In this episode, acclaimed fiction writer David Means and Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell share their experiences with solitude and sociability in quarantine. Means, author of the recent short story collection Instructions for a Funeral, talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about how writers use solitude to their advantage. Bushnell discusses the crucial role social life and friendship plays in Sex and the City and in the lives of New Yorkers. She also speaks about her new novel Rules for Being a Girl.

To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.

This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.

Guests:

Selected readings for the episode:

David Means

Candace Bushnell

Rules for Being a Girl (co-written with Katie Cotugno)
Is There Still Sex in the City?
Sex and the City
Summer and the City
The Carrie Diaries
Lipstick Jungle

Others

I See the World by Jamaica Kincaid, Paris Review Daily
On Isolation and Literature, The Millions
William Carlos Williams
Katie Cotugno
Anna Karenina
Edith Wharton
Jane Austen
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa
Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

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S3 Ep. 16: Solitude Versus Sociability: David Means and Candace Bushnell on Being Alone and Making Connections