Hanna Pylväinen has been writing fiction about the small Finnish fundamentalist sect she was raised in for hers. In her 2012 debut novel, We Sinners, she follows a large, Midwestern family as they navigate their relationships to each other and to the church at the heart of their lives. Over the years since she wrote that novel, Pylväinen has learned more about the origins of that religious order, called Laestadianism after the pastor who founded it, and its relationship to the colonization of Finland and displacement of the Sami people and their traditions. Her new novel, The End of Drum-Time, takes a new look at Laestadianism, exploring the dynamics of imperialism, the instrumentalization of religion in settler-colonialism, and the limitations on our ability to see past our own perspective.
","summary":"Clara talks to author and educator Hanna Pylväinen about her novel THE END OF DRUM-TIME.","date_published":"2024-12-06T19:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/19cb536e-0d7a-443f-ab87-f63ee74f3c84.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":65225072,"duration_in_seconds":3261}]},{"id":"079c38d9-9a84-4016-8a56-cdeec4f55cf7","title":"Episode 51: Lev Grossman - THE BRIGHT SWORD","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/51","content_text":"In 2014, hot on the heels of the success of his Magicians trilogy, Lev Grossman announced that he was writing a Arthurian epic. As the project took shape, world events kept intruding: Donald Trump ascended to the presidency, a novel respiratory virus launched a pandemic, and Britain exited the European Union. Admist all this, Grossman realized that the question that had driven him to write this novel in the first place — What happens after Arthur dies? — was a question about the collapse of empires. And so The Bright Sword was reborn.\n\nIn this interview, I talk to Lev about the politics of Camelot, the difficulty of seeing the themes that are present in your own work, and the difficulty of tracking changes across a 700-page tome.Special Guest: Lev Grossman.","content_html":"In 2014, hot on the heels of the success of his Magicians trilogy, Lev Grossman announced that he was writing a Arthurian epic. As the project took shape, world events kept intruding: Donald Trump ascended to the presidency, a novel respiratory virus launched a pandemic, and Britain exited the European Union. Admist all this, Grossman realized that the question that had driven him to write this novel in the first place — What happens after Arthur dies? — was a question about the collapse of empires. And so The Bright Sword was reborn.
\n\nIn this interview, I talk to Lev about the politics of Camelot, the difficulty of seeing the themes that are present in your own work, and the difficulty of tracking changes across a 700-page tome.
Special Guest: Lev Grossman.
","summary":"Clara talks to New York Times-bestselling author Lev Grossman about his Arthurian epic, THE BRIGHT SWORD.","date_published":"2024-12-06T15:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/079c38d9-9a84-4016-8a56-cdeec4f55cf7.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66058706,"duration_in_seconds":3302}]},{"id":"350bc16f-bb9b-4b51-81b7-88bf949429ba","title":"Episode 50: Tanzila Ahmed - GRASPING AT THIS PLANET JUST TO BELIEVE","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/50","content_text":"For ten years, Tanzila \"Taz\" Ahmed organized an annual poem-a-day project during the month of Ramadan. She began the project as an alternative form of reflection to prayer, which she had struggled to connect with, shortly after the death of her mother. In the decade that followed, the project turned into a community, and Taz's poetry turned into a collection, Grasping at This Planet Just to Believe.\n\nIn this interview, Taz talks about the impetus behind and inspiration for the original project and the ways participating in it for a decade changed her relationship to Ramadan — and to writing.","content_html":"For ten years, Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed organized an annual poem-a-day project during the month of Ramadan. She began the project as an alternative form of reflection to prayer, which she had struggled to connect with, shortly after the death of her mother. In the decade that followed, the project turned into a community, and Taz's poetry turned into a collection, Grasping at This Planet Just to Believe.
\n\nIn this interview, Taz talks about the impetus behind and inspiration for the original project and the ways participating in it for a decade changed her relationship to Ramadan — and to writing.
","summary":"Clara talks to poet, artist, and activist Tanzila \"Taz\" Ahmed about her poetry collection GRASPING AT THIS PLANET JUST TO BELIEVE.","date_published":"2024-12-06T12:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/350bc16f-bb9b-4b51-81b7-88bf949429ba.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67403378,"duration_in_seconds":3370}]},{"id":"6c0513ad-e180-4cf6-bb15-b61ee0f1297d","title":"Episode 49: Tedd Siegel - SIGNS OF THE GREAT REFUSAL","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/49","content_text":"Tedd Siegel retired from his career as an academic administrator in late 2019 after wrestling with extreme stress, burnout, and PTSD — caused, in part, by the conditions of work as it is formulated today. He wrote Signs of the Great Refusal: The Coming Struggle for a Postwork Society in part to work through his own experiences and, more broadly, to understand what it was about contemporary work that felt so untenable and unsustainable. Throughout the book, Tedd leans into his background as a political philosopher (he attended the Ph.D. program in philosophy at the New School), grounding his understanding of “work-as-we-know-it” in the political and economic critiques of capital going back to Marx in the 19th century, putting them into dialog with philosophical understandings of work and labor in the 20th century from Arendt and others. The result is an exploration not only of the role and function of work in contemporary society, but what it might take to build a post-work politics out of the nascent anti-work movements alive today.","content_html":"Tedd Siegel retired from his career as an academic administrator in late 2019 after wrestling with extreme stress, burnout, and PTSD — caused, in part, by the conditions of work as it is formulated today. He wrote Signs of the Great Refusal: The Coming Struggle for a Postwork Society in part to work through his own experiences and, more broadly, to understand what it was about contemporary work that felt so untenable and unsustainable. Throughout the book, Tedd leans into his background as a political philosopher (he attended the Ph.D. program in philosophy at the New School), grounding his understanding of “work-as-we-know-it” in the political and economic critiques of capital going back to Marx in the 19th century, putting them into dialog with philosophical understandings of work and labor in the 20th century from Arendt and others. The result is an exploration not only of the role and function of work in contemporary society, but what it might take to build a post-work politics out of the nascent anti-work movements alive today.
","summary":"Clara talks to author and ex-academic administrator Tedd Siegel about his book SIGHTS OF THE GREAT REFUSAL: THE COMING STRUGGLE FOR A POSTWORK SOCIETY.","date_published":"2024-04-08T20:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/6c0513ad-e180-4cf6-bb15-b61ee0f1297d.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":44762159,"duration_in_seconds":2797}]},{"id":"e238dc2f-d00f-486b-95e7-0d34f1924ba5","title":"Episode 48: Katya Apekina - MOTHER DOLL","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/48","content_text":"Novelist, screenwriter, and translator Katya Apekina returns to Story Behind the Story to talk about her latest novel, Mother Doll — an intergenerational ghost story, tying together a Russian revolutionary and her great-granddaughter, adrift in her 20s in LA.Special Guest: Katya Apekina.","content_html":"Novelist, screenwriter, and translator Katya Apekina returns to Story Behind the Story to talk about her latest novel, Mother Doll — an intergenerational ghost story, tying together a Russian revolutionary and her great-granddaughter, adrift in her 20s in LA.
Special Guest: Katya Apekina.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author, screenwriter, and translator Katya Apekina about her second novel, MOTHER DOLL.","date_published":"2024-03-02T17:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/e238dc2f-d00f-486b-95e7-0d34f1924ba5.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":70141268,"duration_in_seconds":3507}]},{"id":"433a45a2-bcec-43ad-ac93-c5ab5070210e","title":"Episode 47: Marcus Gazaway - BRIDGEWATER","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/47","content_text":"Marcus Gazaway got his start as a writer right here on the central coast, when he joined the staff of CSU Monterey Bay’s student newspaper, The Otter Realm. Today, he works as a full-time author in Sarasota, Florida, where he can be seen reading and writing in coffee shops across the Gulf Coast. His first novel, the sci-fi thriller Bridgewater, follows a neurologist whose desperation to give his Deaf daughter a voice leads him down a dark and destructive path. It is the topic of our conversation today.","content_html":"Marcus Gazaway got his start as a writer right here on the central coast, when he joined the staff of CSU Monterey Bay’s student newspaper, The Otter Realm. Today, he works as a full-time author in Sarasota, Florida, where he can be seen reading and writing in coffee shops across the Gulf Coast. His first novel, the sci-fi thriller Bridgewater, follows a neurologist whose desperation to give his Deaf daughter a voice leads him down a dark and destructive path. It is the topic of our conversation today.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to central coast author Marcus Gazaway about his debut novel, BRIDGEWATER.","date_published":"2024-02-03T17:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/433a45a2-bcec-43ad-ac93-c5ab5070210e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":63177266,"duration_in_seconds":3158}]},{"id":"bb665427-8821-4581-893b-197753092189","title":"Episode 46: Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo - INCANTATION","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/46","content_text":"This month, host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to poet and educator Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Xochitl’s writing has been featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World. She has received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, and the National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with the Getty National Military Park and Poetry Foundation. In 2011, she co-founded Women Who Submit, a literary organization that uses social media and community events to empower women and non-binary authors to submit work for publication, with Ashaki Jackson and Alyss Dixon, and she currently serves as the organization’s director.\n\nXochitl wrote her debut collection, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge, while living in a house in the shadows of Dodger Stadium in historic Solano Canyon. Today we are discussing her second collection, Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites, which explores US monuments, memorializes Black and brown bodies murdered by state-sanctioned violence, and shares love poems to family, friends, and dalliances in rituals of resistance and resilience.","content_html":"This month, host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to poet and educator Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo. A former Steinbeck Fellow and Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange winner, Xochitl’s writing has been featured in the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, On Being’s Poetry Unbound, and Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World. She has received residencies from Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Yefe Nof, and the National Parks Arts Foundation in partnership with the Getty National Military Park and Poetry Foundation. In 2011, she co-founded Women Who Submit, a literary organization that uses social media and community events to empower women and non-binary authors to submit work for publication, with Ashaki Jackson and Alyss Dixon, and she currently serves as the organization’s director.
\n\nXochitl wrote her debut collection, Posada: Offerings of Witness and Refuge, while living in a house in the shadows of Dodger Stadium in historic Solano Canyon. Today we are discussing her second collection, Incantation: Love Poems for Battle Sites, which explores US monuments, memorializes Black and brown bodies murdered by state-sanctioned violence, and shares love poems to family, friends, and dalliances in rituals of resistance and resilience.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo about her new poetry collection, INCANTATION: LOVE POEMS FOR BATTLE SITES.","date_published":"2023-12-02T17:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/bb665427-8821-4581-893b-197753092189.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":65035586,"duration_in_seconds":3251}]},{"id":"396c3c9f-bd70-4ddd-9832-083cb90f841f","title":"Episode 45: Sam Sax - PIG","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/45","content_text":"Sam Sax is a queer Jewish poet, writer, and educator. Their debut poetry collection, madness, won the National Poetry Series Competition when it came out, and their second collection, bury it, won the 2017 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. They are the two time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion with poems published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and Granta, to give just a few highlights. Sam has received fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Poetry Foundation, Yaddo, Lambda Literary, and MacDowell, and they are currently serving as an ITALIC Lecturer at Stanford University.\n\nIn this conversation, Clara talks to Sam about the purpose of filth in their poetry, their use of histories and etymologies as poetic techniques, and how to write a pandemic poem that doesn't feel dated.Special Guest: Sam Sax.","content_html":"Sam Sax is a queer Jewish poet, writer, and educator. Their debut poetry collection, madness, won the National Poetry Series Competition when it came out, and their second collection, bury it, won the 2017 James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. They are the two time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion with poems published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, and Granta, to give just a few highlights. Sam has received fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, The Poetry Foundation, Yaddo, Lambda Literary, and MacDowell, and they are currently serving as an ITALIC Lecturer at Stanford University.
\n\nIn this conversation, Clara talks to Sam about the purpose of filth in their poetry, their use of histories and etymologies as poetic techniques, and how to write a pandemic poem that doesn't feel dated.
Special Guest: Sam Sax.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to poet Sam Sax about their latest poetry collection, PIG.","date_published":"2023-11-04T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/396c3c9f-bd70-4ddd-9832-083cb90f841f.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":65364968,"duration_in_seconds":3268}]},{"id":"43d31595-791b-45cc-82a4-5f47ba7e8238","title":"Episode 44: Jenn Shapland - THIN SKIN","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/44","content_text":"Jenn Shapland's first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and the Southern Book Prize, and it won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award, the Judy Grahn Award, and the Christian Gauss Award. In her new essay collection, Thin Skin, Shapland explores the porousness of boundaries between humans and the environments we inhabit, between us and other people, and between us and the social constructs we create. \n\nWhat does it mean to be sensitive when we live in a toxic environment? How do we navigate the difference between taking responsibility and assuaging our guilt? Between resisting injustice and coping with it? And how do we reckon with what's happening in the world when no one wants to talk about it? Shapland answers these questions and more in this month's episode of Story Behind the Story.Special Guest: Jenn Shapland.","content_html":"Jenn Shapland's first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and the Southern Book Prize, and it won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award, the Judy Grahn Award, and the Christian Gauss Award. In her new essay collection, Thin Skin, Shapland explores the porousness of boundaries between humans and the environments we inhabit, between us and other people, and between us and the social constructs we create.
\n\nWhat does it mean to be sensitive when we live in a toxic environment? How do we navigate the difference between taking responsibility and assuaging our guilt? Between resisting injustice and coping with it? And how do we reckon with what's happening in the world when no one wants to talk about it? Shapland answers these questions and more in this month's episode of Story Behind the Story.
Special Guest: Jenn Shapland.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel speaks with Jenn Shapland, whose new essay collection, Thin Skin, explores the porousness of boundaries — between humans and the environments we inhabit, between ourselves and other people, and between the identities we construct and the social pressures and expectations we encounter. ","date_published":"2023-10-07T17:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/43d31595-791b-45cc-82a4-5f47ba7e8238.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66424106,"duration_in_seconds":3321}]},{"id":"6f85ef6a-8b6f-4078-ad7b-20b1bef7193e","title":"Episode 43: Brett Christophers - RENTIER CAPITALISM","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/43","content_text":"Host Clara Sherley Appel speaks with Brett Christophers, author of Rentier Capitalism.\n\nA geographer based out of the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, Brett's work focuses on various aspects of Western capitalism, both historically and in the present day. In 2018, he wrote The New Enclosure, about Margaret Thatcher’s immensely successful program to privatize land in the UK, for which he won the 2019 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize. In 2020 he published Rentier Capitalism, which provides a framework for understanding the political economy of the 20th and 21st centuries in terms of the extraction of rents by the haves from the have nots, and explores the consequences of an economic system that incentivizes private ownership on a massive scale.\n\nThough the focus of Christophers' book is on the UK, he extends his analysis to California's housing crisis as part of this conversation, making it essential listening for anyong seeking to understand the damage that has been done during the neoliberal era — and what is necessary to undo it.Special Guest: Brett Christophers.","content_html":"Host Clara Sherley Appel speaks with Brett Christophers, author of Rentier Capitalism.
\n\nA geographer based out of the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, Brett's work focuses on various aspects of Western capitalism, both historically and in the present day. In 2018, he wrote The New Enclosure, about Margaret Thatcher’s immensely successful program to privatize land in the UK, for which he won the 2019 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize. In 2020 he published Rentier Capitalism, which provides a framework for understanding the political economy of the 20th and 21st centuries in terms of the extraction of rents by the haves from the have nots, and explores the consequences of an economic system that incentivizes private ownership on a massive scale.
\n\nThough the focus of Christophers' book is on the UK, he extends his analysis to California's housing crisis as part of this conversation, making it essential listening for anyong seeking to understand the damage that has been done during the neoliberal era — and what is necessary to undo it.
Special Guest: Brett Christophers.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley Appel speaks with Brett Christophers, author of _Rentier Capitalism_.","date_published":"2023-09-02T17:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/6f85ef6a-8b6f-4078-ad7b-20b1bef7193e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":64645652,"duration_in_seconds":3232}]},{"id":"ef538706-406c-4c38-82c0-e54abd52a435","title":"Episode 42: Cheryl Harawitz - WHEN THE MAGPIE CALLS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/42","content_text":"Cheryl Harawitz is an artist and retired social worker living in Alameda. A few years ago, she published her debut middle-grade novel, When the Magpie Calls, the story of a nine year old girl named Morgwyth with special abilities and a remarkable connection to animals, for which she is bullied by her peers and targeted by supernatural forces who see her as a threat. But as Morgwyth begins to accept herself and her differences, she discovers a wellspring of internal strength that serves her well in her adventures.\n\nThis month's conversation covers a range of topics, from Cheryl's process in writing and editing her novel to the purpose of art — literary and otherwise — in her life to the influence of her professional experiences as a social worker on the kinds of stories she seeks to tell.Special Guest: Cheryl Harawitz.","content_html":"Cheryl Harawitz is an artist and retired social worker living in Alameda. A few years ago, she published her debut middle-grade novel, When the Magpie Calls, the story of a nine year old girl named Morgwyth with special abilities and a remarkable connection to animals, for which she is bullied by her peers and targeted by supernatural forces who see her as a threat. But as Morgwyth begins to accept herself and her differences, she discovers a wellspring of internal strength that serves her well in her adventures.
\n\nThis month's conversation covers a range of topics, from Cheryl's process in writing and editing her novel to the purpose of art — literary and otherwise — in her life to the influence of her professional experiences as a social worker on the kinds of stories she seeks to tell.
