

fiction/non/fiction
fiction/non/fiction
Hosted by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan, fiction/non/fiction interprets current events through the lens of literature, and features conversations with writers of all stripes, from novelists and poets to journalists and essayists.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Apr 19, 2018 • 1h 11min
15: So, Who's Funny in the Age of Trump?
In episode 15, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell ask who’s funny in the age of Trump, and how they’re managing to pull it off. They talk to Sloane Crosley, author of the new essay collection, Look Alive Out There, about the humor of the everyday and the freedom and subversiveness of not writing about the president. The also speak to Alexandra Petri of The Washington Post’s ComPost column, whose column features humorous takes on political news ranging from James Comey’s book release to Chris Christie’s screaming eyes.
Readings:
• Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley
• A Field Guide to Awkward Silences and the ComPost blog, by Alexandra Petri, including [“Further excerpts from James Comey’s book, if the existing ones are anything to go on](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2018/04/13/further-excerpts-from-james-comeys-book-if-the-existing-ones-are-anything-to-go-on/?utm_term=.0d4b0ee949c3)"
• Life of Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell
• My Life and Hard Times, by James Thurber
• Sylvia Plath, [“Tulips”](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49013/tulips-56d22ab68fdd0)
• The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations
• [“The Clouds](http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/clouds.html)," by Aristophanes
• [“The Personal Essay Boom is Over,”](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/the-personal-essay-boom-is-over) by Jia Tolentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Apr 5, 2018 • 60min
14: All Fiction is Crime Fiction
In episode 14, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell examine the omnipresent American comfort narrative of mystery and crime fiction. Why do we love crime stories so much? How do they shape the way that we think about a whole host of real-world issues from the Mueller investigation to Black Lives Matter and the shootings of young black men by police? They are joined for this discussion by Mat Johnson, author of the novels Loving Day, Pym, Drop, and Hunting in Harlem, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the graphic novels Incognegro and Dark Rain. Readings: • Incognegro by Mat Johnson, and its new miniprequels • Superman II, Superman III (film) • The Untouchables (film) • The Road To Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder • The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler • Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky • CrimeReads.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 22, 2018 • 1h 13min
13: At the Intersection of Nationalism, Religion, and Social Media
Earlier this month, mob attacks on Sri Lanka’s minority Muslim community prompted a state of emergency in that country, and a temporary ban on Facebook and other social media applications. In Episode 13, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell speak to Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu’s Sri Lanka correspondent, about her reporting on those incidents and the rise of Sinhala Buddhist hardliners in Sri Lanka, as well as the parallels she sees between that situation and the rise of populism in the U.S., Europe, India, and other parts of Asia. Writer Bill Lychack, a frequent visitor to Myanmar, joins the show to talk about what draws him to the country and how he views Aung San Suu Kyi in light of the nation’s treatment of its beleaguered Rohingya minority. Readings: "Letter from Burma: Captives of the Junta" by Bill Lychack in The American Scholar Love Marriage, by V.V. Ganeshananthan “It was not a Sinhala-Muslim clash, it was a mob attack on Muslims: Sri Lanka Minister Rauff Hakeem,” the Wednesday Interview by Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu “Banning Social Media Won’t Stop Hate Speech,” by Rohan Samarajiva in The New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 8, 2018 • 1h 13min
12: #Neveragain and the Hope of Student Protest
In mid-February, seventeen students and adults were shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In the aftermath, surviving students have led a powerful campaign for gun control. In episode 12, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell bring you two authors—and a pile of books—that have covered the territory of school shootings, activism, and coming of age. First, Jim Shepard discusses his 2004 novel Project X, which is told from the POV of an eighth-grader who decides to commit a Columbine-style shooting. Shepard offers his thoughts on empathy, alienation, and how schools tend to treat their outcasts. Then Danielle Evans shares her read on the students activists in the #neveragain movement and the longstanding literary trope of child narrators who outwit adults. Adolescent anger and activism play out in Evans's story "Robert E. Lee is Dead," set in a high school in the south; she also points us to Edward P. Jones’s story “The First Day” for a particularly poignant phrasing of the transition of adolescence. Readings: Project X by Jim Shepard (2004); "Robert E. Lee is Dead" by Danielle Evans, from the collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (2011); "The First Day" by Edward P. Jones, from the collection Lost in the City (2004); The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (1970). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 22, 2018 • 1h 12min
11: Annihilation, Adaptation: What's It Really Like to Have Your Book Made Into a Movie
In episode 11, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell offer a very Lit Hub take on Academy Awards season. What’s the process really like when a book becomes a movie? How does Hollywood decide which books will work best for the big screen? For answers, they talk to production and development executive Christina Sibul, who worked on the Academy Award nominated book adaptations The House of Sand and Fog (2003) and Sideways (2004). Then author Jeff VanderMeer joins the show, fresh back from the L.A. premiere of Annihilation, a brand new Paramount Pictures film based on the first novel of Jeff’s bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. Jeff will give us the inside scoop on his techniques for freaking out readers, how director Alex Garland translated Annihilation’s monsters to the big screen, and how to dress for the red carpet if you’re an author. BONUS: Sugi casts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast movie adaptation! Readings: Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer (2014); The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (1999); Sideways by Rex Pickett (2004) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 8, 2018 • 1h 11min
10: Anti-Semitism and the Authoritarian Playbook
Recently, the Polish Senate passed a law that would criminalize any suggestions of complicity by the Polish state in Nazi war crimes, including the Holocaust. In episode 10, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk to the novelist Steve Yarbrough about the nationalist Law and Justice party, which is behind the ban—and how their authoritarian tactics mirror those of the Trump Administration. Yarbrough's new novel, The Unmade World, is set in contemporary Poland and America. Then we talk to the novelist Eileen Pollack about Charlottesville, the history of anti-Semitism in the U.S. and how her 2012 novel, Breaking and Entering, anticipated the rise of the alt-Right. Readings: The Unmade World, by Steve Yarbrough (2018); The Party That Wants to Make Poland Great Again, by James Traub, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 2 2016; 'Orgy of Murder': The Poles who 'Hunted" Jews and Turned Them Over to the Nazis, by Ofer Aderet, Haaretz, Feb. 11, 2017; Breaking and Entering, by Eileen Pollack (2012). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jan 25, 2018 • 1h 11min
9: A Whole New Kind of Obscenity?
For episode 9, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk with Ron Charles, editor of The Washington Post Book World and Shanthi Sekaran, author of Lucky Boy, about obscenity, literature, and immigration. In the first half of the show, Charles leads us through the famous 1933 obscenity trial involving James Joyce's Ulysses and the 1964 trial involving Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Then Shanthi Sekaran talks to us about Trump's infamous shithole comments, his immigration policy, and how she believes the language surrounding immigration—"ICE," "illegal alien"—is more profane than any curse word. Plus: Whitney reads the dirtiest passage he can find in Ulysses and embarrasses his mother. Readings: Ulysses by James Joyce; Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller; The Awakening by Kate Chopin; Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran. In the Stacks features Anthony Stromoski of Rough Draft Bar and Books in Kingston, NY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jan 11, 2018 • 1h 11min
8: Literary Color Lines
In episode 8, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk about sensitivity reads, cross-cultural writing, and the lack of diversity in the publishing industry with author and COO of We Need Diverse Books Dhonielle Clayton and agent Ayesha Pande. In the first half of the show, Clayton talks about her own career as a sensitivity reader—or, as she prefers, a targeted beta reader—and discusses her concerns with a recent _New York Times_ article on the subject. In the show's second segment, longtime agent and former editor Pande explains how she has seen a lack of diversity in publishing affect writers of color throughout her 25-year career. Readings: "In an Era of Online Outrage, Do Sensitivity Readers Result in Better Books, or Censorship?" by Alexandra Alter in _The New York Times_; "Twentieth Century Fiction and the Black Mask of Humanity" by Ralph Ellison, from _Shadow and Act_; "How Chris Jackson is Building a Black Literary Movement" by Vinson Cunningham in _The New York Times Magazine_. In the Stacks features Abby Fennewald, Director of Marketing and Publicity for BookPeople in Austin, Texas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 28, 2017 • 1h 10min
7: How Has Literary Life Changed in 20 Years? With Curtis Sittenfeld and Oscar Villalon
In search of some nostalgic holiday cheer, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell climb in the way back machine and time travel to 1997 with critic and editor Oscar Villalon and novelist Curtis Sittenfeld. Oscar rounds up the books that won prizes twenty years ago, the books that remain relevant, and explains why these books aren't always the same. Curtis talks to us about Monica Lewinsky, Esquire, The Prairie Wife, Sex and the City and the very literary politics of 1997\. PLUS an *exclusive* preview of her novel-in-progress about a Hillary Rodham who never becomes a Clinton. Readings (Fiction): Underworld by Don DeLillo; You Think It, I'll Say It, by Curtis Sittenfeld; The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy; American Pastoral by Phillip Roth; Paradise by Toni Morrison; Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser; The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald; The Farewell Symphony by Edmund White; Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier; Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling. Readings (Nonfiction): Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt; The Commissar Vanishes: the Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia by David King; The Rape of Nanking: the Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang; The Women by Hilton Als; Sex and the City by Candice Bushnell. In the Stacks will be back in two weeks. Happy Holidays! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 14, 2017 • 1h 13min
6: All the President's Shakespeare
In episode 6, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk political betrayal past and present with novelist Jess Walter and poet Kiki Petrosino. Jess Walter once interviewed an ailing Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat" of Watergate fame, and he gives us the skinny on the literary qualities of Nixon, Trump, Flynn, NY mobsters, and his 2005 novel Citizen Vince. Plus, would John Gotti have liked the president? On the eve of the release of her new book, Witch Wife, Kiki Petrosino talks to us about MacBeth's witches and how Shakespeare can help us decode our current age of political skulduggery. What Trump Administration officials would you cast in Macbeth? Readings: All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward; Citizen Vince by Jess Walter; Witch Wife by Kiki Petrosino; The Tragedy of Macbeth; The Tempest; The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark In the Stacks: J.J. Cantrell interviews Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT and Savoy Bookshop & Cafe in Westerly, Rhode Island. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices