fiction/non/fiction

Fiction writer Victor LaValle joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss his new novel Lone Women, which tells the suspenseful story of Adelaide Henry, a Black woman with a mysterious trunk who heads from California to Montana to become a solo homesteader in 1915. LaValle talks about the inspiration for the novel’s incendiary opening, how the story merges horror and history, and Adelaide’s unconventional baggage. He also reflects on the tradition of lone women homesteaders, considers the eclectic cast of characters that Adelaide meets, and reads an excerpt of the novel. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This episode of the podcast was produced by Rachel Layton and Anne Kniggendorf.Victor LaValle The Changeling The Ballad of Black Tom Eve Big Machine The Devil in Silver Others: Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3 Episode 3: “Creepy Stories (and More) from Victor LaValle and Benjamin Percy” Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1 Episode 15: “Emily Raboteau and Omar El Akkad Tell a Different Kind of Climate Change Story” Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinore Pruitt Stewart Montana Women Homesteaders: A Field of One’s Own by Sarah Carter The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older Mattie T. Cramer The Bear Paw Mountaineer The Color Purple (film) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prize-winning Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss his new book A Stranger in Your Own City, which features Iraqi perspectives on the United States’ invasion and occupation of Iraq. Abdul-Ahad talks about what Western media missed and also considers the early stages of the war and how resentment built over time. He reflects on the fall of Saddam Hussein, the ensuing Iraqi civil conflict, Western misconceptions of the country, and how the U.S. occupation planted the seeds of the Islamic State. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This episode of the podcast was produced by Ryan Reed.Selected readings:Ghath Abdul-Ahad A Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East’s Long War Unembedded: Four Photojournalists on the Iraq War “Baghdad Memories: what the first months of U.S. occupation felt like to an Iraqi” The Guardian The Battle for Syria, FRONTLINE (documentary) Others Hans Fallada “Bullshit Saviors: Helen Benedict and Nadia Hashimi on Depictions of the American Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 4, Episode 26  “The Legacy of ISIS: Dunya Mikhail on Yazidi Women Captives in Iraq,” Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 12  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fiction writers Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the newly published essay collection Letters to a Writer of Color, which they co-edited. The book features 17 pieces by authors of color from all over the world reflecting on aspects of craft and the writing life. Anappara and Soomro talk about how experiences in their MFA program led them to collaborate on the book. Contributors include Kiese Laymon on the second person, Ingrid Rojas Contreras on trauma, Myriam Gurba on art and activism, Sharlene Teo on reception and resilience, Amitava Kumar on authenticity, Mohammed Hanif on political fiction, and Femi Kayode on crime fiction. Soomro reads from his essay about origin stories and Anappara reads from her essay on the ideal conditions for writing. They also discuss other themes in the book: isolation in the writing world, non-Western storytelling, questions of translation, ongoing violence against people of color, and literature as a mode of social education. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This episode of the podcast was produced by Amanda Trout and Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings: Letters to a Writer of Color, co-edited by Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro Deepa Anappara Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line  Journalism Short Fiction Taymour Soomro Other Names for Love “Philosophy of the Foot” in The New Yorker Essays and stories Others Ninth Letter The Southern Review Eleanor Ferrante Monica Ali Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5 Episode 35: The Fall of Boris Johnson: Margot Livesey on British Politics, the Brexit Blunder, and the Prime Minister’s Lies Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy  Madeleine Thien  Amitava Kumar Tahmima Anam Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5 Episode 6: Nadifa Mohamed on Writing the Convoluted Terrains of Immigration Leila Aboulela Graham Greene  Flannery O’Connor  Myriam Gurba American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins “On ‘Oprah’s Book Club,’ ‘American Dirt’ Author Faces Criticism” by Concepción de León - New York Times (2020) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Acclaimed fiction writer Ann Beattie joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss her recent LitHub essay about Donald Barthelme’s short story “The Balloon” and the Chinese spy balloon. She also talks about her recently published first collection of essays, More to Say: Essays and Appreciations, in which she writes about the work of authors, photographers, and artists she admires, including Elmore Leonard, Sally Mann, John Loengard, and her own husband, visual artist Lincoln Perry. Beattie explains why as a nonfiction writer, she prefers close looking and reading; considers defamiliarization in the hands of Barthelme and Alice Munro; analyzes former visual artist John Updike’s depiction of the natural world; and reflects on developing increased comfort with writing about visual art. She also reads excerpts from both her LitHub piece and the essay collection.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Ann Beattie More to Say (Moon Palace Books) More to Say (Godine) The State We’re In (Moon Palace Books) “Richard Rew's Sculpture,” by Ann Beattie | The New Yorker “John Updike’s Sense of Wonder,” by Ann Beattie “Ann Beattie Wonders What Donald Barthelme Would Have Made of the Spy Balloon” | Literary Hub  Others: “The Balloon,” by Donald Barthelme | The New Yorker  “On Not Knowing,” Not-Knowing, by Donald Barthelme “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage,” by Alice Munro “Couples,” by John Updike “Spring Rain,” by John Updike | The New Yorker “As I See It,” by John Loengard (ThriftBooks) “The Runaways,” by Elizabeth Spencer | Narrative Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following a gutsy, thrilling 2023 Super Bowl win by the Kansas City Chiefs, sportswriters Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss their forthcoming book Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs, and How a Once Swingin' Cow Town Chased the Ultimate Comeback. Dent and Dodd map out the relationship between race and football in Kansas City from the Chiefs’ move to the city in the early 1960s to the activism and engagement of players like Mahomes in the Black Lives Matter era.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Mark Dent and Rustin Dodd Kingdom Quarterback: Patrick Mahomes, the Kansas City Chiefs, and How a Once Swingin' Cow Town Chased the Ultimate Comeback Opinion: “The Chiefs proudly broke racial barriers. Kansas City erected them.” by Mark Dent “How Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes authored his greatest comeback in Super Bowl LVII,” by Rustin Dodd Others: America's Game: The Epic Story Of How Pro Football Captured A Nation  by Michael MacCambridge Kansas City (as 'K.C. Loving') written by Leiber and Stoller, recorded by Little Willie Littlefield (1953) The history behind J.C. Nichols’ development, restrictive covenants in Kansas City The King of Kings County by Whitney Terrell Race, Real Estate, and Uneven Development by Kevin Fox Gotham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Alan McPherson is famous as the first Black writer to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction; a new book aims to bring fresh attention to his masterful nonfiction. The volume’s editor, poet and writer Anthony Walton, joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss On Becoming an American Writer, a collection of McPherson’s essays. Walton explains McPherson’s moral vision for the U.S. and how this shaped the book’s curation. He highlights how the theme of ancestors connects various pieces, notes the impact of McPherson’s legal training on his writing, reflects on McPherson’s take on the middle class, and considers how McPherson’s work speaks to society today. He also reads from the book’s first essay, “Junior and John Doe.”To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Anthony Walton On Becoming an American Writer (ed.) Mississippi: An American Journey Brothers in Arms (with Kareem Abdul-Jabar) Cricket Weather Others: The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang “Trump Criticized for Dining with Far-Right Activist Nick Fuentes and Rapper Ye,” – The Washington Post Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 Episode 11: The Best and Worst Dinner Parties in Literature: Mar-a-Lago Edition, Featuring Michael Knight Clarence Thomas Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Shadow and Act by Ralph Ellison Going to the Territory by Ralph Ellison Hue and Cry by James Alan McPherson Crabcakes by James Alan McPherson Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson “On Becoming an American Writer,” by James Alan McPherson (essay)  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Literary critic Carmela Ciuraru joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss her new book The Lives of the Wives, which looks at five literary marriages, including pairings like Elizabeth Jane Howard and Kingsley Amis. She examines the dynamics of such relationships, particularly when one partner declares their time more valuable. She explains why the stories of historic couples like Una Troubridge and Radclyffe Hall remain relevant today, and highlights the experiences of lesser-known partners, some of whom were artists and writers themselves. She also reads an excerpt about the early days of Patricia Neal and Roald Dahl’s courtship.