Thresholds

Jordan is joined by Pulitzer-winning poet and memoirist Gregory Pardlo — currently teaching at NYU in Abu Dhabi — to talk about sobriety, understanding the stories of one’s life, and answering the self-imposed question “What god are you serving, Pardlo, when you write X?”Gregory Pardlo was born in Philadelphia in 1968. He is the author of Air Traffic (Knopf, 2018), a memoir in essays, and the poetry collections Digest (Four Way Books, 2014), which received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and was shortlisted for the 2015 NAACP Image Award, and Totem (American Poetry Review), which was selected by Brenda Hillman for the American Poetry Review/Honickman Prize in 2007. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, among others. He is the poetry editor of Virginia Quarterly Review and is currently teaching at NYU in Abu Dhabi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi listeners – I just started a new miniseries from Wondery and Topic Studios called Operator, the untold true story of the phone sex line company that took over the world.Make sure to Follow “Operator” on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan talks Susan Orlean (author of On Animals and The Library Book and The Orchid Thief and those hilarious tweets) about finding the right way to tell a story, taking risks in hopes an audience will come along, and starting out as a beat reporter writing about the drudgery of city government.Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of eight bestselling books, including The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, Saturday Night, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in Los Angeles and may be reached at SusanOrlean.com and Twitter.com/SusanOrleanFor more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan talks to memoirist and fiction writer Saïd Sayrafiezadeh about growing up in the Socialist Workers Party, deprogramming from childhood, and how even in fiction, the memoirist doesn't fall far from the memoir.Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is the author, most recently, of the story collection American Estrangement. His memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free, was called one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times and his story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fiction Prize. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, Granta, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, and New American Stories, among other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers’ fiction fellowship. Saïd lives in New York City with his wife, the artist Karen Mainenti, and serves on the board of directors for the New York Foundation for the Arts. He is a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities and he leads the Creative Nonfiction track in Hunter's MFA program. He also teaches creative writing at Columbia University and New York University, where he received an Outstanding Teaching Award.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe!--------------------------------This episode is presented in collaboration with the 2021 Miami Book Fair. Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is just one of the many writers from around the world participating in the nation’s largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages. This year's Miami Book Fair takes place online and in person from November 14th to November 21st. Please visit miamibookfair.com for more information, or follow MBF at @miamibookfair Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan sits down to a wild, funny, moving conversation with violinist, composer, Bad Seed, and author of Nina Simone's Gum Warren Ellis. It's an honest examination of where Warren's new book came from, how he learned how to write it, and why the potato is the miracle of the tuber world.Warren Ellis is an Australian multi-instrumentalist and composer, most famous for his work as collaborator and bandmate of Nick Cave, in both the Bad Seeds and Grinderman. Both solo and alongside Nick he is also a multi-award-winning film composer whose soundtracks include The Proposition, The Road, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Mustang and most recently This Train I Ride. His own band Dirty Three have released eight studio albums since 1994 and he is an in-demand producer and writer, working with artists including Marianne Faithful, Jupiter and Okwess and Tinariwen.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan talks to the incomparable Rita Dove about discovery, about taking a break from creating and publishing, and about re-learning to hold a pen again after her MS diagnosis.Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, is the only poet honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. Her recent works include Playlist for the Apocalypse, Sonata Mulattica, and the National Book Award–shortlisted Collected Poems: 1974–2004. In 2021 she was awarded the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Charlottesville, where she teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe!--------------------------------This episode is presented in collaboration with the 2021 Miami Book Fair. Rita Dove is just one of the many writers from around the world participating in the nation’s largest gathering of writers and readers of all ages. This year's Miami Book Fair takes place online and in person from November 14th to November 21st. Please visit miamibookfair.com for more information, or follow MBF at @miamibookfair Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sanaë Lemoine tells Jordan about the moment she learned her father had a second family and the ways that that reveal changed her life, her family, her relationship to secrets -- and helped inspire The Margot Affair.Sanaë Lemoine was born in Paris to a Japanese mother and French father, and raised in France and Australia. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her MFA at Columbia University. She now lives in New York.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan talks to Andrew Martin about a trip to Montana in the midst of a tumultuous year, putting on a persona for writing, and how the two combined to change the way he tells stories.Andrew Martin's most recent book is a story collection entitled Cool for America. His first novel Early Work was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and a finalist for the Cabell First Novelist Award. His stories and essays have been published in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, and T: The New York Times Style Magazine. He lives in New York with his partner, Laura, and their dog Bonnie.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan chats with writer and critic Rebecca Carroll about the tricky nature of writing memoir, being the mother of a Black son, and about the power of being the one to tell the story.Rebecca Carroll is a writer, creative consultant, editor-at-large, and host of the podcast Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 Essential Conversations about Race in a Pivotal Year for America (WNYC Studios). Most recently, she was a cultural critic at WNYC, and a critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times. Her writing has been published widely, and she’s the author of several books about race in America, including the award-winning Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America. Her memoir, Surviving the White Gaze (Simon & Schuster, Feb 2021), has been optioned by MGM Studios and Killer Films with Rebecca attached to adapt for TV.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jordan talks to Maggie Nelson about hope, about hitting one's threshold, and about trying to respond to current events in On Freedom without dating the text.Maggie Nelson is the author of several books of poetry and prose, most recently On Freedom. She's also the author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Argonauts. She teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.This episode is brought to you by the House of CHANEL, creator of the iconic J12 sports watch. Always in motion, the J12 travels through time without ever losing its identity.Want more Thresholds? Visit www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.