This week, John speaks with the fiction writer, cartoonist , and musician Eugenio Negro about his new novel, Despair Priorities , the long term project, and figuring out what will be deeply satisfying as a writer and reader.
Sophia Ferrara joins John down the rabbit hole of Charlotte Brontë's early private storytelling.
In this week's show, John teams up once again with his friend Matt Peters to discuss the second book of William S. Burroughs's original quartet of novels. They also discuss the recent film adapation of the same.
On today’s show, I speak with the essayist Katharine Coldiron about how the way we watch movies are sometimes our autobiographies, sometimes our philosophies, and sometimes our humanity.
On 679, John speaks with the novelist Keith MacKenzie about how to plan an unplannable thriller, and how body horror and comedy and existentialism are awfully close neighbors.
On 678, John speaks with recent Kerouac Project of Orlando resident Zach Zimmerman about memoir, memories, childhood, comedy, tragedy, the problems of authenticity, and other vital literary matters.
On this episode, John and Rachael discuss the poetic output of Hannah Arendt's poetry, newly translated into English in a new book from Norton, translated by Samantha Rose Hill and Genese Grill, plus Fred Lambert delivers another masterful installment of the Booze News Roundup.
On this episode, John speaks with Kerouac Project of Orlando resident Skye Jackson about how to create a poetry collection that can be read in one sitting, how to balance the concrete and imaginative abstraction, inviting the audience in, recording a poetry audiobook, ekphrastic poetry, and living in New Orleans.
On this episode, John speaks with Tom McAllister about writing burnout, writing prompts, revision, and discovery, as well as Tom's wonderful new collection of flash memoirs, It All Felt Impossible .
In this week’s replay episode, John talks to author and editor Jaquira Díaz in a show dating back to 2014. Many thanks to Brian Salmons.
On today’s art-infused program, Drew Barth speaks with comic book legend Peter Kuper about his wonderful new book, Insectopolis, a project created during Peter’s residency at the NY Public Library, plus I briefly speak with my friend, the artist Jeff Wilfong, about his upcoming residency at the Timucua Arts Foundation here in Orlando.
This episode is a recording of the inaugural meeting of the Kerouac Project of Orlando's Book Club. Matt Peters and I discuss William S. Burroughs's debut novel, Junky , and its place in the first quartet of his transformative works. The setting for this conversation is the place where Jack Kerouac lived when On the Road came out, where he lived when writing the first draft of The Dharma Bums .
Dan Reiter reads from his new book, On a Rising Swell: Surf Stories from the Space Coast , with the jazz piano accompaniment of Daniel Tenbusch, touching the bohemian spirit of Jack Kerouac, who wrote the first draft of The Darma Bums at that very venue. John and Dan share notes about the writing life, the freedom of constraints, the careers of Joan Didion, Jack Kerouac, and Hunter S. Thompson, and physical transcendence—with the occasional contribution from Dr. Truth.
On this show, John speaks with Dmetri Kakmi about holding onto the mysteries of storytelling, the setting of Australia, the wild problem of self, and his wonderful new novel, The Woman in the Well.
After taking a year off to recover, Jeff Shuster return again for a May the 4th episode of The Drunken Odyssey, in which we discuss the seldom-discussed Ewoks trilogy. As a result, we might never have another May the 4th conversation. But the conversation was lively.
On this show, John speaks with the literary scholar, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who writes lucidly about classic American fiction in readable, important, and enjoyable prose. One of Dr. Fishkin's areas of expertise is Mark Twain. Her new book is Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade .
While John attempts his convalence from his contempible cold, here is a replay of a classic episode from 2013 with the fiction writer Tessa Mellas.
In Margie Sarsfield’s debut novel, Beta Vulgaris , a hipster Brooklyn couple take on temporary work at a Minnesota beet farm at harvest time in order to earn extra money to help them maintain their Brooklyn lifestyle. Elise, the protagonist, who suffers from anxiety that she is no longer medicated for, notices that her fellow workers disappear, either because the work is too difficult or else other mysterious reasons. Elise’s experience becomes more anguishing when her boyfriend also disappears,...
On this show, correspondent Samantha Nickerson speaks with Sally Wen Mao about her story collection, Ninetails , plus Samantha speaks with Susan Mauddi Darraj about her new novel, Behind You Is The Sea .
In honor of the passing of David Lynch, John and Stephen McClurg discuss the peculiar mysteries of a screenplay for a legendary project that was never made, Ronnie Rocket .
In this week's show, John speaks with Jaydra Johnson about her new book, Low: Notes on Art and Trash , and the tensions and connections between class perception, politics, and creation of art.
On today’s show, I speak with the poet and editor Rigoberto Gonzales about the curation of the Library of America anthology of Latino Poetry. Then Richard Blanco reads "Como Tú," his poem that is collected in that anthology, and he and I catch up a little bit.
0On #633, Rachael Tillman and I discuss the surreal paradoxes and sullen joys of Bill Knott's debut collection of poetry, The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans , which was recently reprinted by Black Ocean Press.
On today’s episode, Samantha Nickerson speaks with fiction writer Rufi Thorpe about her striking novel Margo's Got Money Problems . In this episode, you learn about more than just Margo's money problems. Samantha and Rufi discuss Only Fans, wrestling, creating characters, and motherhood’s thorny identity. Samantha then speaks to Susan My-Nutt about erotic obsession, alienation, hyper-thinking, and the presentation of dialogue without quotation marks as they appear in her new novel, Don’t Be a St...
In this episode, John interviews the notable flash fiction writer Kathy Fish about the anxious nuances of that medium and genre. Is flash fiction just a very short story, with all the rules of fiction at work? Or is flash fiction a less traditional, immersive fictional happening that takes somewhere between the length of a flash of lightning and the length of time needed to smoke a cigarette? The complicated answer is yes and yes in this delightful conversation recorded at The Kerouac Project of...
In this episode, John discusses the career of crime novelist John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) in light of a new posthumous short story, “The Accomplice.” In this interview, John speaks with with Andrew Gulli, editor of The Strand Magazine about the rigors and ethos of editing and publishing and MacDonald’s son and literary executor Maynard about propagating a great writer’s legacy without compromising that writer’s standards despite the lucrative promise of a classic literary character like Travis ...
In 659, John talks to poet Duy Đoàn about his latest collection, Zombie Vomit Mad Libs , the poetic provocations of horror films, and experimenting with erasure and fragmentation.
In this week’s replay episode, John talks with fellow classmate, the fiction writer Kseniya Melnik.
In this week's show, John talks to the delightful poet Denise Duhamel about the nuts and bolts of poetry, the construction of themed collections, Barbie, and other matters of literary interest.
This week’s show collects three interviews with prose writers Daniel Handler, Griffin Dunne, and Ridley Pearson in joyful, fun conversations conducted last November at Miami Book Fair.
