fiction/non/fiction

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan talk to acclaimed novelist Jess Walter and award-winning essayist Jerald Walker. First, Walter unravels the literary elements of the Trump administration and discusses how his newest book, The Cold Millions, a historical novel touching on unions and feminism at the turn of the century, has many parallels to today’s politics. Then, Walker talks about centering Black courage vs. white cruelty, both in literature and this election, and how he works to find common ground in his writing, including his newest collection of essays, How to Make a Slave, which is a finalist for the National Book Award.To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. Selected readings:Jess Walter The Cold Millions Beautiful Ruins We Live in Water The Financial Lives of the Poets ‘The Ponz’: Michael Cohen's Prison Memoir Jerald Walker How to Make a Slave and Other Essays The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption Once More to the Ghetto and Other Essays “Dragon Slayers”  Others: King Lear by William Shakespeare Elmore Leonard Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare “Did the pandemic sink Trump’s chances? Not as much as his opponents expected,” by Alex Roarty, McClatchy “'You are no longer my mother': A divided America will struggle to heal after Trump era,” by Tim Reid, Gabriella Borter, Michael Martina, Reuters Hue and Cry, by James Alan McPherson James Alan McPherson Albert Murray Stanley Crouch “The Little Man at Chehaw Station” by Ralph Ellison Self Help by Lorrie Moore Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan talk to #1 New York Times best-selling author Maria Dahvana Headley about the modern-day relevance of the epic poem Beowulf. She talks about her new translation of the ancient text, and illuminates how the “shit-talking” masculinity of the heroes of old can help us understand our current so-called leaders.To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Maria Dahvana Headley  Beowulf: A New Translation  The Mere Wife  Arie  Queen of Kings The Year of Yes The End of the Sentence, Kat Howard and Maria Dahvana Headley Unnatural Creatures, Neil Gaiman (Editor), Briony Morrow-Cribbs (Illustrator), Maria Dahvana Headley  Others: Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women, The New York Times Sarah Cooper and Helen Mirren Recreate Donald Trump’s Infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape, HuffPost A “Beowulf” for Our Moment, Ruth Franklin, The New Yorker George Conway (Twitter) Walter Shaub (Twitter) Earth Abides, George R. Stewart  Circe, Madeline Miller The Odyssey, (translated by) Emily Wilson Beowulf, Seamus Heaney Television:The Wire (HBO) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan talk to novelist emily m. danforth and short story writer Laura van den Berg. danforth discusses her newly released sapphic-gothic horror comedy Plain Bad Heroines and how she reclaims negative and othering portrayals of lesbian vampires and queer monsters in the novel. Then, van den Berg shares her acclaimed new story collection I Hold a Wolf by the Ears and talks about how the pandemic and the Trump presidency has inspired her fiction. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This episode was produced by Andrea Tudhope, Emily Standlee and Mary Henn. Selected readings:emily m. danforth Plain Bad Heroines The Miseducation Of Cameron Post  Laura van den Berg I Hold a Wolf by the Ears The Isle of Youth What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us Find Me The Third Hotel Others: The Story of Mary MacLane by Mary MacLane Rebecca by Dame Daphne du Maurier Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay Stephen King The Elementals by Michael McDowell Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix Television: Get Out, film Lovecraft Country (HBO)  Carmilla, the Lesbian Vampire, film The Ring, film Beetlejuice, film The Others, film Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan talk to writer, curator and visual artist Kristina Kay Robinson and novelist and television writer Tom Piazza in the wake of the 15-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Robinson describes the shifting narrative of her hometown, and explains how the U.S. is only now experiencing the full implications of Katrina. Then, Piazza reflects on how the disaster foretold a series of 21st century catastrophes that would affect the most vulnerable among us. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This episode was produced by Andrea Tudhope and Emily Standlee. Selected readings:Kristina Kay Robinson Republica: Temple of Color and Sound, art exhibition “Contemplating Extinction as Theme in Basquiat’s ‘Pez Dispenser, 1984,’” poets.org “The Darkroom in the Attic: Blackness and Visibility,” Burnaway “Ten Years Since: A Meditation on New Orleans,” The Nation “Rhythm, Water, and Global Blackness,” The Nation “10 Questions for Kristina Kay Robinson,” The Massachusetts Review Letter from New Orleans: Down River Road, Burnaway The New Orleans African American Museum “Spiritually Uncensored,” Sugarcane Magazine  Tom Piazza “Incontinental Drift,” The Huffington Post City of Refuge Why New Orleans Matters Devil Sent the Rain A Free State “Living in the Present with John Prine,” The Oxford American  Writers: The Control of Nature by John McPhee José Saramago Leo Tolstoy Maurice Carlos Ruffin A.L. Steiner Television: Treme (HBO) Lovecraft Country (HBO) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by acclaimed novelist Maurice Carlos Ruffin and Pulitzer finalist in Biography Michael Gorra for a conversation about whether demographic changes are finally making the South new. We Cast a Shadow author Ruffin muses on what racial equality looks like in a futuristic South, and ponders whether political compromise can stabilize the oppositional nature of the United States. Then Gorra discusses his book, The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War; and considers the intricate set of limitations that come with writing from multiple fictional perspectives. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. Selected readings:Maurice Carlos Ruffin We Cast a Shadow The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You (forthcoming) Michael Gorra The Saddest Words: William Faulkner’s Civil War Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece The Bells in Their Silence: Travels Through Germany The English Novel at Mid-Century: From the Leaning Tower After Empire: Scott, Naipaul, Rushdie  Books:  Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton The Tradition by Jericho Brown Dry September by William Faulkner Light in August by William Faulkner The Unvanquished by William Faulkner As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner Flags in the Dust by William Faulkner Twentieth-Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity by Ralph Ellison Shadow and Act by Ralph Ellison Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison South to a Very Old Place by Albert Murray To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain Opinion | How Donald Trump will finally kill the Southern Strategy  Writers: HP Lovecraft Flannery O’Connor Eudora Welty Richard Wright Zora Neale Hurston Nikki Giovanni Toni Morrison Nafissa Thompson-Spires Rion Amilcar Scott Jamel Brinkley Tayari Jones Roxane Gay Randall Kenan James Baldwin Ernest Hemingway F. Scott Fitzgerald Don DeLillo Henry James George Eliot Jesmyn Ward Charles Dickens Natasha Trethewey Television: Lovecraft Country Watchmen Atlanta Films: Terminator 2: Judgement Day Sorry to Bother You Directors: Jordan Peele Boots Riley Donald Glover Others: Justin Ward (journalist) FiveThirtyEight (podcast) Stacey Abrams (politician) Newt Gingrich (politician) James Meredith (civil rights activist) Disunion (NYT column) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by veteran war correspondent and bestselling author Scott Anderson and prize-winning novelist Andrew Altschul. Anderson shares what led him to the four spies featured in his new book The Quiet Americans. Then Altschul talks about decentering the narrative of the American abroad in his new novel The Gringa, which takes inspiration from the real-life case of Lori Berenson. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. Selected readings:Scott Anderson Triage  Moonlight Hotel  The Man Who Tried to Save the World  War Zones Lawrence in Arabia  Fractured Lands The Quiet Americans “None Dare Call It a Conspiracy” Andrew Altschul The Gringa Deus Ex Machina Lady Lazarus  Others:  The Godfather Film Series Graham Greene Tenet The James Bond Films Austin Powers Movies  John le Carré The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert Mark Twain The Darling by Russell Banks  “The Storytellers of Empire” by Kamila Shamsie Libra by Don DeLillo "Why I Didn't Sign the Open Letter Against Trump" by Aleksandar Hemon  American Pastoral by Philip Roth The Good Lieutenant by Whitney Terrell  American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this week’s episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by novelist Margot Livesey and poet and essayist Jaswinder Bolina. Livesey discusses an excerpt from her fantastic new novel, The Boy in the Field, and challenges the traditional idea that that beach reads shouldn’t, or can’t, be “political.” Then Bolina discusses how the most popular books in this historic summer of protest and pandemic – including his own brilliant new collection of essays, Of Color – have engaged with themes of race and anti-racism. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel. This episode was produced by Dylan Miettinen and Andrea Tudhope.Selected readings:Margot Livesey The Boy in the Field Mercury: A Novel The Flight of Gemma Hardy The House on Fortune Street Banishing Verona Eva Moves the Furniture The Missing World Criminals Homework Jaswinder Bolina Of Color The 44th of July Phantom Camera Others: Middlemarch by George Eliot Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Normal People by Sally Rooney The Mothers by Brit Bennett Milkman by Anna Burns The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid Ken Follett James A. Michener 1984 by George Orwell Toni Morrison Margot Livesey on moral weakness for the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast The Firm by John Grisham Tom Clancy Sue Monk Kidd Agatha Christie Rex Stout Ngaio Marsh Ralph Ellison Billy Collins How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong Ta-Nehisi Coates Citizen by Claudia Rankin Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett A Burning by Megha Majumdar The Professor’s House by Willa Cather Real Life by Brandon Taylor Feel Free by Zadie Smith The Great Believers Rebecca Makkai This Is One Way to Dance by Sejal Shah The Dark Tower by Stephen King Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Fiction/Non/Fiction co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan are joined by acclaimed fiction writer and essayist Kaitlyn Greenidge and poet and novelist Russell Banks. Greenidge challenges traditional framings of “white backlash” and argues that white privilege in the U.S. has shifted to a false narrative of victimhood. Then, Banks discusses his experiences of protest in the ’60s and ’70s, highlighting similarities in the tactics of – and governmental responses to – today’s #BLM activists.To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. Guests: Kaitlyn Greenidge Russell Banks Selected readings for the episode:Kaitlyn Greenidge “The Hollowness of This Too Shall Pass” “Can You Dismantle White Supremacy with Words?” We Love You, Charlie Freeman Russell Banks The Darling The Sweet Hereafter Cloudsplitter Rule of the Bone Affliction Success Stories Continental Drift Searching for Survivors Trailerpark The Book of Jamaica The New World Hamilton Stark The Reserve Lost Memory of Skin A Permanent Member of the Family Dreaming Up America Voyager Foregone Others:  Fiction/Non/Fiction interview with Thomas Frank Conflict is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman “The Pandemic is a Portal” by Arundhati Roy The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable “Waking Up in the Middle of Some American Dreams,” by June Jordan  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this special live episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, political commentator and historian Thomas Frank joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his newest book, The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism. Presented by the Kansas City Public Library and Rainy Day Books, this conversation delves into the complicated history of populism, as Frank argues that the Trump administration and right-wing authoritarian governments in Hungary and Brazil — characterized by many as examples of populist movements — are in fact anything but. To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. Guests:Thomas FrankSelected readings for the episode:Thomas Frank The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism Listen, Liberal What’s the Matter with Kansas? The Conquest of Cool Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society The Wrecking Crew Pity the Billionaire Commodify Your Dissent One Market Under God The Return of Socialism in America? Dana Goldstein and Thomas Frank on Season 1, Episode 17 of the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast   Others:  “How Americans Politics Went Insane” by Jonathan Rauch “It’s Time for the Elites to Rise Up Against the Ignorant Masses” by James Traub “How Long, Not Long” Speech by Martin Luther King Jr.  Fiction/Non/Fiction Interview with James Traub “The Fight Over the Future of the Democratic Party” by James Traub Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, acclaimed modern crime writer Sara Paretsky and political satirist and novelist Christopher Buckley join Fiction/Non/Fiction co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about pushing against the boundaries of genre writing. Buckley discusses how political satire has been redefined in the era of reality-television-star-turned-president Trump, and why his new novel Make Russia Great Again is a faux memoir. Then, Paretsky speaks about making the male-dominated detective fiction genre her own with the best-selling V.I. Warshawski series, and reflects on her recent collection Love & Other Crimes, which also features the iconic character.To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope. Guests: Christopher Buckley Sara Paretsky Selected readings for the episode:Christopher Buckley Make Russia Great Again But Enough About You They Eat Puppies, Don’t They? Losing Mum and Pup Supreme Courtship Boomsday No Way to Treat a First Lady Florence of Arabia Little Green Men Wry Martinis Sara Paretsky V.I. Warshawski novels Indemnity only Fallout Fire Sale Hardball Love & Other Crimes “Acid Test” “Miss Bianca” “Flash Point” Anatomy of Innocence Others:  “Christopher Buckley’s ‘Make Russia Great Again’ is the Trump satire we’ve been waiting for” by Ron Charles  “Sarah Cooper Doesn’t Mimic Trump. She Exposes Him.” by ZZ Packer Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare “Fawlty Towers” - Television series “‘Art of the Deal’ co-author: Trump ‘couldn’t care less tens of thousands are people are dying’” - MSNBC interview with Donald Trump’s ghostwriter Tony Schwartz “This Be The Verse” by Philip Larkin  Hilary Mantel Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump Fiction/Non/Fiction interview with Curtis Sittenfeld Fiction/Non/Fiction interview with Jabari Asim Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld Anna Katherine Green S.J. Rozan Raymond Chandler The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Dorothy L. Sayers Raymond Chandler John D. MacDonald Rex Stout Jabari Asim John Conroy Lee Child Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices