Book Fight

In this free bonus episode, we meet up with poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert on the floor of the AWP conference in Los Angeles. We talk with her about what kind of poetry goes over well at bars, navigating the overwhelming AWP bookfair, her advice column for Electric Literature and whether being an SEO expert and content marketer is a good gig for a poet.

Welcome to the Spring of Success! During these seasonal episodes we'll be reading writers' breakthrough stories or essays and talking about how they achieved success. We'll also talk about various aspects of artistic success. This week we're talking about Wells Tower, who broke through with the story collection Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. Also: people who didn't find success until after their death, and why we're so obsessed with those stories. For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com. Thanks for listening!

This week we're reading the first novel in C.S. Lewis's beloved Narnia series, which Mike loved as a child and somehow Tom missed out on entirely. Will the book hold up to the scrutiny of two skeptical, sometimes cynical adults? Will the Christian elements feel too heavy handed? Or will Mike and Tom find themselves filled with earnest, childlike wonder? Only one way to find out! For more visit us online at bookfightpod.com.

It's the last week for our Winter of Wayback episodes this year, and we're investigating 1975. We've got a Harry Crews essay from Playboy about a day spent with some local grits in Johnson City, Tennessee. Plus the beginnings of the men's rights movement, Philadelphia's mayor giving the press the silent treatment, and the inventor of the Pet Rock. For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com. And if you're going to be AWP, come by the Barrelhouse table and say hello!

This week's book is actually two New Yorker profiles of a famous bohemian, writer, poet and all-around Greenwich Village eccentric. Mitchell first wrote about Gould in 1942, then wrote a much longer follow-up in the early 60's about his further dealings with Gould and his growing suspicion that the long book Gould had been working on for years didn't, in fact, exist. We debate the ethical dimensions of the writer-subject relationship, and whether Mitchell was fair in his treatment of Gould, who clearly suffered from mental illness. We've also got an installment of South Philly News, about an aggrieved parent in a hipster coffee shop. For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com

We've zoomed back in time to 1935, a year in which Philly politics got ugly, and monkeys ran wild on the streets of New York City. It was also the "golden age of detective fiction," so we read two stories by John Dickson Carr, considered a master of the form, particularly what's known as "locked room mysteries." For more, check us out online at bookfightpod.com.

Guest Jason Fagone (Horseman of the Esophagus) picked Lillian Ross's famous work of embedded Hollywood journalism, PICTURE, for which the writer followed along as John Huston tried to bring Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage to the silver screen. We talk about the lessons writers and other creators can take from the book, and why it was such a formative reading experience for Jason. Plus: Philadelphia politics, the Wing Bowl, and what it takes to make it as a freelancer. For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com.

On this week's episode we're discussing Alfred Chester, whose life took enough bizarre twists and turns to inspire this 2008 Blake Bailey-penned profile in Vice. We also take a deep dive into the music of 1958, including the first breakthrough girl group and lots of goofy novelty songs. Who wears short shorts, indeed? For more, including pictures and videos of what we talked about on today's episode, visit us online at bookfightpod.com.

Join us as we talk earnestness versus cynicism, Philly vs. Dallas, and owning a Himalayan salt block versus maintaining your dignity! We're joined by Andrew Brininstool, author of Crude Sketches Done in Quick Succession (Queens Ferry Press), to talk about Chris Bachelder's episodic novel about an assistant professor, his young child, and his daily struggles with himself and the world around him. For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com.

This week we're zooming back in time to 1883, where we read a story by Sarah Orne Jewett, noted chronicler of New England life, and discuss so many other things: art theft, drinking the water of the Schuylkill, and the time one of Mike's ancestors maybe committed a murder. For more, including links to some of what we talked about this week, visit us online at bookfightpod.com.