The Greenlight Bookstore Podcast

Acclaimed novelist and memoirist Bridgett M. Davis talks with music writer and educator Maureen Mahon about Mahon's book Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll and the challenges of Black female rule breakers and trendsetters.  The two explore how thinking differently about genre allows us to think about music and musicians differently, and the fascinating stories and influence of women like Big Mama Thornton, Betty Davis, Marsha Hunt, the Shirelles, and others unfairly ignored in rock history. As Mahon says to her own Black teen rock-loving self, "There are so many different ways to be an African American woman." (Recorded November 11, 2020)

Authors Adam Kirsch and Ruth Franklin explore the legacy of Jewish literature in the 20th century on the occasion of the publication of Kirsch's book The Blessing and the Curse: The Jewish People and Their Books in the Twentieth Century.  Kirsch and Franklin explore the evolving ideas of Jewish identity, neuroses and depictions of faith, the dividing line of the Holocaust, and the audience for Jewish literature in this wide-ranging discussion. (Recorded November 12, 2020)

Deesha Philyaw discusses her already beloved fiction debut The Secret Lives of Church Ladies in a joy-filled conversation with her close friend, poet and memoirist Kiese Laymon.  While engaging with an enthusiastic virtual audience, the two authors discuss the challenges of the publishing world for Black writers -- especially when writing about pleasure, humor, and joy -- and about the potential for Black authors to offer gateways to one another. (Recorded October 28, 2020)

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and award-winning chef, author, and educator Bryant Terry offer an inspiring conversation on food and racial justice as they discuss Eric's book Healthy at Last: A Plant-Based Approach to Preventing and Reversing Diabetes and Other Chronic Illnesses.  Eric talks about the terrible commonness of diabetes in his family and the Black community, and his own moment of realization of the health problems that led him to adopt a plant-based diet. He and Bryant talk about the forces that keep people of color from having access to healthy food and preventative care, and the need to think about health not just as an individual, consumer issue but as a collective issue, along with discussing policy ideas and some great recipes. (Recorded October 20, 2020)

Greenlight celebrates the re-opening of its stores with a star-studded evening with many of our favorite authors, MC’ed by poet Saeed Jones!  Listen to Jia Tolentino read a nonfiction piece about her unborn child; Nathan Englander read from the beginning of his novel kaddish.com; Min Jin Lee read from an essay about public speaking from the New York Times; Jonathan Lethem surprise us by reading his poetry; Nicole Dennis-Benn read from her novel Patsy; Colson Whitehead read from his not-yet-published next novel Harlem Shuffle; Lev Grossman read from his forthcoming children's novel The Silver Arrow; Ann Patchett read from her piece about running an indie bookstore in a pandemic; Ta-Nehisi Coates read Richard Wright's poem "Between the World and Me"; Valeria Luiselli read a piece about listening to sirens with her ten-year-old; and Jennifer Egan read from her novel The Keep. (Recorded July 2, 2020)

The beloved 99% Invisible podcast takes book form in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design, and host and creator Roman Mars and digital director and producer Kurt Kohlstedt talk with legendary podcaster, author and marketing expert Seth Godin about the transition. The trio of podcast pros talk about the strengths of different media for telling stories and why it was important to create a book, and Roman and Kurt share their favorite tidbits and the quirky things they discovered in creating the podcast and book, as well as the process of gathering information, and the stories they ended up not being able to pursue.  (Recorded October 9, 2020) 

Greenlight’s annual Brooklyn Indie Party (ten years and counting) goes virtual for 2020! Editors and publishers from eleven small publishers introduce authors Adam Smyer, Andrea Rosenberg, Stephanie Jean, Matthew Burgess, Kim McLarin, Jenzo DuQue, Megan Cummins, JinJin Xu, Rivka Galchen, Grace Schulman, and Zahra Patterson for an epic, cutting-edge reading from Brooklyn and beyond. (Recorded October 2, 2020.)

The multi-talented Michael Ian Black discusses his book A Better Man: A (Mostly) Serious Letter to my Son with award-winning journalist and author Liz Plank in a conversation about toxic masculinity that is highly irreverent in the best way. Michael addresses topics from his father's death to his "artsy" childhood, and the emotional hardening that was expected from him as an adult man and that he sees in his sons; he and Liz discuss the "pyramid scheme" of patriarchy and the space for conversations about gender that feminism has created, with a lot of laughs in between. (Recorded September 16, 2020)

Set squarely in the context of an America ravaged by a pandemic and racial and political violence, Mychal Denzel Smith's discussion of his book Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream with novelist Brit Bennett is a fierce, brilliant and unapologetic conversation, leavened with gallows humor. Mychal delineates the distinction between being forgetful of history and being intentionally committed to delusions,  discusses selective ideas of American identity, and describes struggling against the futility of writing in the face of injustice, while noting "it's important that we leave a record of the alternative to what has been the dominant discourse."  (Recorded September 14, 2020)

Legendary game developer Sid Meier (creator of Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, and Sid Meier's Civilization) talks about his own story, as related in his book Sid Meir's Memoir!, with award-winning technology journalist David Ewalt.  Their conversation is a gamer's dream, covering Sid's four decades in game creation and answering questions about his philosophy, colleagues, setbacks and discoveries along the way.  (Recorded September 9, 2020)