1storypod

NAPLES — Giancarlo DiTrapano is the founder, editor, and publisher of New York Tyrant. The magazine initially, starting in 2005. And then of Tyrant Books, starting in 2010. I spoke with him in his apartment in Naples two days ago, before flying back to the states yesterday. After flying out there 11 days ago. He wrote for Vice for a minute during the early tens and has ran the workshop Mors Tua Vita Mea, with the writer Chelsea Hodson, in Sezze, Italy since 2015. He grew up in Charleston, West Virginia and spent many years in New York City before moving out to Italy five years ago. We talk about how he came into the game with the magazine and the imprint, what he’s psyched about writing-wise now, a whole bunch of stuff. Thoroughly enjoyed ripping this convo and running it back. NY Tyrant: https://nytyrant.com # POD CONTENTS 6 min - pod start: G dissing and me tryna defend Ferrante lmaoo 8 min - Of Love and Other Demons by Garcia Marquez 9 min - Autoportrait by Edouard Leve / story versus bars/syntax 11 min - translated versus untranslated 11.5 min - G: “We should be recording this.” Me: “Bro it’s recording.” 12 min - coffee ready 13 min - move from kitchen to living room 13 min - McClanahan , bars v. Voice 14 min - on Liveblog (2018) by Megan Boyle 19 min - ‘prep’ = Preparation for the Next Life (2014) by Atticus Lish and ‘shapiro’ = Supremacist (2016) by Dave Shapiro 22 min - story on linking w Atticus Lish 26 min - How to Live is bigger than How to Write 27 min - Louise Gluck 32 min - Babak Lakghomi 38 min - "everything important in literature is about Death" 41 min - on mimicry / imitation 46 min - on exclamation points / nietzsche ecce homo 48 min - Lutz 49 min - Tyrant Vol 3 No 2 / young Diane Lane "the Outsiders" 55 min - story of G pulling up to nyc / FSG 59 min - putting out the first Tyrant mag / Sheila Heti 1 hr 2 min - DFW 1 hr 3 min - “all these lit mags started bc the Internet” 1 hr 6 min - Supremacist by David Shapiro 1 hr 12 min - drugs according to music era 1 hr 18 min - first linking w Castro 1 hr 21 min - what/who G hype on rn / Honor Levy 1 hr 22 min - Christopher Kennedy 1 hr 29 min - mors tua vita mea 1 hr 37 min - on how relevant or not relevant being out here for writing 1 hr 40 min - How the infrastructure of Literature upheld Intro song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1YnDZXJ7Dj0Uk9Pqu4tdAX?si=evQ3qjohRo2VxpXVIQwtig Sean Thor Conroe https://mobile.twitter.com/stconroe lives in Harlem.

HARLEM — I met the homie Vern a minute ago. I see him around all the time. I seem to see him once every couple weeks, like clockwork. Usually when the weather gets nicer suddenly, or nice enough to sit courtside or hoop at this lil park I be hooping at. Whenever we link we always torch one and really go in. Like every time it’s like a pod-length powwow. Today (12.11.20) we were goin in, mildly spleed, when he just started going off and I felt moved to set it down. But what we talking about is, all this past week, I seen a wake going on across the street, mad people out, like 50-60 people gathered, lighting candles, pouring up, playing music for a homie who passed. I hadn’t know what had happened, but then in this convo it came up. 5 min - real life consequences of rappers talking crazy on the track / RIP Fluff 7 min - on staying ready / long johns riff 10 min - walking to the store / on beats / how he tryna go in on the track 12 min - “fuck getting inside your head w the bars I’m tryna get inside you BODY” 12:30-14 min - inside the store 14 min - walking back to the park 14:30 - “no one wants to be a nothing” 15 min - how he was raised vs how youngins today raised 17 min - back at the park / on the homie Fluff , RIP 20 min - my lighter died https://twitter.com/stconroe lives in Harlem http://1storyhaus.com

DMV / NYC — Nicolette Polek is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Imaginary Museums (Soft Skull, 2020) is her first book. I saw Nicolette read from this collection a couple times early this year, and reread it a couple times this past fortnight. Buy Imaginary Museums: https://softskull.com/dd-product/imaginary-museums/ POD CONTENTS 3 min - pod start 4 min - small rooms big rooms card rooms basements 11 min - on “Winners” - https://magazine.nytyrant.com/winners/ 14 min - on how life in Slovakia vs. US 19 min - “Field Notes” / Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch 21 min - Krasznahorkai 24 min - on the traditions Nicolette partaking in 25 min - The Middle Stories by Sheila Heti 27 min - Intimate Lighting, dir. Ivan Passer 28 min - on making art in communism 31 min - experience working with Soft Skull 33 min - on how these stories written 36 min - me repeatedly belaboring “the Nature” 37 min - Thomas Tallis / Abba 39 min - on what Nicolette working on now / Marta Becket 41 min - solitude vs. sharing. Kierkegaard definition of a saint: “to will the one thing” 42 min - subsequent books as answers to questions posed in previous ones 44 min - female eels 47 min - on Waldorf 55 min - Rings of Saturn by Sebald 57 min - mycology – Sean Thor Conroe, http://1storyhaus.com

SILVER LAKE / HARLEM — Allie Rowbottom is the author of Jell-O Girls (Little Brown, 2018). She recently wrote this story in Hobart: https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/auralift She teaches writing classes for Catapult and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Jon Lindsey. Buy her book: http://www.allierowbottom.com POD CONTENTS: 3 min - pod start 6 min - how jell-o girls written thru reading her mom’s writing 10 min - on the blend of her / her mom’s pov .. influences 11 min - Jane (2005) by Maggie Nelson 15 min - speaking oneself into selfhood / marketing of the book 20 min - on sharing / generosity , exhibitionism 22 min - the survival instinct as energizing 25 min - on myopia/linearity vs empathy/panopticality 29 min - on radical superficiality / Botox 30 min - taking theory outta the classroom 32 min - articulating the unsayable 34 min - whether one can objectify oneself for power or nah 35 min - Marguerite Duras 41 min - botched Lil B the BasedGod riff 42 min - hysteria = ‘wandering womb’ (hyster-ectomy) 45 min - me admitting im a toxic male 47 min - privilege vs pain 49 min - how able to manage health issues explored in the book, now 52 min - person you wrote about as character vs real person 54 min - edging on the pull. Till it’s time 58 min - real life ramifications of book 1 hr - dating another writer = double suicide pact Intro song: "Thank You" by Yamz https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master Sean Thor Conroe lives in NYC and tweets @stconroe and grams @seanthorconroe

NYC / MONTREAL — Steve Anwyll is the author of Welfare (2018). He lives in Montreal, where he works at a screen printing shop. Welfare is his first novel. What a guy. Hell yeah. Cop that shit here if ya haven’t: https://www.nytyrant.com/products/welfare-by-steve-anwyll Anwyll on Twitter: https://twitter.com/oneloveasshole CONTENTS 1SP053: Steve Anwyll 2 min - pod start 11 min - family / work 22 min - 9-to-5s 24 min - kindness vs. cruelty 28 min - syntax / Celine 32 min - writing for mfs who don’t be reading a lot 36 min - misanthropic French writers 44 min - self-worth / work 49 min - political implications 53 min - publishing vulnerability / handling praise 59 hr - city vs. rural 1 hr 3 min - women as motivation 1 hr 6 min - caseworkers / nurses as angels when you fucked up 1 hr 12 min - real life ramifications of the book 1 hr 15 min - who we write for

NYC — Chelsea Hodson is the author of the essay collection Tonight I'm Someone Else (2018) and the chapbook Pity the Animal (2014). She teaches at the Bennington MFA program and at the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Italy and also does private writing consultations. We met at a reading back in December in Bushwick. I read her book a couple times over the past couple months. Her book: https://www.amazon.com/Tonight-Im-Someone-Else-Essays/dp/1250170192 Pod Contents: 3 min - pod start 5 min - Work 7 min - never defining oneself as a single thing / multiplicity 10 min - presentation / performance / moon stuff 14 min - rewriting over years 15 min - the moon looks different depending on how the light hits it 17 min - Jo Ann Beard “sometimes you gotta just live longer” 20 min - “writing is gross” 22 min - narcissism / self-concern / autonomy 29 min - Longing / By Grand Central Station I Laid Down And Wept (1945) by Elizabeth Smart 33 min - planetary / animal stuff 35 min - on embarrassment 36 min - when Pity the Animal (2014) dropped 40 min - on workshopping 41 min - taking what you need out of “negative” experiences 44 min - on clarity 47 min - write to change fate’s course 52 min - on doubling down 58 min - what Chelsea workin on now 1 hr - McClanahan Intro song: "Thank You" by Yamz - https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master Sean Thor Conroe lives in NYC and tweets @stconroe twitter.com/stconroe http://1storyhaus.com/index.html

