Poured Over

“So you know, something that is a big part of my project…is actually this idea that we deserve pleasure. I think that pleasure and care, these are antidotes against various kinds of violence and degradation that we're all beset with. And so for me, when I wrote this novel, I did not write it for a critic at The New York Times, you know. I wrote it for the past version of me. And I wrote for someone who would need to read this, who would be reading this book after work on the subway.”  Sarah's Thankam Mathews is making a terrific debut with All This Could Be Different—longlisted for the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction and a finalist for our own Discover Prize—and she joins us on the show to talk about channeling her characters, subverting the coming-of-age novel, challenging the expectations of the immigrant experience, queerness, finding our people and much more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. Featured Books (Episode):  Normal People by Sally Rooney  Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid  Luster by Raven Leilani  The New Me by Halle Butler  Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays). A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Hua Hsu, author of 'STAY TRUE,' discusses grief, friendship, and coming of age in his memoir. He touches on Asian American icons, changing conversations about Asian America, and the process of writing his book. The podcast explores themes of self-discovery, authenticity in writing, and the evolution of the Asian American community.

“I feel like very often when we have stories about womanizing characters, whether we piece those stories out, so we see each woman—individually or not, they don't really have stories. They don't really have lives except as they relate to that main character. So, it was always going to be each woman steps forward, each woman gets a chapter.” Laura Warrell takes us behind the scenes of her smart, sharp and deeply resonant debut novel Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm. She joins us on the show to talk about flipping the script, the women she writes about (and letting her characters be who they are), love and loneliness, her writing process and much more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.    Featured Books (Episode):  Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm by Laura Warrell  Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara    Featured Books (TBR Topoff):  Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell   Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.    A complete transcript of this episode is available here. 

“I did nothing but read the entire time I was writing this….literally every waking moment, I was doing some type of research and a lot of research I did for this book was on joy and celebration and on community. Because, yes, we're going through all of these things, but there's a reason the cover is bright and celebratory, because that's also where the book goes, where the journey goes.” Hafizah Augustus Geter covers an incredible amount of ground in her memoir The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin: past and present, able-bodied and disabled, home and away, grief and love. She joins us on the show to talk about her family’s story, her father’s art (which appears in full color throughout the book), who gets to make history and why, her literary influences and more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer.   Featured Books:  The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin by Hafizah Augustus Geter  Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib  The Yellow House by Sarah Broom  Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer  Year of The Tiger by Alice Wong  Border and Rule by Harsha Walia     Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).   A complete transcript of this episode is available here. 

“Ever since we left, when I was 13, it's a place that I think about constantly. I think about it in hypothetical terms. It's something that I just sort of lose myself in all the time. I left before things really got complicated. I left when I was 13. What if I had stayed until now? And what if I had left and gone back? You know, the book kind of stemmed from this story that I had been working through in my mind, all of these hypothetical versions of myself. And then it turned into this.” Bobby Finger, writer and co-host of the celebrity and entertainment podcast Who? Weekly, breaks new ground in his debut novel, The Old Place. Inspired by his real-life roots in Texas, Finger explores the consequences of love and loss in this small-town narrative centered around a retired schoolteacher burdened by a decade-old secret. Bobby discusses his journey to writing a novel, his literary influences and creative process—and more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer.  And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.   Featured Books (Episode):  The Old Place by Bobby Finger Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple  Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh    Featured Books (TBR Topoff):  Mrs. Fletcher by Tom Perotta  A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman    Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).   A complete transcript of this episode is available here. 

“I already had a kind of Don Quixote set up in mind. And so I was like, Wouldn't it be funny if Arthur was the sort of Sancho Panza in this? I'll just barely touch on it and see where it goes. And I thought he needs someone totally full of himself to shake him up…” Readers fell in love with Arthur Less — and Andrew Sean Greer took home a Pulitzer Prize for Less, the novel that introduced us to Arthur. Andrew joins us on the show to talk about his new novel, the not-really-a-sequel, Less Is Lost, turning tragedy into comedy, rewrites, what scares him as a writer, his literary influences, the writing advice that he still relies on and much more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we finish this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.   Featured Books (Episode): Less (winner of the Pulitzer Prize) by Andrew Sean Greer The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer  The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer Chéri by Colette Don Quixote by Cervantes A Boy's Own Life by Edmund White Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene Moby Dick by Herman Melville   Featured Books (TBR Topoff): A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood Bucky F*cking Dent by David Duchovny   Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).   A full transcript of this episode is available here.

“This book feels very much…drawing from the Black Saints: Whitney Houston, Paul Mooney, Little Richard, Luther Vandross, almost my own canon, my own tradition, my own history, to make sense of what's happening now. I’m not going back to Homer, necessarily. I'm kind of trying to create a new lineage, because I feel that we've been betrayed by our presented histories.” Saeed Jones joins us on the show to riff on his incredibly personal and indelible new poetry collection Alive at the End of the World, along with the pervasiveness of grief, how both he and his writing have changed since he published his memoir, what’s up with his new podcast, Vibe Check, and much more with Poured Over’s host Miwa Messer.   Featured Books (episode) Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones Prelude to Bruise by Saeed Jones How We Fight for Our Lives by Saeed Jones Furious Cool by David Henry and Joe Henry   Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).   A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

Abdulrazak Gurnah, an epic storyteller, discusses his multi-generational novel set in East Africa exploring life, loss, and love. They talk about the legacy of colonialism and the concept of home. The author also shares their experiences of journeying to the UK, their writing influences, and captivating book recommendations.

“I'm heading into my mid 70s and I really want to just get into a novel and live inside it. No sense of hurry. No deadline, no sense that anyone's waiting for this. I don’t want to talk to anyone about it, but I just want to inhabit it.” Award-winning author Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons, takes readers on an emotional journey through the life of one man and McEwan joins us on the show to talk about aging, writing a novel in lockdown, what kinds of books make us cry and much more with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.   Featured Books (episode): Lessons by Ian McEwan Atonement by Ian McEwan Herzog by Saul Bellow Cocoon by Zhang Yueran Finnegans Wake by James Joyce   Featured Books (TBR Topoff): Black Swan Green by David Mitchell Moonglow by Michael Chabon   This episode of Poured Over was produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).   A complete transcript of this episode is available here.

“I start with the emotion. I don't know what the story is. I don't know who the characters are necessarily. I'm working on very little like, I'm thinking, ‘oh, well, the way this light looks through a window’, or something — very few details here and there. But I don't know what happens in this story.” Join three amazing authors talking about their three fabulous fall reads: If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery, The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li and Bliss Montage by Ling Ma. The authors speak with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer, about the balance between humor and dread, how they start a project, some of their favorite writers & more.   Featured Books (Episode) If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li Bliss Montage by Ling Ma Severance by Ling Ma How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Moshin Hamid Passing by Nella Larsen Quicksand by Nella Larsen The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty Moby Dick by Herman Mellville Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara by Frank O’Hara   Featured Books (TBR Topoff): A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin Artist in the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro  St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell   Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.   A full transcript of this episode is available here.