fiction/non/fiction

Poet Wayne Miller and novelist Elizabeth Gaffney join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss writing from the point of view of children before and during the pandemic. First, Miller discusses the unknowable interior lives of children, reads poems from his new collection We the Jury, and talks about connections to his essay “Learning to Write About Your Own Children.” Later, Gaffney reads an excerpt from her 2014 novel When the World Was Young, and discusses how the traumas her child narrator survives during WWII compare to the challenges children have faced during COVID-19.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This episode is produced by Anne Kniggendorf and Whitney Terrell.Selected readings:Wayne Miller We The Jury Learning to Write About Your Own Children, LitHub When Talking About Poetry Online Goes Very Wrong, LitHub Elizabeth Gaffney When the World Was Young Metropolis The 24-Hour Room  Others: Catcher in the Rye Family Ties The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright Kindred by Octavia Butler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While you wait for the next episoe of Fiction/Non/Fiction, we wanted to share a preview of a new podcast from our friends over at Wondery.Looking for a new podcast that's like Olivia Pope meets your favorite Ryan Murphy show? Or do you just love a good scandal? On True Love, a new fiction podcast from Wondery, you'll hear stories of scandalous flings, secret affairs, and the drama that ensues. TRUE LOVE brings these relationships to life through reimagined stories about love, lust and heartbreak. From secret celebrity hookups that play out under the cover of night to the web of lies it took to protect a high profile politician from revealing his secret life, each character finds themselves mixed up in every form of drama imaginable. This is just a preview of True Love, but you can listen to full episodes at wondery.fm/TL_FictionNonFiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Acclaimed Slate books and culture columnist Laura Miller joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the ins and outs of being a critic. Miller discusses a recent piece about diversity and representation in audiobook narration. She also talks about reading for pleasure versus work, and why, when she’s not reviewing, she often finds herself listening to authors.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Laura Miller The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia “The People Who Voice Audiobooks with Diverse Characters are Squirming Right Now,” Slate “Enough With Literature as Self-Improvement!” Salon.com “The Dark History Behind the Year’s Bestselling Debut Novel,” Slate Others: “The Good Lieutenant by Whitney Terrell review – the Bush wars' best novel” by Charles Finch, The Guardian “Greetings From Polysyllabia” by Nandini Lal, Washington Post Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher Minders of Make-Believe: Idealists, Entrepreneurs, and the Shaping of AmericanChildren's Literature by Leonard Marcus “Toil and Trouble” by Caleb Crain, New York Times Book Review “The Hideous Unknown of H.P. Lovecraft” by Charles Baxter, The New York Review “Reply to Charles Baxter’s ‘The Hideous Unknown of H. P. Lovecraft’” by S.T. Joshi “What Muriel Park Saw” by Parul Sehgal, The New Yorker “Philip Roth’s Revenge Fantasy,” by Laura Marsh, New Republic Judith Shulevitz, New York Times Zadie Smith Dwight Garner, New York Times Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Review of Books Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the 100th episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan hand out the first-ever “Nonnie Awards” for the podcast’s standout moments from the past four years. Then author, poet, and playwright Jabari Asim reflects on how the discourse on racism and police brutality has shifted since last summer. Asim also reads from his upcoming novel Yonder, out in January 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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Jabari Asim Yonder (out January 2022, available for pre-order) Stop and Frisk We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival Mighty Justice Others: Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration by Ruben Jonathan Miller The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Watchmen (TV series) Fiction/Non/Fiction, June 2020: Black Stories Matter: Terrion Williamson and Jabari Asim on Narrative During the George Floyd Protests Fiction/Non/Fiction, February 2020: Coronavirus and Contagion: Laurie Chen and Richard Preston on Writing About the Spread of Disease Fiction/Non/Fiction, March 2019: C. Riley Snorton and T Fleischmann Talk Gender, Race, and Literature Fiction/Non/Fiction, September 2018: Garrard Conley and SJ Sindu on the Mainstreaming of Queer Identity Fiction/Non/Fiction, January 2018: Literary Color Lines: On Inclusion in Publishing Fiction/Non/Fiction, November 2017: We’re All Russian, Now: Talking Russian-American Politics, and the Enduring Appeal of Russian Literature   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Atlantic staff writer and author Adam Serwer joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss how opposition to critical race theory aligns with our country’s historical resistance to acknowledging the truth and changing. Serwer reads from and discusses his new book The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America, out this week.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Adam Serwer The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America “The Cruel Logic of the Republican Party, Before and After Trump,” New York Times “The Nationalist’s Delusion,” The Atlantic Others: Eric Foner “The Great Awokening” by Matt Yglesias, Vox The King of Kings County by Whitney Terrell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scholars Shir Alon and Joseph Farag join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss how Palestinian and Israeli writers have written about the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Farag talks about the evolution of the portrayal of the Palestinian self in literature throughout history, as well as some of the themes and writers discussed in his book, Palestinian Literature in Exile: Gender, Aesthetics and Resistance in the Short Story. Alon explains how the unprocessed trauma of the history of massacre and expulsion of Palestinians seems to stage an appearance in Israeli literature every decade. She also talks about Dolly City by Orly Castel-Bloom, Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, and Funeral at Noon by Yeshayahu Koren.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Shir Alon Static: Labor, Temporality, and Literary Form in Middle Eastern Modernisms (forthcoming book) “The Ongoing Nakba and the Grammar of History,” LA Review of Books “No One to See Here: Genres of Neutralization and the Ongoing Nakba” “Gendering the Arab-Jew: Feminism and Jewish Studies After Ella Shohat”  Joseph Farag Palestinian Literature in Exile Gender, Aesthetics and Resistance in the Short Story Teaching with Arabic Literature in Translation: ‘Palestinian Literature and Film’  Others: Amos Oz  David Grossman Facing the Forests by A. B. Yehoshua Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar The Old New Land (Altneuland) by Theodor Herzl Men in the Sun, Palestine's Children: Returning to Haifa and Other Stories, and All That's Left to You: A Novella and Other Stories by Ghassan Kanafani  "A Lover from Palestine," "ID Card," and many others by Mahmoud Darwish The Ship by Jabra Ibrahim Jabra Wild Thorns and Passage to the Plaza by Sahar Khalifeh Eye of the Mirror and A Balcony Over the Fakihani by Liana Badr Nathan Alterman Funeral at Noon by Yeshayahu Koren Minor Detail by Adania Shibli Dolly City by Orly Castel-Bloom The Sound of Our Steps by Ronit Matalon Waltz with Bashir (film) by Ari Folman The Pessoptimist by Emile Habibi  Divine Intervention, The Time that Remains, and It Must Be Heaven (films) by Elia Suleiman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Editor and publisher Sean McDonald and novelist Monica West join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss how the “reopening” of the country is affecting authors and the publishing industry. First, McDonald, founder of MCD Books, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, talks about publishing in the pandemic, and how that experience may shape the industry going forward. Then, West reads from her debut novel, Revival Season, and shares what it’s been like to launch a book during (fingers crossed!) the pandemic’s waning days.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Sean McDonald MCD x FSG The Electric Eel newsletter Monica WestRevival Season Others: “FSG Names McDonald Head of Experimental Imprint,” Publishers Weekly Beowulf: A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn Until Proven Safe by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley The Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant, Phil Jackson and Pau Gasol Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon F/N/F Season 3, Episode 10: Coronavirus and Contagion: Laurie Chen and Richard Preston on Writing About the Spread of Disease F/N/F Season 4, Episode 3: Monsters for President: Maria Dahvana Headley on Modern Mythmaking F/N/F Episode 26: Garrard Conley and SJ Sindu on the Mainstreaming of Queer Identity F/N/F Season 3, Episode 6: Rene Denfeld and Megan Phelps-Roper on Isolating the Language of Abuse in Politics, Gender Relations, and Sexual Abuse F/N/F Season 3, Episode 24: Summer Books Extravaganza: Margot Livesey and Jaswinder Bolina on Beach Reading When the Beach is Closed   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scholar Carolin Benack and novelist Sanjena Sathian join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss how literature and economics intersect. First, Benack talks about the theoretical storytelling that is economics, and reads from her article on the topic. Then, Sathian reads from her debut novel Gold Diggers and talks about the American obsession with excess, and how our fluctuating economy impacts our relationship with wealth and reinvention.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Carolin Benack “Economists are more like storytellers than scientists – don't let the Nobel for 'economic sciences' fool you”  Sanjena SathianGold Diggers Others: The Body Economic: Life, Death, and Sensation in Political Economy and the Victorian Novel by Catherine Gallagher “The Economy of Pain: Capitalism, Humanitarianism, and the Realistic Novel,” by Wai Chee Dimock U.S. Intelligence Report Warns of Global Consequences of Social Fragmentation, from The New York Times All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace  The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace Rabbit Hole, podcast from the New York Times George Saunders Edith Wharton John Updike Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Poet Michael Kleber-Diggs and memoirist Kao Kalia Yang join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss Minnesota’s complex history with immigrants, as well as how the Twin Cities’ literary scene is responding in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. First, Kleber-Diggs reads from his forthcoming debut poetry collection, Worldly Things, and talks about being a Black poet in Minnesota. Then, Yang reflects on her experience entering the literary community as a Hmong refugee, and reads from her new book, Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir. 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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Michael Kleber-Diggs Worldly Things There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman “Letter From St. Paul: On the Complex Flavors of Black Joy,” Literary Hub You. Are. Not. Welcome. Here. Being Black in Minnesota | Essay Minnesota Reformer  Kao Kalia Yang Somewhere in the Unknown World The Latehomecomer The Song Poet  A Map Into The World The Shared Room The Most Beautiful Thing What God Is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color  co-edited with Shannon Gibney  Others: The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman Walter Mondale, Ex-Vice President Under Jimmy Carter, Dies at 93, The New York Times The Center for Victims of Torture The Advocates for Human Rights ‘These People Aren’t Coming From Norway’: Refugees in a Minnesota City Face a Backlash Refugenius/Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling novelist Matthew Salesses joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the politics, history, and context driving different modes of teaching fiction writing. After sharing an excerpt from his new book Craft in the Real World, Salesses explains how the traditional creative writing workshop model fails marginalized writers, and why examining craft questions through a range of lenses should matter to both writers and readers. He also reads from his new novel Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear, which is a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award.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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Matthew Salesses Craft in the Real World Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear The Hundred-Year Flood I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying Different Racisms: On Stereotypes, the Individual, and Asian American Masculinity The Last Repatriate  Others: Tiger Writing by Gish Jen No-No Boy by John Okada Who Killed Vincent Chin? (documentary) by Christine Choy and Renee Tajima-Pena Drumline (film) by Charles Stone III A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood “Unsilencing the Writing Workshop” by Beth Nguyen Native Son by Richard Wright Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D for Nintendo 3DS Books by Haruki Murakami Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices