The Virtual Memories Show

Let's commemorate the 200th anniversary of John Keats' untimely death with a conversation with Anahid Nersessian, author of Keats' Odes: A Lover's Discourse (University of Chicago). We get into how she read Keats' letters to Fanny Brawne at WAY too young an age, how she's lived with his poems since childhood and how they've changed for her over the years, and why it kills her that no one has disinterred Fanny's final letters to Keats (which he never read and are buried with him). We talk about her relationship to the western canon, the implicit (and explicit) sexual violence of Ode on a Grecian Urn, her harassment by a Latin teacher in high school and how it affected her career path, Keats' radicalist, proto-Marxist tones and the benefits of reading The Communist Manifesto in funny voices as a 7th grader. We also discuss what it's like to have a couple of strict old-school Freudians for parents, why she doesn't have time for social media (and why she didn't go overboard integrating her personal experiences into the book), the thread of Keats' Odes that has led to her next book on the Cato Street Conspiracy, and more. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Author, editor and activist Kate Maruyama rejoins the show to celebrate the publication of her wonderfully creepy new novella, Family Solstice (Omnium Gatherum). We get into why she wrote a haunted house story at a time when everyone's stuck in their homes, how she pushed herself to finish the book during the early months of the pandemic, and how Family Solstice celebrates the great (and maybe a little haunted) home she grew up in. We get into what Kate's mother, the late, great Kit Reed, might have made of This Whole Situation we're in, the positives of holding a virtual book tour (including the launch in a virtual version of her childhood home), what her and her students' pandemic-era fiction looks like, the joy of getting her first Asimov's publication last year, and more! Follow Kate on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

With Drawn & Quarterly publishing new editions of King-Cat Classix, Map of My Heart, and Perfect Example, what better time for John Porcellino to return to the podcast? We talk about how King-Cat Comics & Stories has evolved over the ~30 years (!) he's been making it, how the refinement of his art and storytelling mirrors the battle of intuition vs. OCD, and how his newest comics (even those written before 2020) reflect life during the pandemic. We get into how Buddhism has helped him cope with life and aging, his lurking concern that he has an expiration date, what he wants to accomplish before then, and what it means to publish issue #80 and to look at reaching #100. We also discuss the joyfully awful band Flipper and what it's like being Flipper for aspiring storytellers, the example Lynda Barry set for him, the influence John has had on my stories in recent years, his joy at seeing his name drawn by Robert Crumb, and why his new dog Arlo is A Good Boy even when he barks during podcasts. Follow John on Twitter and Instagram, and support his work via Patreon • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

With her debut memoir, Aftershocks (Simon & Schuster), Nadia Owusu explores the fault lines of identity, race, and justice, and the ways trauma and myths are transmitted through the generations. We talk about her upbringing in Europe (UK& Italy) and Africa (Ghana, Tanzania & Ethiopia), the meanings of skin color in different cultures, her social justice work, and what she had to learn about race in America. We get into what it's like to live on high alert, how we reclaim our stories and reframe our world, how Aftershocks evolved from private project to public document, and how even thin soil can let us extend roots. Follow Nadia on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Is it unhip to search for a meaningful pattern in life? Sven Birkerts rejoins the show to talk about his new book, Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory: Bookmarked (IG Publishing), which explores time, memory, and those aforementioned meaningful patterns. We get into Sven's history with Nabokov's memoir, his own impulse toward memoir as he approached 50, and the challenge of writing about someone whose prose is as incandescent as Nabokov's. We talk about larger questions of literary greatness, the nature of individuality in an age of distributed social networks, whether Nabokov's best-known book will survive, and what other books and authors have become "unsafe" for undergrad readers. We also gab about packing one's library, finding the perfect notebook, and what the post-pandemic world may look like. Follow Sven on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

