TORONTO / NYC — Sheila Heti is the author of the short story collection the Middle Stories (2001), the short novel Ticknor (2005), the philosophy book the Chairs Are Where The People Go (2011), co-written by Misha Glouberman, How Should A Person Be? (2012), and Motherhood (2018). She also co-edited the collection Women in Clothes (2014). And wrote the intro to the new release of this Virginia Woolf essay, How Should One Read A Book? (2020). Her next book, Pure Colour, is coming out in January 2022. I first encountered Sheila’s writing in late 2014, when I tore through How Should A Person Be? in a night. I’ve since done a handful of pods on her books, so this is really exciting for me, it’s been a long time coming. We recorded this late last week. Sheila Heti lives in Toronto.
Here is a link to her website, with links to all her books: http://www.sheilaheti.com
Sheila's podcast "Podcast With Raisins": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-with-raisins/id1193833547
CONTENTS
8 min - pod start
12 min - Sheila’s current project
15 min - the book isn’t finished till it’s separate from you
16 min - me tryna turn real life into an Art Idea
20 min - How Ticknor different but also similar to her other books
24 min - friendship/angels
25 min - how I first encountered Sheila's writing
36 min - on walking / Richard Serra
40 min - “art should be taken off the pedestal”
42 min - Middle Stories reactions / why she wrote Ticknor
45 min - publishing right after 9/11
50 min - Sheila outing me for being in school lolol
55 min - Malcolm gladwell story
1 hr 4 min - coin stuff / mysticism
1 hr 7 min - on God
1 hr 11 min - on Nietzsche
1 hr 12 min - “the great writers rearrange your brain”
1 hr 13 min - Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Martin Buber
1 hr 16 - “who decides that something is good is the Culture / having supporters” / Wittgenstein
1 hr 21 min - “the person who loves a book is the one who’s right about it” / criticism
1 hr 28 min - on cigs / tobacco
Intro song: https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master
Related episode - solo rant on Motherhood (1.3.2018): https://soundcloud.com/1storypod/29-family-failure-and-procreation-in-motherhood-2018-by-sheila-heti-1storypod-with-st-conroe
Sean Thor Conroe lives in Harlem.