Thresholds

Hafizah Geter (The Black Period) joins Jordan to discuss her family's influence on her work, the power of memory, being in conversation with the writers you love, and how all of us live in a mix of genres.MENTIONED:Goya's Black Paintings"Fighting Erasure" by Parul SehgalToni Morrison's concept of rememoryFela Kuti, Yussef Lateef, Otis ReddingHafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian American writer, poet, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collection Un-American, an NAACP Image Award and PEN Open Book Award finalist. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Bomb, The Believer, The Paris Review, among many others. The poetry committee co-chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council, she is a Bread Loaf Katharine Bakeless nonfiction fellow, a Cave Canem poetry fellow, and a 92Y Women inPower Fellow and holds an MFA in nonfiction from New York University, where she was an Axinn Fellow. Hafizah lives in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam Lipsyte (No One Left to Come Looking For You) joins Jordan to talk about giving up on punk rock, rediscovering a passion for writing, and the revelation that if you realize nobody cares, then you can do the thing that makes you happy.MENTIONED:DungbeetleRiverbank State ParkJohn CheeverGalaxie 500Sam Lipsyte's latest novel is No One Left to Come Looking For You. He is the author of the story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and four novels: Hark, The Ask (a New York Times Notable Book), The Subject Steve, and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Best American Short Stories, among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Heather Radke joins Jordan to talk about Butts: A Backstory, the playful invitation of the book's title, the general unruliness of bodies, and the joys of a JSTOR deep-dive.MENTIONED:Jodie Foster's Coppertone ad"Baby Got Back," Sir Mix-a-lotElizabeth Alexander's "The Venus Hottentot"The Normman & Norma StatuesHeather Radke is an essayist, journalist, and contributing editor and reporter at Radiolab, the Peabody Award­–winning program from WNYC. She has written for publications including The Believer, Longreads, and The Paris Review, and she teaches at Columbia University’s creative writing MFA Program. Before becoming a writer, Heather worked as a curator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in Chicago.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thresholds reaches its centenary episode with equal parts celebration and consideration. We reached out to old friends to leave us some voicemails, Jordan wrote a musing on this particular milestone, and we're doing a little giveaway to celebrate all of you who've helped bring us this far along the path.Mentioned: "Notebook, 1981," by Eileen MylesThe Isolation Journals by Suleika JaouadThanks to all of our guests, to our team, and to you listeners! Here's to many more, in 2023 and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the end of our last full capsule for 2022 -- and what a joyful, life-affirming batch of conversations it was! First up, we've got Saeed Jones offering some writing advice (and an exercise, of sorts) -- then some alumni news and a call to pre-order several 2023 releases -- and finally, Chloé Cooper Jones and Jordan get into talking about revision and the life-affirming process of writing.MENTIONED:The Best American Essays 2022, edited by Alexander CheeBiography of X by Catherine LaceyTerrace Story by Hilary LeichterThe Last Catastrophe by Allegra HydeStay tuned for some end-of-year surprises and celebrations, coming very shortly!For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alyssa Songsiridej (Little Rabbit) chats with Jordan about moving to a new city, the scary-freeing experience of being away from one's community, and how letting a book out into the world is a process of letting go.MENTIONED:Days of Distraction by Alexandra ChangHow Should a Person Be? by Sheila HetiMating in Captivity by Esther Perelhow cold winters get in BostonAlyssa Songsiridej is an editor at Electric Literature. Her fiction has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Indiana Review, The Offing, and Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and has been supported by Yaddo, the Ucross Foundation, the Ragdale Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the VCCA and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Little Rabbit is her first novel. A National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree, she lives in Philadelphia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan talks with Asali Solomon about The Days of Afrekete, the unexpected discovery that she’s a funny writer, and trying to impart wisdom to students while she’s still learning too. MENTIONED:Get a Life (1990-1992)The Simple Stories by Langston HughesThe Book of Night Women by Marlon JamesAn Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCrackenAsali Solomon’s first novel, Disgruntled, was named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and The Denver Post. Her debut story collection, Get Down, earned her a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honor, and was a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. Her work has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, Vibe, Essence, The Paris Review Daily, McSweeney’s, and several anthologies, and on NPR. Solomon teaches fiction writing and literature of the African diaspora at Haverford College. She was born and raised in Philadelphia, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poet Saeed Jones joins Jordan to talk about the long-term experience of grief, the intensity of writing from the point of view of another person, and the unexpected trilogy of his first three books.MENTIONED:Paul MooneyDiahann CarrollWhitney HoustonToni MorrisonSaeed Jones is the author of the memoir HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES, winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the poetry collection PRELUDE TO BRUISE, winner for the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry. His poetry and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, Oxford American and GQ among other publications. His new poetry collection ALIVE AT THE END OF THE WORLD is out now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alex Marzano-Lesnevich (The Fact of a Body) joins Jordan to talk about a particularly life-altering haircut, the power of a sequined tuxedo, and what it means for a culture to put a narrative onto a person.MENTIONED:South PacificGhostly Matters by Avery GordonMy Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn ShaplandJoseph LobdellAlex Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, which received a Lambda Literary Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the Grand Prix des Lectrices ELLE, the Prix des libraires du Quebec, and the Prix France Inter-JDD, an award for one book of any genre in the world. They have been the recipient of fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, the Maine Arts Commission, the Eccles Centre at the British Library, and the Black Mountain Institute, as well as a Rona Jaffe Award. Marzano-Lesnevich has written for The New York Times, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Boston Globe, Oxford American, Harper’s, and The Best American Essays editions for both 2020 and 2022. They earned their BA at Columbia University, their JD at Harvard Law School, and their MFA at Emerson College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chloé Cooper Jones (Easy Beauty) joins Jordan to talk about avoiding mandates, about writing through pain and trauma, and about finding the neutral room in one's own mind.MENTIONED:"Everything is copy" -- Nora Ephronsacral agenesisRichard SerraChloé Cooper Jones is a writer based in New York City. In 2020, Chloé was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing for “Fearing for His Life,” a profile of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner. She was the recipient of the 2020 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and the 2021 Howard Foundation Grant from Brown University. Both grants were in support of her debut memoir, Easy Beauty. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.