Episodes
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Mike Nagel interviews Andrew Bertaina.
Andrew Bertaina is the author of the essay collection The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place, out now from Autofocus Books, and the short story collection One Person Away From You (2021), which won the Moon City Short Fiction Award.
Mike Nagel is the author of Duplex and Culdesac (Autofocus Books, 2022 and 2024). He also wrote the music for this podcast and a column called The Unintentionalist for the literary magazine Little Engines.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- selves on the page
-- hyperfocusing
-- The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place
-- reading as a pathway to writing
-- grading your own writing
-- essays vs. fiction
-- modes of essays
-- mind as setting
-- representing others in an essay
-- representing yourself in an essay
-- a good catalyst
-- what goes in and what goes out
-- speed
-- writing and not writing every day
-- getting and not getting stuck
-- valuing the reader
-- the essay "On Trains" specifically
-- gratitude
____________
Podcast theme music also provided by Mike Nagel. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode ofThe Lives of Writers, Jeff Alessandrelli interviews Mallory Smart.
Mallory Smart is the author of the books I Keep My Visions to Myself, The Only Living Girl in Chicago, I Want to Feel Happy But I Only Feel _____, and The Writer. She's the editor-in-chief of Maudlin House and host of the podcast Textual Healing, where you can find a recent episode with the roles of this conversation reversed and hear Mallory interview Jeff.
Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Fur Not Light. His novel And Yet was reissued this year by Future Tense Books. He is also the director and co-editor of the small presses Fonograf Editions and Bunny Presse.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- Chicagoland
-- growing up in Chicago
-- writing in high school
-- four siblings
-- history and philosophy
-- logic and therapy
-- writing a poetry collection
-- the preference for narrative
-- the story of Maudlin House
-- relationships with authority
-- writing a first novel
-- maladaptive daydreaming
-- an app that forces you to write
-- a novel in two weeks
-- fear of saying the wrong thing
-- pressure and nostalgia
-- editorial and publicity
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
Missing episodes?
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Aaron Burch interviews Josh Denslow.
Josh Denslow is the author of the collection Not Everyone Is Special (7.13 Books) and the novel Super Normal (Stillhouse Press). Some recent stories have appeared in The Commuter, Okay Donkey. Pithead Chapel, and The Rumpus. He is the Email Marketing Manager for Bookshop.org, and he has read and edited for SmokeLong Quarterly for over a decade.
Aaron Burch is the author of the essay collection A Kind of In-Between and editor of How to Write a Novel: An Anthology of 20 Craft Essays About Writing, None of Which Ever Mention Writing, both from Autofocus Books. He's also the author of several other books, including the novel, Year of the Buffalo. He is currently the editor of Short Story, Long and the co-editor of WAS (Words & Sports) and HAD.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
--moving the family to Barcelona
-- learning a new language
'-- formative places and home
-- degrees of nostalgia
-- moving around and reading
-- going to film school & LA
-- the desire to share creative work
-- discovering the literary world
-- rejection and beginning attempts to publish
-- the publication of Josh's novel, Super Normal
-- lots and lots of drafts and versions
-- humor adding to the reality of fiction
-- superheroes outside of Marvel
-- Josh's story "Infinite Possibilities Outside the Screen"
-- quality and fun
-- channeling a voice
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Teresa Carmody interviews Kristen E. Nelson.
Kristen E. Nelson is a queer writer, performer, and community builder. In addition to In the Away Time (Autofocus Books, 2024), she is the author of the length of this gap (Damaged Goods, August 2018) and two chapbooks: sometimes I gets lost and is grateful for noises in the dark (Dancing Girl, 2017) and Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creatures, 2012). She has published creative and critical writing in Feminist Studies, Bombay Gin, Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Tarpaulin Sky Journal, Trickhouse, and Everyday Genius, among others. Kristen is the founder of Casa Libre en la Solana, a non-profit writing center in Tucson, Arizona, where she worked as the Executive Director for 14 years and the co-founder of Four Queens with Selah Saterstrom. Kristen is currently a Ph.D. student and graduate student instructor at the University of California – Santa Cruz in the Literature Department’s creative/critical writing concentration.
