Thresholds

Ahmed Naji, a writer from Egypt, is presently a fellow at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. His work touches on a variety of themes, including sci-fi, Islamic methodology, sex, friendship, prison literature, music, magic, and masculinity. Naji’s novel, Using Life, was among the “Tales of a Fantastic Future” shortlisted by the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards (2018). The work also led to a two-year prison sentence in Egypt for obscenity and disturbing public morals. Naji served a year of his sentence and was honored by the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil (neh-ZOO / KOO-mah / tah-TILL) is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (2020, Milkweed Editions), which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year. She has four previous poetry collections: OCEANIC (Copper Canyon Press, 2018), LUCKY FISH (2011), AT THE DRIVE-IN VOLCANO (2007), and MIRACLE FRUIT (2003), the last three from Tupelo Press. Her most recent chapbook is LACE & PYRITE, a collaboration of epistolary garden poems with the poet Ross Gay. Her writing appears twice in the Best American Poetry Series, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, and Tin House.Honors include a poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Pushcart Prize, a Mississippi Arts Council grant, and being named a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. In 2021, she became the first-ever poetry editor for SIERRA magazine, the story-telling arm of The Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To celebrate the paperback release of Thin Places, this special episode features Jordan in the interview seat in a conversation with returning guest Lydia Millet!Jordan Kisner writes essays, features, and reviews for n+1, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Believer, and others. She also writes a column for The Paris Review. Her first book, Thin Places, was one of NPR’s “best books of 2020.” She is also the host of Thresholds.Lydia Millet has written more than a dozen novels and story collections, often about the ties between people and other animals and the crisis of extinction. Her latest novel A Children's Bible was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020. She also writes essays, opinion pieces and other ephemera and has worked as an editor and staff writer at the Center for Biological Diversity since 1999.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fariha Róisín is an NYC based, Australian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist with an interest in her wellness, Muslim identity, race, self-care pop culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Vice, Village Voice and others. She writes a weekly newsletter here and is also the Deputy Editor of Violet Book. She has published How To Cure A Ghost (Abrams, 2019), Being In Your Body (Abrams, 2019) and Like A Bird (Unnamed Press, 2020) which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by NPR, Globe and Mail, Harper’s Bazaar, a must-read by Buzzfeed News and received a starred review by the Library Journal. Her first work of non-fiction is forthcoming and entitled Who Is Wellness For? On Radical Wellness (HarperWave, Spring 2022).For more Thresholds, visit www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melissa Febos is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin’s Press 2010), and the essay collection, Abandon Me (Bloomsbury 2017), which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, a Publishing Triangle Award finalist, an Indie Next Pick, and was named a Best Book of 2017 by Esquire, Book Riot, The Cut, Electric Literature, Bustle, Medium, Refinery29, The Brooklyn Rail, Salon, The Rumpus, and others. Her second essay collection, Girlhood, was published by Bloomsbury on March 30, 2021. A craft book will be published by Catapult in 2022. The recipient of an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, she is an associate professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novels PARAKEET (New York Times Editors’ Choice) and 2 A.M. AT THE CAT’S PAJAMAS (NPR Best Books 2014), and the story collection SAFE AS HOUSES (Iowa Short Fiction Award). Her fourth book, the novel BEAUTYLAND, is forthcoming from FSG.Her work has been translated into eight languages, and has received The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fellowship in Cork, Ireland, The O. Henry Prize, The Pushcart Prize and two special mentions, fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook Writers Colony, The Center For Fiction NYC, and Sewanee Writers Conference, where she was the Walter E. Dakin fellow. Her work has twice been featured on NPR’s “Selected Shorts” program. A former editor for One Story and Catapult, she teaches fiction in the MFA programs of NYU and The New School. In Spring 2020 she was the Distinguished Kittredge Visiting Writer in University of Montana’s MFA.She has worked as a biographer for people living with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).For more Thresholds, visit www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Esmé Weijun Wang is a novelist and essayist. She is the author of the New York Times-bestselling essay collection, The Collected Schizophrenias (2019), and a debut novel, The Border of Paradise, which was called a Best Book of 2016 by NPR. She was named by Granta as one of the “Best of Young American Novelists” in 2017 and won the Whiting Award in 2018. Born in the Midwest to Taiwanese parents, she is the founder of The Unexpected Shape Community for ambitious writers living with illness and disability. She can be found at esmewang.com and on Twitter @esmewang.Find more Thresholds at www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lynn Steger Strong’s most recent novel, Want, was one of Time Magazine's 100 Best Books of 2020. Her first novel, Hold Still, was released by Liveright/WW Norton in 2016. Her nonfiction has been published by Guernica, Los Angeles Review of Books, Elle.com, Catapult, Lit Hub, and others. She teaches both fiction and non-fiction writing at Columbia University, Fairfield University, and the Pratt Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Born in Veracruz, Mexico, in 1982, Fernanda Melchor is widely recognized as one of the most exciting new voices of Mexican literature. Her novel Hurricane Season was a finalist for the 2020 Man Booker International Prize and was long-listed for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature. A collection, This Is Not Miami, is forthcoming from New Directions.Find more Thresholds at www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lydia Millet has written more than a dozen novels and story collections, often about the ties between people and other animals and the crisis of extinction. Her latest novel A Children's Bible was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020, her story collection Fight No More received an Award of Merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019, and her collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010. She also writes essays, opinion pieces and other ephemera and has worked as an editor and staff writer at the Center for Biological Diversity since 1999. She lives in the desert outside Tucson with her children and boyfriend.Find more from Thresholds at www.thisisthresholds.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.