The Greenlight Bookstore Podcast

Young adult novelist Ibi Zoboi talks about her new book, Pride, with actor and best-selling author Elizabeth Acevedo. Together they discuss the intersections of race, class, and gender, their experiences with gentrification, the secret subversion of romance novels, and how much their heritage influences their writing.

Fiction writer, Memoirist, and children's author Amanda Stern discusses her new book, Little Panic: Dispatches from an Anxious Life, with author A.M. Homes. Together they talk about where anxiety begins, what rituals it creates, how adult anxiety is different from the anxiety of youth, and how much Amanda hates yoga.

Critically acclaimed author and memoirist, Rachel Cusk sits down with book critic Alexandra Schwartz to discuss her new book Kudos, the final novel of her beloved Outline Trilogy. Together they discuss Cusk's unique prose style, the particulars of her process, and her radical view of fiction that has built her an enormous following and made her novels the source of passionate fascination. She also admits to the fact that sitcoms give her anxiety.

Celebrated author and professor, Caryl Phillips speaks with Cultural Critic, Hilton Als to discuss his new book, A View of the Empire at Sunset. They cover a wide range of topics including colonialism, classism and racism in British society, the process of art-making, the necessity of imagination and much more.

Happy Father's Day from Greenlight Bookstore! From the Brooklyn Voices Series, held at St. Joseph's College, author Julie Orringer speaks with Pulitzer Winner and bestselling writer Michael Chabon about his new book of essays, Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces. They discuss how parenthood and writing fit together in his life, his family ambitions from an early age, how strange his children can seem to him, and his relationship with his own father.

Academic and writer Brittney Cooper speaks to Rebecca Traister, writer at large for New York Magazine and author, about her new book, Eloquent Rage. They cover her working class background, the political uses of rage, the implications of interracial dating, her complicated support for Hilary Clinton, the beauty of female friendship, and Black Panther.

President and co-founfer of The New Agenda Amy Siskind speaks with reporter Nomiki Konst about her new book The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year. In their conversation they talk about the difference between normal and abnormal political maneuvering, the polarization of ICE, attacks on our voting systems, the deep web of Russian and moneyed connections with the Trump Administration, and the impact of the Weekly list on her life.

Writer Zinzi Clemmons speaks with author and cultural critic Margo Jefferson about her debut novel, What We Lose. They talk about the experience of being biracial, struggling with terminal disease, black womanhood and motherhood, and how fiction can be influenced by creative essay writing.

Beloved British literary genre fiction writer Nick Harkaway talked with megafan Jenn Northington of BookRiot about his cerebral epic scifi novel Gnomon in his first ever New York City public event. Harkaway and Northington discussed the complex diagrams required for Harkaway to keep track of his own plot, genre categories in the US and the UK, the proud tradition of the police procedural, the need for writers to help readers imagine possible and inevitable futures, and the weird reality of mice sharing a single brain.

Editor Joe Fassler leads a panel of brilliant writers in a discussion expanding the themes of his anthology Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process. Starting with the premise that much of creative writing happens in response to what writers read and love, authors Lev Grossman (The Magicians), Ayana Mathis (The Twelve Tribes of Hattie), and Leslie Jamison (The Empathy Exams) reflect on their struggles and triumphs as creators, their transcendent reading experiences and inspirations, connections between literature and music, the demands of metaphor, and the the essential question of why they write.