Poured Over

“If my mother and my grandma were in this book, how would they be? And what kind of love can I show them as a writer…”  The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin brings readers to pre-Civil War New Orleans to meet a cast of strong, fierce women in a hope filled novel of freedom and liberation. Ruffin joins us to talk about the intricacies of writing about his hometown, cultural impacts on identity, building empathy through fiction and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.    This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Featured Books (Episode):  The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin  We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin  The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.  Ours by Phillip B. Williams  American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson  Lone Women by Victor LaValle  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov  The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison  Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides   12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup  Trust Exercise by Susan Choi 

Two historical novels with elements of fantasy and folklore will bring readers from the battlefields of World War One to the last years of the Qing Dynasty in China.   Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts shows the terrors of war and the unsettling and fantastical things that can appear in its shadow. Arden joins us to talk about her extensive research, classical allusions in her writing and more with guest host, Jenna Seery.  The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo bridges the mystical and the familiar with an expansive story featuring a detective and mysterious and sly (yet alluring) fox spirits. Choo talked with us about writing in this setting, cultural influences on her work, connections to nature and more with host, Miwa Messer.  We end this episode with a TBR Topoff from booksellers, Marc and Mary.   Featured Books (Episode):  The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden   The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo  The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden   All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque  Paradise Lost by John Milton  The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov  The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo  The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo  The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng  Featured Books (TBR Topoff): The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern  The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu  

“I describe this as a love story steeped in loss.”  How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica is a heartbreaking yet hopeful debut novel of first love, first loss and how we become ourselves. Ordorica joined us live at B&N Upper West Side to talk about growing into your identity, writing community legacy, his literary influences and more with guest host, Jenna Seery.   This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Featured Books (Episode):   How We Named the Stars by Andrés N. Ordorica  Diaries of a Terrorist by Christopher Soto  Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles  Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett  The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros 

“To have freedom you have to give something up, to have love — to experience love as an action — there has to be something that you're willing to sacrifice…”  Ours is the epic and lyrical debut novel by poet Phillip B. Williams, featuring unforgettable characters woven together with folklore and humanity’s search for freedom. Williams joined us to talk about how his characters shaped the story, the influences of poetry on his prose, including myths and legends and more with Miwa Messer, the host of Poured Over.   This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Featured Books (Episode): Ours by Phillip B. Williams  Mutiny by Phillip B. Williams  Blindness by José Saramago  One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  Cannibal by Safiya Sinclair 

“The peril actually comes from us — our prejudice, our biases, and our conceived threats, not from artificial intelligence, so we need to reconsider what is human and how we're treating other human beings…” Unsettling and chilling, Bora Chung’s Your Utopia is a story collection featuring robot vehicles, sentient elevators and futures both hopeful and terrifying. Chung joins us to talk about the dangers of human influenced A.I., caring for our future robot overlords, adding humor to horror and more with guest host, Jenna Seery. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.                   New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.         Featured Books (Episode): Your Utopia by Bora Chung Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung R.U.R. by Karel Čapek

“You can write all the books you want — they are going to be very pretty, but if they don't tell the truth, comprehensively, it's just not worth the effort.”  Lucy Sante’s memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition, is deeply personal and features expertly crafted prose that tells the author’s journey to authenticity and freedom in her identity. Sante joins us to talk about the small steps that lead to a change in perspective, creating community, incorporating visual arts and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.   This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Featured Books (Episode): I Heard Her Call My Name by Lucy Sante  Low Life by Lucy Sante  The Factory of Facts by Lucy Sante 

“If you write about a person, you're writing about that person because they're special.” The Book of Love by Kelly Link combines fantastical elements, varieties of love and a supernatural bargain — all set in a picturesque seaside town. Link joins us to talk about what led her from short stories to her first novel, how she created her magic system, the influence of music on her writing and more with guest host, Kat Sarfas. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by guest host Kat Sarfas and mixed by Harry Liang.                   New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.         Featured Books (Episode): The Book of Love by Kelly Link White Cat, Black Dog by Kelly Link The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch by Melinda Taub Your Utopia by Bora Chung The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman The Hearts of Horses by Molly Gloss

“I am of the mind that a novel should not leave you with a thesis … I think a novel should reflect the deep parts of human behavior in such an accurate way that a wormhole forms…”  With themes of race and class in a college town, Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It balances characters you can’t get enough of with a nonstop plot. Reid joins us to talk about money and marriage, power dynamics in academia, creating her crackling dialogue and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.   This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Come and Get It by Kiley Reid  Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid  Paying for the Party by Elizabeth A. Armstrong & Laura T. Hamilton  Monoculture by F.S. Michaels  The Hours by Michael Cunningham  

“I'm interested in the limitations of the mind — like that your brain really does only go down so many paths, and then there's a million paths that for some reason, it never goes down…”  Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries is a memoir in a form all its own. Told in order, sentence by sentence from A to Z, to tell a story of identity and change in a lyrically constructed way. Heti joins us to talk about the inception and writing of this book, intense and purposeful editing, creative process and more with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.  This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.                    New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.          Featured Books (Episode):  Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti Pure Colour by Sheila Heti How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Ticknor by Sheila Heti 

“I feel like these poems tell stories in and of themselves. And perhaps as an entire collection, they tell a greater story. … We're human beings — people laugh, love, hope, dream, dance, smile, live, die, just like everybody else. And Black people need to be reminded of that, and everybody else needs to be reminded of that.”   This Is the Honey is the new poetry collection edited by Kwame Alexander featuring carefully curated poems from contemporary Black poets. Alexander joins us on the show to talk about compiling a collection of pieces, his own connections to this work and themes of identity and community with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over.  This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Executive Producer Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.               New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.           Featured Books (Episode):  This Is the Honey edited by Kwame Alexander  Why Fathers Cry at Night by Kwame Alexander  The Crossover by Kwame Alexander