A series of deaths and personal losses in 2018 hang over Mark Wunderlich's poems in his new collection, God of Nothingness (Graywolf Press). We talk about that writing, how living through it unwittingly prepared him for the past year in Pandemia, and how the current situation compares with his arrival in NYC at the height of AIDS. We get into the uses of autobiography in poetry (his editor refers to his poems as "fiercely autobiographical"), Mark's queerness being tied to his poetic-self, the inspiration of James Merrill and his mentorship by JD McClatchy, the notion of a poem as a created environment permitting freedom, why his poems go from longhand to typewriter to computer, his experience conducting a Rilke course by snail-mail in 2020, his pandemic-adjustments as director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and more. Follow Mark on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

"At 50, everyone has the face he deserves," said George Orwell, but he died at 47, so what does he know? To celebrate turning 50, I use an obscure Woody Allen movie to talk about why I can't take stock of my life. Then the good part: I ask nearly 40 guests of the podcast one question, "What do you wish you'd done before the pandemic?" (You can skip right to that at 18:45.) Participants include Witold Rybczynski, Kathe Koja, John Holl, Emily Flake, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, Ian Kelley, David Townsend, John Bertagnolli, Jennifer Hayden, Richard Kadrey, Joan Marans Dim, Liniers, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Nessim, David Leopold, Tess Lewis, Ken Krimstein, Michael Shaw, Dmitry Samarov, Maria Alexander, Paul C. Tumey, Kyle Cassidy, Henry Wessells, Warren Woodfin, ES Glenn, Philip Boehm, Woodrow Phoenix, Rian Hughes, Alta L. Price, Derf Backderf, Frank Santoro, Boaz Roth, Carol Tyler, David Mikics, Michael Gerber, Walter Bernard, Whitney Matheson and Dean Haspiel! Follow me on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

With his amazing new novel, Sergeant Salinger (Bellevue Literary Press), Jerome Charyn evokes and explores J.D. Salinger's WWII experience in the Counter Intelligence Corps. We talk about Jerome's history with Salinger's work, his disdain for The Catcher in the Rye and his love of Nine Stories and their depiction of NYC of the 1940s and early '50s, the range of meanings and misunderstandings of Salinger's later silence, and Jerome's own terror of writing. Along the way, we get into Jerome's ventriloquism in his historical fiction, the limits of his artistic audacity, and whether he'd write a pastiche of Hemingway now that Hem's in public domain. Jerome being Jerome, we also discuss ping-pong, professional basketball, the older Michael Jordan as a Shakespearean character, and why he's writing a big essay about Mank. Follow Jerome on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

For the final episode of 2020, James Oseland rejoins the show to celebrate the launch of his World Food series of cookbooks, beginning with World Food: Mexico City (Ten Speed Press). We talk about his first experience with Mexico City, why he makes it his home, why he considers it North America's version of Rome, what it was like to treat it as though he was visiting it anew for this book, and his love of capturing places through local cooks and the dishes that they make. We get into the food-writing he loves and his broader literary influences, the changes in the food magazine industry, his disinterest in food travel TV, and Mexican cuisine's propensity for incorporating other culture's ingredients and foods. We also discuss subtle flavor of chapulinas in guacamole, why James had a pretty good 2020, all things considered, and why I have to make his charred tomato salsa recipe (in hopes that it'll release my inner cook). Follow James on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

With the wonderful documentary, The Booksellers (Greenwich Entertainment), director D.W. Young celebrates the world of antiquarian books and the personalities who trade in them. We talk about how The Booksellers came together, the need to celebrate book culture, and the experience of premiering the movie during the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair on the cusp of the pandemic. We also talk about each of our realizations that we're not that obsessive about old books, the ways collectors help preserve history, and the changing nature of what's antiquarian. We get into his move into filmmaking in his 30s (after working on a novel that didn't quite work out), DW's new project on the pandemic, the election, and New York artists, the thrill of the hunt and what we miss about the pre-digital world, the great experience of getting Fran Lebowitz in The Booksellers, a celebration of NYC's long-gone Book Row, and why he's optimistic about the next generation in book dealers and what they'll collect. Follow The Booksellers on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal