

Otherppl with Brad Listi
Brad Listi
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth conversations with today's leading authors. Books, writing, literature, screenwriting, the creative process, and more. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Bluesky and Instagram.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Sep 2, 2025 • 1h 31min
989. Susannah Cahalan
Susannah Cahalan is the author of The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary (Viking).
Cahalan is a #1 New York Times–bestselling author, journalist and public speaker. Her first book, Brain on Fire, has sold over a million copies and has been translated into more than twenty languages. Her second book, The Great Pretender, was shortlisted for the Royal Society’s 2020 Science Book Prize. She lives in New Jersey with her family.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 31, 2025 • 1h 6min
988. Sylvia Jones
Sylvia Jones is the author of the debut poetry collection Television Fathers, available from Meekling Books.
Jones is an adjunct professor at George Washington University. She also works as poetry editor for Black Lawrence Press and serves as a first reader for Ploughshares. Her next book, Dope Callisthenics, is forthcoming from Relegation Books in the Fall of 2026. She earned her M.F.A. from American University in Washington D.C. and lives in Baltimore, MD.
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 28, 2025 • 1h 34min
Ken Burns Presents 'The Swiftie Civil War'
Volume 57 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Brad leans on A.I. for emotional validation...Angry Adam weighs in...Mira's Grandpasaurus has a massive stroke (survives)...Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce get engaged...the Taylor Timer shatters...Lil Nas X walks nude through Studio City...a finger in a chicken wrap...and more...
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 26, 2025 • 1h 19min
987. Lydi Conklin
Lydi Conklin is the author of the debut novel Songs of No Provenance, available from Catapult Press. It was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
Conklin has received a Stegner Fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Creative Writing Fulbright in Poland, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and elsewhere. Their fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, One Story, and American Short Fiction. They have drawn cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine. Their story collection, Rainbow Rainbow, was longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Award and The Story Prize.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 24, 2025 • 1h 11min
986. Donald Berger
Donald Berger is the author of the poetry collection The Rose of Maine, available from SurVision Books. Winner of the 2024 James Tate International Poetry Prize.
Berger's other books include Pizza Necklace, The Long Time—winner of the Poetry Prize of the German Academy for Language and Poetry—and Quality Hill (Lost Roads Publishers). His poems have appeared in journals in the U.S., Europe and Asia, and he currently teaches at Johns Hopkins University.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 21, 2025 • 1h 29min
Billionaire Death Party
Volume 56 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Mira's hummingbird death angel friend...a letter from a listener who got run over by a car...Angry Adam returns (we forgot to play his audio last week)...Lana del Rey vs. Ethel Cain...billionaires in submersibles getting coffee and going to visit the disintegrated remains of peasants at the bottom of the ocean...in a shocking turn, Brad discovers an easter egg in Taylor Swift's new album...Katy Perry's continued run of shockingly bad luck...and more...
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 19, 2025 • 1h 18min
985. Chelsea Bieker
Chelsea Bieker is the author of the novel Madwoman, now available in trade paperback wherever books are sold.
Bieker's first novel, Godshot, was longlisted for The Center For Fiction’s First Novel Prize and her story collection, Heartbroke won the California Book Award. She is the co-creator of The Fountain, writes about creative practice at her substack, Make Up Your Life, and is at work on a new novel.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 17, 2025 • 1h 43min
A Conversation with a Witch: Amanda Yates Garcia on Empire, Resistance, Contemporary Culture, and Radical Enchantment
A special Sunday episode featuring Amanda Yates Garcia, also known as The Oracle of Los Angeles.
Amanda is a writer, socially engaged artist, public witch, and doctoral student in the department of World Arts Cultures and Dance at UCLA. Her first book, Initiated, received a starred review from Kirkus and Publisher's Weekly and has been translated into six languages. Amanda hosts the Between the Worlds podcast, which looks at the Western Mystery traditions through a mythopoetic lens and has been downloaded over 2.5 million times, with over 1,900 five-star reviews. Amanda is the founder of Mystery Cult, a 20k strong online and in-person community on Substack dedicated to eco-somatic ritual practice and cultivating radical enchantment.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aug 14, 2025 • 1h 34min
Our Lives Are Brilliant, Our Love is Pure
Volume 55 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Brad's new company, DeepDive, launches, he is now a startup founder...Brad takes his family to see The Naked Gun ...Mira sees Weapons (and gets Chappell Roan tickets)....Brad's strangely intimate knowledge of the James Blount phenomenon...T-Swift announces a new era...the Anna Delvey Brooklyn bunnicide...Katy Perry's masterclass in public relations disasters...and more...
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

12 snips
Aug 12, 2025 • 1h 14min
984. Michael Clune
Michael Clune, author of the debut novel 'Pan' and acclaimed memoirs like 'White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin,' shares his vivid journey through adolescence and panic attacks. He discusses the complexities of teenage consciousness and the misconceptions of mental health in the 90s. Clune beautifully connects creativity with anxiety, revealing how art and psychedelics can transform personal experiences. He also explores the mythological figure Pan and its ties to identity and emotional struggles, inviting listeners to reflect on their own paths.