Podcasts – The Nervous Breakdown: Recent Episodes
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Emily St. John Mandel is the bestselling author of the novel Sea of Tranquility, now available in trade paperback from Vintage.
Mandel’s five previous novels include The Glass Hotel, which has been translated into twenty-five languages, and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, was the basis of a limited series on HBO Max, and has been translated into thirty-seven languages. She lives in New York City and Los Angeles. Photo credit: JiaHao Peng.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Claire Dederer is the author of Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, available from Knopf.
Dederer is the author of Love and Trouble, and the New York Times best-selling memoir Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, which has been translated into twelve languages. A book critic, essayist, and reporter, Dederer is a longtime contributor to The New York Times and has also written for The Atlantic, Vogue, Slate, The Nation, and New York magazine. She lives near Seattle with her family.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Matthew Zapruder is the author of the memoir Story of a Poem, available from Unnamed Press.
Zapruder is the author of five collections of poetry, including Come On All You Ghosts, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Father’s Day (Copper Canyon, 2019), as well as Why Poetry, a book of prose. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing at Saint Mary’s College of California.
Zapruder has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a William Carlos Williams Award, a May Sarton Award from the Academy of American Arts and Sciences, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship in Marfa, TX. His poetry has been adapted and performed at Carnegie Hall by Composer Gabriel Kahane and Brooklyn Rider, and was the libretto for “Vespers for a New Dark Age”, a piece by composer Missy Mazzoli commissioned by Carnegie Hall for the 2014 Ecstatic Music Festival. In 2000, he co-founded Verse Press, and is now editor at large at Wave Books, where he edits contemporary poetry, prose, and translations. He was the founding Director of the Bagley Wright Lecture Series. From 2016-17 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine and Guest Editor of Best American Poetry 2022.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
J. Ryan Stradal is the bestselling author of the novel Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, available from Viking / Pamela Dorman Books.
Stradal is the author of New York Times bestseller Kitchens of the Great Midwestand national bestseller The Lager Queen of Minnesota. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Granta, The Rumpus, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. His debut, Kitchens of the Great Midwest, won the American Booksellers Association Indies Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in California with his family.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Jinwoo Chong is the author of the debut novel Flux, available from Melville House. It is the official April pick of the book club.
Chong received an MFA from Columbia University. His short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Salamander. Flux is his first novel. He lives in New York.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Tara Conklin is the author of the novel Community Board. It was the official March pick of the book club.
Conklin was born on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands and raised in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Last Romantics and The House Girl.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Tiffany Clarke Harrison is the author of the debut novel Blue Hour, available from Soft Skull Press.
Harrison graduated from Salisbury University with a BA in English, Creative Writing concentration, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Queens University of Charlotte. Writing is a whole-body experience, and her intuitive writing process has helped shape the raw honesty of her stories, and the stories of other authors she’s coached. Tiffany lives with her husband and two children in North Carolina.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
In the latest “Craftwork” episode, a deep-dive conversation about literary agents with Carly Watters, herself a longtime literary agent and the co-host of the popular writing podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing. Carly is “very online”—follow her on Instagram and Twitter—with a keen understanding of the digital landscape and the challenges faced by contemporary authors. In this episode, we discuss what you need to know about pitching a literary agent, what agents are looking for in writers—and more.
Carly Watters is a SVP and Senior Literary Agent at P.S. Literary. She began her publishing career in London as an assistant at the Darley Anderson Literary, TV and Film Agency. Carly joined Toronto-based P.S. Literary Agency in 2010 and has sold over 100 books during her career. She represents award-winning and bestselling authors in the adult fiction and non-fiction categories, and select children’s books.
She is known for her long-term vision for her authors and being an excellent collaborator with a nose for commercial success. She has close ties to publishers in the major markets, is a member of the AALA, and works directly with film agents to option film and TV rights to leading networks and production companies. Her clients’ books have been translated into 40 languages, optioned for TV and film, adapted into podcasts, and have been on every bestseller list from coast to coast, including the New York Times, USA Today, the LA Times, the Washington Post, the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail. Carly is also an annual judge for the Women’s Fiction Writing Association Rising Star Award.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Clancy Martin is the author of How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind, available from Pantheon.
Martin is the acclaimed author of the novel How to Sell (FSG) as well as numerous books on philosophy, and has translated works by Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, and other philosophers. A Guggenheim Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, New York, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Esquire, The New Republic, Lapham’s Quarterly, The Believer, and The Paris Review. He is a professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri in Kansas City and Ashoka University in New Delhi. He is the survivor of more than ten suicide attempts and a recovering alcoholic.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Alex Mar is the author of Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, available from Penguin Press.
Mar is the author of Witches of America, which was a New York Times Notable Book and Editors’ Pick. Her work has appeared in New York Magazine, Wired, The New York Times Book Review, and The Guardian, among many other outlets, as well as The Best American Magazine Writing. She has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award in Feature Writing, and she is the director of the feature-length documentary American Mystic. She lives in the Hudson Valley and New York City.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Shannon McLeod is the author of the Nature Trail Stories, available from Thirty West Publishing.
McLeod is the author of the novella, Whimsy (Long Day Press, 2021). Her writing has appeared in Tin House, Prairie Schooner, Hobart, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among other publications, and has been nominated for Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and featured in Wigleaf Top 50. Born in Detroit, she now lives in central Virginia.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Madelaine Lucas is the author of the debut novel Thirst for Salt, available from Tin House.
Lucas is a senior editor of NOON. Born in 1990, she was raised in Melbourne and Sydney as the daughter of a visual artist and a rock ‘n’ roll musician. In 2015, she moved to New York to complete her MFA in fiction at Columbia University, where she now teaches in the undergraduate and graduate writing programs.
Her essays and interviews have appeared in publications such as Paris Review Daily, The Believer, Literary Hub, Catapult, The Lifted Brow and Meanjin, and her fiction has been awarded the Elizabeth Jolley Prize and the Overland/Victoria University Emerging Writer’s Prize. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog, Pancho.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Gina Frangello is the guest in the latest ‘Craftwork’ episode of the Otherppl podcast. We talk about the editorial omniscient point of view—what it is, what it can do, and how to use it in your writing.
Gina is the author of the acclaimed memoir Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason (Counterpoint, 2021). Her other books include Every Kind of Wanting, A Life in Men, Slut Lullabies, and My Sister’s Continent. Her short fiction, essays, book reviews, and journalism have been published in Ploughshares, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, HuffPost, Fence, Five Chapters, Prairie Schooner, Chicago Reader, and many other publications. She is also the co-founder, with Emily Rapp Black, of Circe Consulting, which provides a variety of services to writers.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Jennifer Michael Hecht is the author of The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives, available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Hecht, a historian and poet, is the award-winning and bestselling author of the histories Doubt, Stay, The Happiness Myth, and The End of the Soul. Her poetry books include Who Said, The Next Ancient World, and Funny. She earned her PhD in history from Columbia University and teaches in New York City.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Camonghne Felix is the author of the memoir Dyscalculia: A Love Story of Epic Miscalculation, available from One World Press.
Felix, poet and essayist, is the author of Build Yourself a Boat, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry, shortlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award, and shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Awards. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from Academy of American Poets, Freeman’s, Harvard Review, LitHub, The New Yorker, PEN America, Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. Her essays have been featured in Vanity Fair, New York, Teen Vogue, and other places. She is a contributing writer at The Cut.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Tracey Rose Peyton is the author of the debut novel Night Wherever We Go, available from Ecco Books.
Peyton received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. Her short fiction has appeared in Guernica, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, The Best American Short Stories 2021, and other outlets.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
V. V. Ganeshananthan is the author of the novel Brotherless Night, available from Random House.
Ganeshananthan is the author of Love Marriage, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other publications. A former vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association, she has also served on the board of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and is presently a member of the board of directors of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota and co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, which is about the intersection of literature and the news.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Delia Cai is the author of the debut novel Central Places, available from Ballantine Books.
Cai was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in central Illinois. She is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and her writing has appeared in BuzzFeed, GQ, The Cut, and Catapult. Her media newsletter, Deez Links, has been highlighted in The New York Times, New York magazine, and Fortune. She is currently a senior correspondent at Vanity Fair and lives in Brooklyn.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Rebecca Makkai is the author of the novel I Have Some Questions for You, available from Viking Books.
Makkai’s last novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; it was the winner of the ALA Carnegie Medal, the Stonewall Book Award, the Clark Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and it was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2018 by The New York Times. Her other books are the novels The Borrower and The Hundred-Year House, and the collection Music for Wartime–four stories from which appeared in The Best American Short Stories. A 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, Rebecca is on the MFA faculties of the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe and Northwestern University, and is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Chetna Maroo is the author of the debut novel Western Lane, available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Maroo lives in London. Her stories have been published in the Paris Review, the Stinging Fly and the Dublin Review, and she was the recipient of the 2022 Plimpton Prize for Fiction.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
In today’s “Craftwork” episode, a conversation with Courtney Maum about how to write a good book proposal.
Courtney is the author of five books, including the groundbreaking publishing guide that Vanity Fair recently named one of the ten best books for writers, Before and After the Book Deal and the memoir The Year of the Horses, chosen by The Today Show as the best read for mental health awareness. The paperback edition publishes this week!
A writing coach, executive director of the nonprofit learning collaborative “The Cabins,” and educator, Courtney’s mission is to help people hold on to the joy of art-making in a culture obsessed with turning artists into brands. You can sign up for her publishing tips newsletter and online masterclasses at her website.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Ayòbámi Adébáyò is the author of the novel A Spell of Good Things, available from Knopf.
Adebayo was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Her debut novel, Stay with Me, won the 9mobile Prize for Literature, was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize, and the Kwani? Manuscript Prize. It has been translated into twenty languages and the French translation was awarded the Prix Les Afriques. Longlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, Stay with Me was a New York Times, Guardian, Chicago Tribune, and NPR Best Book of the Year.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Charmaine Craig is the author of the novel My Nemesis, available from Grove Press.
Craig is the author of the novels Miss Burma, longlisted for the National Book Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and The Good Men. Formerly an actor, she teaches in the program in fiction at UC Riverside and lives in Los Angeles.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Wendell Steavenson is the author of the novel Margot, available from W.W. Norton & Co. It is the official February pick of the TNB Book Club.
Steavenson, whose writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the Financial Times, and Granta, is the author of the novel Paris Metro and three books of reporting. Born in New York and raised in London, she now lives in France.
Otherppl with Brad Listi*** is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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TikTok
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
In this episode of “Craftwork,” a new series from the Otherppl podcast, author Peter Turchi teaches a lesson on how to use shifting power dynamics to write more dynamic scenes in fiction.
Turchi is the author of seven books and the co-editor of three anthologies. His books include (Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before; A Muse and A Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic; Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer; Suburban Journals: The Sketchbooks, Drawings, and Prints of Charles Ritchie, in collaboration with the artist; a novel, The Girls Next Door; a collection of stories, Magician; and The Pirate Prince, co-written with Cape Cod treasure hunter Barry Clifford, about Clifford’s discovery of the pirate ship Whydah. His short story “Night, Truck, Two Lights Burning” has been published, with images by Charles Ritchie, in a limited edition artist’s book. He has also co-edited, with Andrea Barrett, A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft, The Story Behind the Story: 26 Stories by Contemporary Writers and How They Work and, with Charles Baxter, Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life.
Turchi’s work has appeared in Tin House, Fiction Writers Review, Ploughshares, Story, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Puerto del Sol, and The Colorado Review, among other journals. His honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Washington College’s Sophie Kerr Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Literary Award, North Carolina’s Sir Walter Raleigh Award, and having a quotation from A Muse and a Maze serve as the answer to the New York Times Magazine Sunday acrostic.
Born in Baltimore, he earned his BA at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, and his MFA at the University of Arizona. He has taught at Northwestern University and Appalachian State University, and has been on the faculty of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. For 15 years he directed The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina; at Arizona State University he taught fiction and served as Director of Creative Writing and Director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. He currently teaches at the University of Houston, and in Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers. Laura, his wife, is a Clinical Professor in English at Arizona State University, where she is curriculum director for “RaceB4Race: Sustaining, Building, Innovating” at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; she also co-directs the Shakespeare and Social Justice Project at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. Reed, their son, is a musician (www.reedturchi.com).
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
David S. Wills is the author of High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism, available from Beatdom Books.
Wills is the founder and editor of Beatdom literary journal. His other books include Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the Weird Cult, and World Citizen: Allen Ginsberg as Traveller. He lives in Kampot, Cambodia.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
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Kevin Maloney is the author of the novel The Red-Headed Pilgrim, available from Two Dollar Radio.
Maloney is the author of Cult of Loretta and the forthcoming story collection Horse Girl Fever. At times a TJ Maxx associate, grocery clerk, outdoor school instructor, organic farmer, electrician, high school English teacher, and teddy bear salesman, he currently works as a web developer and writer. His short stories have appeared in Hobart, Barrelhouse, Green Mountains Review, and a number of other journals and anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Aubrey.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
In the inaugural episode of Craftwork, a new series from the Otherppl podcast, author Matt Bell teaches a lesson on how to write action in fiction.
Bell is the author most recently of the novel Appleseed (a New York Times Notable Book) and the craft book Refuse to Be Done, a guide to novel writing, rewriting, and revision.
He is also the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur’s Gate II, and several other titles. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Tin House, Fairy Tale Review, American Short Fiction, Orion, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.
His novel In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods was a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award and an Indies Choice Adult Book of the Year Honor Recipient, and was selected as the winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award, among other honors. Both In the House and Scrapper were selected by the Library of Michigan as Michigan Notable Books.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
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Matthew Salesses is the author of the novel The Sense of Wonder (Little, Brown & Co.).
Salesses’ other books include the national bestseller Craft in the Real World, the 2021 finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear, and two other novels. Adopted from Korea, he has written about adoption, race, and Asian American masculinity in The Best American Essays 2020, NPR’s Code Switch, the New York Times blog Motherlode, and The Guardian, among other media outlets. BuzzFeed has named him one of 32 Essential Asian American Writers. He lives in New York City, where he is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
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Merch
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Bruce Wagner is the author of Roar: American Master, available from Arcade Publishing.
Wagner has written twelve novels and bestsellers, including the famous “Cellphone Trilogy,” I’m Losing You (PEN USA finalist), I’ll Let You Go and Still Holding), Dead Stars, The Empty Chair, and the PEN/Faulkner-finalist Chrysanthemum Palace. He wrote the screenplay for David Cronenberg’s film Maps to the Stars, for which Julianne Moore won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. In 1993, Wagner wrote and created the visionary mini-series Wild Palms for producer Oliver Stone and co-wrote (with Ullman) three seasons the acclaimed Tracey Ullman’sState of the Union. He has written essays and articles for the New York Times, Artforum and the New Yorker.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
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The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Kashana Cauley is the author of the debut novel The Survivalists, available from Soft Skull Press.
Cauley is a former Midtown antitrust lawyer and Brooklyn resident. She is a writer for the Fox comedy The Great North, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a GQ contributor. She’s written for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and Pod Save America on HBO as well as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone, and has published fiction in Esquire, Slate, Tin House, and The Chronicles of Now. Kashana now lives in Los Angeles.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Sean Adams is the author of the novel The Thing in the Snow, available from William Morrow. It is the official January pick of the TNB Book Club.
Adams is a graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The Heap is his first novel.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Dorthe Nors is the author of the acclaimed essay collection A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast (Graywolf Press), translated by Caroline Waight.
Nors is the author of the story collections Wild Swims and Karate Chop; four novels, including Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize; and two novellas, collected in So Much for That Winter.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
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Here we are again. Another year in the books. Another Holiday Spectacular episode of the Otherppl podcast.
This year, the Spectacular was recorded at 8 a.m. rather than the traditional evening hour. The reason? Brad was disorganized and scrambling to assemble a team of people willing to participate in this questionable annual rite.
Thankfully, his friends Joseph Grantham, Gene Morgan, and Timothy Willis Sanders bailed him out. They were kind enough to join him for a year-end gathering and some good cheer. Mira Gonzalez was supposed to be there too, but she ate too many edibles the night before and didn’t wake up in time to participate.
Big thanks to everyone out there who listens to this show and supports this show. It’s a labor of love, and the show wouldn’t exist with you.
Here’s to another great year, and more great conversations with great writers in 2023….
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Sam Lipsyte is the author of the novel No One Left to Come Looking for You (Simon & Schuster).
Lipsyte is the author of the story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and four novels: Hark, The Ask (a New York Times Notable Book), The Subject Steve, and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories, among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.
Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Allegra Hyde is the author of the novel Eleutheria, available from Vintage. It is the official December pick of the TNB Book Club.
Hyde’s debut story collection, Of This New World, won the John Simmons Short Fiction Award through the Iowa Short Fiction Award Series. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, The Best Small Fictions, and The Best American Travel Writing. Originally from New Hampshire, she currently lives in Ohio and teaches at Oberlin College.
**Otherppl with Brad Listi* is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading writers.Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
@otherppl
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Emily Pifer is the author of the award-winning debut memoir The Running Body, available from Autumn House Press. Pifer received her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Wyoming and is now a PhD candidate in composition and cultural rhetoric at Syracuse University, where she holds a research fellowship and has taught courses […]
Kyle Spencer is an investigative journalist and the author of Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot for Power (Ecco Books). Spencer is is an award-winning journalist and frequent New York Times contributor. She has written for New York magazine, Slate, the Daily Beast, the Washington Post, Politico, and many other publications. *** Otherppl with […]
Pete Hsu is the author of the story collection If I Were the Ocean, I’d Carry You Home, available from Red Hen Press. It is the official November pick of the Otherppl/TNB Book Club. Hsu is also the author of the experimental chapbook There Is A Man (Tolsun Books). His writing has been featured in The Los […]
Rich Ferguson, Mary Kerr, and S.A. Griffin are the guests for a roundtable discussion of Beat literature and the new anthology Beat Not Beat: An Anthology of California Poets Screwing on the Beat and Post-Beat Tradition (Moon Tide Press). Pushcart Prize-nominated poet Rich Ferguson has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, Moby, and other esteemed […]
Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novel Flight, available from Mariner Books. Strong’s other books include the novels Want and Hold Still. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review, The Cut, New York Magazine, and elsewhere. She teaches writing at Catapult and Columbia University, and in 2022-23, […]
Andrew Sean Greer is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of the novel Less is Lost (Little, Brown), a New York Times bestseller. Greer is the author of six works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including the Iowa Writers Workshop, been a […]
Andrew Sean Greer is a Pulitzer Prize winner and the author of the novel Less is Lost (Little, Brown), a New York Times bestseller. Greer is the author of six works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including the Iowa Writers Workshop, been a […]
Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the debut story collection If I Survive You, available from MCD/FSG. If I Survive You is a National Book Award Nominee, an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence Nominee, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and an Indie National Bestseller. Escoffery is the winner of The Paris Review’s 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and […]
Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the debut story collection If I Survive You, available from MCD/FSG. If I Survive You is a National Book Award Nominee, an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence Nominee, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and an Indie National Bestseller. Escoffery is the winner of The Paris Review’s 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and […]
George Saunders is the author of the story collection Liberation Day, available from Random House. Saunders is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven books, including A Swim in a Pond in the Rain; Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize; Congratulations, by the Way; Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner […]
George Saunders is the author of the story collection Liberation Day, available from Random House. Saunders is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven books, including A Swim in a Pond in the Rain; Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize; Congratulations, by the Way; Tenth of December, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner […]
Morgan Talty is the author of the debut story collection Night of the Living Rez, available from Tin House. It is the official October pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. Named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30,” Talty’s work has […]
Morgan Talty is the author of the debut story collection Night of the Living Rez, available from Tin House. It is the official October pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. Named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30,” Talty’s work has […]
A.M. Homes is the author of the novel The Unfolding, available from Viking. Homes is the author of thirteen books, among them the best-selling memoir The Mistress’ Daughter; the novels This Book Will Save Your Life, The End of Alice, and Jack; and the short story collections Days of Awe, The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know. She also writes for […]
A.M. Homes is the author of the novel The Unfolding, available from Viking. Homes is the author of thirteen books, among them the best-selling memoir The Mistress’ Daughter; the novels This Book Will Save Your Life, The End of Alice, and Jack; and the short story collections Days of Awe, The Safety of Objects and Things You Should Know. She also writes for […]
Chelsea Martin is the author of the novel Tell Me I’m an Artist, available from Soft Skull Press. Martin is the author of the essay collection Caca Dolce and the novella Mickey, among other books. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband and child. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary […]
Chelsea Martin is the author of the novel Tell Me I’m an Artist, available from Soft Skull Press. Martin is the author of the essay collection Caca Dolce and the novella Mickey, among other books. She lives in Spokane, WA with her husband and child. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary […]
Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel Lucy by the Sea, available from Random House. Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Oh William!; Olive, Again; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name Is Lucy Barton; The Burgess Boys; Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los […]
Elizabeth Strout is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the novel Lucy by the Sea, available from Random House. Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Oh William!; Olive, Again; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name Is Lucy Barton; The Burgess Boys; Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los […]
Jerry Stahl is the author of the memoir Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust, available from Akashic Books. Stahl has written ten books, including the best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight, made into a movie with Ben Stiller; the essay collection OG Dad; and the novels Pain Killers; I, […]
Jerry Stahl is the author of the memoir Nein, Nein, Nein!: One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust, available from Akashic Books. Stahl has written ten books, including the best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight, made into a movie with Ben Stiller; the essay collection OG Dad; and the novels Pain Killers; I, […]
Luke Dani Blue is the author of the debut story collection Pretend It’s My Body, available from The Feminist Press. It is the official September pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Blue’s stories have appeared in the Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, and have been included on the list of the year’s most […]
Luke Dani Blue is the author of the debut story collection Pretend It’s My Body, available from The Feminist Press. It is the official September pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Blue’s stories have appeared in the Colorado Review, Crab Orchard Review, and have been included on the list of the year’s most […]
Timothy Willis Sanders is the author of the story collection Modern Massacres (Publishing Genius). Modern Massacres is Timothy Willis Sanders’s third book and second collection of short stories. In the vein of Orange Juice (his first collection with PGP, from 2010), stories like “John Lennon,” “Officer Walter,” and “Glasses” examine contemporary life in a familiar, canny way. […]
Melissa Chadburn is the author of the debut novel A Tiny Upward Shove, available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Chadburn’s writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review Daily, The Best American Food Writing, and many other publications. Her extensive reporting on the child […]
Nada Alic is the author of the debut story collection Bad Thoughts, available from Vintage. It is the official August pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Alic’s story “The Intruder” was shortlisted for the CBC Short Fiction Prize 2019. “My New Life” was published in No Tokens Journal. She lives in Los Angeles. *** Otherppl […]
Ingrid Rojas Contreras is the author of the memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds, available from Doubleday. Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her debut novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor’s choice. Her essays and short […]
Lynne Tillman is the author of Mothercare: On Obligation, Love, Death, and Ambivalence, available from Soft Skull. Tillman is a novelist, short story writer, and cultural critic. Her novels are Haunted Houses; Motion Sickness; Cast in Doubt; No Lease on Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; American Genius, A Comedy, and Men and Apparitions. Her […]
Isaac Fitzgerald is the author of the memoir-in-essays Dirtbag, Massachusetts: A Confessional, available from Bloomsbury. Fitzgerald appears frequently on The Today Show and is the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink and Knives & Ink (winner of an IACP Award). His writing has appeared in the New York […]
David Koepp is the author of the novel Aurora, available from Harper. It is the official July pick of the TNB Book Club. Koepp has written or co-written the screenplays for more than thirty films, including Carlito’s Way (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996), Panic Room (2002), Spider-Man (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom […]
Teddy Wayne is the author of the novel The Great Man Theory, available from Bloomsbury. Wayne’s other novels include Apartment, Loner, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, and Kapitoil. He is the winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship as well as a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction […]
Chantal V. Johnson is the author of the debut novel Post-Traumatic, available from Little, Brown. Johnson is a tenant lawyer and writer. A graduate of Stanford Law School and a 2018 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, she lives in New York. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth […]
Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of books on creativity in the digital age, including Steal Like an Artist—now celebrating its 10th year in print—Show Your Work!, and Keep Going. Kleon is also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent […]
Marcy Dermansky is the author of the novel Hurricane Girl, available from Knopf. Dermansky is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie, and Twins. She has received fellowships from The MacDowell Colony and The Edward F. Albee Foundation. She lives with her daughter in Montclair, New Jersey. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi […]
Sloane Crosley is the author of the novel Cult Classic, available from MCD/FSG. Crosley is the author of The New York Times bestselling essay collections, I Was Told There’d Be Cake (a 2009 finalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor) and How Did You Get This Number, as well as Look Alive Out There (a 2019 finalist […]
Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood is the author of the novel Constellations of Eve, available from DVAN/UTTP. It is the official June pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Rosewood was born in Vietnam, where she lived until the age of twelve. Her debut novel, If I Had Two Lives, has been hailed as “a tale of staggering […]
Hernan Diaz is the author of the novel Trust, available from Riverhead. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award, Diaz’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He has published stories and essays in The Paris Review, Granta, Playboy, The Yale Review, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. His first novel, In […]
Kathryn Miles is the author of Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders (Algonquin Books). Miles is the author of five books. Her essays and articles have appeared in publications such as Audubon, Best American Essays, Best American Sports Writing, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Outside, Politico, and Time. A contributing editor at Down East magazine, Miles also serves as a scholar-in-residence for […]
Mary Laura Philpott is the author of the memoir-in-essays Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives (Atria Books). It was the official April pick of the TNB Book Club. Philpott, nationally bestselling author of I Miss You When I Blink, writes about the overlap of the absurd and the profound in everyday life. Her writing […]
Brad Listi is the author of the novel Be Brief and Tell Them Everything, available from Ig. Listi was born in Milwaukee. His other books include the novel Attention. Deficit. Disorder., an LA Times bestseller, and Board, a work of nonfiction collage, co-authored with Justin Benton. He is the founding editor of The Nervous Breakdown, an online literary magazine, and in 2011 he […]
Darrel Alejandro Holnes is the author of the poetry collection Stepmotherland (University of Notre Dame Press). It is the winner of the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. Holnes is an Afro-Panamanian American writer and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing (Poetry). His poems have previously appeared in the American Poetry […]
Steve Almond is the author of the debut novel All the Secrets of the World, available from Zando. Almond is the author of ten books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. He teaches Creative Writing at the Neiman Fellowship at Harvard and Wesleyan, as well as Hugo House, Grub Street, and numerous literary conferences. […]
Caren Beilin is the author of the novel Revenge of the Scapegoat, available from Dorothy. Beilin’s other books are Blackfishing the IUD (Wolfman Books, 2019), Spain (Rescue Press, 2018), The University of Pennsylvania (Noemi Press, 2014), and the chapbook Americans, Guests, or Us (Diagram/New Michigan Press, 2012). Shorter prose appears in Fence, Territory, Dreginald, and The Offing. She is an assistant professor of […]
Today on the program, a special sneak preview of Brad Listi’s new novel, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything, available now for preorder and wherever books are sold on May 10, 2022 in trade paperback and audiobook formats. This is an excerpt from the audiobook edition, read by Brad Listi. It is the first time […]
Zac Smith is the author of the debut story collection Everything is Totally Fine, available from Muumuu House. Smith’s other books include Two Million Shirts (2021), of which he is co-author, and a poetry collection entitled 50 Barn Poems (2019). He lives in Massachusetts. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today’s leading […]
Julia May Jonas is the author of the debut novel Vladimir, available from Avid Reader Press. Jonas is a playwright and teaches theater at Skidmore College. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Vladimir is her debut novel. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth […]
Anakana Schofield is the author of Bina: A Novel in Warnings, a New York Review Book. Schofield is an award-winning Irish-Canadian writer of fiction, essays, and literary criticism. Her previous novels are Malarky (2012) and Martin John (2015). The UK edition of Bina was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2020. She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi […]
Kate Folk is the author of the debut story collection Out There, available from Random House. Folk has written for publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, and Zyzzyva. She’s received support from the Headlands Center for the Arts, MacDowell, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Recently, she was a […]
Mike Meginnis is the author of the novel Drowning Practice (Ecco Books). It is the official March pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Meginnis is also the author of the novel Fat Man and Little Boy. His fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2012, Unstuck, The Collagist, PANK, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and many other outlets. He lives and works in Iowa […]
Lili Anolik is the author of Hollywood’s Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A., available from Scribner. Anolik is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a writer at large for Air Mail. Her work has also appeared in Harper’s, Esquire, and The Paris Review, among other publications. Her latest podcast, Once Upon a Time… at Bennington College, dropped September 29th, 2021. *** […]
John Keene is the author of Punks: New & Selected Poems, available from The Song Cave. Keene is a writer, translator, professor, and artist who was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2018. In 1989, Keene joined the Dark Room Writers Collective, and is a Graduate Fellow of the Cave Canem Writers Workshops. He is the author […]
Cara Blue Adams is the author of the debut story collection You Never Get It Back, winner of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award, available from the University of Iowa Press. Adams has published over twenty stories in leading magazines, including Granta, The Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, Alaska Quarterly Review, Epoch, The Sun, The Missouri Review, The Mississippi Review, Story, and Narrative, which named her […]
Lan Samantha Chang is the author of the novel The Family Chao, available from W.W. Norton & Co. It is the official February pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Chang’s other books include the story collection Hunger and the novels Inheritance and All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. A recent Berlin Prize Fellow, she also has received grants from the National […]
Sheila Heti is the author of the novel Pure Colour, available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the “New Classics of the 21st century.” She was named one of “the New Vanguard” by the New York Times book critics, […]
Antoine Wilson is the author of the novel Mouth to Mouth, available from Avid Reader. Wilson is also the author of the novels The Interloper and Panorama City. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Quarterly West, and Best New American Voices, among other publications. He is a contributing editor at A Public Space. He has received the Carol Houck Smith Fiction […]
Debbie Millman is the author of Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People, available from Harper Design. Named “one of the most creative people in business” by Fast Company, and “one of the most influential designers working today” by Graphic Design USA, Debbie Millman is also an author, educator, curator and host of the podcast Design […]
