This week we're talking about research-driven memoir writing, books that are difficult to pin down, and what it means to say that writing feels "poetic." Our reading was The Grave on the Wall, the prize-winning memoir by poet Brandon Shimoda, which begins with the author on a search to understand his grandfather's life. In the second half of the show, we talk about strategies for talking about student work that might be offensive or otherwise problematic. You can buy The Grave on the Wall here: ...
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 1 min
This week's reading is an essay by Elena Passarello about birdsong. But it's also other stuff! We talk about writing that make you look at the world a bit differently, and writers who can make you care about things you never thought you cared about. In the second half of the show, we discuss a recent Twitter kerfuffle over writing and money and whether publishing a book can (or should) change your life. The essay we discussed, "Of Singing," was published in The Iowa Review, but is also available...
Oct 19, 2020•59 min
This week we're discussing a piece of creative nonfiction that really pushes the bounds of the genre, imagining the effects of a California earthquake on animal and plant life, as well as several invented human characters. Daniel Orozco's "Shakers" appeared in an edition of Best American Essays edited by David Foster Wallace, but is it really an "essay"? In the second half of the show, we talk about strategies for running creative writing workshops. When we started teaching, we both adhered to t...
Oct 12, 2020•1 hr 4 min
This week we're continuing our discussion of creative nonfiction by revisiting a classic in the genre: Joan Didion's essay "The White Album," which explores the author's experiences of anxiety and paranoia at "the end of the 60s." We talk about things we can learn from a master, and how to write essays that will age well. Plus: a Miss Manners column about famous authors snubbing an academic. If you like the show, and you'd like to have some more of it in your life, you can subscribe to our Patre...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr 5 min
This week we're discussing a series of very short essays by J. Robert Lennon, and talking about how we teach students to write very short pieces that aren't simply tossed-off and incomplete. Plus: Tom gets angry about a rich book influencer who thinks her pandemic problems are unique and interesting. And Mike runs into his first anti-masker in the wild. You can read J. Robert Lennon's essay here: https://www.theliteraryreview.org/essay/ten-short-essays/ If you like the podcast, and would like mo...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 9 min
This week we're continuing our ongoing discussion of creative nonfiction by diving into an essay by Hanif Abdurraqib about attending a Bruce Springsteen concert in Jersey and thinking about who gets to romanticize "hard work" in America. Plus: Tom has opinions about Susan Orlean rebranding herself as a fun drunk, and Mike brings you another installment of "The Worst Person in This Month's Architectural Digest." You can buy Hanif's book here: https://twodollarradio.com/products/they-cant-kill-us ...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 3 min
This week we're talking about a second-person essay by Jennifer Murvin that was first published in The Cincinnati Review. We also talk about grading in creative writing classes, and how to arrive at standards that are fair without being either too mean or a pushover. Plus at least one tantalizing blind item! Links: You can learn more about Jennifer Murvin and her writing here: https://www.jennifermurvin.com/ Check out the bookstore she owns (and order books online) here: https://paginationbooksh...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr
This week we're discussing an Alice Bolin essay from The Toast, "A Meditation on Britney's 'Baby One More Time,'" which uses the pop star's music as a jumping-off point for an exploration of loneliness, isolation, and the ways in which we hold ourselves apart from others. We talk about ways that writers can use their pop culture obsessions to get into some pretty interesting personal territory, and how we can get students, in particular, to wade out into those deeper waters, rather than simply w...
Sep 07, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Welcome to our new fall season! Yes, we know that technically it's not fall, but school's back in session, and there are some brown leaves on the tree in front of one of our houses (it's possible the tree is dead). For the next several weeks, we're going to be delving into the world of creative nonfiction, with a particular eye towards teaching that genre in a classroom. We're both college professors who have taught both undergrad and grad classes, and this semester we both have occasion to teac...
Aug 31, 2020•1 hr 7 min
This week we're discussing a Deb Olin Unferth story about an adjunct professor who knows when people will die, "Wait Till You See Me Dance," which prompts a discussion of our own brief tenure as adjuncts, and our current tenure as (non-tenure-track) professors, and how we're feeling about the upcoming semester. Also: dark humor, reading for surprise, and falling down wells. Unferth's story first appeared in Harper's, in 2009, and was the title story of her 2017 story collection. You can read the...
Aug 24, 2020•1 hr 9 min
This week we're talking about an essay by Britni de la Cretaz about her complicated relationship with both the Miami Marlins and her hometown. That leads to a discussion of what makes sports-related writing interesting to non-sports fans, and how to unlearn some of the writing lessons taught to you in school. We also take another dive into #bookstagram, to try to figure out whether book influencers have actually read any books. Plus: Tom waits for a team of men to deliver his fancy new desk. Her...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr
This week we're reading a short story from Nick White's debut collection that was recommended by author Alissa Nutting. White's story prompts a discussion of the book business, specifically the rarity of short story collections published by big presses and how both the hype machine for young authors and the pushback against the hype machine for young authors can grow quickly tiresome. Also this week: We begin what will surely be a multi-week exploration of book influencers (book-fluencers?) on I...
Aug 10, 2020•1 hr 16 min
We ran into some technical difficulties with the book-based episode scheduled to release this week, so instead we're bringing you this free bonus episode, which was slated to be behind the Patreon paywall . We hope you enjoy it! We talk about what writers owe--and do not owe--to readers who reach out to them with questions, comments, or a desire to continue the conversation started by their work. How can you be kind and generous to your readers, but also set boundaries so that you don't wind up ...
Aug 03, 2020•38 min
This week's story is by South Korean writer and filmmaker Lee Chang-Dong, and it's called "On Destiny." It basically traces the entire life of its main character, from his youth in an orphanage, separated during the war from his parents, and through stints of poverty, jail time, and then a possible payday. We talk about what makes certain stories feel fable-like, and the surprising little details that crop up when reading fiction in translation, like unexpected metaphors and unfamiliar aphorisms...
Jul 27, 2020•57 min
This week we're discussing a story by a celebrated Iranian author, Goli Taraghi, as well as a piece from the Los Angeles Review of Books that attempts to put her work into a cultural context. Are there things we don't get, as Western readers? Will certain elements of fiction always be culturally dependent, and thus slightly out of reach for readers outside that culture? Or is the story just too long and kind of meandering? Also this week: Dave Eggers gets roasted. Here's a link to the story: " T...
Jul 20, 2020•57 min
This week we discuss a 2018 John Edgar Wideman story from The New Yorker, about a writing teacher trying to decide how to talk to a white student about a well-meaning story she's writing about the travails of a person of color. You can read that story here . Then we learn what books Val Kilmer thinks we should be reading this summer. If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider joining our Patreon . For $5, you'll get access to three bonus episodes a month, ...
Jul 13, 2020•1 hr 6 min
We're in the midst of a global pandemic and a long-overdue upswell of support for defunding our ridiculously over-militarized police, all of which made Tom want to read a story about his dear old Ireland: Edward J. Delaney's " The Drowning ." Actually the story is fine--good, even!--but it leads to a discussion of when we want fiction that helps us to think about the current moment and when we want fiction that takes us out of the current moment. Also: we follow up on last week's discussion of w...
Jul 06, 2020•1 hr 5 min
This week we're discussing an essay by Mary Heather Noble called "Plume: An Investigation," which was originally published by True Story. The essay weaves together a few narrative strands, including the author trying to understand her young daughter's sometimes perplexing behavior, which leads her, unexpectedly, to a better understanding of her difficult father. The essay's a good one, and it prompts a discussion of what makes certain personal essays stand out in what is an increasingly crowded ...
Jun 29, 2020•1 hr 7 min
This week we're discussing Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Fleishman Is In Trouble, a book that's been described as the novel Phillip Roth would have written if Phillip Roth understood women. Which is a pretty good Phillip Roth zing, but also maybe true? We talk about the book's depiction of internet dating, whether its view of marriage is cynical or pragmatic, and why at least one of us felt the need to reconsider some of his own behavior after reading the novel's closing chapters. Plus: we offer some ...
Jun 22, 2020•1 hr 10 min
This week we're discussing Elle Nash's 2018 novel Animals Eat Each Other , in which a nameless narrator enters into a rather fraught three-way relationship with a tattoo artist/Satanist and his girlfriend. We talk about what makes for good/interesting writing about sex, and how a book like this might hit differently at different ages. Plus: another installment of Judge A Book By Its Cover! You can see the books we're judging on our website , or on Twitter . If you like the show, and would like m...
Jun 15, 2020•1 hr 1 min
This week we're reading one of Donald Barthelme's first published stories, "A Shower of Gold" which prompts a discussion of the relationship between postmodern absurdity and contemporary politics. Also: we check out recommended reading lists from Hallmark movie actor and producer Candace Cameron Bure and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. You might be surprised by what at least one of them is reading! If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider subscribing...
Jun 08, 2020•1 hr 1 min
This week we're discussing a short story by Kelly Ramsey, " First Citizen of Mars, " in which the narrator is the first person flown to Mars by Elon Musk. Actually the story is about all sorts of things, and the Elon Musk bit is really just a jumping-off point. We talk about how fiction can use real people--or well-known fictional characters--in interesting ways. We also take a visit to Yahoo Answers to help a few people out with their writing and publishing-related questions, and Tom takes a de...
Jun 01, 2020•59 min
This week we're reading a story by A.S. Byatt about a couple of upper-class twits who get their comeuppance. You love to see it! Also, in light of the recent dustup over Curtis Sittenfeld's Rodhman, we talk about alternate-universe novels we'd like to see in the world. Plus a new segment: Dante's Inferno! If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider subscribing to our Patreon . For $5, you'll get access to three bonus episodes a month, including Book Fight A...
May 25, 2020•1 hr 3 min
For this week's episode we read John Jeremiah Sullivan's 2004 essay about attending one of the biggest Christian rock festivals in the world--Creation Fest, which is held annually in rural Pennsylvania and attracts upwards of 50,000 people each year. We talk about what separates great participatory journalism from frustrating participatory journalism, and our own brushes with youth-group Christianity. Then, for no good reason at all, we do a deep internet dive into erotic Elon Musk fanfic....
May 18, 2020•57 min
This week's short story traces the entire history of the planet in just about 2,000 words. Rachel B. Glaser's " Pee On Water " was first published in New York Tyrant and was the title story of her debut collection . We talk about the story's experiment in narrative time, and the accumulative quality of its short sentences. Also: Mike breaks down and buys a fancy office chair, we commiserate about repetitive stress pains, and we do another round of Judge a Book By Its Cover. If you like the show,...
May 11, 2020•1 hr
This week we're discussing a Zadie Smith essay, " Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction ," originally published in the New York Review of Books in 2019. The piece wrestles with how novelists can practice their craft--particularly when it comes to writing characters unlike themselves in some fundamental way--in an age when attempts at writing across racial, ethnic, gender, or other lines are often seen as problematic, or at least ill-advised. Later in the podcast, we try out a new segment ...
May 04, 2020•1 hr 5 min
This week we talk about one of Stephen King's early stories (first published in 1970, the same year he graduated college) and the recent rash of pandemic-themed personal essays. Are there ways to write about your quarantine experience while acknowledging that you're not the center of everyone else's universe? If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider subscribing to our Patreon . For $5, you'll get access to three bonus episodes a month, including Book Fig...
Apr 27, 2020•1 hr 11 min
This week we're discussing a story from Jamel Brinkley's award-winning debut collection, A Lucky Man. Plus, we answer more ridiculous NaNoWriMo questions, and we check out Amazon's Kindle store to see how many coronavirus-themed books have popped up already (short answer: so many!). If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider subscribing to our Patreon . For $5, you'll get access to three bonus episodes a month, including Book Fight After Dark , where we re...
Apr 20, 2020•1 hr 11 min
This week we have a spoiler-free discussion of Teddy Wayne's new novel, Apartment, which is about a couple writers in Columbia's MFA program, circa 1996. We also take another dive into the re-opened NaNoWriMo forums, and play a round of Judge A Book By Its Cover, which unexpectedly turns up a teen romance novel with a cover featuring a young, pre-Friends Courtney Cox. If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider subscribing to our Patreon . For $5, you'll ge...
Apr 13, 2020•1 hr 18 min
This week we're discussing a book of "micro-memoirs" by the poet and essayist Beth Ann Fennelly. Plus another dive into the NaNoWriMo forums, and we resurrect a segment from the early days of the show: Judge a Book By Its Cover. If you like the show, and would like more Book Fight in your life, please consider joining our Patreon . For $5, you'll get access to three bonus episodes a month, including Book Fight After Dark , where we read some of the world's weirdest--and steamiest!--novels. We've...
Apr 06, 2020•1 hr 2 min
