Episode description

These two novels explore the gulf between expectation and reality, ambition and opportunity, and what happens when life veers off from your carefully planned path. Kashana Cauley and Matthew Salesses each give us indelible casts of characters to follow as they face career upheaval, challenges to their identities and find new love in unexpected ways. Listen to this Double Shot episode with both authors in conversation separately with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we end this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Jamie. 

Matthew Salesses combines professional basketball, K-dramas, and young love in his novel The Sense of Wonder. Salesses joins us to talk about the effect of Jeremy Lin, the structure of a novel vs. a K-drama, his teaching career and what he’s reading now.  

In Kashana Cauley’s The Survivalists, a young Black lawyer meets a man who thoroughly changes her life through love, coffee and doomsday prepping. Cauley talks with us about how she developed her characters, social class and real estate in New York City, the authors who influenced her and more.  

Featured Books (Episode): 

The Sense of Wonder by Matthew Salesses 

The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley 

Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston 

No-No Boy by John Okada 

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang 

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart  

Featured Books (TBR Topoff): 

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu  

The Sellout by Paul Beatty 

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays with occasional Saturdays.