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Carmela Ciuraru The Lives of the Wives Nom de Plume  First Loves  Beat Poets   Others: The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy As I Am by Patricia Neal Women and Writing by Virginia Woolf Killing the Angel in the House by Virginia Woolf Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett On Beauty by Zadie Smith Radclyffe Hall and Una Vincenzo: An Inventory of their papers at the Harry Ransom Center The Wife by Meg Wolitzer The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Paul Harding joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the history of an integrated community in Maine and how it inspired his new novel, This Other Eden. Harding talks about where he drew the line in his research; his ekphrastic habits; the ever-present human tendency to create “Others”; and what it means to say “never again” in the face of injustice that repeats itself. He also reads from the novel.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Paul Harding This Other Eden Enon Tinkers Others: Charles Ethan Porter Malaga Island - Bowdoin University  Maine evicts residents of Malaga Island - Maine Coast Heritage Trust Maine School for the Feeble Minded - Pineland Farms First International Congress for Eugenics in London The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, by James Weldon Johnson Karl Barth Confessing Church William Shakespeare Macbeth The Tempest Old Testament  Darwin and the theory of Eugenics “Understanding and Ameliorating Medical Mistrust Among Black Americans” - The Commonwealth Fund  Sturgis Motorcycle Rally COVID-19 Superspreader Event - National Health Institute Artificial Intelligence  Race Bias in AI and other science/tech The Cornerstone Speech Walt Whitman Maine apologizes for Malaga Island - Press Herald Moby Dick, Herman Melville Henry James Review: Racism tears a Maine fishing community apart in 'This Other Eden' - NPR Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1 Episode 9: Can I Get A Witness: God and Faith in American Fiction Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 Episode 17: Chatbot vs. Writer: Vauhini Vara on the Perils and Possibilities of Artificial Intelligence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist and journalist Vauhini Vara joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss how ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, may—or may not—impact publishing, education, journalism, and the humanities in general. Vara explains differences between ChatGPT and another OpenAI tool, GPT-3, which she used as a way into writing about the death of her sister, a topic she had previously found unapproachable. She reads from the resulting essay, “Ghosts,” which was published by The Believer and anthologized in Best American Essays 2022.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Vauhini Vara The Immortal King Rao Ghosts Others: Review: ‘The Immortal King Rao,’ by Vauhini Vara - The New York Times Meet GPT-3. It Has Learned to Code (and Blog and Argue). - The New York Times Is This the Start of an AI Takeover? - The Atlantic AI Has Come to Save the Arts from Themselves - The Washington Post AI Reveals the Most Human Parts of Writing | WIRED Don’t Ban ChatGPT in Schools. Teach With It. - The New York Times Microsoft Bets Big on the Creator of ChatGPT in Race to Dominate A.I. - The New York Times ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 episode 16: In Memory of Russell Banks: Rick Moody on an Iconic Writer’s Life, Work and Legacy W.B. Yeats’ Autoscript ‘Even the spirits get a say’: A Look Into James Merrill's Ouija Poems by Harriet Staff Exquisite Corpse poetry Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing? Online programs can churn out decent papers on the cheap. What now? – The Chronicle of Higher Education Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3 Episode 25: No Innocents Abroad: Scott Anderson and Andrew Altschul on the CIA and US Provocateurs in Foreign Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Writer Rick Moody joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to celebrate the life and legacy of the late novelist Russell Banks, who died earlier this month. Moody and Terrell, who were previously Banks’s students and became his friends, reflect on his deep working-class roots, his cultivation of his own voice even in his more experimental writing, and his commitment to writing about race in the United States. Moody reads and discusses a passage from Banks’s 1985 novel Continental Drift.To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net.This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.Selected Readings:Rick Moody Garden State Ice Storm Hotels of North America The Black Veil: A Memoir with Digressions  The Long Accomplishment Russell Banks Hamilton Stark  The Relation of My Imprisonment  The Sweet Hereafter  Continental Drift  Affliction  The Darling “Who Will Tell the People? On waiting, still, for the great Creole-American novel,” by Russell Banks, from Harper’s Magazine, June 2000 Others: Russell Banks, The Art of Fiction No. 152 (The Paris Review) LISTEN: Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3 Episode 23: Kaitlyn Greenidge and Russell Banks: On the Past and Present of Protest and White Backlash ‹ Literary Hub WATCH: Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3 Episode 23: Kaitlyn Greenidge and Russell Banks on the Past and Present of Protest Flannery O’Connor Eudora Welty John Cheever J.D. Salinger Clarence Major Jonathan Baumbach James Alan McPherson Ernest Hemingway Bobbie Ann Mason Richard Ford Daniel Woodrell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices