The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience How Bestselling Novelist Aris Janigian Writes
#PodcastersForJustice
The bestselling, award-winning novelist, Aris Janigian, had a candid conversation with me about the recently "mandated dystopia," his circuitous path to bestselling author, the city as muse, and what it means to be a transgressive writer.
“As a cognitive social psychologist, I can tell you without any hesitation that the human mind really is built for deception.” – Aris Janigian
The author of six novels (all without traditional representation), critics hailed his 2012 novel This Angelic Land – set during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots – as "today's necessary book," and his novel Waiting for Lipchitz at Chateau Marmont, spent 17 weeks on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list.
Janigian holds a PhD in psychology from the Claremont Graduate School and was formerly Senior Professor of Humanities at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.
He was a finalist for Stanford University's William Saroyan Fiction Prize and has been a contributing writer to West, the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine.
The second book of Janigian's Waiting for... trilogy, Waiting for Sophia at Shutters on the Beach, "... is a satirical mashup of Nabokov's Lolita and Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground."
The book has be described as "... an unflinching, deadly serious ... tragic-comic view of male sexuality in the era of #metoo."
*Note: This interview was recorded at the beginning of May, 2020.
Please help us learn more about you by completing this short 7-question surveyIf you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews.
In this file Aris Janigian and I discussed:- The life of a lazy author
- Why graduate school corrupts good writers
- Wisdom on the importance of mentorship
- How the cruel mistress of Los Angeles plays a character in his works
- The self-censorship of academia
- And why life is the best teacher
- ArisJanigian.com
- Waiting for Sophia at Shutters on the Beach by Aris Janigian [Amazon]
- Aris Janigian Amazon author page
- “When the Lunatics Run the Asylum: On Aris Janigian’s “Waiting for Sophia at Shutters on the Beach” - LA Review of Books
- "Governors should trust mayors and county officials on reopening. California shows why." - Washington Post
- Aris Janigian on Twitter
- Kelton Reid on Twitter
#PodcastersForJustice
Anti-racism Resources Donate to any of the following: Podcasts to subscribe to:- 1619 (New York Times)
- About Race
- Code Switch (NPR)
- Intersectionality Matters! hosted by Kimberlé Crenshaw
- Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast
- Pod For The Cause (from The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights)
- Pod Save the People (Crooked Media)
- Seeing White
- "Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Don’t understand the protests? What you’re seeing is people pushed to the edge" | Los Angeles Times
- 75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices