fiction/non/fiction

Following Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s widely publicized and false claims about autism, writer Jodie Hare joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about the politics of neurodiversity and the importance of autistic communities. Hare, who was diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, explains how the pathologization of the autistic population is historically connected to industrialization and capitalism. She also discusses the discriminatory and criminal history of searching for a “cure” for autism through a series of cruel methods, which have all failed. She challenges the idea that there are normal and abnormal ways of living, and reads from her book, Autism Is Not a Disease: The Politics of Neurodiversity. 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 V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.Selected Readings:Jodie Hare Autism Is Not A Disease: The Politics of Neurodiversity Why we must politicise neurodiversity | shado Autism cannot be cured — stop trying | huck, July 2024 The Dehumanisation of Autistic People Must End | Verso blog, May 2022 Others: Empire of Normality  by Robert Chapman Unmasking For Life: The Autistic Person's Guide to Connecting, Loving, and Living Authentically by Devon Price, PhD Neuroqueer Heresies  by Nick Walker RFK Jr. Is Using a New Study on Autism Rates to Push His Anti-Vaccine Agenda | Mother Jones People with autism seek dignity where RFK seeks a cure | Axios RFK Jr. Calls Autism ‘Preventable,’ Drawing Ire From Researchers | The New York Times A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll RFK Jr. Set to Launch Disease Registry Tracking Autistic People | The New Republic | The New Republic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Acclaimed novelist and journalist Vauhini Vara joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to discuss her new essay collection, Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age. Vara talks about the rise of the loser tech bro, internet privacy, Google search logs, the power and limits of turning one’s collected personal data into art, and whether a recently publicized AI-authored short story is actually good. 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 V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.Selected Readings:Vauhini Vara Searches This Is Salvaged The Immortal King Rao “Ghosts,” The Believer  Others: A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace  Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams “OpenAI’s metafictional short story about grief is beautiful and moving,” by Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian “‘A computer’s joke, on us’: writers respond to the short story written by AI,” The Guardian  Vauhini Vara on the Perils and Possibilities of Artificial Intelligence Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 17 Alex Reisner on Covering Books3 and Fighting Piracy Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 7, Episode 1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following ICE’s detention of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and the sudden revocation of hundreds of student visas across the country, professor and novelist Sheila Sundar joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the targeting of international university students, especially those involved in pro-Palestine speech or protests, by the Trump administration. Sundar reflects on a childhood spent partly among intellectuals travelling between countries, and explains how this led to her recent novel, Habitations, in which the protagonist leaves her home in South India for graduate school at Columbia. Sundar discusses international students’ contributions to American intellectual life and how the current assault on diversity damages academia. She also talks about how work-restrictive policies treat international students as “takers” who are not welcome to integrate fully into American society. Sundar reads from Habitations.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 V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.Selected Readings:Sheila Sundar Habitations (2024) Yellow Curtains The Massachusetts Review (2023) Diplomacy  Virginia Quarterly Review (2022) The Death of Tyler Clementi The Threepenny Review (2021) Others: Meghan O’Rourke on The End of the University, Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 8, Episode 27 Nearly 150 Students Have Had Visas Revoked and Could Face Deportation - The New York Times Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to the Press Trump Immigration Policies Increase Peril For International Students Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Essayist, poet, and Yale Review editor Meghan O’Rourke joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her recent New York Times piece, “The End of the University as We Know It.” O’Rourke discusses the situation at Columbia University; the Trump administration’s attacks on other universities, including the threats to deport international students for participation in pro-Palestine protests; the false notion of the radical college campus; and how the political balance on campuses has actually shifted in recent years. She also reflects on how the Cold War reshaped these institutions and made them national assets; the financial relationship between the university and the state; and why schools can’t just spend their endowments. O’Rourke reads from her essay.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 V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.Selected Readings:Meghan O'Rourke Opinion | The View Inside Trump’s Assault on Universities - The New York Times: The End of the University as We Know It by Meghan O’Rourke The Yale Review | Meghan O'Rourke Yale’s Unsafe Spaces | The New Yorker The Invisible Kingdom (2023) Sun in Days (2019) Once (2013) The Long Goodbye (2012) Halflife (2008) Others: Creating the Market University | Princeton University Press by Elizabeth Popp Berman 20 Colleges With the Biggest Endowments | The Short List: Colleges | U.S. News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this engaging conversation, novelist Alex Higley, author of True Failure, delves into the absurdities of modern capitalism through the lens of his protagonist's misguided ambition to impress on a Shark Tank-style show. He explores the emotional refuge of lying, especially in today's political climate, while critiquing the myth of individual success. Higley’s insights on authenticity in reality TV reflect larger societal issues, making this a thought-provoking discussion on truth, deception, and the pressures of visibility.

Novelist, memoirist and biographer Edmund White joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his recent book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir. White talks about the changes he has witnessed the LGBTQ+ community go through over the years and the hostility the transgender population faces under the Trump-Vance regime. He discusses a general concern older members of the community have about losing Social Security and health coverage should gay marriage become Trump’s next target, as well as this administration's attempt to erase queer language from governmental archives. White previews his forthcoming novel about Louis XIV’s gay brother titled Monsieur and reads from The Loves of My Life.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 V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Ian Johnson, Hunter Murray, and Vanessa Watkins. Selected Readings:Edmund White  The Loves of My Life (2025) The Humble Lover (2025) Nocturnes for the King of Naples (2024) A Previous Life (2023) A Saint from Texas (2022) The Unpunished Vice (2018) The Flaneur (2015) Inside a Pearl (2015) Jack Holmes & His Friend (2012) City Boy (2010) A Boy Story (2009) Marcel Proust - A Life (2009) Anthologies, Foreword & Others: The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame (2022) A Luminous Republic (2020) The Stonewall Reader (2019) Such Small Hands (2017) The Violet Quill Club, 40 Years On - The Gay & Lesbian Review by David Bergman, January-February 2021 Felice Picano, Champion of Gay Literature, Is Dead at 81 - The New York Times Edmund White and Emily Temple on Literary Feuds, Social Media, and Our Appetite for Drama Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 4 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bestselling fiction writer Curtis Sittenfeld joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her new collection of stories, Show Don’t Tell. Sittenfeld discusses the title story, which depicts graduate students in creative writing competing for funding, and its connections to her time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, when that practice was common. She also considers how President Trump’s attacks on DEI reveal some people’s true natures, and what it means to write about “the hypocrisy of being a person.” Finally, she explains why she thinks of time as a plot twist, and reflects on returning to the protagonist of her debut novel, Prep, Lee Fiora, who reappears in the new collection’s final story, which features her thirtieth high school reunion. Sittenfeld reads from Show Don’t Tell.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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.Selected Readings:Curtis Sittenfeld Show Don’t Tell (2025) Romantic Comedy (2023) Rodham (2021) The Best American Short Stories 2020 (ed. with Heidi Pitlor) You Think It, I’ll Say It (2019) Eligible (2016) Sisterland (2013) American Wife (2008) The Man of My Dreams (2006) Prep (2005) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Professor Karen Weingarten joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about a new anthology she has edited, Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade. Weingarten reflects on the complicated history of abortion, the varied use of abortifacients, abortion’s ties to eugenics and state control of bodies, and the rise of the anti-abortion movement. She discusses how access to abortion facilitates other kinds of resistance, and explains how the book came to include authors like Maria Sybilla Merian, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Lucille Clifton, and Eugene O’Neill alongside oral histories from formerly enslaved persons and groundbreaking politicians like Shirley Chisholm. She talks about the stories she hopes to see represented in post-Dobbs writing and reads from her foreword to the anthology.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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.Selected Readings:Karen Weingarten Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade Pregnancy Test Abortion in the American Imagination: Before Life and Choice, 1880-1940 Others Dirty Dancing Fast Times at Ridgemont High The Cider House Rules The Mothers The Art of Subtext Jessica Valenti Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win Peyton Place Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway (which includes “Hills Like White Elephants” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canadian authors Suzette Mayr and Kai Thomas join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the repercussions of President Trump’s recent threats to annex and tax Canada. They talk about the possible empowerment of the Canadian right as a result of Trump’s extreme remarks, as well as measures their communities are taking to unify in the current political environment. Mayr and Thomas read from their recent novels, The Sleeping Car Porter and In the Upper Country. 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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.Selected Readings:Suzette Mayr The Sleeping Car Porter  Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall Monoceros Venous Hum The Windows Moon Honey  Kai ThomasIn the Upper CountryOthers: 2025 4 Nations Face Off | NHL.com | NHL Justin Trudeau's speech in response to Trump's tariffs | CBC News The Last Black Town in the West |The Daily Yonder Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters  | Library of Congress There's only one winner in a trade war... | This Hour Has 22 Minutes (YouTube) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos, author of a recent article titled “An Emboldened Trump Seeks to Bend New York City to His Will,” joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about why President Trump wants to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Officials in Trump’s Department of Justice say they want Adams to be free to aid Trump’s immigration crackdown in the Big Apple, which since 2014 has been a sanctuary city. But conservative federal prosecutors like Danielle Sassoon and Hagen Scotten say this amounts to a quid pro quo and have resigned rather than drop the case against Adams. Fandos reflects on what might happen next and the larger implications for the Department of Justice.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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.Selected Readings:Nicholas Fandos An Emboldened Trump Seeks to Bend New York City to His Will  Eric Adams Discussed Possible Republican Primary Run with G.O.P. Leader  Jeffries Works With N.Y. Democrats to Weaken G.O.P. Control of the House Others: Who Is Danielle Sassoon, the Prosecutor Who Quit Over Eric Adams’s Corruption Case? | New York Times  Danielle Sassoon’s Letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Annotated | New York Times  Here Are the Charges Eric Adams Faces, Annotated | New York Times | September 26, 2024 Read the Resignation Letter From Hagan Scotten | New York Times  Read The Letter From Emil Bove Accepting Danielle Sassoon’s Resignation, Annotated | New York Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices