely to blame for the carnage. It’s the populace that looks away from the injustice, that empowers the totalitarian regime, that welcomes the building blocks of tyranny.   This realization hit me full-force a few years ago. I had stopped into a bookstore and was struck by all of the books on Hitler, everywhere I turned. Yet had there been no Hitler, there still would have been a Nazi regime. There still would have been gas chambers and concentration camps and a Holocaust.   Hitler wasn’t the architect of the Holocaust. He was merely the figurehead. Same goes for the American police state: had there been no Trump or Obama or Bush, there still would have been a police state. There still would have been police shootings and private prisons and endless wars and government pathocracy.   Why? Because “we the people” have paved the way for this tyranny to prevail.   By turning Hitler into a super-villain who singlehandedly terrorized the world—not so different from how Trump is often depicted—historians have given Hitler’s accomplices (the German government, the citizens that opted for security and order over liberty, the religious institutions that failed to speak out against evil, the individuals who followed orders even when it meant a death sentence for their fellow citizens) a free pass.   This is how tyranny rises and freedom falls. None of us who remain silent and impassive in the face of evil, racism, extreme materialism, meanness, intolerance, cruelty, injustice and ignorance get a free pass.   Those among us who follow figureheads without question, who turn a blind eye to injustice and turn their backs on need, who march in lockstep with tyrants and bigots, who allow politics to trump principle, who give in to meanness and greed, and who fail to be outraged by the many wrongs being perpetrated in our midst, it is these individuals who must shoulder the blame when the darkness wins.   “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr. sermonized.   The darkness is winning.   It’s not just on the world stage we must worry about the darkness winning.   The darkness is winning in our communities. It’s winning in our homes, our neighborhoods, our churches and synagogues, and our government bodies. It’s winning in the hearts of men and women the world over who are embracing hatred over love. It’s winning in every new generation that is being raised to care only for themselves, without any sense of moral or civic duty to stand for freedom.   John F. Kennedy, killed by an assassin’s bullet five years before King would be similarly executed, spoke of a torch that had been “passed to a new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”   Once again, a torch is being passed to a new generation, but this torch is setting the world on fire, burning down the foundations put in place by our ancestors, and igniting all of the ugliest sentiments in our hearts.   This fire is not liberating; it is destroying.   We are teaching our children all the wrong things: we are teaching them to hate, teaching them to worship false idols (materialism, celebrity, technology, politics), teaching them to prize vain pursuits and superficial ideals over kindness, goodness and depth.   We are on the wrong side of the revolution.   “If we are to get on to the right side of the world revolution,” advised King, “we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.“   Freedom demands responsibility.   Freedom demands that we stop thinking as Democrats and Republicans and start thinking like human beings, or at the very least, Americans.   Martin Luther King Jr. dared to dream of a world in which all Americans “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”   He didn’t live to see that dream become a reality. It’s still not a reality. We haven’t dared to dream that dream in such a long time.   But imagine…   Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to stand up—united—for freedom…   Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to speak out—with one voice—against injustice…   Imagine what this country would be like if Americans put aside their differences and dared to push back—with the full force of our collective numbers—against the evils of government despotism.   As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, tyranny wouldn’t stand a chance.

Show notes:MOVIESThe Trial of the Chicago 7 (05:34)Mank (10:46)Palm Springs (13:27)Eurovision (18:15)Boys State (20:50)Greyhound (24:09)The Old Guard (27:45)Onward (31:40)The Vast of Night (33:50)Bacurau (36:30)TVThe Good Place (39:06)Lovecraft Country (45:39)9-1-1 Lone Star (49:04)Superstore (51:40)Ted Lasso (53:50)Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (59:55)The Good Lord Bird (01:01:50)The Last Dance (01:05:00)Mrs. America (01:11:33)Better Call Saul (01:14:51)The Mandalorian (01:16:40)MUSIC‘Fetch the Bolt Cutters’ by Fiona Apple (01:20:30)‘Long Violent History’ by Tyler Childers (01:25:30)‘Gigaton’ by Pearl Jam (01:28:56)‘Punisher' by Phoebe Bridgers (01:34:00)‘Lamentations’ by American Aquarium (01:37:24)‘Without People’ by Donovan Woods (01:40:25)‘Songs for Our Daughter’ by Laura Marling (01:43:09)‘You and I’ by O Brother (01:45:00)‘Cuttin’ Grass, Vol. 1’ by Sturgill Simpson (01:48:54)‘That’s How Rumors Get Started’ by Margo Price (01:52:14)BOOKS‘How to Write One Song’ by Jeff Tweedy (01:55:03)‘This Isn’t Happening’ by Steven Hyden (01:56:46)‘Why Fish Don’t Exist’ by Lulu Miller (01:59:00)‘All Adults Here’ by Emma Straub (02:03:12)‘Apartment’ by Teddy Wayne (02:05:00)‘Native’ by Kaitlin B. Curtice (02:05:55)‘Devolution’ by Max Brooks (02:09:05)‘The Resisters’ by Gish Jen (02:12:30)‘The Cactus League’ by Emily Nemens (02:14:34)‘Hard to Handle’ by Steve Gorman (02:16:20)GAMESCity Skylines, The Last of Us 2, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Transport Tycoon, etc. (02:20:00)COMEDY SPECIALS‘End Times Fun’ by Marc Maron (02:24:55)‘Jackie’ by Rob Delaney (02:27:55)‘Middleditch & Schwartz’ (02:29:40)‘Quarter Life Crisis’ by Taylor Tomlinson (02:32:50)‘Nate’ (02:34:10)PODCASTS‘Fake Doctors, Real Friends’ with Zach Braff and Donald Faison (02:38:00)‘Working It Out’ with Mike Birbiglia (02:40:18)‘Political Beats’ (02:42:35)‘Single Podcast Theory’ (02:44:10)‘Majority 54’ with Jason Kander (02:45:25)‘In the Bubble’ with Andy Slavitt (02:46:20)‘Lovett or Leave It’ with Jon Lovett (02:47:08)

In this episode we review Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne. This book has a unique story telling aspect and may appeal to a wide audience. We hope you enjoy!

Teddy Wayne joins me to discuss his novel 'Apartment.' In 1996, the unnamed narrator of Teddy Wayne’s Apartment is attending the MFA writing program at Columbia on his father’s dime and living in an illegal sublet of a rent-stabilized apartment. Feeling guilty about his good fortune, he offers his spare bedroom--rent-free--to Billy, a talented, charismatic classmate from the Midwest eking out a hand-to-mouth existence in Manhattan. The narrator’s rapport with Billy develops into the friendship he’s never had due to a lifetime of holding people at arm’s length, hovering at the periphery, feeling “fundamentally defective.” But their living arrangement, not to mention their radically different upbringings, breeds tensions neither man could predict. Interrogating the origins of our contemporary political divide and its ties to masculinity and class, Apartment is a gutting portrait of one of New York’s many lost, disconnected souls by a writer with an uncommon aptitude for embodying them.

Teddy Wayne is the author of Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times, and McSweeney's. His latest novel is called Apartment. This episode is brought to you by Kobo. If you like podcasts like this one, then you’ll love Kobo Audiobooks. Listening to audiobooks lets you fit more reading into your life. Listen while you work out, dinner, play video games … or any time. Kobo has a huge catalogue of audiobooks, including best-sellers and originals -- across all genres. Start a free 30-day trial by going to kobo.com/MARISREVIEW or use the code MARIS40 to get 40% off one of our select audiobooks, curated by Kobo’s audiobook experts.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we have a spoiler-free discussion of Teddy Wayne's new novel, Apartment, which is about a couple writers in Columbia's MFA program, circa 1996. We also take another dive into the re-opened NaNoWriMo forums, and play a round of Judge A Book By Its Cover, which unexpectedly turns up a teen romance novel with a cover featuring a young, pre-Friends Courtney Cox. If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider subscribing to our Patreon. For $5, you'll get access to three bonus episodes a month, including Book Fight After Dark, where we read some of the world's weirdest--and steamiest!--novels. We've also recently begun a new series of Patreon-only mini-episodes called Reading the Room, in which we offer advice on how to navigate awkward, writing-related social situations. How do you talk to a writer whose work you like after a reading? How do you promote your own writing without annoying people? Should you force your spouse or significant other to read your work? We've got the answers to these and many other pressing questions.

Host Mike Petriello and national editor Matt Meyers reminisce about their favorite baseball moments, including the first games they ever attended, the best and weirdest games they ever saw and their own personal on-field highs, including Matt bringing in Little League teammate Teddy Wayne to verify his story.

Host Mike Petriello and national editor Matt Meyers reminisce about their favorite baseball moments, including the first games they ever attended, the best and weirdest games they ever saw and their own personal on-field highs, including Matt bringing in Little League teammate Teddy Wayne to verify his story.

Two years ago, the country was gripped by, of all things, a New Yorker short story called "Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian, which dealt with the murky boundaries of sexual consent in modern dating. Recently, in n+1, Tony Tulathimutte published a short story, "The Feminist," about the dangerous rage of a male feminist whose good deeds go sexually unrewarded. Diana, Millie, and Oxford talk about both stories (as well as other books like "The Beauty Myth" by Naomi Wolf, "Loner" by Teddy Wayne, and "The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P." by Adelle Waldman) and the heightened emphasis our society places on dating. Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/planamag TWITTER: Diana (@discoveryduck) Millie (@onemillicentcho) Oxford (@JesuInToast) REFERENCED RESOURCES: The Feminist by Tony Tulathimutte: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-35/fiction-drama/the-feminist/ Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/11/cat-person Vox article on The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/6/20995542/love-affairs-of-nathaniel-p-adelle-waldman The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf: https://www.strandbooks.com/fiction/the-beauty-myth-0099595745/_/searchString/beauty%20myth Loner by Teddy Wayne: https://www.strandbooks.com/fiction/loner-a-novel/_/searchString/loner The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.: https://www.strandbooks.com/fiction/the-love-affairs-of-nathaniel-p SUBMISSIONS & COMMENTS: editor.planamag@gmail.com EFPA Opening Theme: "Fuck Out My Face" by Ayekay (open.spotify.com/artist/16zQKaDN5XgHAhfOJHTigJ)

Gayle and Nicole are back with the second half of our 2019 Holiday Gift Guide. (http://thereaderlyreport.com/2019/11/27/2019-holiday-gift-guide-part-i/ (Here is Part I of the Holiday Gift Guide).) We offer suggestions for a wide variety of readers on your list – mostly books but some “book-adjacent” items as well. We also look at the https://www.bookofthemonth.com/referCode/?referCode=o24hfc367de&show_box=true (December Book of the Month picks) and catch up on where we are with our 2019 reading challenges. DECEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH PICKS https://amzn.to/37Xyifn (Dear Edward) by Ann Napolitano https://amzn.to/37XYRRQ (Red, White & Royal Blue) by Casey McQuiston https://amzn.to/2OJAlfM (Long Bright River) by Liz Moore https://amzn.to/2RbO1Sc (The Glittering Hour) by Iona Grey https://amzn.to/2DFCYZG (The Wives) by Tarryn Fisher WHAT WE'VE BEEN READING https://amzn.to/2Yj7diF (Charlotte Sometimes) by Penelope Farmer https://amzn.to/2DAZO4w (Interpreter of Maladies) by Jhumpa Lahiri http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2019/01/the-2019-ediwtb-reading-challenge/ (2019 Everyday I Write The Book Reading Challenge) https://amzn.to/2DChFYP (Descent) by Tim Johnston https://amzn.to/34SeQix (The Current) by Tim Johnston https://amzn.to/2OFJCW4 (Uncanny Valley) by Anna Weiner https://amzn.to/34JU5Ft (Loner) by Teddy Wayne (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2018/02/loner-by-teddy-wayne/ (Gayle's review here)) https://tv.apple.com/us/show/the-morning-show/umc.cmc.25tn3v8ku4b39tr6ccgb8nl6m?itscg=MC_20000&itsct=atvp_brand_omd&mttnagencyid=1625&mttncc=US&mttnpid=305109&mttnsiteid=143238&mttnsubad=OUS2019800-1 (The Morning Show on Apple+) FOR FANS OF LITERARY FICTION https://amzn.to/382Grj0 (The Nickel Boys) by Colson Whitehead (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2019/10/the-nickel-boys-by-colson-whitehead/ (Gayle's review here)) https://amzn.to/2r5Vs2J (Our Souls At Night) by Kent Haruf (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2019/01/our-souls-at-night-by-kent-haruf/ (Gayle's review here)) https://amzn.to/35SIOTt (The Great Believers) by Rebecca Makkai (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2019/01/the-great-believers-by-rebecca-makkai/ (Gayle's review here)) https://amzn.to/2YdxvTo (An American Marriage) by Tayari Jones (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2018/03/an-american-marriage-by-tayari-jones/ (Gayle's review here)) FOR YOUR FRIEND WHO LIKES WEIRD STORIES https://amzn.to/2Yje1Nf (The Need) by Helen Philips FOR YOUR FRIEND WHO NEEDS A DISTRACTION https://amzn.to/2Rg1xUT (Where the Crawdads Sing )by Delia Owens (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2019/06/where-the-crawdads-sing-by-delia-owens/ (Gayle's review here)) https://amzn.to/2r8T7nz (Forever Is The Worst Long Time) by Camille Pagan (http://www.everydayiwritethebookblog.com/2019/06/forever-is-the-worst-long-time-by-camille-pagan/ (Gayle's review here)) https://amzn.to/2DHkEiw (The Last) by Hanna Jameson https://amzn.to/2YdxK0K (The Two Lila Bennetts) by Liz Fenton (see the full post http://thereaderlyreport.com/2019/12/03/2019-holiday-gift-guide-part-2/ (here)) Support this podcast

Gayle and Nicole talk about dark book-based dramas on various TV networks, particularly Caroline Kepnes' https://amzn.to/2tOGqfD (You) (Lifetime and Netflix) and and Teddy Wayne's https://amzn.to/2Un7cau (Loner) (HBO). Then we get into our favorite vacation reading experiences – books we've read when we were away, and why they've stayed with us. Does the place we read books impact how we enjoy them? https://amzn.to/2NIFX7O (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) by Lee Israel https://amzn.to/2SKvolq (The Ones We Choose) by Julie Clark https://amzn.to/2TjGnr5 (The Wartime Sisters) by Linda Cohen Loigman https://amzn.to/2ISIUny (Tin Man) by Sarah Winman https://amzn.to/2Ul8kLO (Talent) by Juliet Lapidos https://amzn.to/2SLdorh (City of Thieves) by David Benioff https://amzn.to/2SJ64wk (Trespass) by Rose Tremain https://amzn.to/2tODOhP (The Vacationers) & https://amzn.to/2XFZnyI (Modern Lovers) by Emma Straub https://amzn.to/2EPIytN (The Lemon Grove) by Helen Walsh https://amzn.to/2C6zIpT (Labor Day) & https://amzn.to/2SKwYDS (Under The Influence) by Joyce Maynard https://amzn.to/2VFPA9R (The Breakdown), https://amzn.to/2VHlGCp (Behind Closed Doors) & https://amzn.to/2EQ675H (Bring Me Back) by B.A. Paris https://amzn.to/2EMDxkD (The Last Mrs. Parrish) by Liv Constantine https://amzn.to/2UhOPUl (The Book of Essie) by Meghan MacLean Weir https://amzn.to/2XGb8Fe (The Passenger) by Lisa Lutz https://amzn.to/2SNztWh (Girls Burn Brighter) by Shobha Rao https://amzn.to/2SHlDV7 (The Sympathizer) by Viet Thanh Nguyen https://amzn.to/2tOtN44 (Girls In White Dresses) by Jennifer Close https://amzn.to/2ERxkFj (Girl In Translation), https://amzn.to/2XO0E70 (Mambo In Chinatown) & https://amzn.to/2SHlP6N (Searching For Sylvie) https://amzn.to/2SHlP6N (Lee) by Jean Kwok https://amzn.to/2EOKqD4 (The Editor) by Stephen Rowley https://amzn.to/2tRXIs3 (People Who Knew Me) by Kim Hooper https://amzn.to/2tTOJXk (The Lost History of Dreams) by Kris Waldherr Support this podcast

"Trump Has Border Security Personality Disorder..." We have for your listening pleasure Episode 303 of "Troubadours and Raconteurs with E.W. Conundrum Demure." Episode 303 features a fun filled conversation with Regular Contributor, our Resident Politico, Democratic Committee Member, and Chair of Pennsylvania's Progressive Caucus - Dwayne Heisler. Dwyane and I discuss the Capital City of Harrisburg, Two Inaugurations. Legalizing Marijuana, the Rural Bill of Rights, Our Disease in Democracy, Channeling Discontent, the Others, Indivisible, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King... Episode 303 also includes an EW Essay titled "Champagne, ." We share a humorous essay titled "Carterism" written by Teddy Wayne for the New Yorker magazine. We revel in the words and soul of the supreme Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We have a poem called "C'est La Vie." Our music this go round is provided by these wonderful artists: Django Reinhardt, Stephan Grapelli, Ant-Flag, Vampire Weekend, Brett Newski, Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs, Amanda Shires, the Velvet Underground, Branford Marsalis and Terrence Blanchard. Artwork by Philadelphia Artist Watson Mere. Commercial Free, Small Batch Radio Crafted In the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania... Heard All Over The World. Tell your Friends and Neighbors...

Teddy Wayne joins host Stephen Fishbach to discuss his novel 'Loner.' 'Loner' follows Harvard freshman David Federman, who becomes increasingly obsessed with his classmate Veronica. Published in September of 2016, 'Loner' now seems a prescient look at an angry, disaffected young man who demands more from his life.  Loner was named a "Best Book of the Year" by NPR, Kirkus, New York post, and Bookish.

This week, we're presenting stories about unconventional solutions and things that seemed like a great idea at the time! Part 1: Author Kate Greathead sets off on a cross-country drive to escape her anxiety. Part 2: After years of studying worms, Tracy Chong begins to wonder if they might hold the key to alleviating hunger. Kate Greathead is a 9-time Moth Storytelling Slam champion. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair, and on NPR’s Moth Radio Hour. She was a subject in the American version of the British Up documentary series. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Teddy Wayne. Her first novel, Laura & Emma, was published in March 2018. Tracy Chong found her passion working with invertebrates as a graduate student at the University of Illinois. She studied the development and regeneration of the reproductive system in the planarian, a free-living flatworm. She is currently part of a team at the Morgridge Institute for Research studying parasitic worms that causes the debilitating disease, Schistosomiasis. Aside from worms and science, Tracy is passionate about entrepreneurship and food. Combining her formal training as a scientist, with her culinary interest and hands-on business experience, Tracy’s vision is to provide a sustainable and affordable source of protein to meet the world’s growing global nutritional demands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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.     

Hey there word nerds! Today I have the pleasure of hosting debut novelist Kate Greathead on the show! Kate is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her work has appeared in some pretty impressive places such as The New York Times and Vanity Fair, and she is a 9-time Moth Story Slam champion. Her debut novel Laura & Emma takes place on the Upper East Side in New York City where Kate spent her formative years, though she currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Teddy Wayne (who has appeared on DIY MFA Radio previously). Listen in as we chat about this amazing book, and get an honest look at what being a working author really looks like. In this episode Kate and I discuss: The art of “stealing” your story’s structure. Showing the bizarre of a normal setting with micro details. Why you should craft a protagonist that makes readers cringe Knowing when to use the bulldozer in your revision process. Tips to deal with the pain of slashing out scenes. Plus, Kate’s #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: DIYMFA.com/197

Gayle shares the books that she took with her on her travels to Asia and then Gayle and Nicole discuss the ins and outs of picking the right vacation book for the right moment. They also chat about their differing perspectives on The Leavers and the short story collections that leave them cold. Books Discussed on this Podcast http://amzn.to/2syzNAf (Born To Run) by Bruce Springsteen http://amzn.to/2EyySFA (Best Day Ever) by Kaira Rouda http://amzn.to/2Cnfd5j (The Leavers) by Lisa Ko http://amzn.to/2C2gd34 (Loner) by Teddy Wayne http://amzn.to/2CpRJfZ (Bobcat and Other Stories) by Rebecca Lee http://amzn.to/2Cpt1wp (Awayland) by Ramona Ausubel http://amzn.to/2CpTOZa (Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty) by Ramona Ausubel http://amzn.to/2EwdG34 (The Immortalists) by Chloe Benjamin http://amzn.to/2HmS6vt (The Hazel Wood) by Melissa Albert What We're Reading http://amzn.to/2CpfW63 (Mrs.) by Caitlin Macy http://amzn.to/2F8Q8hH (The Wolves of Winter) by Tyrell Johnson http://amzn.to/2CpqMsS (Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century) by Jessica Bruder http://amzn.to/2C0GQp6 (The Bookseller) by Cynthia Swanson New & Forthcoming http://amzn.to/2CpgOYn (I Am I Am I Am) by Maggie Farrell http://amzn.to/2o4vyrg (The Only Story) by Julian Barnes http://amzn.to/2HkezcB (The Queen of Hearts) by Kimmery Martin http://amzn.to/2HkrA61 (Educated: A Memoir) by Tara Westover http://amzn.to/2CqtnTc (Black Fortunes) by Shomari Wills Support this podcast

Mt. Gox – a one-time cryptocurrency exchange – was founded in 2010. By early 2014 – a short 4 years, Mt. Gox was processing about 70% of all bitcoin transactions in the world. And while everyone noticed how much Mt Gox had grown, something else happened between 2011 and 2014 that nobody noticed. Starting in […] The post S01E10: The Perils and Promises of Investing in Cryptocurrency with Teddy Wayne appeared first on CURIOUS.

Loner (Simon & Schuster) From the award-winning author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, a propulsive novel about a meek Harvard freshman who becomes dangerously infatuated with a classmate.  David Federman has never felt appreciated. An academically gifted yet painfully forgettable member of his New Jersey high school class, the withdrawn, mild-mannered freshman arrives at Harvard fully expecting to be embraced by a new tribe of high-achieving peers. But, initially, his social prospects seem unlikely to change, sentencing him to a lifetime of anonymity. Then he meets Veronica Morgan Wells. Struck by her beauty, wit, and sophisticated Manhattan upbringing, David falls feverishly in love. Determined to win her attention and an invite into her glamorous world, he begins compromising his moral standards for this one, great shot at happiness. But both Veronica and David, it turns out, are not exactly as they seem.  Loner turns the traditional campus novel on its head as it explores gender politics and class. It is a stunning and timely literary achievement from one of the rising stars of American fiction. Praise for Loner “Like a novel of manners distorted by a twisted funhouse mirror, Teddy Wayne’s Loner moves with wit and stealth and merciless deliberation towards increasingly brutal psychic terrain. Reading it, I found myself amused and then—with creeping force—afraid, repulsed, and ultimately unwilling to put it down." —Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams and The Gin Closet  “Teddy Wayne perfectly conjures the mind of a keenly observant, socially ambitious, and utterly heartless college student. Yet no matter what outlandish things David does, I couldn't help but root for him--until the book's gut-punch ending." —Adelle Waldman, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels The Love Song of Jonny Valentine and Kapitoil. A regular contributor to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and McSweeney's, he is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship. He has taught at Columbia University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the Yale Writers' Conference. He lives in New York. 

Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine (Simon & Schuster), and Kapitoil (Harper Perennial). He is the winner of a Whiting Writers' Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A columnist for the New York Times, he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and McSweeney's and has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He lives in New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First Draft interview with author of Loner, Teddy Wayne.

Hey there word nerds! Today I am so pleased to have Teddy Wayne on the show. Teddy  is the author of several books, most recently his novel Loner, which is out now. Teddy has won numerous writing awards, is regular contributor to several prestigious publications, and has taught at Columbia University in NYC and Washington University in St. Louis. In this interview, we talk about Teddy’s newest book and the craft behind bringing an anti-hero to life on the page. During the episode, we geek out about anti-heroes, Hitchcock movies, and how trying to understand reprehensible characters can help expand our humanity. Listen below.   In this episode we discuss: What writers can learn about crafting an anti-hero from the TV show All in the Family, and how to create a character who is deeply flawed but also relatable. How much of an anti-hero’s character is shaped by internal qualities versus environmental or situational factors. How to avoid making an anti-hero seem over-simplified and make readers feel connected to an evil character. The difference between an extraordinary character’s slow descent into darkness, and a regular character making a terrible choice and having to “fix” the situation. The two components that writers can infuse into literary fiction to make it come to life and hook readers. Plus, Teddy’s #1 tip for writers. About the Teddy Wayne Teddy Wayne is the author of the novels Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award, PEN/Bingham Prize, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. A columnist for the New York Times, he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and McSweeney’s and has taught at Columbia University and Washington University in St. Louis. He lives in New York. About the Book With the same knack for voice and piercing social commentary Wayne gave readers in The Love Song of Jonny Valentine and Kapitoil, LONER is a riveting, frighteningly believable portrait of obsession on a college campus. Much like Claire Messud’s The Woman Upstairs, Herman Koch’s The Dinner, and Charlotte Rogan’s The Lifeboat—and, further back, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Lolita, and Notes from Underground—it is one of those rare novels where, as the pages fly by, readers feel everything from fear to rage to empathy for characters they might not like, but nevertheless find completely mesmerizing. Wayne’s New York Times column the last couple of years, “Future Tense,” has demonstrated his critical talents for dissecting the alienating effects of contemporary culture, and LONER continues this with the misfit David Federman at the center of the novel. An academically gifted yet painfully forgettable member of his New Jersey high school class, the withdrawn, mild-mannered freshman arrives at Harvard fully expecting to be embraced by a new tribe of high-achieving peers. But, initially, his social prospects seem unlikely to change. Then Veronica Morgan Wells enters his life. Immediately struck by her beauty, wit, and sophisticated Manhattan upbringing, David falls feverishly in love with the woman he sees as an embodiment of what he’s always wanted to be: popular, attractive, powerful. Determined to stop at nothing to win her attention and an invitation into her glamorous world, he begins compromising his moral standards. But both Veronica and David, it turns out, are not exactly as they seem. Links & Resources Check out these previous podcast episodes talking about systematic and deliberate practice in writing. These interview share some great insights about how to practice as a writer. Episode 61: How to Write Spellbinding Sentences–Interview with Barbara Baig DIYMFA.com/061 Episode 89: The Power of Deliberate Practice – Interview with Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool DIYMFA.com/089 For more info and show notes: DIYMFA.com/117

Christopher and Drew invite Teddy Wayne to the Damn Library, and he brings along his new "zeitgeist-y" novel, Loner, as well as Rebecca Schiff's short story collection The Bed Moved. The literary reader's intelligence is praised, the drink is overtly symbolic, and technology in fiction is discussed in earnest. This is our 50th episode! To celebrate, leave us a nice rating on iTunes, and share our show with a close friend! 15 seconds of a song: Reggie and the Full Effect - "Congratulations Smack and Katy"  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to another guest segment of ‘The Writer’s Brain’ where we pick the brain of a neuroscientist about the elements of great writing. This week’s show covers some possible origins and solutions to an ailment known only to writers. Research scientist Michael Grybko, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, returned to help me pinpoint the mysteries of writer’s block from a scientific standpoint. If you missed the first three installments of The Writer’s Brain — on How Neuroscience Defines Creativity, Empathy, and Storytelling — you can find all of them in the show notes and on writerfiles.fm. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please click “subscribe” to automatically see new interviews, and help other writers find us. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of the file Michael Grybko and I discuss: 3 Symptoms of Writer’s Block and How to Cure Them How Your Emotions Have a Profound Effect on Your Creativity Why Achieving Small, Attainable Goals Rewards Your Brain How Changing Work Venues Boosts Your Productivity Hemingway’s Personal Tricks for Getting Words on the Page The Importance of Regular Rituals for Eliminating Doubt Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Creativity How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Empathy How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Storytelling How to Beat Writer’s Block by Maria Konnikova How Bestselling Author Austin Kleon Writes: Part One Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind The End of Reflection – Teddy Wayne How To Concentrate Automatically Without Even Trying Seven Tips From Ernest Hemingway on How to Write Fiction Around the Writer’s Block: Using Brain Science to Solve Writer’s Resistance 8 Strange Rituals of Productive Writers Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How Neuroscientist Michael Grybko Defines Writer’s Block: Part Two Kelton Reid: The Writer Files is brought to you by StudioPress, the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins. Built on the Genesis Framework, StudioPress delivers state-of-the-art SEO tools, beautiful and fully responsive design, air tight security, instant updates, and much more. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 177,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress right now. Kelton Reid: These are The Writer Files, a tour of the habit, habitats, and brains of working writers, from online content creators to fictionists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and beyond. I’m your host Kelton Reid: writer, podcaster, and mediaphile. Each week, we’ll discover how great writers keep the ink flowing, the cursor moving, and avoid writer’s block. Welcome back to another guest segment of The Writer’s Brain, where I pick the brain of a neuroscientist about the elements of great writing. This week’s show covers some possible origins and solutions to an ailment known only to writers. Research scientist Michael Grybko with the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington returned to help me pinpoint the mystery of writer’s block from a scientific standpoint. If you missed any previous installments of The Writer’s Brain — on How Neuroscience Defines Creativity, Empathy, and Storytelling, or the first half of this show — you can find them all in the show notes, as well on WriterFiles.FM. Join us for this two-part interview, and if you’re a fan of the show, please click ‘subscribe’ to automatically see new interviews and help other writers to find us. In part two of the file, Michael and I discuss three symptoms of writer’s block and how to cure them, how your emotions have a profound effect on your creativity, why achieving small, attainable goals rewards your brain, how changing work venues can boost your productivity, Hemmingway’s personal tricks for getting words onto the page, and the importance of regular rituals for eliminating doubt. 3 Symptoms of Writer’s Block and How to Cure Them Kelton Reid: Well, I think I found an early reference to the incubation phase in this four-stage model of creativity from the ’20s that this social psychologist, Wallas — he was a British guy — was studying inventors, and he came up with this four-stage model. The first stage was preparation. Second stage was incubation. Third stage was elimination. The fourth stage was verification. It confirms one piece of that puzzle. Obviously, going back to how the research phase that all writers initially have to do to start putting information in there, but you talked about this before, actually. In our creativity session, you said, “The more information you put in there, the bigger pull of ideas you’ll have to pull from, and that means more opportunities to be creative” — kind of bringing it full circle to creativity. And your original point, you can apply that knowledge in a situation that you might be unfamiliar with to kind of resolve an issue, and some of that is happening subconsciously. Well, there was a couple things. I love the idea of remixed culture and a couple guys, Kirby Ferguson and Austin Kleon, talk about these basic elements of creativity. That ability — being able to copy, transform, and combine elements into something new — kind of fits into that same four phases or model of creativity. I want to pull out a clip from Austin Kleon’s interview about writer’s block, and I think I’ll have Toby drop that in right here. Austin Kleon: I feel like writer’s block is just exhaustion, laziness, or fear, or some combination of them. I also think that a lot of times when I’m blocked, I don’t want to sit down and write. I just don’t want to because it’s not my favorite thing to do. I would rather read. Fran Lebowitz, she’s like, “If you ever feel like writing, just lay down on the couch and read a bit, it’ll pass.” That’s how I feel. But I also think that people hit walls and I think a lot of times when I am just, “Nothing’s coming,” that means that, when the output doesn’t happen, that’s cause there’s problem of input. A lot of times, problems of output are problems of input. So if you don’t have anything coming out, that means there’s not good stuff going in. That could be anything from you need to take a trip, you need to just walk away from your desk, or you need to stare at a wall for a while, or read. Just something to get something jump-started. So a lot of times with block, some people try to power through block, and I’m just like, “Eh, go walk away for a bit.” Everybody’s had that experience. You’re in the shower or you’re on a walk, and that’s when the juices start flowing. With that said, I think you need a time and place every day to do the work. Kelton Reid: Creativity’s a messy process, I think. There’s this other book called Wired to Create, kind of examining the creative mind, talking a lot about how creatives are switching between these rapid thought processes and, to generate these new ideas, always working out an idea through critical reflection and considering the perspective of the artist and the audience. Anyway, there’s so much about input equals output that we could talk about in engaging our brains. Michael Grybko: Well, I think there’s one more aspect, too, and it’s not just input and output, but there’s also recall. So even if we have the information, we have to be able to access it, and I think that has to do a lot with writer’s block. It’s not just if we have the information or not. Of course, like I said, we can’t access information if we don’t have it. But once we’ve developed a knowledge base, it’s how do we access it? And I think that’s a big issue in writer’s block, and that’s the one I was kind of interested in. How Your Emotions Have a Profound Effect on Your Creativity Michael Grybko: And another important topic on that is emotional states. And this can influence, greatly I think, our ability to access information. We touched on this a little bit before, but emotional states have a profound effect on creativity and our productivity. Of course, there’s major bouts of depression and anxiety, even if you want to consider narcissism an emotional state, that can go on for a long time, and those are kind of hard to touch on. What I wanted to focus on are things we can do today. Maybe help writers today and help avoid writer’s block. And there can also be kind of minor walls we hit; minor bouts of depression or anxiety that we can possibly control. I started thinking about that and this idea of motivation, motivational learning, and individuals being avoidance-motivated or approach-motivated — meaning that do you go into a task thinking you’re going to succeed, being optimistic, or do you approach life in fear while trying to avoid failure? “Oh, I can’t. That’s something I can’t accomplish. I’m not going to do that.” And this has been shown — these behaviors, avoidance-motivated versus approach-motivated — to affect an individual’s productivity. Avoidance motivation tends to lead to depression, anxiety, and less productivity. And approach-motivated is generally beneficial, but there can be some downsides. You can be too optimistic. We’ve always referred to foolishly optimistic, and this almost narcissistic behavior. I was thinking about that, and what’s the neurological basis for this? And there’s quite a bit. This is a huge field of research. A lot of it comes down to the neurotransmitter dopamine, and some work done in the late ’90s by Wolfram Schultz and colleagues showed that in animals models, dopamine neurons in the area of the brain known as the striatum, which is thought as a reward center of the brain, these neurons were found to burst fire in response to the rewards, and they would decrease their firing rate, or pause in firing, if there’s punishment — so if a reward wasn’t received or was less than expected. Now, what’s really interesting is that after the animals were trained, they would begin to expect a reward. They started to see that the firing rate would change, so the animal’s neurons would start the burst fire before they received the reward, just if they expected to. And then the opposite was also seen, so they would start to perceive a punishment. Now, why this is interesting is because now this is evidence that changes in neuronal activity may happen based on our perceived outcome of a situation. So before we even know what’s going to happen, we can almost affect how we proceed. This research is continuing. It’s still going on. So further research on this topic is showing that an individual’s perceived outcome of a situation can influence on how we perform on a task. Why Achieving Small, Attainable Goals Rewards Your Brain Michael Grybko: So there’s something said to being optimistic and pessimism, that you may actually be changing your performance on a task by thinking negatively, being avoidance-motivated versus approach-motivated. I think that, that can apply to writer’s block and can be something writers can work on, people can work on, to be more productive — is to try to be more approach-motivated and maybe some tangible things we can do to help facilitate this. I think one of these is set some obtainable goals, even small stuff. As you go through a project, just, “All right, I want to get this much research done today,” and your brain’s going to reward you a little bit. Your brain’s going to, “Okay, here’s a little dopamine. Success. Way to go!” Getting in this pattern of positive thinking and accomplishment may help stave off writer’s block. Kelton Reid: Yeah, absolutely, and I’ve heard writers talk about this before. It is sometimes a matter of and there were some example of this, but I’ve heard writers say, “I’ll just set a small goal for myself, like 500 words,” and it’s so obtainable that, often, I will get to the end of the 500 words very quickly and then just keep going. Michael Grybko: Right. Kelton Reid: I’ll write 1,000, 2,000, whatever that may be. But there is that negative death spiral of writer’s block that I can see happening. Because all of a sudden, once you’ve missed or you give yourself too big of a goal and you miss it, then you want to avoid it. That avoidance motivation I could see working against you. Michael Grybko: Yeah, so one problem with writer’s block, it can really snowball. So this deadline all of a sudden, the anxiety builds. Anxiety makes it harder to work and be productive. Then there’s also the idea of the problem with being approach-motivated is you can set a goal that’s too lofty and convince yourself you’re going to be successful, and if we miss that goal, then it can be a very dramatic and negative process. And also I think this is important for managers to realize, and supervisors, what kind of environment are they creating in their workplace and to think about some approach-motivated goals and things like that and be sure to reward people when they do a good job and not just hang deadlines over their heads. That’s really going to create an unhealthy environment. Kelton Reid: There’s so much here. There’s so much to talk about. Michael Grybko: I know. Kelton Reid: Should we start to get into how do we resolve writer’s block once it’s actually set in? Michael Grybko: Yeah, going over and thinking about what we just talked about and introducing some of these sort of behaviors back into your schedule help a lot. I think this incubation stage really comes up time and time again. We started this podcast off by talking about Maria Konnikova’s article in The New Yorker. She went back and looked at some of this early research on emotional states of the writer and how they helped writers overcome writer’s block by using what they called ‘directed mental imagery.’ This is where the subjects would focus on a creative project that was unrelated to the one they were working on for a period and then go back to their original work. They found some success with this approach. I think the efficacy of this approach may be tied to that incubation period that we were discussing earlier. Kelton Reid: For sure. Michael Grybko: So if individuals are feeling blocked, maybe hitting a pause button may be a good idea. Just take a step back. Give yourself a moment. And then as we were talking about earlier, it may be good to have another hobby, another task in your life, to kind of divert your attention away for awhile. So try focusing on something else for a little bit, and then go back to the project that you were working on. Kelton Reid: One-hundred percent believe in that. Michael Grybko: Back to the approach- and avoidance-motivated, I think if you are blocked, just go back to the basics. Just set some basic goals for yourself. Just easy stuff you can accomplish to get that ball rolling and get some confidence back, too. So that might be a good step to take if you’re beginning to have writer’s block set it. Why Today’s Technology Makes an Incubation Period Vital Kelton Reid: I keep thinking that, I’m thinking about another piece in The New York Times, the title of it was The End of Reflection, this piece by Teddy Wayne where he talks about our compulsive obsession with checking social media and how we’re plugged in all the time to smartphones and the Internet and how our brains begin to just get engaged all the time. With the speed of high-speed Internet and the ease of use of all these different tools that we’re using to constantly be plugged in, we’re not really giving ourselves the opportunity to have that incubation phase. So some of those neuronal connections aren’t being made. I don’t know. I think it comes back to unplugging, and I was just thinking of a handful of things, myself — like writing longhand in a notebook or on note cards instead of using a computer, which actually has been proven to be more effective in learning. Reading a book, like a paper book, couldn’t hurt. You can use an e-reader that’s not connected to the Internet, obviously. That’s effective, too. Turning off your phone for a period or using apps that block the Internet, plenty of well-known writers do that. Taking a long walk, taking a long walk in nature. Michael Grybko: Yeah, just get away for a bit. Just technology, Internet, and information technology is evolving so quickly. It’s really hard to predict what the outcome of this will be, but we know, as you said, we have so much information available just at our fingertips. We may not be giving ourselves the time we need to step away from these things and really give ourselves that incubation period. Maybe we might be missing some important neuronal activity or not giving our neuronal activity the time it needs to fully develop these ideas and be productive. Who knows? Kelton Reid: So you talked about mixing things up? Michael Grybko: Yeah, I think that’s another good way to get away, to give yourself an incubation period, to give yourself something else to do besides just this task. It’s very easy to get overrun on one task. Our brain likes activity. It likes things to do. It likes surprises, I guess, a little bit. How Changing Work Venues Boosts Your Productivity Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. A lot of writers also talk about the importance of changing venues or at least designating a special place or special computer for doing writing to increase their productivity. But it actually has been proven that changing your surroundings to a place where others are actually hard at work on their own projects has been proven to influence us and help us concentrate. It’s actually literally contagious. Michael Grybko: Sure. Kelton Reid: This study, which I’ll link to, talked about how seeing other people in postures of exertion or working hard at a task I don’t know if it’s their face or just being at a coffee shop. It’s also been proven that the ambient sounds of a coffee shop are helpful to writers, or at least to productivity. There’s something scientific about the accountability of having a pair of eyes on you. Michael Grybko: I don’t know. Yeah, this could be interesting. I think there’s a lot of things to talk about here. One, we can link back to our discussion on empathy, and that could be part of it. Our behaviors can be somewhat contagious. We sort of mirror and mimic individuals around us, and they mimic us as well. So that may be an aspect to this. I think that, again, speaking to supervisors, managers, this is something that they can think about. What kind of environment do they want to work in? What’s the good environment for their productivity and work, or people? Then, also, listening to the people they hire — what do they need to be productive? — and creating a culture that people can feed off each other. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Michael Grybko: It’s not surprising. Venue is important. Kelton Reid: Venue is important. Also very interesting is this idea of the solitude of the writer because writing is a very intimate, private thing. And that’s why a lot of writers cloister themselves off in a writer’s retreat or a cabin in the mountains. But that’s not always the best place to get writing. Michael Grybko: Again, I’ll reference back to our talk about rhythms and how our brain activity changes over the course of a day. Yeah, certain aspects of the creative process or, probably, we’re more prone to a certain venue or more productive in a certain venue or task. Maybe we have to change venues — so doing research versus writing. They involve different environments. Kelton Reid: I love that, and I also do love working in a coffee shop. But there are times where I just can’t work in a coffee shop when it’s too distracting or I really need flow — so I need quiet and no movement. They do actually have apps that have a coffee shop soundtrack, which I have used in the past and can attest to. Michael Grybko: It made a little coffee odor, too? Kelton Reid: No, but you can put a cup of coffee next to your desk and just waft it your way or drink it. Anyway, I think there’s so much here. Hopefully we’ve offered some ideas for writers. The importance of the incubation phase, which allows your brain to do some of those cool subconscious things — if you’ve had in an ah-ha moment in the shower or on a walk or on a bike ride when you’re not thinking about the work at hand, all of that kind of stuff. Hemingway’s Personal Tricks for Getting Words on the Page Kelton Reid: I just wanted to touch on in some tips from Ernest Hemmingway, just to go back to a seminal writer and some of his advice that were collected in a book called Ernest Hemmingway and Writing, where he just dropped some wisdom. They were, obviously, not all in one place, but were collected from his letters. First one that he said was, “To get started, write one true sentence.” I think that kind of goes back to the setting obtainable goals. Because, hey look, you wrote one great sentence, and everything kind of goes from there. Michael Grybko: So you have a taste of success. Kelton Reid: Yeah, and he was saying I’ll go back to just general advice for writers, which going all the way full circle to the idea that the writer’s brain can be compared to a pro athlete’s brain — where does that come from? So much of that is from practice and repetition. Michael Grybko: Right, repetitive. Kelton Reid: And there’s another great book called Around the Writer’s Block by an author, Roseanne Belle, where she discusses that whole thing. She really gets into it, digs into it, but just to bring it back to Hemmingway. She’s kind of drilling into the idea that you’re training your brain through repetition and practice, and in order to write well, you have to write, period. And to write, you’ve got to write badly. You’re always going to start writing something crappy, so Hemmingway’s famous quote, of course, is, “I write one page of masterpiece for ninety one pages of sh*t. And I try to put the sh*t in the wastebasket.” And that’s where the editing process comes in, right? That verification process. I love that. Anyway, a couple others from Hemmingway, really quick. “Always stop for the day while you still know what will happen next.” Of course, that’s a fiction thing, but kind of keeping that interest alive. The incubation thing he touches on, “Never think about a story when you’re not working on it.” Michael Grybko: Sure, incubation. Kelton Reid: Hemmingway was there. Then, “When it’s time to work again, always start by reading what you’ve written so far.” So you’re kind of firing up those neuronal pathways again. Michael Grybko: Accessing the information again, recall. Kelton Reid: And he swore by using a pencil when he wasn’t at the typewriter. Again, that hand writing to start out. Michael Grybko: Yeah. It may help with acquiring knowledge. It may be a useful tool for memory formation. Kelton Reid: It works your brain a different way. Michael Grybko: Right. The Importance of Regular Rituals for Eliminating Doubt Kelton Reid: Okay, well to kind of wrap up here, I think that writers need to find rituals and routines. I know this is a question I ask writers on the podcast quite often — do they have some psyche-up rituals to get them in the mood. Everyone is different. Everyone has different stuff. Some have none at all. I know in Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit, she talks a lot about how rituals eliminate doubt. And of course, I think that’s probably part of what you touch on as well. Michael Grybko: Right. And I think like we were saying, there’s going to be a lot of individual differences based on people’s history. Find out what works best for you as a writer. Kelton Reid: For sure. Michael Grybko: Just because one writer defines writer’s block as a certain thing and you don’t agree with that, that’s fine. Kelton Reid: Yeah. I wrote a piece for Copyblogger called 8 Strange Rituals of Productive Writers, and again, like pro athletes, these rituals, they don’t have to be orthodox, which I’ll get to. They just have to be regular. And you just have to build those muscles. Anyway, George Orwell, Mark Twain, Winston Churchill — all famous for writing while they were lying down. Michael Grybko: Okay, I’ve never tried it. Kelton Reid: You know, why not? Of course, Charles Dickens and Henry Miller both used to wander around Europe actually trying to get lost and, again, trying to foster creativity by changing their mindset. A lot of writers will write with music on. This is something I touch on actually in a podcast. Every writer has kind of a different music. I know that Stephen King likes to listen to rock music. Same with Austin Kleon. I prefer, actually, ambient music. The productivity thing again, touching back on circadian rhythms, Balzac would get up at midnight and drink black coffee well into the next day. Flannery O’Connor only wrote for two hours a day, and that seems like a pretty obtainable goal. Michael Grybko: That’s a goal, yeah. Kelton Reid: She was very prolific. Finally, I think I’ll wrap up with this one. Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Cheever wrote mostly in his underwear. Michael Grybko: Okay, I’m not sure the neurological basis for that one. I’m going to leave that one untouched. Kelton Reid: Yeah, we don’t really know why. Michael Grybko: Yeah I don’t know the neuro-mechanism on that. Kelton Reid: Hey, he’s just trying to relax, be groovy, man. Michael Grybko: Yeah, we have to leave on a cliffhanger, right? Kelton Reid: Okay. Well, I think we’ve covered a lot of good stuff. I think we’ve offered a lot of good insights of what’s happening at least inside the writer’s brain, as we try to do. And I really appreciate you taking the time to enlighten us, man. Michael Grybko: This was fun. These are interesting questions that I get to think about, and I love it when you throw these my way. It gets me thinking about things, so I enjoy it. Thank you. Kelton Reid: Fantastic. Well, come back and see us soon. We’ll have another brain question for you. Michael Grybko: Great. Looking forward to it. Kelton Reid: All right, thanks, Michael. Michael Grybko: All right, thank you. Kelton Reid: Thanks so much for joining us for a glimpse into the workings of the writer’s brain. For more episodes of The Writer Files, or to simply leave us a comment or question, drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

Dr. Hallowell shares his thoughts on a recent New York Times article by Teddy Wayne called, “The End of Reflection.” Ned sounds a warning bell that if we are not careful, we’ll give up our inner lives and capacity to think. Link to article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/fashion/internet-technology-phones-introspection.html?_r=0

Quicksand (Simon & Schuster)A daring, brilliant new novel from Man Booker Prize finalist Steve Toltz, for fans of Dave Eggers, Martin Amis, and David Foster Wallace: a fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy about two lifelong friends. Liam is a struggling writer and a failing cop. Aldo, his best friend and muse, is a haplessly criminal entrepreneur with an uncanny knack for disaster. As Aldo's luck worsens, Liam is inspired to base his next book on his best friend's exponential misfortunes and hopeless quest to win back his one great love: his ex-wife, Stella. What begins as an attempt to make sense of Aldo's mishaps spirals into a profound story of faith and friendship. With the same originality and buoyancy that catapulted his first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, onto prize lists around the world--including shortlists for the Man Booker Prize and the "Guardian" First Book Award--Steve Toltz has created a rousing, hysterically funny but unapologetically dark satire about fate, faith, friendship, and the artist's obligation to his muse.Sharp, witty, kinetic, and utterly engrossing, Quicksand is a subversive portrait of twenty-first-century society in all its hypocrisy and absurdity.Praise for Quicksand:“Steve Toltz possesses an imagination that knows no limits. His work is mordant, prophetic, and very funny. He is a true original.” —Patrick McGrath, author of Asylum“Steve Toltz writes with a singular, propulsive energy, with sentences and characters that rise off the page with a force that leaves you almost breathless.  There is more heart, and joy and compassion and hard-earned wisdom in Quicksand than seems possible for a single novel; it is life, literature at its fullest.”—Dinaw Mengestu, award-winning author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears and All Our Names“Quicksand is one of the smartest, funniest, angriest novels I have ever read. But it's also a surprisingly touching meditation on friendship and family, on art and God, on law-breaking and law enforcement. … A brilliant piece of fiction, from a novelist who so clearly sees the outsized pleasures and terrors of our troubled time.”  —Brock Clarke, author of An Arsonist's Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England and The Happiest People in the World“Quicksand crackles with such intensity it made me turn the pages with a harder snap, lean closer, want to gnaw the words.  This is a novel of sneak-attack seriousness, so funny it fools you into letting down your guard—then knocks you upside the head with intense intelligence, probing thought, raw pain. For all the wit and wisdom in this book, all the pleasures contained in its raucous, furious, fearless pursuit of truths, the greatest thrill comes when it strikes you that you’ve never read anything quite like it before, that you just might have stumbled—startlingly, unsettlingly—on something close to genius in the writing of Steve Toltz.”—Josh Weil, author of The Great Glass Sea“Steve Toltz is a verbal magician and lunatic storyteller. Every page of this novel bursts with ideas and humor and pathos and incisive riffs that perfectly express the grand absurdities of the irrational universe, along with the smaller ones of a very particular friendship. Quicksand is the work of a writer in full command of his many outsized gifts, not least of which is his humanity.”—Teddy Wayne, Whiting Award-winning author of The Love Song of Jonny ValentineSteve Toltz was born in Sydney and graduated from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. His first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.After working on Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in 1996, Anton Monsted went on to co-found Luhrmann’s music company, Bazmark Music, and served as Music Supervisor and Executive Music Producer on Luhrmann’s film Moulin Rouge! He was Executive Producer of Luhrmann’s 2004 campaign for Chanel No.5 starring Nicole Kidman, and was the Co-Producer and Executive Music Supervisor for Luhrmann’s Australia and The Great Gatsby. He is currently Senior Vice President of Music at Twentieth Century Fox, and, notably, has been Steve Toltz's friend since they met in a bowling alley in 1988. 

Bream Gives Me Hiccups (Grove/Atlantic)Jesse Eisenberg is known for acclaimed acting roles in The Social Network, The Squid and the Whale, and other films, but his writing talents are no less impressive. His short stories have appeared in McSweeney’s and in the New Yorker and he is the author of three plays, including The Revisionist, which starred Eisenberg and Vanessa Redgrave.Now in his whip-smart fiction debut Bream Gives Me Hiccups Eisenberg delivers a collection of forty-four hilarious, moving, and inventive stories that explore the various insanities of the modern world. NOTE: As with all Skylight Books in-store events, this reading is free and open to the public (first come, first served).  But because we're expecting a large crowd at this event, we'll be giving out numbered tickets to the signing line to keep things organized:To get a ticket to the signing line, you must purchase a copy of Bream Gives Me Hiccups here at Skylight Books.Starting September 8, you can buy books (and get your signing line ticket) in person, by phone, or via our website. Web pre-orders can also be picked up starting the 8th.For all website orders for this event, be sure to leave a note in the Order Comments field if you'd like a signing line ticket.Can't attend? If you would like a signed book but will not be able to attend, click Signed Copy after adding the book to your cart and we'll do our best to get it signed for you. You  may pick up this book in the store after the event, or have it shipped to you.Skylight's Friends with Benefits members get priority signing line tickets (and 20% off this and all other event books each month), so be sure to mention your membership (or join) when you order the book.Jesse Eisenberg will sign and personalize ONLY Bream Gives me Hiccups and his plays--no memorabilia, posters, DVDs, fan art, etc. Jesse Eisenberg will also take photographs while signing--no posed photographs.  Thank you for your cooperation! Bream Gives Me Hiccups gets its unusual title from the set of stories that begin the book, restaurant reviews written by a nine-year-old child who is taken out for expensive meals by his newly divorced mother. The stories then move from contemporary L.A. to the dorm rooms of an American college to ancient Pompeii, throwing the reader into a universe of social misfits, reimagined scenes from history, and ridiculous overreactions. In one piece, a tense email exchange between a young man and his girlfriend is taken over by the man’s sister, who is obsessed with the Bosnian genocide (The situation reminds me of a little historical blip called the Karađorđevo agreement); in another, a college freshman forced to live with a roommate is stunned when one of her ramen packets goes missing (She didn’t have “one” of my ramens. She had a chicken ramen); in another piece, Alexander Graham Bell has teething problems with his invention (I’ve been calling Mabel all day, she doesn’t pick up! Yes, of course I dialed the right number – 2!). United by Eisenberg’s gift for humor and character, and grouped into chapters that open with illustrations by award-winning cartoonist Jean Jullien, the witty pieces collected in Bream Gives Me Hiccups mark the arrival of a fantastically funny, self-ironic, and original voice.Praise for Bream Gives Me Hiccups“Brilliantly witty, deeply intelligent, and just plain hilarious. If David Sedaris wrote about Carmelo Anthony, Bosnian genocide, and ramen-stealing college freshmen, it would probably come out something like Jesse Eisenberg’s Bream Gives Me Hiccups. A moving portrait of human beings at their weaker moments, and a wonderful send-up of the insanities of modern America.” —Sherman Alexie“Eisenberg has a terrific ear, especially for adolescent inflections, absurdity, self-delusion, and insecurity. He also has a flair for off-the-wall ideas . . . With its panoply of neurotics and narcissists and its smart mix of stinging satire and surprising moments of sweetness, Bream Gives Me Hiccups brings to mind fellow comic actor/writers Woody Allen, Steve Martin and B.J. Novak. It also offers a youthful new twist on what one of Eisenberg’s hopeless dreamers refers to—ironically, of course—as the cruel ‘irony of life.’”—NPR Books“Compelling . . . A fascinating look into the minds of misfits . . . Whether it’s Alexander Graham Bell bumbling through his first phone calls or Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks pacifying a fan, Eisenberg’s ability to create interesting and entertaining dialogue as if the exchange actually occurred is impressive . . . Eisenberg’s wit jumps off the page . . . Bream Gives Me Hiccups is a delightful collection of awkward scenarios twisted into humorous, witty and sometimes poignant life lessons. It’s simultaneously smart, clever and creative.”—Associated Press“Eisenberg’s strength is in dialogue and monologue, and in writing miserable characters who alternately compel (like a 9-year-old from a broken home who writes restaurant reviews) and repel (like Harper, the footnote-obsessed freshman Eisenberg lovingly describes as ‘maladjusted’) . . . Eisenberg is uncannily good at capturing a specific breed of insincere teen girl.”—Entertainment Weekly“Jesse Eisenberg is a deeply original comic voice. These stories are about the funniness, sadness, and strangeness of everyday life and they really made me laugh.”—Roz ChastA great book . . . The first part of the book [is] a series of restaurant reviews Eisenberg writes in the voice of a privileged nine-year old. The reviews are hilarious but gradually reveal a moving portrait of a lonely boy’s bond with his single mom. All the stories seem to work on multiple levels like that.”—Arun Rath, “All Things Considered,” NPR“[Eisenberg’s] jittery on-screen energy seeps onto the pages of this book.”—Wall Street Journal (15 Books to Read This Fall)“Eisenberg’s 28 stories in Bream Gives Me Hiccups range from the diary of a nine-year-old food critic to letters about stolen ramen . . . Eisenberg’s characters are lively, and his awareness of universal neuroses (yours and his alike) shows he’s more than a hobbyist.”—Time “He’s a walking ball of neuroses, a fledgling playwright, and now a short-story writer, telling tales covering subjects as varied as Pompeii and ramen.”—New York Magazine  “Charming, deftly written, and laugh-out-loud funny.” —Publishers Weekly“I’ve been a fan of Jesse Eisenberg’s plays for years and his prose is just as winning. Bream Gives Me Hiccups is hilarious, poignant and at times so self-deprecating it makes me want to give Jesse a hug. He’s taken decades of neurosis and spun it into comedy gold.”—Simon Rich“Eisenberg proves to be a compassionate chronicler of absurdity in the realms of family life, romance, and history.”—Booklist“Bream Gives Me Hiccups isn’t merely comic writing of the first order; it’s an often tender, highbrow-lowbrow mash-up that encompasses everything from Chomsky and Žižek to disastrous pickup lines and pubescent neuroses. Jesse Eisenberg writes with formidable intellect and verbal dexterity, but he also has something many deadeye satirists lack: empathy with his targets. To borrow his most unforgettable character’s line, you’ll want to give his debut collection 2000 out of 2000 stars.”—Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny ValentineJesse Eisenberg is an Academy Award–nominated actor, playwright, and contributor for the New Yorker andMcSweeney's. He is the author of three plays, Asuncion, The Revisionist, and The Spoils, which won the Theater Visions Fund Award. Eisenberg's acting credits include The Social Network, Now You See Me, Adventureland, The Squid and the Whale, The Double, and The End of the Tour. Forthcoming acting credits include Batman v. Superman.

Martha Frankel’s guests this week are Teddy Wayne, Ann Martin and Kitty Sheehan.

Steve Greene interviews Teddy Wayne about his new novel, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, at Skylight Books.

Teddy Wayne is the guest. He is the author of the novel Kapitoil (Harper Perennial), for which he was the winner of a 2011 Whiting Writers' Award. He has also been the recipient of a New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His second novel, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, is due out from Free Press on February 5, 2013. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, calls it "Masterfully executed...the real accomplishment is the unforgettable voice of Jonny. If this impressive novel, both entertaining and tragically insightful, were a song, it would have a Michael Jackson beat with Morrissey lyrics." And Ben Fountain raves "The Love Song of Jonny Valentine takes us deep into the dark arts and even darker heart of mass-market celebrity, 21st-century version. In the near-pubescent hitmaker of the title, Teddy Wayne delivers a wild ride through the upper echelons of the entertainment machine as it ingests human beings at one end and spews out dollars at the other. Jonny's like all the rest of us, he wants to love and be loved, and as this brilliant novel shows, that’s a dangerous way to be when you’re inside the machine." Monologue topics: surgery, Vicodin, hernias, tweets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode #60: Teddy Wayne