Teresa Carmody’s writing includes fiction, creative nonfiction, inter-arts collaborations, and hybrid forms. She is the author of three books and four chapbooks, including Maison Femme: a fiction (2015) and The Reconception of Marie (2020). Her work has appeared in The Collagist, LitHub, WHR, Two Serious Ladies, Diagram, St. Petersburg Review, Faultline, and was selected for the &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing and by Entropy for its Best Online Articles and Essays list of 2019. Carmody is co-founding editor of Les Figues Press, an imprint of LARB Books in Los Angeles, and director of Stetson University’s MFA of the Americas. Her forthcoming book A Healthy Interest in the Lives of Others is out early next year with Autofocus Books.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- the first event for In the Away Time
-- imperfect queer and trans narratives
-- calling in community
-- projects conceived in love
--other voices in In the Away Time
-- getting a PhD later in life
-- hybridity and divinations
-- the limits of the body
-- constraint and the autobiographical
-- the timescape of In the Away Time
-- the roles we play in our own disasters
-- autotheory and autoethnography
-- knowing when the form is the form
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Emily Adrian interviews Justin Taylor.
Justin Taylor's most recent book is the novel Reboot. He is also the author of the memoir Riding with the Ghost, the novel The Gospel of Anarchy, and two story collections: Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever and Flings. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, the Oxford American, and the Sewanee Review.
Emily Adrian is the author of several novels and the forthcoming memoir Daughterhood. Her work has appeared in Granta, Joyland, EPOCH, Alta Journal, and Los Angeles Review of Books.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- growing up as a child actor
-- always wanting to be a writer
-- a father who read and read into his work
-- editing a couple Donald Barthelme anthologies
-- the leadup to his first few books
-- the new novel REBOOT
-- the role, limits, and manipulation of realism in his work
-- inviting the supernatural
-- the show within the novel
-- a bottle chapter
-- The Hungry Tiger
-- Dawson's Creek
-- Judy Blume moments for middle aged men
-- writing a short story again
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Michael Wheaton interviews Lucas Mann.
Lucas Mann is the author of the new book, Attachments: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances, out just this week from University of Iowa Press. He is also the author of the books Captive Audience: On Love and Reality TV, Lord Fear: A Memoir, and Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere. He teaches creative writing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and co-owns Riffraff Bookstore & Bar in Providence, RI.
Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books and producer of The Lives of Writers. His essay Home Movies is out now from Bunny Presse.
____________
FULL CONVERSATION topics include:
-- becoming co-owner of Riffraff Bookstore & Bar
-- literary community in Providence, RI
-- figuring out how writing fits into a new life
-- the gap between the life and the writing about the life
-- his mom's non-fiction books for children
-- growing up with performers as a youngest kid
-- ambition (and having less of it now)
-- ATTACHMENTS: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances
-- writing about intimacy and the mediation of it
-- getting long essays right
-- juggling across an essay and a book
-- framing imaginative work as an essay
-- writing about parenthood, including the ugly parts
-- resembling a real human being
-- body image
-- overlapping thinking and feeling
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Drew Hawkins interviews Maurice Carlos Ruffin.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author, most recently, of the historical novel, The American Daughters. He is also the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and was a finalist for the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and We Cast a Shadow, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and International Dublin Literary Award. A recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction, he has been published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, the Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas.
Drew Hawkins is a writer and journalist in New Orleans. He's the producer and host of Micro, a podcast for short but powerful writing. You can find his work on NPR, The Guardian, Scalawag Magazine, HAD, and elsewhere.
Today's episode is brought to you in part by the podcast Micro, where today you can hear Maurice read on the new episode, available wherever you listen to podcasts like this one.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- book tour
-- a previous life as a lawyer and restaurant-owner
-- becoming a writer
-- overcoming imposter syndrome
-- paces of production and practice
-- distraction as being useful
-- the reading you do while writing
-- approaching novels and/or stories
-- New Orleans
-- the new novel THE AMERICAN DAUGHTERS
-- research
-- knowing who you are
-- writing as a man about women
-- jumping through time and sound
-- POV
-- freedom and loss
-- a forthcoming book
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Lena Crown interviews Richard Scott Larson.
Richard Scott Larson is the author of the memoir The Long Hallway (UW Press). He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and his creative and critical work has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, and other journals and anthologies.
Lena Crown is a book editor for us at Autofocus Books. Her essays are published or forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Narratively, North American Review, The Offing, and elsewhere, and her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Boiler, Poet Lore, No Contact, and Variant Lit.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- blocking out time to write
-- doing residencies
-- horror movies and mass-market fiction as a kid
-- writing as a critic and with the NBCC
-- the role of film in his life and the book
-- a crisis of fiction
-- memoir vs book-length essay
-- the new memoir THE LONG HALLWAY
-- gender, sexuality, and horror
-- visibility and hiding queerness
-- masks and Michael Myers in Halloween
-- horror tropes appearing in memoir
-- loneliness and observation
-- film form
-- fear and shame
-- the Midwestern suburbs
-- epiphany, revelation, and resolution (or lack of)
-- examining our own cruelties
-- writing about family
-- the next book and gymnasts
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Aaron Burch interviews Jason McCall.
Jason McCall is the author of the essay collection Razed by TV Sets (Autofocus, 2024) and the poetry collections What Shot Did You Ever Take (co-written with Brian Oliu); A Man Ain’t Nothin’; Two-Face God; Mother, Less Child (co-winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize); Dear Hero, (winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and co-winner of the 2013 Etchings Press Whirling Prize); I Can Explain; and Silver. He and P.J. Williams are the editors of It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami. He is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, and he currently teaches at the University of North Alabama.
Aaron Burch is the author of the essay collection A Kind of In-Between and editor of How to Write a Novel: An Anthology of 20 Craft Essays About Writing, None of Which Ever Mention Writing, both from Autofocus Books. He's also the author of several other books, including the novel, Year of the Buffalo. He is currently the editor of Short Story, Long and the co-editor of WAS (Words & Sports) and HAD.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- a recent bout with cancer
-- the rhythm of art and community
-- the pleasures of teaching
-- realizing you can write about your cultural interests
-- getting into history and mythology and storytelling
-- getting into poetry after fiction
-- approaching writing as a fan
-- sports and pop culture
-- the new essay collection RAZED BY TV SETS
-- the contradictions of fandom
-- collective celebration
-- playing with your offhand
-- new work about John Henry
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
In today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Sara Rauch interviews Julia Hannafin.
Julia Hannafin is the author of the debut novel Cascade (Great Place Books, 2024). They also write for television.
Sara Rauch is the author of the book-length essay XO, from us at Autofocus Books. She’s also the author of the story collection, What Shines from it, from Alternating Current Press. Her book reviews and author interviews have been featured in the LA Review of Books, Newcity Lit, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
_____________
Conversation topics include:
-- writing in LA
-- writing for screen and audio
-- journaling as a kid
-- truth in fiction
-- Julia's first novel CASCADE
-- expanding a short story
-- the novel before the "first novel"
-- quiet drama
-- a young narrator with a thread of danger
-- publishing as the first novel by Great Place Books
-- sharks in the Farallon Islands
-- researching the book
-- predator/prey
-- internal/external worlds
-- desire, gender, identity, and place
-- addiction, obsession, and denial
-- time and pressure
-- new work and ghosts
_____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Joshua James Amberson interviews Jeff Alessandrelli.
Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Fur Not Light. His novel And Yet is out in April 2024 with Future Tense Books. He is also the director and co-editor of the small presses Fonograf Editions and Bunny Presse.
Joshua James Amberson is the author of Staring Contest: Essays About Eyes (Perfect Day Publishing), How to Forget Almost Everything: A Novel (Korza Books), a series of chapbooks on Two Plum Press, as well as the long-running Basic Paper Airplane zine series. He lives in Portland, Oregon where he runs the Antiquated Future online variety store and record label.
____________
FULL CONVERSATION topics include:
-- recording live in PDX
-- past work in publishing and literary community
-- the previous podcast The Steer
-- the beginnings of Jeff's novel And Yet
-- working in different forms of poetry and prose
-- the collapse of SPD
-- the issues at PANK that led to pulling his novel from print
-- the reissue of the novel now with Future Tense Books
-- revisiting a self from five years ago
-- writing as a publisher
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Michael Wheaton interviews Zachary Pace.
Zachary Pace is a writer and editor whose first book is I Sing to Use the Waiting: A Collection of Essays About the Women Singers Who've Made Me Who I Am (Two Dollar Radio, 2024), and whose writing has been published in the Baffler, BOMB, Bookforum, Boston Review, Frieze magazine, Interview magazine, Literary Hub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the PEN Poetry Series, the Yale Review, and elsewhere.
Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books and producer ofThe Lives of Writers. His essay Home Movies is out now from Bunny Presse.
____________
FULL CONVERSATION topics include:
-- going into the office
-- working in publishing
-- challenges of living in NYC
-- finding a subject
-- moving to essay from poetry
-- early writing tied up in other media
-- music as gateway into poetry
-- the new essay collection I SING TO USE THE WAITING
-- trouble
-- other people as mirrors
-- research in the writing process
-- growing up on media pre-internet
-- child psychology
-- celebrating the self and others
-- choosing essay subjects in a collection
-- continuing to write about music and listening
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Sara Lippmann interviews Ben Tanzer.
Ben Tanzer is the author of the short story collection UPSTATE, the science fiction novel Orphans, and the essay collections Lost in Space and Be Cool, and most recently the novel The Missing, which is out now from 7.13 Books. Among many other things, he also produces and hosts This Podcast Will Change Your Life.
Sara Lippmann is the author of the novel Lech (Tortoise Books) and the story collections Doll Palace (re-released by 7.13 Books) and Jerks (Mason Jar Press). Her fiction has been honored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her essays have appeared in The Millions, The Washington Post, Catapult, The Lit Hub and elsewhere.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- Chicago/the Midwest & upstate NY
-- small town insularity
-- Ben's new novel The Missing
-- growing up with cool parents
-- resignation in fiction, not in life
-- returning to the novel form
-- time
-- regimen
-- Ben's father's influence on his creative life
-- not being precious
-- Ben and Sara meeting
-- persistence and prioritizing yourself
-- deciding to write and detaching from the results
-- a new non-fiction project
-- learning patience
____________
Podcast theme music also provided by Mike Nagel. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Jeff Alessandrelli interviews Claire Donato.
Claire Donato is the author of Burial, a fiction novella, and The Second Body, a full-length collection of poems, and most recently Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts, a collection of fiction. Currently, she works as Acting Chairperson of Writing at Pratt Institute, where she received the 2020-2021 Distinguished Teacher Award.
Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Fur Not Light. His novel And Yet is being reissued this year by Future Tense Books. He is also the director and co-editor of the small presses Fonograf Editions and Bunny Presse.
____________
PART ONE topics include:
-- writing desks and locations
-- being a "legend of underground literature"
-- starting to publish young
-- a music background
-- writing and not writing
-- thinking about selling a book
____________
PART TWO topics include:
-- Claire's new book Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts
--"fauxtofiction" and autofiction
-- MFK Fisher
-- cooking and co-ops
-- friendships in literature
-- friendships in adulthood
-- psychoanalysis
-- publishing with a bigger press
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Michael Wheaton interviews Sean Enfield.
Sean Enfield is the author of debut collection of essays, Holy American Burnout! (Split/Lip Press, 2023). He serves as an Assistant Non Fiction Editor at Terrain.org, and his own work has been published in Reed Magazine, Hayden’s Ferry, Witness Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, and The Rumpus, among others.
Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books and producer of The Lives of Writers. His essay Home Movies is out now from Bunny Presse.
____________
PART ONE, topics include:
-- getting a PhD after a couple years off an MFA
-- getting thrown into teaching and gardening
-- getting into writing and music as a kid in Dallas
____________
PART TWO, topics include:
-- the process of writing and publishing Holy American Burnout!
-- dropping the façade and accidentally getting into non-fiction
-- writing about the classroom
-- information and news overload
____________
PART THREE, topics include:
-- starting with form
-- Baldwin
-- de-emphasizing the nation state
--writing while promoting
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Sara Rauch interviews Joshua Marie Wilkinson.
Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Joshua Marie Wilkinson is a poet, novelist, and filmmaker. His debut novel, Trouble Finds You, was published by Fonograf Editions (2023). He is also the author of nine books of poetry, including Selenography, Swamp Isthmus, and Meadow Slasher. His work has appeared in Poetry, The Believer, Tin House, Pen America, and in nearly two dozen anthologies. He has edited several collections of essays, including Anne Carson: Ecstatic Lyre, Poets on Teaching, and The Force of What's Possible with Lily Hoang.
Sara Rauch is the author of the book-length essay XO, from us at Autofocus Books. She’s also the author of the story collection, What Shines from it, from Alternating Current Press. Her book reviews and author interviews have been featured in the LA Review of Books, Newcity Lit, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.
____________
PART ONE, topics include:
-- working as a therapist
-- writing while raising a kid
-- a previous life as a poet and teacher
-- the move into writing fiction
-- therapy and narrative
-- growing up in and living again in the PNW
-- early poetry books
-- the disappearances of small presses
-- not writing a "poet's novel"
____________
PART TWO, topics include:
-- Joshua's first novel Trouble Finds You
-- writing a "misguided" character
-- a short story that kept getting longer
-- plotting and telling a story
-- suspense
-- animals and pets in a narrative
-- not having a smartphone
-- other novels
____________
Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Mike Nagel interviews Brian Allen Carr.
Brian Allen Carr is the author of eight books, most recently Bad Foundations, out now from CLASH Books. His other books include Opioid, Indiana, Short Bus, and Motherfucking Sharks.
Mike Nagel is the author of Duplex and Culdesac (Autofocus Books, 2022 and 2024). He also wrote the music for this podcast and a column called The Unintentionalist for the literary magazine Little Engines.
____________
Full conversation topics include:
-- sobriety
-- Plano, TX
-- retiring from middle school football
-- a family of preachers
-- Edgar Allan Poe
-- the first publication
-- the movie made from it
-- sustaining a creative life
-- a kind of arrogance
-- learning the lane
-- the new book BAD FOUNDATIONS
-- the invention of the elevator brake
-- grounded theory and work
-- sales
--putting things into the world
-- information and property
-- engaging or not in a political way
____________
Podcast theme music also provided by Mike Nagel. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Jeff Alessandrelli interviews Michael Wheaton.
Michael Wheaton is the author of the essay Home Movies (Bunny Presse, 2024). His writing has appeared in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, Burrow Press Review, Rejection Letters, HAD, and other online journals. He publishes Autofocus Books and produces this podcast.
Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Fur Not Light. His novel And Yet is being reissued this year by Future Tense Books. He is also the director and co-editor of the small presses Fonograf Editions and Bunny Presse.
____________
FULL INTERVIEW topics include:
-- what in retrospect is quite obviously a mid-life crisis
-- experiences with literary community before Autofocus
-- early life and reading and television and the arts
-- pursuing music for a little while a long while ago
-- writing fiction before, through, and after an MFA
-- the move to writing more autobiographically
-- becoming a parent and ways it changed the art
-- deciding to become a publisher
-- seeing yourself as more than one thing
-- HOME MOVIES and its earlier versions
-- discovering a writing process through the attempts
-- the "Office Hours" part of the book about a planned community in Florida
-- new and old media's effects and the difficulty of seeing them
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
Episode and show artwork by Amy Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Kaycie Hall interviews Lauren Elkin.
Kaycie Hall is the lead editor of our online journal Autofocus. She's also a writer and literary translator, whose work has appeared in Peach Mag, Neutral Spaces, Triangle House Review, and other journals.
Lauren Elkin is a writer and translator of many books, most recently the author of Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art and the UK translator of Simone de Beauvoir's previously unpublished novel The Inseparables. UK and US versions of her novel Scaffolding are coming out later this year.
____________
PART ONE, topics include:
-- winding down publication publicity
-- growing up focused on the performing arts
-- Lauren's previous book Flâneuse
-- Lauren's new book Art Monsters
-- intervening in the conversation around feminism
-- the temptation to make the book about one person
____________
PART TWO, topics include:
-- pregnancy shifting the shape of the book
-- the pandemic contributing to the shifting
-- Lauren's translation work
-- managing reading hours (or not)
-- a forthcoming novel
____________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
Episode and show artwork by Amy Wheaton.
-
On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Erin Slaughter interviews Chin-Sun Lee.
Chin-Sun Lee is the author of the debut novel Upcountry (Unnamed Press 2023), listed among Publishers Weekly’s Big Indie Books of Fall 2023, and is one of Poets & Writers’5 Over 50 for 2023. She’s also a contributor to Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology (Madville Publishing 2023) and the New York Times bestselling anthology Women in Clothes (Blue Rider Press/Penguin 2014). Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Electric Literature, Literary Hub, The Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Joyland, and The Believer Logger, among other publications. More at www.chinsunlee.com.
Erin Slaughter is the author of the short story collection A Manual for How to Love Us and the poetry collections The Sorrow Festival, and I Will Tell This Story to the Sun Until You Realize That You Are the Sun. She is the managing editor of Autofocus and was formerly the editor/co-founder of literary journal and chapbook press The Hunger. Her writing has appeared in Lit Hub, Electric Literature, CRAFT, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, Split Lip Magazine, and elsewhere
____________
PART ONE, topics include:
-- finishing a first book tour
-- seeing a first novel go into the world
--previous work in the fashion industry
-- life in LA after movie young from Korea
-- arts and writing growing up
--publishing a debut novel in your 50's
- pressure and expectations on following-up a novel
____________
PART TWO, topics include:
-- Chin-Sun's debut novel Upcountry
-- balancing three voices
-- process changing from short stories to the novel
-- process changing from completed book to WIP
-- cults
-- class
-- the unknown
-- penance
____________
PART THREE, topics include:
-- place as character
-- writing about 2009/10
-- the possibility of writing something into being by accident
-- living in New Orleans
-- the next novel
--Erin's WIP
--the beauty and cosmetic industry
_______________
Podcast theme music by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.
The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.
Episode and show artwork by Amy Wheaton.
- Show more
![Andrew Bertaina [Host: Mike Nagel]](https://is4-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Podcasts126/v4/2f/a9/c9/2fa9c947-908b-e6d9-cef6-8e7be58ac3e3/mza_15194969444830717121.jpg/80x80bb.jpg)