The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life

In this week's episode, I talk to fiction writer Chad Anderson near the end of his residency at The Kerouac House here in Orlando, Florida. We spoke about the importance of memories, including lost ones, in the creation of our realities (and the fictions representing those realities), the complications of family, the glory of a long residency, and Washing DC as a writer's city. [caption id="attachment_24050" align="alignnone" width="4288"]Chad Anderson at The Kerouac House, photographed by John King.[/caption] NOTES Read Chad Anderson's Katherine Anne Porter Award winner, "Maidencane," here. [caption id="attachment_24110" align="alignnone" width="4032"]Chad Anderson, Greg Proops, and moibackstage at the Hard Rock Live at Universal Studios, Orlando, in the apex of show business moments for your humble Drunken Odyssey.[/caption] Check out Whose Live Anyway, in which the Whose Line is it Anyway cast improvs the hell out of a stage near your, probably, eventually. Or Check out this farewell reading from Eleanor Matthews, the resident before Chad. https://youtu.be/ODhjl3zHvRY The application period for next year's Kerouac residents ends on March 10th. Apply here. Come hear me pontificate with some wiser writers than I am at AWP!

In this week's episode, I talk to fiction writer Teresa Carmody about the joys of making books, the patterns needed for experimental work, and approaching the musicality of writing like meditation. Photo by Jared Alan Smith.

In this week's episode, I talk to Todd James Pierce about his new biography of Ward Kimball from an epic corridor of The Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES Check out Todd's site and podcast, The Disney History Institute. Check out my previous interview with Todd back on Episode 218.

In this week's episode, Vanessa Blakeslee and I survive reading Roland Barthes's "The Death of the Author" and "What is an Author?" by Michel Foucault. TEXTS DISCUSSED Check Out Vanessa's Books! NOTES Suggested donation: $20, which comes with a glass of wine and food. Go herefor more details.

In this week's episode, I chat with my friend Terry Ann Thaxton about poetry, parents, mortality, yard work, mud, and the underrated useful of writing prompts for professional writers. We were tired, but we laughed a lot. John King and Terry Ann Thaxton at Jack Kerouac's house in Orlando. Jared Silvia is saying something behind us. Photo by Katherine J. Parker. TEXTS DISCUSSED

In this week's episode, I speak with the war veteran, journalist, and novelist Elliot Ackerman about composition and revision strategies, and the emotional access points from our own experience to the stories we tell. [caption id="attachment_23972" align="alignnone" width="4416"]Photo by Huger Foote.[/caption] TEXTS DISCUSSED

In this week's episode, I speak with the Kerouac House's fall 2018 resident, Eleanor Matthews about Victorian novels, characterization and plots, and the connections between physical activity and creative writing.

In this week's episode, I croak with Vanessa Blakeslee and Mark Pisczek about the Apollonian and Dionysian origins of storytelling as explored in Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. TEXT DISCUSSED NOTES If you live in Orlando, come hear Mark and his band, Strange Angels, play jazz at the Imperial at Washburn Imports this Thursday, January 17, 2019, 8-11 PM. 1800 N Orange BLVD / Orlando, FL 32804. https://www.facebook.com/events/2187842224789407/

This week has Miami Book Fair International conversations with Ben Fountain,Celeste Ng, and Gary Shteyngart! Ben Fountain and beverages in the Confucius Institute at Miami Dade College. TEXTS DISCUSSED

Episode 347 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download. This week is a cornucopia of poetry conversation with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Billy Collins! Juan Felipe Herrera Billy Collins TEXTS DISCUSSED