Rachel Krantz is the author of Open: An Uncensored Memoir of Love, Liberation, and Non-Monogamy, available from Harmony Books. Krantz is one of the three founding editors of Bustle, where she served as Senior Features Editor for three years, and Senior News Editor before that. She also worked at The Daily Beast as Homepage Editor, and at […]
Emmelie Prophète is the author of the novel Blue, available from Amazon Crossing. Translated by Tina Kover. It is the official January pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Born in Port-au-Prince, where she still resides, Prophète is a poet, novelist, journalist, and director of the National Library of Haiti. Blue (Le testament des solitudes), earned her the […]
Jami Attenberg is the author of the memoir I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home, available from Ecco. Attenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books of fiction, including The Middlesteins and All This Could Be Yours. She has contributed essays to the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, and the Guardian, among […]
Claire Messud is the author of A Dream Life, available from Tablo Tales. Messud is the author of seven works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers The Emperor’s Children and The Burning Girl, and a new book of essays, Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write. She is a recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe […]
Lejla Kalamujic is the author of the novel-in-stories Call Me Esteban, available from Sandorf Passage. Translated by Jennifer Zoble. Kalamujic is an award-winning queer writer from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Call Me Esteban received the Edo Budisa literary award in 2016 and it was the Bosnian-Herzegovinian nominee for the European Union Prize for Literature in the same year. Jennifer Zoble translates […]
Lou Mathews is the author of the novel Shaky Town, available from Tiger Van Books. Mathews has written seven books and published two of them, Just Like James and L.A. Breakdown, an LA Times Best Book. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s acclaimed creative writing program since 1989. His stories have been published in ZYZZYVA, New England Review, Short Story, Black Clock […]
Stacy D. Flood is the author of the novella The Salt Fields, available from Lanternfish Press. Originally from Buffalo, and currently living in Seattle, Stacy’s work has been published and performed nationally as well as in the Puget Sound Area. Having received his MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, he has […]
Megan Milks is the author of the novel Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body (The Feminist Press). Milks is the author of Kill Marguerite and Other Stories (2014), now available from Feminist Press in revised and expanded form as Slug and Other Stories, and Remember the Internet: Tori Amos Bootleg Webring. With Marisa Crawford, they are coeditor of We Are […]
Robin McLean is the author of the debut novel Pity the Beast, available from And Other Stories. McLean worked as lawyer and then a potter in the woods of Alaska before turning to writing. Her story collection Reptile House won the 2013 BOA Editions Fiction Prize and was twice a finalist for the Flannery O’Connor Short Story […]
Duncan Birmingham is the author of the debut story collection The Cult in My Garage, available from Maudlin House. Birmingham is a writer and filmmaker in Los Angeles. His fiction has appeared in Mystery Tribune, Brooklyn vol 1, Juked, 7×7, Joyland, nerve, Word Riot, Opium, Story Chord, Oxford Review and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, among other places. […]
Roisin Kiberd is the author of The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet, available from Serpent’s Tail. Kiberd’s essays have been published in the Dublin Review, the White Review, the Stinging Fly and Winter Papers. She has written features on technology and culture for publications including the Guardian, Vice and Motherboard, where she wrote a column about internet subcultures. Having spent some time in […]
Janice Lee is the author of the novel Imagine a Death, available from Texas Review Press. Lee is a Korean-American writer, editor, publisher, and shamanic healer. Author of seven books of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry, she is the founder & executive editor of Entropy, Co-Publisher at Civil Coping Mechanisms, Contributing Editor at Fanzine, and Co-Founder […]
Jocelyn Nicole Johnson is the author of the debut story collection My Monticello, available from Henry Holt & Co. Johnson’s writing has appeared in Guernica, The Guardian, Phoebe, Prime Number Magazine, and elsewhere. Her short story “Control Negro” was anthologized in Best American Short Stories 2018, guest edited by Roxane Gay, and read live by LeVar Burton as part […]
Sarah Hall is the author of the novel Burntcoat, available from Custom House. It is the official November pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Hall was born in Cumbria. She is the prizewinning author of six novels and three short story collections. She is a recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters E. M. […]
Dennis Cooper is the author of the novel I Wished, available from Soho Press. Cooper is the author of the George Miles Cycle, an interconnected sequence of five novels: Closer, Frisk, Try, Guide, and Period. His other works include My Loose Thread; The Sluts, winner of France’s Prix Sade and the Lambda Literary Award; God Jr.; Wrong; The Dream Police; Ugly Man; and The Marbled Swarm. He divides […]
Larissa Pham is the author of the memoir-in-essays Pop Song, available from Catapult. Pham is an artist and writer in Brooklyn. Born in Portland, Oregon, she studied painting and art history at Yale University. She has written essays and criticism for the Paris Review Daily, The Nation, Art in America, Guernica, and elsewhere. She was an inaugural Yi Dae Up fellowship […]
Mike DeCapite is the author of the novel Jacket Weather, available from Soft Skull Press. DeCapite’s other books include the novel Through the Windshield, the chapbook Creamsicle Blue, and the short-prose collection Radiant Fog, published under the banner of Sparkle Street Books. Cuz Editions published his story “Sitting Pretty,” later anthologized in The Italian American Reader. DeCapite grew up in Cleveland […]