NYC / WV — Scott McClanahan (b. 1978) is the author of eight book: Stories (2008), Stories II (2009), Stories V! (2011), The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. 1 (2012), Crapalachia (2013, Two Dollar Radio), Hill William (2013, Tyrant Books), The Incantations of Daniel Johnston (2016, Two Dollar Radio), and The Sarah Book (2017, Tyrant Books), which NPR called "brave, triumphant and beautiful." It is. They also said "it reads like a fever dream, and it feels like a miracle." It fkn does. https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pre-order-the-sarah-book-by-scott-mcclanahan Sarah Book excerpt (2017): http://magazine.nytyrant.com/excerpt-sarah-book/ Scott also co-founded the press Holler Presents. Very grateful to Scott for a taking a sec to riff one time. Intro song 'broders' by yamz from Filadelphia Yamz. http://1storyhaus.com/index.html - STC

UPSTATE NY/HARLEM — Nicola Maye Goldberg is the author of the novella Other Women (Sad Spell, 2016), the chapbook The Doll Factory (Dancing Girl Press, 2017), and, most recently, the novel Nothing Can Hurt You (Bloomsbury, 2020). Cop here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/nothing-can-hurt-you-9781635574890/ Or here: https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hurt-Nicola-Maye-Goldberg/dp/1635574889 Nicola: https://www.nicolamaye.com/ # POD CONTENTS: 3 min - pod start 6 min - Nicola mighta started the rona 9 min - ‘all novelists are failed poets’ 13 min - NCHY’s structure 18 min - on how related to 2666 21 min - on Tracy 25 min - on the Girl Boss trope / the commodification of Me Too 33 min - on Fatherhood 38 min - on courage 42 min - Nicola’s initial connection to the crime 46 min - why men kill women 51 min - the solution to sexual violence is all straight dudes buy Nicola’s book 57 min - on mens rea 1 hr 2 min - on Nicola’s new stuff / Santa Cruz # Sean Thor Conroe lives in Harlem. https://1storyhaus.com

COLLEGE PARK–HARLEM — Summer solstice sit down with Jordan Castro, editor of New York Tyrant Magazine and Pets: An Anthology, recently out from Tyrant Books. He is the author of Young Americans (CCM 2013) and if I really wanted to feel happy I’d feel happy already (CCM 2014). Recorded today, reflecting on our convo recorded one week ago on Pets (2020) and The Present [Reflective] Age (1843, Tr. Walter Kaufmann) by Kierkegaard. Last week's stab was solid but had to run it back one time, really rip it. Do yourself a solid a cop PETS, it's a banger. https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets Really enjoyed listening to this one back. Posting the original ep also, since we reference it, but I recommend listening to this one first. PETS !! – https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets Read 'Seven Stories' by Jordan Castro: http://muumuuhouse.com/jc.06jan2020.html Read referenced dad poem (~1 hr 50 min) from from Young Americans: http://muumuuhouse.com/jc.poetry3.html Read the opening 1K-word hitter from my novel FUCCBOI, 'Postmate,' that Castro edited and published this past January: http://magazine.nytyrant.com/postmate-sean-thor-conroe/

COLLEGE PARK–HARLEM — Jordan Castro is the editor of New York Tyrant Magazine and PETS: An Anthology, recently out from Tyrant Books https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets . I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Writers included are Patty Yumi Cottrell, Tao Lin, Ann Beattie, Sarah Manguso, Scott McClanahan, Kathryn Scanlan, Nicolette Polek, Chelsea Hodson, Blake Butler, Precious Okoyomon, Mark Leidner, Sam Pink, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, David Nutt, Reagan Bird, Michael W. Clune, Christine Schutt and Mallory Whitten. I recommend it for anyone who has or had or wants pets. Cop PETS now !! – https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets http://1storyhaus.com