Special Guest: Cheryl Harawitz.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to local author Cheryl Harawitz about her middle-grade novel, WHEN THE MAGPIE CALLS.","date_published":"2023-06-02T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/ef538706-406c-4c38-82c0-e54abd52a435.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":51961664,"duration_in_seconds":3247}]},{"id":"ae539a8a-7fcc-4f31-8264-d5760a9796d6","title":"Episode 41: Joss Lake - FUTURE FEELING","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/41","content_text":"This month, Clara talks to author Joss Lake. A trans writer and educator based in New York, Joss teaches critical and creative writing throughout the city and runs a literary sauna series called Trans at Rest. His work has been supported by the Queens Council of the Arts, the Women and Performance Studies Collective, the Watermill Center, and Columbia University. Joss's debut novel, Future Feeling, tells a story about an embittered dog-walker who accidentally puts a curse on a young trans man and has to embark on an adventure with his social media frenemy in order to save him, and it's the subject of this conversation.Special Guest: Joss Lake.","content_html":"This month, Clara talks to author Joss Lake. A trans writer and educator based in New York, Joss teaches critical and creative writing throughout the city and runs a literary sauna series called Trans at Rest. His work has been supported by the Queens Council of the Arts, the Women and Performance Studies Collective, the Watermill Center, and Columbia University. Joss's debut novel, Future Feeling, tells a story about an embittered dog-walker who accidentally puts a curse on a young trans man and has to embark on an adventure with his social media frenemy in order to save him, and it's the subject of this conversation.
Special Guest: Joss Lake.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to Joss Lake about his debut novel, FUTURE FEELING.","date_published":"2023-05-06T17:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/ae539a8a-7fcc-4f31-8264-d5760a9796d6.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":50678554,"duration_in_seconds":2533}]},{"id":"cf496203-0038-4be4-9721-2a93883c7aa1","title":"Episode 40: Elaine Hsieh Chou - DISORIENTATION","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/40","content_text":"In Elaine Hsieh Chou's 2022 debut novel, Disorientation, a Taiwanese-American graduate student named Ingrid Yang discovers that the subject of her dissertation is a fraud: Xiao-Wen Chou is not a Chinese-American poet, but is in fact a white man who built his career on stereotypes and yellowface. This discovery launches her own awakening to the racism she has faced her entire life and the many ways she's built her identity around what white people expect of her.\n\nIn our conversation, we talk about the real-life inspirations for Disorientation and the strangeness of the label \"absurd\" to describe a novel about these very real experiences. We also talk about the value of anger in writing and healing.","content_html":"In Elaine Hsieh Chou's 2022 debut novel, Disorientation, a Taiwanese-American graduate student named Ingrid Yang discovers that the subject of her dissertation is a fraud: Xiao-Wen Chou is not a Chinese-American poet, but is in fact a white man who built his career on stereotypes and yellowface. This discovery launches her own awakening to the racism she has faced her entire life and the many ways she's built her identity around what white people expect of her.
\n\nIn our conversation, we talk about the real-life inspirations for Disorientation and the strangeness of the label "absurd" to describe a novel about these very real experiences. We also talk about the value of anger in writing and healing.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author Elaine Hsieh Chou about her debut novel, DISORIENTATION.","date_published":"2023-04-07T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/cf496203-0038-4be4-9721-2a93883c7aa1.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":53079224,"duration_in_seconds":3317}]},{"id":"a94323c1-a221-4f60-a78c-3e6061dad97b","title":"Episode 39: Ruthanna Emrys - A HALF-BUILT GARDEN","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/39","content_text":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author Ruthanna Emrys about her hopepunk novel, A HALF-BUILT GARDEN.","content_html":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author Ruthanna Emrys about her hopepunk novel, A HALF-BUILT GARDEN.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author Ruthanna Emrys about her hopepunk novel, A HALF-BUILT GARDEN.","date_published":"2022-09-01T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/a94323c1-a221-4f60-a78c-3e6061dad97b.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":65165564,"duration_in_seconds":3258}]},{"id":"6db45f94-7f88-4129-9f45-e0365aafa2d6","title":"Episode 38: Isaac Fellman - DEAD COLLECTIONS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/38","content_text":"Isaac Fellman is an author and archivist living in San Francisco. His debut novel, The Breath of the Sun, won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. In this episode, we discuss about his second novel, Dead Collections, which was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. It follows Sol, who works – like Isaac – as an archivist at a queer historical society in San Francisco, and who – presumably unlike Isaac – is a vampire. It’s a delightful story about love, grief, and the ways we hide our truest selves from the world to fit in.Special Guest: Isaac Fellman.","content_html":"Isaac Fellman is an author and archivist living in San Francisco. His debut novel, The Breath of the Sun, won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. In this episode, we discuss about his second novel, Dead Collections, which was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. It follows Sol, who works – like Isaac – as an archivist at a queer historical society in San Francisco, and who – presumably unlike Isaac – is a vampire. It’s a delightful story about love, grief, and the ways we hide our truest selves from the world to fit in.
Special Guest: Isaac Fellman.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author and archivist Isaac Fellman about his novel, DEAD COLLECTIONS.","date_published":"2022-07-01T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/6db45f94-7f88-4129-9f45-e0365aafa2d6.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":64871678,"duration_in_seconds":3243}]},{"id":"bf0bdd76-ed09-4e6e-9795-9588f5a82feb","title":"Episode 37: Gretchen Felker-Martin - MANHUNT","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/37","content_text":"Gretchen Felker-Martin is a writer, film critic, and self-described professional cenobite who writes about sexual revulsion, body horror, and how violence forms and fits into our lives. In addition to her fiction and essays available on Patreon, she has written criticism for outlets like Polygon, FanByte, The Outline, and Nylon. \n\nHer 2022 novel, Manhunt, follows two trans women trying to survive in a world ravaged by a testosterone-targeting plague. It is a brutal, gruesome exploration of gender, power, and violence at the end of the world, and it is the topic of this episode's conversation.Special Guest: Gretchen Felker-Martin.","content_html":"Gretchen Felker-Martin is a writer, film critic, and self-described professional cenobite who writes about sexual revulsion, body horror, and how violence forms and fits into our lives. In addition to her fiction and essays available on Patreon, she has written criticism for outlets like Polygon, FanByte, The Outline, and Nylon.
\n\nHer 2022 novel, Manhunt, follows two trans women trying to survive in a world ravaged by a testosterone-targeting plague. It is a brutal, gruesome exploration of gender, power, and violence at the end of the world, and it is the topic of this episode's conversation.
Special Guest: Gretchen Felker-Martin.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author and film critic Gretchen Felker-Martin about her novel, MANHUNT.","date_published":"2022-05-06T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/bf0bdd76-ed09-4e6e-9795-9588f5a82feb.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":65184001,"duration_in_seconds":3177}]},{"id":"b90a5fb7-5ec8-4bb6-92a6-c935fbbd8817","title":"Episode 36: Stephanie Foo - WHAT MY BONES KNOW","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/36","content_text":"If you listen to the radio, you have almost certainly encountered Stephanie Foo's work. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in just 3 years, she joined the staff of Snap Judgment, first as an intern and then as a full-time producer, before she moved to New York to work on This American Life. But Stephanie’s numerous accomplishments and accolades hid an intense internal struggle that ultimately led her to leave her dream job: in 2018, she was diagnosed with C-PTSD. In March 2022, she published What My Bones Know – a memoir that chronicles her journey to understand and heal from C-PTSD following her diagnosis. It is a powerful and deeply personal story that sheds light on an under-researched, poorly understood, and oft-stigmatized illness, and it is the subject of this month's conversation.Special Guest: Stephanie Foo.","content_html":"If you listen to the radio, you have almost certainly encountered Stephanie Foo's work. After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in just 3 years, she joined the staff of Snap Judgment, first as an intern and then as a full-time producer, before she moved to New York to work on This American Life. But Stephanie’s numerous accomplishments and accolades hid an intense internal struggle that ultimately led her to leave her dream job: in 2018, she was diagnosed with C-PTSD. In March 2022, she published What My Bones Know – a memoir that chronicles her journey to understand and heal from C-PTSD following her diagnosis. It is a powerful and deeply personal story that sheds light on an under-researched, poorly understood, and oft-stigmatized illness, and it is the subject of this month's conversation.
Special Guest: Stephanie Foo.
","summary":"Host Clara Sherley-Appel talks to author and former NPR producer Stephanie Foo about her memoir, WHAT MY BONES KNOW.","date_published":"2022-04-01T09:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/b90a5fb7-5ec8-4bb6-92a6-c935fbbd8817.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66652935,"duration_in_seconds":3250}]},{"id":"83d44147-6d4f-41ba-9237-82510fba9cc7","title":"Episode 35: Calvin Kasulke - SEVERAL PEOPLE ARE TYPING","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/35","content_text":"I talk to author and playwright Calvin Kasulke about his debut novel, Several People Are Typing.","content_html":"I talk to author and playwright Calvin Kasulke about his debut novel, Several People Are Typing.
","summary":"I talk to author and playwright Calvin Kasulke about his debut novel, SEVERAL PEOPLE ARE TYPING.","date_published":"2022-03-05T17:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/83d44147-6d4f-41ba-9237-82510fba9cc7.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66520793,"duration_in_seconds":3244}]},{"id":"e5dbc225-a37c-4c38-94ee-e117a488729d","title":"Episode 34: Kent Leatham - MONTEREY POETRY FESTIVAL","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/34","content_text":"I talk to Monterey Bay Area poet, translator, and educator Kent Leatham about his writing.","content_html":"I talk to Monterey Bay Area poet, translator, and educator Kent Leatham about his writing.
","summary":"I talk to Monterey Bay Area poet, translator, and educator Kent Leatham about his writing.","date_published":"2022-02-06T15:15:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/e5dbc225-a37c-4c38-94ee-e117a488729d.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67223810,"duration_in_seconds":3361}]},{"id":"76aa0f9e-4567-4299-b241-45aedee421f1","title":"Episode 33: Jamey Williams - BREATHING UNDER WATER and TO BE BLACK IS TO LOVE","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/33","content_text":"I talk to Bay Area poet and educator Jamey Williams about his poetry collections BREATHING UNDER WATER and TO BE BLACK IS TO LOVE.","content_html":"I talk to Bay Area poet and educator Jamey Williams about his poetry collections BREATHING UNDER WATER and TO BE BLACK IS TO LOVE.
","summary":"I talk to Bay Area poet and educator Jamey Williams about his poetry collections BREATHING UNDER WATER and TO BE BLACK IS TO LOVE.","date_published":"2021-12-03T15:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/76aa0f9e-4567-4299-b241-45aedee421f1.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67098008,"duration_in_seconds":3354}]},{"id":"29288930-3ff3-43b8-b227-afde598114a2","title":"Episode 32: Kenny Garcia - MONTEREY POETRY FESTIVAL","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/32","content_text":"I talk to Monterey Bay Area writer Kenny Garcia about his poetry, the Monterey Poetry Festival, and his involvement with Boukra Press.","content_html":"I talk to Monterey Bay Area writer Kenny Garcia about his poetry, the Monterey Poetry Festival, and his involvement with Boukra Press.
","summary":"I talk to Monterey Bay Area writer Kenny Garcia about his poetry, the Monterey Poetry Festival, and his involvement with Boukra Press.","date_published":"2021-11-06T15:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/29288930-3ff3-43b8-b227-afde598114a2.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":53494139,"duration_in_seconds":3343}]},{"id":"e9619f4c-5fc7-454a-a9c2-7baed71f6a01","title":"Episode 31: Rémy Ngamije - THE ETERNAL AUDIENCE OF ONE","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/31","content_text":"I talk to Namibian author Rémy Ngamije about his debut novel, THE ETERNAL AUDIENCE OF ONE.","content_html":"I talk to Namibian author Rémy Ngamije about his debut novel, THE ETERNAL AUDIENCE OF ONE.
","summary":"I talk to Namibian author Rémy Ngamije about his debut novel, THE ETERNAL AUDIENCE OF ONE.","date_published":"2021-09-04T15:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/e9619f4c-5fc7-454a-a9c2-7baed71f6a01.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":55402755,"duration_in_seconds":3360}]},{"id":"75ad5d2a-1de6-4881-b14e-71b1db8964b3","title":"Episode 30: Alice Sparkly Kat - POSTCOLONIAL ASTROLOGY","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/30","content_text":"I talk to astrologer and writer Alice Sparkly Kat, author of POSTCOLONIAL ASTROLOGY.","content_html":"I talk to astrologer and writer Alice Sparkly Kat, author of POSTCOLONIAL ASTROLOGY.
","summary":"I talk to astrologer and writer Alice Sparkly Kat, author of POSTCOLONIAL ASTROLOGY.","date_published":"2021-08-07T15:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/75ad5d2a-1de6-4881-b14e-71b1db8964b3.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67022840,"duration_in_seconds":3351}]},{"id":"04e89fe4-4416-4c4d-a53a-c1db909b745d","title":"Episode 29: Stephen Granade - LOSING YOUR GRIP","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/29","content_text":"I talk to writer / game designer Stephen Granade about the differences between interactive and traditional fiction.","content_html":"I talk to writer / game designer Stephen Granade about the differences between interactive and traditional fiction.
","summary":"I talk to writer / game designer Stephen Granade about the differences between interactive and traditional fiction.","date_published":"2021-07-06T15:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/04e89fe4-4416-4c4d-a53a-c1db909b745d.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":68940859,"duration_in_seconds":3365}]},{"id":"26e818a3-2fa8-425f-a259-1b9c32472c26","title":"Episode 28: Ethel Rohan - IN THE EVENT OF CONTACT","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/28","content_text":"I talk to Bay Area local Ethel Rohan, author of IN THE EVENT OF CONTACT.","content_html":"I talk to Bay Area local Ethel Rohan, author of IN THE EVENT OF CONTACT.
","summary":"I talk to Bay Area local Ethel Rohan, author of IN THE EVENT OF CONTACT.","date_published":"2021-06-05T14:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/26e818a3-2fa8-425f-a259-1b9c32472c26.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":68900585,"duration_in_seconds":3363}]},{"id":"56977497-b47d-426b-b8e3-103f78800efb","title":"Episode 27: Muriel Leung - IMAGINE US, THE SWARM","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/27","content_text":"Muriel Leung is a recipient of fellowships to Kundiman, VONA/Voices Workshop and the Community of Writers, and she has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her writing can be found in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, and the Fairy Tale Review, among others. Her first book of poetry, Bone Confetti, won the 2015 Noemi Press Book Award. Of it, one reviewer said, “It made the words into a bell, and the bell made me stop what I was doing.” \n\nIn this episode, I talk to Muriel about her newest collection, Imagine Us, The Swarm, which comes out on May 25th. Our conversation spans the death of her father, racialized labor, and what these things mean in the context of capitalism.Links:Pre-order IMAGINE US, THE SWARM","content_html":"Muriel Leung is a recipient of fellowships to Kundiman, VONA/Voices Workshop and the Community of Writers, and she has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her writing can be found in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, and the Fairy Tale Review, among others. Her first book of poetry, Bone Confetti, won the 2015 Noemi Press Book Award. Of it, one reviewer said, “It made the words into a bell, and the bell made me stop what I was doing.”
\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Muriel about her newest collection, Imagine Us, The Swarm, which comes out on May 25th. Our conversation spans the death of her father, racialized labor, and what these things mean in the context of capitalism.
Links:
","summary":"I talk to Muriel Leung about her new poetry collection, IMAGINE US, THE SWARM.","date_published":"2021-05-09T11:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/56977497-b47d-426b-b8e3-103f78800efb.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66682617,"duration_in_seconds":3252}]},{"id":"bb115458-8399-4392-af94-e1fe6150edb2","title":"Episode 26: Jeff VanderMeer - HUMMINGBIRD SALAMANDER","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/26","content_text":"Over his 35 year career, Jeff VanderMeer has published more than a dozen novels, and his non-fiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, Slate, Salon, and the Washington Post. His genre-defying novels and short stories frequently engage with ecological themes, including climate change, causing the New Yorker to dub him “weird Thoreau.” In 2014, Annihilation, the first book in his New York Times-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards for Best Novel; it was adapted into a movie in 2018.\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Jeff about his newest novel, Hummingbird Salamander, which comes out on early next week. It follows a security analyst named Jane as she tries to unravel the mystery of a taxidermied extinct hummingbird gifted to her by an ecoterrorist.","content_html":"Over his 35 year career, Jeff VanderMeer has published more than a dozen novels, and his non-fiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, Slate, Salon, and the Washington Post. His genre-defying novels and short stories frequently engage with ecological themes, including climate change, causing the New Yorker to dub him “weird Thoreau.” In 2014, Annihilation, the first book in his New York Times-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy, won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards for Best Novel; it was adapted into a movie in 2018.
\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Jeff about his newest novel, Hummingbird Salamander, which comes out on early next week. It follows a security analyst named Jane as she tries to unravel the mystery of a taxidermied extinct hummingbird gifted to her by an ecoterrorist.
","summary":"I talk to Jeff VanderMeer about his new novel, HUMMINGBIRD SALAMANDER.","date_published":"2021-04-03T12:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/bb115458-8399-4392-af94-e1fe6150edb2.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":64124809,"duration_in_seconds":3124}]},{"id":"1e0ee76d-84af-4176-9436-d839aa95a54f","title":"Episode 25: Finola Austin - BRONTË'S MISTRESS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/25","content_text":"Finola Austin was born in England and moved to Northern Ireland when she was five; she is now based in Brooklyn, New York. Her debut novel Brontë’s Mistress, is a retelling of the infamous affair between Anne, Charlotte, and Emily’s brother Branwell and a long-maligned married woman, Lydia Robinson, from Lydia’s perspective. Using themes from the Brontë sisters’ novels and weaving in original and secondary sources on the affair, Austin gives voice to a woman torn between her desires and what was expected of her.\n\nI talk to Austin about the enduring appeal of the Brontës, creating characters out of real people, and the 19th century women who never got to tell their stories.","content_html":"Finola Austin was born in England and moved to Northern Ireland when she was five; she is now based in Brooklyn, New York. Her debut novel Brontë’s Mistress, is a retelling of the infamous affair between Anne, Charlotte, and Emily’s brother Branwell and a long-maligned married woman, Lydia Robinson, from Lydia’s perspective. Using themes from the Brontë sisters’ novels and weaving in original and secondary sources on the affair, Austin gives voice to a woman torn between her desires and what was expected of her.
\n\nI talk to Austin about the enduring appeal of the Brontës, creating characters out of real people, and the 19th century women who never got to tell their stories.
","summary":"I talk to Finola Austin about her debut novel, BRONTË'S MISTRESS.","date_published":"2021-03-11T09:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/1e0ee76d-84af-4176-9436-d839aa95a54f.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":80952570,"duration_in_seconds":3373}]},{"id":"16404b4f-7b0d-4550-89fb-7afd68ac05c8","title":"Episode 24: Kamala Puligandla - YOU CAN VIBE ME ON MY FEMMEPHONE","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/24","content_text":"In this episode, I talk to author Kamala Puligandla about her new novella, You Can Vibe Me on My FemmePhone, queer coming of age stories, and the function of humor in her writing. Puligandla lives in Los Angeles, where she also eats, snobs, wears elastic-waisted pants, skulks around the farmer's market, attempts to go to the Y, swipes on Tinder, and thrifts for flair that makes style pop. She is from Oakland, CA and has previously lived there, Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL. She is currently the Communications & Marketing Director at the Women’s Center for Creative Work.","content_html":"In this episode, I talk to author Kamala Puligandla about her new novella, You Can Vibe Me on My FemmePhone, queer coming of age stories, and the function of humor in her writing. Puligandla lives in Los Angeles, where she also eats, snobs, wears elastic-waisted pants, skulks around the farmer's market, attempts to go to the Y, swipes on Tinder, and thrifts for flair that makes style pop. She is from Oakland, CA and has previously lived there, Portland, OR, and Chicago, IL. She is currently the Communications & Marketing Director at the Women’s Center for Creative Work.
","summary":"I talk to Kamala Puligandla about her new novella, YOU CAN VIBE ME ON MY FEMMEPHONE.","date_published":"2021-02-21T12:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/16404b4f-7b0d-4550-89fb-7afd68ac05c8.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66474740,"duration_in_seconds":3323}]},{"id":"02527558-314a-4d56-9542-98b470d0e814","title":"Episode 21: Elisa Gabbert - THE UNREALITY OF MEMORY","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/21","content_text":"Elisa Gabbert is obsessed with disasters and how we perceive them. In The Unreality of Memory, which was released last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Gabbert tackles pandemics, environmental disasters, the nature of pain and its perception, nostalgia and more.\n\nWe talk about Gabbert's interest in these topics, the relationship between her poetry and her essays, and getting burned out on empathy. \n\n--\nElisa Gabbert is the author of five collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by New Yorker magazine as one of the best books of 2013. Gabbert writes a regular poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues.","content_html":"Elisa Gabbert is obsessed with disasters and how we perceive them. In The Unreality of Memory, which was released last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Gabbert tackles pandemics, environmental disasters, the nature of pain and its perception, nostalgia and more.
\n\nWe talk about Gabbert's interest in these topics, the relationship between her poetry and her essays, and getting burned out on empathy.
\n\n--
\nElisa Gabbert is the author of five collections of poetry, essays, and criticism: The Unreality of Memory & Other Essays, out now from FSG Originals and Atlantic UK; The Word Pretty (Black Ocean, 2018); L’Heure Bleue, or the Judy Poems (Black Ocean, 2016); The Self Unstable (Black Ocean, 2013); and The French Exit (Birds LLC, 2010). The Unreality of Memory and The Word Pretty were both named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and The Self Unstable was chosen by New Yorker magazine as one of the best books of 2013. Gabbert writes a regular poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the Guardian Long Read, the London Review of Books, A Public Space, the Paris Review Daily, American Poetry Review, and many other venues.
In this month's episode, I talk to New York Times-bestselling author Lev Grossman about his new middle-grade fantasy novel, The Silver Arrow, which follows 11-year-old Kate and her younger brother Tom on a magical ecological adventure. It's a classic children's adventure novel in the style of The Phantom Tollbooth or The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler with an important modern message.
\n\nIn this live online event, produced for Kepler's Literary Foundation, we discuss the difference between writing for adults and writing for children, the joy of creating voices and personalities for each of the talking animals, Lev's favorite kids' books, and the feedback his kids gave him on the book.
\n\n--
\nLev Grossman is a writer and journalist best known for the New York Times-bestselling Magicians trilogy, a series of urban fantasy novels that were adapted into a television show by the same name. In addition to those novels and The Silver Arrow, he has written two other books, Warp and Codex. His essays and criticism have also been published in Vanity Fair, the Believer, the Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Salon, Slate, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, the Week, Buzzfeed, NPR, and Lingua Franca. He served as the lead technology writer and book critic for Time magazine for nearly 15 years, from 2002 to 2016.
Special Guest: Lev Grossman.
","summary":"I talk to Lev Grossman about his middle-grade fantasy novel, THE SILVER ARROW.","date_published":"2020-10-07T12:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/4ff88199-f80d-4a23-9abd-5d842e9cc9c8.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":66483653,"duration_in_seconds":3299}]},{"id":"2455b3cc-d402-4f75-926f-55ffb5cbef4d","title":"Episode 19: Adam Sass - SURRENDER YOUR SONS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/19","content_text":"In this month's episode, I talk to author Adam Sass about his debut novel, Surrender Your Sons, a queer YA thriller set in a conversion therapy center in Costa Rica. Sass is a gay man himself, and he says he wrote Surrender Your Sons not as a story about queer pain, but as one of queer triumph.\n\nOver the course of this hour, we talk about depictions of coming out and conversion therapy in media, the importance of solidarity, and the difficulty of talking honestly about conversion therapy when so many people believe it to be a thing of the past.\n\nAdam Sass is a self-professed gay geek. Though this is his first novel, his short story “98% Graves” was nominated by Writer’s Digest for Best Science Fiction Story in 2015. In addition to his writing, he is a recurring co-host on the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast Slayerfest98, alongside such special guests as Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. producer Drew Z. Greenberg and_ RuPaul’s Drag Race_ winner Trixie Mattel. He lives in North Carolina with his husband and their dachshunds.Special Guest: Adam Sass.","content_html":"In this month's episode, I talk to author Adam Sass about his debut novel, Surrender Your Sons, a queer YA thriller set in a conversion therapy center in Costa Rica. Sass is a gay man himself, and he says he wrote Surrender Your Sons not as a story about queer pain, but as one of queer triumph.
\n\nAdam Sass is a self-professed gay geek. Though this is his first novel, his short story “98% Graves” was nominated by Writer’s Digest for Best Science Fiction Story in 2015. In addition to his writing, he is a recurring co-host on the popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer podcast Slayerfest98, alongside such special guests as Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. producer Drew Z. Greenberg and_ RuPaul’s Drag Race_ winner Trixie Mattel. He lives in North Carolina with his husband and their dachshunds.
Special Guest: Adam Sass.
","summary":"I talk to Adam Sass about his debut YA novel, SURRENDER YOUR SONS.","date_published":"2020-09-04T18:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/2455b3cc-d402-4f75-926f-55ffb5cbef4d.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":58419697,"duration_in_seconds":3548}]},{"id":"3e85f842-0697-417e-822f-872299048403","title":"Episode 18: Zaina Arafat - YOU EXIST TOO MUCH","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/18","content_text":"Zaina Arafat grew up in two very different worlds with different sets of expectations. It left her with a profound sense of alienation and the feeling of being caught between two identities. As a queer woman who identifies as bisexual, she felt similarly torn.\n\nIn her debut novel, You Exist Too Much, Arafat explores that feeling of unbelonging through an unnamed narrator who disappears into romantic relationships and leaves when her partners begin to see her. We talk in this interview about the ways she explored those themes in her novel, her own experiences of growing up in a diaspora, and her narrator's difficult relationship with her mother.\n\n--\nZAINA ARAFAT is a Palestinian-American journalist and fiction writer whose work centers the Arab diaspora. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and many other publications. ","content_html":"Zaina Arafat grew up in two very different worlds with different sets of expectations. It left her with a profound sense of alienation and the feeling of being caught between two identities. As a queer woman who identifies as bisexual, she felt similarly torn.
\n\nIn her debut novel, You Exist Too Much, Arafat explores that feeling of unbelonging through an unnamed narrator who disappears into romantic relationships and leaves when her partners begin to see her. We talk in this interview about the ways she explored those themes in her novel, her own experiences of growing up in a diaspora, and her narrator's difficult relationship with her mother.
\n\n--
\nZAINA ARAFAT is a Palestinian-American journalist and fiction writer whose work centers the Arab diaspora. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, and many other publications.
Kawai Strong Washburn grew up on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. Life on the Hāmākua coast gave him an appreciation for the natural landscape, as well as the stories and myths he learned in school and from his peers.
\n\nIn his debut novel, Sharks in the Time of Saviors, Washburn follows the Hawai'ian-Filipino Flores family as they navigate the changing physical and socioeconomic landscape in Hawai'i. The story of the Flores family is set against the backdrop of Hawai'ian myth: when the youngest child is saved from drowning by sharks, his parents come to believe he has been chosen for a special purpose. That belief shapes the way the family functions and the pressues each of the Flores children feel.
\n\nSharks in the Time of Saviors received rave reviews from the New York Times, the L.A. Review of Books, Vanity Fair, and a slew of other top publications when it was released this past March. In our conversation, we talk about the difference between the Hawai'i that lives in the collective imagination of mainlanders and the Hawai'i of Washburn's youth, the Flores family's dynamic in the context of the traumas they've suffered, and genre.
\n\n--
\nKAWAI STRONG WASHBURN was born and raised on the Hāmākua coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, where he read loads of books, lived breathed slept soccer, played saxophone, and did all sorts of dangerous things on concrete and in the water.
He currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he is a husband and father (two firecracker daughters), and writes fiction. He occasionally does somewhat dangerous things on rock faces.
Special Guest: Kawai Strong Washburn.
","summary":"I talk to Kawai Strong Washburn about his debut novel, SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS.","date_published":"2020-08-07T10:30:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/e679b6fc-a015-47da-a954-45ef6bb91d3e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67723873,"duration_in_seconds":3354}]},{"id":"fa4e1c3a-e22d-407e-a674-547c6d3c1290","title":"Episode 16: Jillian Christmas - THE GOSPEL OF BREAKING","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/16","content_text":"Born and raised in Markham, Ontario, Jillian Christmas is a poet, enthusiastic organizer, and activist in the Canadian arts community with a focus on increasing anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post and many other publications, including collections such as Matrix New Queer Writing (Issue 98), The Post Feminist Post, and the celebrated anthology, The Great Black North.\n\nIn March, Christmas published a collection of her poetry. The Gospel of Breaking explores love, family, queerness, and identity in poetry that is sometimes narrative, sometimes lyrical, and always compelling. In this episode, we talk about Christmas' poetic approach, her relationship to her mother and grandmother, and how she connects her organizing work with her art.\n\nJillian Christmas is the former Artistic Director of Vancouver's Verses Festival of Words. An educator, organizer, and advocate in the arts community, utilizing an anti-oppressive lens, Jillian has performed and facilitated workshops across North America. She lives in Vancouver.Special Guest: Jillian Christmas.","content_html":"Born and raised in Markham, Ontario, Jillian Christmas is a poet, enthusiastic organizer, and activist in the Canadian arts community with a focus on increasing anti-oppression initiatives in spoken word. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post and many other publications, including collections such as Matrix New Queer Writing (Issue 98), The Post Feminist Post, and the celebrated anthology, The Great Black North.
\n\nIn March, Christmas published a collection of her poetry. The Gospel of Breaking explores love, family, queerness, and identity in poetry that is sometimes narrative, sometimes lyrical, and always compelling. In this episode, we talk about Christmas' poetic approach, her relationship to her mother and grandmother, and how she connects her organizing work with her art.
\n
Special Guest: Jillian Christmas.
","summary":"I talk to Jillian Christmas about her new poetry collection, THE GOSPEL OF BREAKING.","date_published":"2020-06-06T20:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/fa4e1c3a-e22d-407e-a674-547c6d3c1290.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67892607,"duration_in_seconds":3375}]},{"id":"ed71d2fe-7a0e-445d-82bf-4fb4ecdd26f4","title":"Episode 15: Rishi Reddi - PASSAGE WEST","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/15","content_text":"Environmental lawyer Rishi Reddi came to prominence as a writer in the early 2000s. Her short fiction has earned her a PEN Award as well as a nomination for the Pushcart Prize, and her story \"Justice Shiva Ram Murthy\" appeared in the 2005 edition of The Best American Short Stories. It was also featured on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.” \n\nIn April 2020, she published her first novel. Passage West explores the lives of Indian-American immigrants in California's Imperial Valley near the turn of the twentieth century. Taking World War I and a series of laws and legal precedents targeting Asian immigrants as its backdrop, the novel explores an enduring question that is still relevant today: Who is welcome in America?\n\n--\nBorn in Hyderabad, India before living in the United Kingdom and the United States, Rishi Reddi is an author and environmental lawyer. Her short story collection Karma and Other Stories received the 2008 PEN Award. Reddi lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Special Guest: Rishi Reddi.","content_html":"Environmental lawyer Rishi Reddi came to prominence as a writer in the early 2000s. Her short fiction has earned her a PEN Award as well as a nomination for the Pushcart Prize, and her story "Justice Shiva Ram Murthy" appeared in the 2005 edition of The Best American Short Stories. It was also featured on NPR’s “Selected Shorts.”
\n\nIn April 2020, she published her first novel. Passage West explores the lives of Indian-American immigrants in California's Imperial Valley near the turn of the twentieth century. Taking World War I and a series of laws and legal precedents targeting Asian immigrants as its backdrop, the novel explores an enduring question that is still relevant today: Who is welcome in America?
\n\n--
\nBorn in Hyderabad, India before living in the United Kingdom and the United States, Rishi Reddi is an author and environmental lawyer. Her short story collection Karma and Other Stories received the 2008 PEN Award. Reddi lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Special Guest: Rishi Reddi.
","summary":"I talk to Rishi Reddi about her debut novel, PASSAGE WEST.","date_published":"2020-05-02T12:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/ed71d2fe-7a0e-445d-82bf-4fb4ecdd26f4.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":48503323,"duration_in_seconds":3007}]},{"id":"e2611587-7758-47dd-b2c9-50cdd19687f4","title":"Episode 13: Alka Joshi - THE HENNA ARTIST","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/13","content_text":"Alka Joshi had a complicated relationship to her Indian heritage as a young girl. After immigrating from Rajasthan to the American midwest when she was 9, she was frequently bullied because of her race. It wasn't until she started writing The Henna Artist as an adult that she began to reclaim her cultural heritage.\n\nIn our conversation, Joshi tells me that writing The Henna Artist allowed her to imagine a different kind of life for her mother, who entered into an arranged marriage at the age of 18. It also gave her an opportunity to explore India, Indian culture, and Indian socioeconomic politics in a deeply personal way.\n\n--\nALKA JOSHI is a graduate of Stanford University and received her M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts. She has worked as an advertising copywriter, a marketing consultant, and an illustrator. The Henna Artist is her first novel.Special Guest: Alka Joshi.","content_html":"Alka Joshi had a complicated relationship to her Indian heritage as a young girl. After immigrating from Rajasthan to the American midwest when she was 9, she was frequently bullied because of her race. It wasn't until she started writing The Henna Artist as an adult that she began to reclaim her cultural heritage.
\n\nIn our conversation, Joshi tells me that writing The Henna Artist allowed her to imagine a different kind of life for her mother, who entered into an arranged marriage at the age of 18. It also gave her an opportunity to explore India, Indian culture, and Indian socioeconomic politics in a deeply personal way.
\n\n--
\nALKA JOSHI is a graduate of Stanford University and received her M.F.A. from the California College of the Arts. She has worked as an advertising copywriter, a marketing consultant, and an illustrator. The Henna Artist is her first novel.
Special Guest: Alka Joshi.
","summary":"I talk to Alka Joshi about her debut novel, THE HENNA ARTIST.","date_published":"2020-03-06T18:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/e2611587-7758-47dd-b2c9-50cdd19687f4.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67586954,"duration_in_seconds":3359}]},{"id":"472ab7f6-c35f-4b9f-bee5-66d3b8d2ab02","title":"Episode 12: Carmen Maria Machado - IN THE DREAM HOUSE","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/12","content_text":"CARMEN MARIA MACHADO is the author of the sparklingly surreal short story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. Her memoir, In the Dream House, was named “Best Book of the Year” in 2019 by just about every major media outlet, including The New Yorker, TIME Magazine, The New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Vogue. It is a bold, captivating account of the violence and abuse Machado endured in her first relationship with another woman, told in her inimitable voice. \n\nThis episode was recorded at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, as part of an event hosted by Kepler's Literary Foundation and produced by Amber Clark.\n\nAs a content note, our discussion includes descriptions of psychological abuse and intimate partner violence. Resources for queer survivors of domestic violence are available here.Special Guest: Carmen Maria Machado.","content_html":"CARMEN MARIA MACHADO is the author of the sparklingly surreal short story collection Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize. Her memoir, In the Dream House, was named “Best Book of the Year” in 2019 by just about every major media outlet, including The New Yorker, TIME Magazine, The New York Times, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, and Vogue. It is a bold, captivating account of the violence and abuse Machado endured in her first relationship with another woman, told in her inimitable voice.
\n\nThis episode was recorded at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, as part of an event hosted by Kepler's Literary Foundation and produced by Amber Clark.
\n
Special Guest: Carmen Maria Machado.
","summary":"I talk to author Carmen Maria Machado about her 2019 memoir, IN THE DREAM HOUSE.","date_published":"2020-02-07T18:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/472ab7f6-c35f-4b9f-bee5-66d3b8d2ab02.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":72752939,"duration_in_seconds":3618}]},{"id":"2802970d-0296-432b-99a8-9c59366c60e7","title":"Episode 11: Daniel Summerhill - DIVINE, DIVINE, DIVINE","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/11","content_text":"Daniel Summerhill is a poet, a professor of Poetry and Social Action and Composition Studies at CSU Monterey Bay, and an Oakland native. He has performed his poetry on stages around the world, including at the Kwamashu Center in South Africa as part of a workshop sponsored by the US Embassy. He is the 2015 New York Empire State Grand Slam Champion, a 2015 Nitty Gritty Grand Slam Champion, and a recipient of the Sharon Olds Fellowship for Poetry. His poems have been published in the Lilly Review, Califragle, Button, and Blavity, to name just a few, and he edited the collection “Black Joy: An Anthology of Black Boy Poetry,” which came out earlier this year.\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Summerhill about his poetry collection, Divine, Divine, Divine, which he is editing for publication.Special Guest: Daniel Summerhill.","content_html":"Daniel Summerhill is a poet, a professor of Poetry and Social Action and Composition Studies at CSU Monterey Bay, and an Oakland native. He has performed his poetry on stages around the world, including at the Kwamashu Center in South Africa as part of a workshop sponsored by the US Embassy. He is the 2015 New York Empire State Grand Slam Champion, a 2015 Nitty Gritty Grand Slam Champion, and a recipient of the Sharon Olds Fellowship for Poetry. His poems have been published in the Lilly Review, Califragle, Button, and Blavity, to name just a few, and he edited the collection “Black Joy: An Anthology of Black Boy Poetry,” which came out earlier this year.
\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Summerhill about his poetry collection, Divine, Divine, Divine, which he is editing for publication.
Special Guest: Daniel Summerhill.
","summary":"I talk to poet and professor Daniel Summerhill about his new poetry collection, DIVINE, DIVINE, DIVINE.","date_published":"2020-02-06T15:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/2802970d-0296-432b-99a8-9c59366c60e7.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":67552823,"duration_in_seconds":3358}]},{"id":"5f73d17c-7d82-41bb-8206-005b8841170c","title":"Episode 9: Lilah Sturges - LUMBERJANES: THE SHAPE OF FRIENDSHIP","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/9","content_text":"In this episode, I talk to comic writer Lilah Sturges about her work on Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship. Lumberjanes is a youth-oriented series that follows the adventures of a group of girls at a summer camp. It's known for its positive outlook and inclusivity, as well as its creative introduction of educational content.\n\nMy conversation with Lilah touches on writing for a younger audience, including educational content in ways that feel organic and entertaining, and how stories can help kids develop and solve problems they encounter in their lives.Special Guest: Lilah Sturges.","content_html":"In this episode, I talk to comic writer Lilah Sturges about her work on Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship. Lumberjanes is a youth-oriented series that follows the adventures of a group of girls at a summer camp. It's known for its positive outlook and inclusivity, as well as its creative introduction of educational content.
\n\nMy conversation with Lilah touches on writing for a younger audience, including educational content in ways that feel organic and entertaining, and how stories can help kids develop and solve problems they encounter in their lives.
Special Guest: Lilah Sturges.
","summary":"Comics writer Lilah Sturges joins to talk about her new graphic novel, \"The Shape of Friendship,\" which is part of the Lumberjanes series.","date_published":"2020-01-03T09:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/5f73d17c-7d82-41bb-8206-005b8841170c.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mp3","size_in_bytes":65665643,"duration_in_seconds":3283}]},{"id":"cc24d8e0-5f2b-4f26-be42-bbe72168f28e","title":"Episode 8: Adam Becker - WHAT IS REAL?","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/8","content_text":"In What is real?, Adam Becker details the century-long fight over the interpretation of quantum physics -- what this enormously successful theory, which has given us so much of the technology we use today, is actually saying about the world. Becker first encountered this controversy when, as an undergraduate student of physics at Cornell, a professor pooh-poohed his concerns over the implications of the standard model of quantum theory, developed by Bohr and others in the early 20th century, writing them off as philosophical questions, irrelevant to the study of science. But as Becker soon discovered, those questions were at the heart of a scientific debate that had been raging for nearly a century.\n\nIn our conversation, we talk about the social and political factors that have governed the understanding and application of quantum physics since its inception, as well as the people on both sides of the debate. Becker also talks about borrowing techniques from fiction writing to turn a true story about a complex and opaque area of scientific inquiry into an engaging narrative populated by distinctive characters.Special Guest: Adam Becker.","content_html":"In What is real?, Adam Becker details the century-long fight over the interpretation of quantum physics -- what this enormously successful theory, which has given us so much of the technology we use today, is actually saying about the world. Becker first encountered this controversy when, as an undergraduate student of physics at Cornell, a professor pooh-poohed his concerns over the implications of the standard model of quantum theory, developed by Bohr and others in the early 20th century, writing them off as philosophical questions, irrelevant to the study of science. But as Becker soon discovered, those questions were at the heart of a scientific debate that had been raging for nearly a century.
\n\nIn our conversation, we talk about the social and political factors that have governed the understanding and application of quantum physics since its inception, as well as the people on both sides of the debate. Becker also talks about borrowing techniques from fiction writing to turn a true story about a complex and opaque area of scientific inquiry into an engaging narrative populated by distinctive characters.
Special Guest: Adam Becker.
","summary":"I talk to science writer Adam Becker about the controversy at the heart of quantum physics and how fiction has influenced his approach to writing about science.","date_published":"2019-10-25T14:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/cc24d8e0-5f2b-4f26-be42-bbe72168f28e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":57991131,"duration_in_seconds":3600}]},{"id":"535d55de-4176-43f6-a659-5c4c7ebe970e","title":"Episode 7: Lauren Eggert-Crowe - BITCHES OF THE DROUGHT","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/7","content_text":"In her 2017 chapbook, Bitches of the Drought, poet and former Santa Cruz resident Lauren Eggert-Crowe explores what it's like when a woman's anger comes to the surface years after the object of her anger has left her life. Lauren's writing process in many ways mirrors those themes: while she wrote many of the poems in Bitches of the Drought over a single summer, it wasn't until years later that she thought to combine them into a single book.\n\nIn our conversation, we touch on the emotional impact of poetry, why so many people move away from poetry as they get older, and how we can learn to love poetry again as adults.Special Guest: Lauren Eggert-Crowe.Links:Lauren Eggert-CroweChris Pratorius GomezWomen Who Submit","content_html":"In her 2017 chapbook, Bitches of the Drought, poet and former Santa Cruz resident Lauren Eggert-Crowe explores what it's like when a woman's anger comes to the surface years after the object of her anger has left her life. Lauren's writing process in many ways mirrors those themes: while she wrote many of the poems in Bitches of the Drought over a single summer, it wasn't until years later that she thought to combine them into a single book.
\n\nIn our conversation, we touch on the emotional impact of poetry, why so many people move away from poetry as they get older, and how we can learn to love poetry again as adults.
Special Guest: Lauren Eggert-Crowe.
Links:
","summary":"I talk to poet Lauren Eggert-Crowe about her 2017 chapbook, BITCHES OF THE DROUGHT, delayed anger, and the impact of the natural world on her poetry.","date_published":"2019-09-07T13:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/535d55de-4176-43f6-a659-5c4c7ebe970e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":87117315,"duration_in_seconds":3594}]},{"id":"e6cffa6d-13cb-435c-b157-a8d7e9340edf","title":"Episode 6: Andy Couturier - THE ABUNDANCE OF LESS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/6","content_text":"When Andy Couturier was in his 20s, he and his wife Cynthia traveled to Japan to teach English and raise money to buy their own home. While there, he became friends with a group of people who organize their lives differently from the way most of us are used to. Instead of working full-time for a corporation, they grow their own food and work just enough to get by, spending their abundant free time on subsistance farming, environmental activism, art, music, and time spent with family and friends.\n\nIn this interview, I talk to Andy about his book, The Abundance of Less: Lessons in Simple Living from Rural Japan, in which he profiles ten of the men and women he met and befriended. I hope you enjoy it.Special Guest: Andy Couturier.","content_html":"When Andy Couturier was in his 20s, he and his wife Cynthia traveled to Japan to teach English and raise money to buy their own home. While there, he became friends with a group of people who organize their lives differently from the way most of us are used to. Instead of working full-time for a corporation, they grow their own food and work just enough to get by, spending their abundant free time on subsistance farming, environmental activism, art, music, and time spent with family and friends.
\n\nIn this interview, I talk to Andy about his book, The Abundance of Less: Lessons in Simple Living from Rural Japan, in which he profiles ten of the men and women he met and befriended. I hope you enjoy it.
Special Guest: Andy Couturier.
","summary":"I talk to local author Andy Couturier about his book, THE ABUNDANCE OF LESS, in which he profiles ten men and women who have chosen a life of abundant time and limited material wealth.","date_published":"2019-08-04T02:30:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/e6cffa6d-13cb-435c-b157-a8d7e9340edf.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":84619918,"duration_in_seconds":3488}]},{"id":"4ad8a7c3-c551-4e7a-9ba8-a1c127dcb628","title":"Episode 5: Xago Juarez - REALISAL: STORIES FROM EAST SALINAS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/5","content_text":"Drawing inspiration for documentary theater practitioners like Anna Deveare Smith and Culture Clash, Luis 'xago' Juarez interviewed nearly 40 residents of East Salinas before writing reAlisal: Stories of East Salinas and the two other reAlisal plays that came before it. He wanted to tell the history of the Alisal using the words of the people who lived there, using their voices, and reshape the narrative of the region in the process.\n\nIn this interview, I talk to xago about the reAlisal plays, his theatrical education, and what it means to residents to hear stories about the region told in their own voices. \n\nPhoto © Monterey County WeeklySpecial Guest: Luis 'xago' Juarez.","content_html":"Drawing inspiration for documentary theater practitioners like Anna Deveare Smith and Culture Clash, Luis 'xago' Juarez interviewed nearly 40 residents of East Salinas before writing reAlisal: Stories of East Salinas and the two other reAlisal plays that came before it. He wanted to tell the history of the Alisal using the words of the people who lived there, using their voices, and reshape the narrative of the region in the process.
\n\nIn this interview, I talk to xago about the reAlisal plays, his theatrical education, and what it means to residents to hear stories about the region told in their own voices.
\n\nPhoto © Monterey County Weekly
Special Guest: Luis 'xago' Juarez.
","summary":"I talk to Luis 'xago' Juarez about his \"reAlisal\" plays, which tell the story of East Salinas and are based on interviews with actual residents. We also talk about his theatrical education and the social, political, and economic forces shaping the region.","date_published":"2019-07-06T13:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/4ad8a7c3-c551-4e7a-9ba8-a1c127dcb628.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mp3","size_in_bytes":56414579,"duration_in_seconds":3525}]},{"id":"14563f66-e221-466c-960c-bdd92870b04f","title":"Episode 4: Charlie Jane Anders - THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/4","content_text":"THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT is the latest novel from Bay Area author giant Charlie Jane Anders. This critically acclaimed novel has led some to label Anders the successor to the queen of science fiction herself, Ursula K. Leguin. But Anders is a giant in the sci-fi and fantasy community in her own right. Her 2016 novel, ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY, won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and the Crawford Award. It was also a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel.Special Guest: Charlie Jane Anders.","content_html":"THE CITY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT is the latest novel from Bay Area author giant Charlie Jane Anders. This critically acclaimed novel has led some to label Anders the successor to the queen of science fiction herself, Ursula K. Leguin. But Anders is a giant in the sci-fi and fantasy community in her own right. Her 2016 novel, ALL THE BIRDS IN THE SKY, won the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and the Crawford Award. It was also a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Special Guest: Charlie Jane Anders.
","summary":"","date_published":"2019-06-08T15:00:00.000-07:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/14563f66-e221-466c-960c-bdd92870b04f.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mpeg","size_in_bytes":48561642,"duration_in_seconds":3010}]},{"id":"c3a929ee-456a-4287-abaa-e2759cddbc59","title":"Episode 3: M.K. England - THE DISASTERS","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/3","content_text":"The Disasters is M.K. England's debut young adult novel about a group of space academy washouts who are forced to step up and save the world after escaping a terrorist attack. It's a wildly entertaining romp through space that has been lauded for its nuanced representation of LGBTQIA characters and the way it handles mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.\n\nIn this episode, I talk to England about these issues and more, including what it's like to write action scenes, how publishing a novel has changed the way England reads books, and how their experiences with National Novel Writing Month have affected their writing. I hope you enjoy it.Special Guest: M.K. England.","content_html":"The Disasters is M.K. England's debut young adult novel about a group of space academy washouts who are forced to step up and save the world after escaping a terrorist attack. It's a wildly entertaining romp through space that has been lauded for its nuanced representation of LGBTQIA characters and the way it handles mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.
\n\nIn this episode, I talk to England about these issues and more, including what it's like to write action scenes, how publishing a novel has changed the way England reads books, and how their experiences with National Novel Writing Month have affected their writing. I hope you enjoy it.
Special Guest: M.K. England.
","summary":"THE DISASTERS is M.K. England's debut young adult novel about a group of space academy washouts who are forced to step up and save the world after escaping a terrorist attack. It's a wildly entertaining romp through space that has been lauded for its nuanced representation of LGBTQIA characters and the way it handles mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.\r\n\r\nIn this episode, I talk to England about these issues and more, including what it's like to write action scenes, how publishing a novel has changed the way England reads books, and how their experiences with National Novel Writing Month have affected their writing. I hope you enjoy it.","date_published":"2019-02-02T10:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/c3a929ee-456a-4287-abaa-e2759cddbc59.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mp3","size_in_bytes":88230336,"duration_in_seconds":3600}]},{"id":"791c4dba-60b3-450b-9a3d-50136969cd7c","title":"Episode 2: Katya Apekina - THE DEEPER THE WATER THE UGLIER THE FISH","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/2","content_text":"Katya Apekina's debut novel, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, tells the story of Edie and Mae, two sisters who go to live with their estranged father in New York after their mother’s suicide attempt. It has received a great deal of attention for its unique form: the book is structured like an oral history, with a different narrator from one chapter to the next, interspersed with archival content, including poetry, letters, and interviews.\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Katya about The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish and writing as an act of faith. I hope you enjoy it.Special Guest: Katya Apekina.","content_html":"Katya Apekina's debut novel, The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish, tells the story of Edie and Mae, two sisters who go to live with their estranged father in New York after their mother’s suicide attempt. It has received a great deal of attention for its unique form: the book is structured like an oral history, with a different narrator from one chapter to the next, interspersed with archival content, including poetry, letters, and interviews.
\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Katya about The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish and writing as an act of faith. I hope you enjoy it.
Special Guest: Katya Apekina.
","summary":"Katya Apekina's debut novel, THE DEEPER THE WATER THE UGLIER THE FISH, tells the story of Edie and Mae, two sisters who go to live with their estranged father in New York after their mother’s suicide attempt. It has received a great deal of attention for its unique form: the book is structured like an oral history, with a different narrator from one chapter to the next, interspersed with archival content, including poetry, letters, and interviews.\r\n\r\nIn this episode, I talk to Katya about THE DEEPER THE WATER THE UGLIER THE FISH and writing as an act of faith. I hope you enjoy it.","date_published":"2019-01-05T10:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/791c4dba-60b3-450b-9a3d-50136969cd7c.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mp3","size_in_bytes":71456765,"duration_in_seconds":3553}]},{"id":"9424ecb4-f16b-46b0-b190-3f6349ac747e","title":"Episode 1: Carly Gelsinger - ONCE YOU GO IN","url":"https://story.fireside.fm/1","content_text":"When Carly Gelsinger was thirteen, she joined Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, a radical evangelical church in rural Monterey County. For years, she was “on fire for God,” speaking in tongues, slaying demons, and following her angry and abusive pastor’s every word. Only when her life literally burned to the ground did she start to make the choices that would lead her to leave the church several years later. In Once You Go In: A Memoir of Radical Faith, Gelsinger tells the story of the lengths she was willing to go to in order to belong with candor and vulnerability.\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Carly about Once You Go In and the challenges of converting her painful and deeply personal experiences into a story she would share with the world. I hope you enjoy it.Special Guest: Carly Gelsinger.","content_html":"When Carly Gelsinger was thirteen, she joined Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, a radical evangelical church in rural Monterey County. For years, she was “on fire for God,” speaking in tongues, slaying demons, and following her angry and abusive pastor’s every word. Only when her life literally burned to the ground did she start to make the choices that would lead her to leave the church several years later. In Once You Go In: A Memoir of Radical Faith, Gelsinger tells the story of the lengths she was willing to go to in order to belong with candor and vulnerability.
\n\nIn this episode, I talk to Carly about Once You Go In and the challenges of converting her painful and deeply personal experiences into a story she would share with the world. I hope you enjoy it.
Special Guest: Carly Gelsinger.
","summary":"When Carly Gelsinger was thirteen, she joined Pine Canyon Assemblies of God, a radical evangelical church in rural Monterey County. For years, she was “on fire for God,” speaking in tongues, slaying demons, and following her angry and abusive pastor’s every word. Only when her life literally burned to the ground did she start to make the choices that would lead her to leave the church several years later. In ONCE YOU GO IN: A MEMOIR OF RADICAL FAITH, Gelsinger tells the story of the lengths she was willing to go to in order to belong with candor and vulnerability.\r\n\r\nIn this episode, I talk to Carly about ONCE YOU GO IN and the challenges of converting her painful and deeply personal experiences into a story she would share with the world. I hope you enjoy it.","date_published":"2018-11-24T20:00:00.000-08:00","attachments":[{"url":"https://aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/9424ecb4-f16b-46b0-b190-3f6349ac747e.mp3","mime_type":"audio/mp3","size_in_bytes":68354306,"duration_in_seconds":2836}]}]}![here](\"https://files.fireside.fm/file/fireside-uploads/images/4/499bf883-a80e-4bc2-8e36-b66e2a455ef6/zcjmEVl6.png\"){kind=link}