1storypod

TORONTO / NYC — Sheila Heti is the author of the short story collection the Middle Stories (2001), the short novel Ticknor (2005), the philosophy book the Chairs Are Where The People Go (2011), co-written by Misha Glouberman, How Should A Person Be? (2012), and Motherhood (2018). She also co-edited the collection Women in Clothes (2014). And wrote the intro to the new release of this Virginia Woolf essay, How Should One Read A Book? (2020). Her next book, Pure Colour, is coming out in January 2022. I first encountered Sheila’s writing in late 2014, when I tore through How Should A Person Be? in a night. I’ve since done a handful of pods on her books, so this is really exciting for me, it’s been a long time coming. We recorded this late last week. Sheila Heti lives in Toronto.

Here is a link to her website, with links to all her books: http://www.sheilaheti.com

Sheila's podcast "Podcast With Raisins": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-with-raisins/id1193833547

CONTENTS

8 min - pod start

12 min - Sheila’s current project

15 min - the book isn’t finished till it’s separate from you

16 min - me tryna turn real life into an Art Idea

20 min - How Ticknor different but also similar to her other books

24 min - friendship/angels

25 min - how I first encountered Sheila's writing

36 min - on walking / Richard Serra

40 min - “art should be taken off the pedestal”

42 min - Middle Stories reactions / why she wrote Ticknor

45 min - publishing right after 9/11

50 min - Sheila outing me for being in school lolol

55 min - Malcolm gladwell story

1 hr 4 min - coin stuff / mysticism

1 hr 7 min - on God

1 hr 11 min - on Nietzsche

1 hr 12 min - “the great writers rearrange your brain”

1 hr 13 min - Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Martin Buber

1 hr 16 - “who decides that something is good is the Culture / having supporters” / Wittgenstein

1 hr 21 min - “the person who loves a book is the one who’s right about it” / criticism

1 hr 28 min - on cigs / tobacco

Intro song: https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master

Related episode - solo rant on Motherhood (1.3.2018): https://soundcloud.com/1storypod/29-family-failure-and-procreation-in-motherhood-2018-by-sheila-heti-1storypod-with-st-conroe

Sean Thor Conroe lives in Harlem.

NAPLES — Giancarlo DiTrapano is the founder, editor, and publisher of New York Tyrant. The magazine initially, starting in 2005. And then of Tyrant Books, starting in 2010. I spoke with him in his apartment in Naples two days ago, before flying back to the states yesterday. After flying out there 11 days ago. He wrote for Vice for a minute during the early tens and has ran the workshop Mors Tua Vita Mea, with the writer Chelsea Hodson, in Sezze, Italy since 2015. He grew up in Charleston, West Virginia and spent many years in New York City before moving out to Italy five years ago. We talk about how he came into the game with the magazine and the imprint, what he’s psyched about writing-wise now, a whole bunch of stuff. Thoroughly enjoyed ripping this convo and running it back.

NY Tyrant: https://nytyrant.com

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POD CONTENTS

6 min - pod start: G dissing and me tryna defend Ferrante lmaoo

8 min - Of Love and Other Demons by Garcia Marquez

9 min - Autoportrait by Edouard Leve / story versus bars/syntax

11 min - translated versus untranslated

11.5 min - G: “We should be recording this.” Me: “Bro it’s recording.”

12 min - coffee ready

13 min - move from kitchen to living room

13 min - McClanahan , bars v. Voice

14 min - on Liveblog (2018) by Megan Boyle

19 min - ‘prep’ = Preparation for the Next Life (2014) by Atticus Lish and ‘shapiro’ = Supremacist (2016) by Dave Shapiro

22 min - story on linking w Atticus Lish

26 min - How to Live is bigger than How to Write

27 min - Louise Gluck

32 min - Babak Lakghomi

38 min - "everything important in literature is about Death"

41 min - on mimicry / imitation

46 min - on exclamation points / nietzsche ecce homo

48 min - Lutz

49 min - Tyrant Vol 3 No 2 / young Diane Lane "the Outsiders"

55 min - story of G pulling up to nyc / FSG

59 min - putting out the first Tyrant mag / Sheila Heti

1 hr 2 min - DFW

1 hr 3 min - “all these lit mags started bc the Internet”

1 hr 6 min - Supremacist by David Shapiro

1 hr 12 min - drugs according to music era

1 hr 18 min - first linking w Castro

1 hr 21 min - what/who G hype on rn / Honor Levy

1 hr 22 min - Christopher Kennedy

1 hr 29 min - mors tua vita mea

1 hr 37 min - on how relevant or not relevant being out here for writing

1 hr 40 min - How the infrastructure of Literature upheld

Intro song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1YnDZXJ7Dj0Uk9Pqu4tdAX?si=evQ3qjohRo2VxpXVIQwtig

Sean Thor Conroe https://mobile.twitter.com/stconroe lives in Harlem.

HARLEM — I met the homie Vern a minute ago. I see him around all the time. I seem to see him once every couple weeks, like clockwork. Usually when the weather gets nicer suddenly, or nice enough to sit courtside or hoop at this lil park I be hooping at. Whenever we link we always torch one and really go in. Like every time it’s like a pod-length powwow. Today (12.11.20) we were goin in, mildly spleed, when he just started going off and I felt moved to set it down.

But what we talking about is, all this past week, I seen a wake going on across the street, mad people out, like 50-60 people gathered, lighting candles, pouring up, playing music for a homie who passed. I hadn’t know what had happened, but then in this convo it came up.

5 min - real life consequences of rappers talking crazy on the track / RIP Fluff

7 min - on staying ready / long johns riff

10 min - walking to the store / on beats / how he tryna go in on the track

12 min - “fuck getting inside your head w the bars I’m tryna get inside you BODY”

12:30-14 min - inside the store

14 min - walking back to the park

14:30 - “no one wants to be a nothing”

15 min - how he was raised vs how youngins today raised

17 min - back at the park / on the homie Fluff , RIP

20 min - my lighter died

https://twitter.com/stconroe lives in Harlem

http://1storyhaus.com

DMV / NYC — Nicolette Polek is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Imaginary Museums (Soft Skull, 2020) is her first book. I saw Nicolette read from this collection a couple times early this year, and reread it a couple times this past fortnight.

Buy Imaginary Museums: https://softskull.com/dd-product/imaginary-museums/

POD CONTENTS

3 min - pod start

4 min - small rooms big rooms card rooms basements

11 min - on “Winners” - https://magazine.nytyrant.com/winners/

14 min - on how life in Slovakia vs. US

19 min - “Field Notes” / Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch

21 min - Krasznahorkai

24 min - on the traditions Nicolette partaking in

25 min - The Middle Stories by Sheila Heti

27 min - Intimate Lighting, dir. Ivan Passer

28 min - on making art in communism

31 min - experience working with Soft Skull

33 min - on how these stories written

36 min - me repeatedly belaboring “the Nature”

37 min - Thomas Tallis / Abba

39 min - on what Nicolette working on now / Marta Becket

41 min - solitude vs. sharing. Kierkegaard definition of a saint: “to will the one thing”

42 min - subsequent books as answers to questions posed in previous ones

44 min - female eels

47 min - on Waldorf

55 min - Rings of Saturn by Sebald

57 min - mycology

– Sean Thor Conroe, http://1storyhaus.com

WISCONSIN / MANHATTAN — Big Bruiser Dope Boy is the author of Foghorn Leghorn, Your First Real Boyfriend (2019), and, most recently, After Denver (October 2020, 11:11 Press). He runs the site Gay Death Trance and lives in Wisconsin.

After Denver, from 11:11 Press: https://1111press.com/after-denver

Read the opening poem to After Denver, "Daddy State of Mind": https://www.youngmag.io/article/daddy-state-of-mind

CONTENTS

4 min - pod start

8 min - once a book is out there it’s out there

10 min - Pink absurdism / magical realism

13 min - how going in in 20s

16 min - “Doubt Doubt”

20 min - writing to be able to change yourself

21 min - on pseudonymity / BBDB’s inception

26 min - cnf vs fiction

29 min - the slab parts / homoeroticism of sports

32 min - coming outta the closet now vs 20 yrs ago

35 min - on “Gay Poet Here”

38 min - on bbdb’s process

40 min - edging on the rip / not going in till time

43 min - alternate writing modes / text messaging as writing

48 min - this type o writing is good for the culture / readability

51 min on working at gay bars / animal stuff / bear culture

59 - who After Denver written for

1 hr 4 min - on Death / strong fatalism

SILVER LAKE / HARLEM — Allie Rowbottom is the author of Jell-O Girls (Little Brown, 2018). She recently wrote this story in Hobart: https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/auralift She teaches writing classes for Catapult and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Jon Lindsey.

Buy her book: http://www.allierowbottom.com

POD CONTENTS:

3 min - pod start

6 min - how jell-o girls written thru reading her mom’s writing

10 min - on the blend of her / her mom’s pov .. influences

11 min - Jane (2005) by Maggie Nelson

15 min - speaking oneself into selfhood / marketing of the book

20 min - on sharing / generosity , exhibitionism

22 min - the survival instinct as energizing

25 min - on myopia/linearity vs empathy/panopticality

29 min - on radical superficiality / Botox

30 min - taking theory outta the classroom

32 min - articulating the unsayable

34 min - whether one can objectify oneself for power or nah

35 min - Marguerite Duras

41 min - botched Lil B the BasedGod riff

42 min - hysteria = ‘wandering womb’ (hyster-ectomy)

45 min - me admitting im a toxic male

47 min - privilege vs pain

49 min - how able to manage health issues explored in the book, now

52 min - person you wrote about as character vs real person

54 min - edging on the pull. Till it’s time

58 min - real life ramifications of book

1 hr - dating another writer = double suicide pact

Intro song: "Thank You" by Yamz https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master

Sean Thor Conroe lives in NYC and tweets @stconroe and grams @seanthorconroe

NYC / MONTREAL — Steve Anwyll is the author of Welfare (2018). He lives in Montreal, where he works at a screen printing shop. Welfare is his first novel. What a guy. Hell yeah. Cop that shit here if ya haven’t: https://www.nytyrant.com/products/welfare-by-steve-anwyll

Anwyll on Twitter: https://twitter.com/oneloveasshole

CONTENTS

1SP053: Steve Anwyll

2 min - pod start

11 min - family / work

22 min - 9-to-5s

24 min - kindness vs. cruelty

28 min - syntax / Celine

32 min - writing for mfs who don’t be reading a lot

36 min - misanthropic French writers

44 min - self-worth / work

49 min - political implications

53 min - publishing vulnerability / handling praise

59 hr - city vs. rural

1 hr 3 min - women as motivation

1 hr 6 min - caseworkers / nurses as angels when you fucked up

1 hr 12 min - real life ramifications of the book

1 hr 15 min - who we write for

NYC — Chelsea Hodson is the author of the essay collection Tonight I'm Someone Else (2018) and the chapbook Pity the Animal (2014). She teaches at the Bennington MFA program and at the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Italy and also does private writing consultations. We met at a reading back in December in Bushwick. I read her book a couple times over the past couple months.

Her book: https://www.amazon.com/Tonight-Im-Someone-Else-Essays/dp/1250170192

Pod Contents:

3 min - pod start

5 min - Work

7 min - never defining oneself as a single thing / multiplicity

10 min - presentation / performance / moon stuff

14 min - rewriting over years

15 min - the moon looks different depending on how the light hits it

17 min - Jo Ann Beard “sometimes you gotta just live longer”

20 min - “writing is gross”

22 min - narcissism / self-concern / autonomy

29 min - Longing / By Grand Central Station I Laid Down And Wept (1945) by Elizabeth Smart

33 min - planetary / animal stuff

35 min - on embarrassment

36 min - when Pity the Animal (2014) dropped

40 min - on workshopping

41 min - taking what you need out of “negative” experiences

44 min - on clarity

47 min - write to change fate’s course

52 min - on doubling down

58 min - what Chelsea workin on now

1 hr - McClanahan

Intro song: "Thank You" by Yamz - https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master

Sean Thor Conroe lives in NYC and tweets @stconroe twitter.com/stconroe

http://1storyhaus.com/index.html

MASS–NYC — Miranda Popkey (b. 1987) grew up in Santa Cruz, CA. I went to middle and high school in Santa Cruz, CA. I was unaware of this until we talked. I’m glad we talked.

Her debut novel, Topics of Conversation (2020), published by Knopf in January, is an absolute banger. One of the most immediate, intense, complicated books I’ve hit in a minute. I read it slowly, over the summer; and then again, this time quickly, over the past three days.

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.com/Topics-Conversation-novel-Miranda-Popkey/dp/0525656286

CONTENTS

2 min - Santa Cruz!

4 min - how the Jan 2020 drop

7 min - on narcissism

9 min - on reviews / having no chill

14 min - Sheila Heti, Vigdis Hjorth

15 min - on resisting certainty

17 min - Joan Didion

23 min - becoming aware of underlying narratives / assumptions

25 min - on Back to the Future

29 min - Santa Cruz! cont.

31 min - ‘amplifying the fuckery’

33 min - is writing therapy

36 min - on LA Confidential / violent masculinity as ‘attractive’

42 min - is the essentializing of gender biological or taught or both or does it matter

49 min - book as invitation to examine one’s desires

50 min - Norman Mailer

53 min - flirting with vs. running away from the reader

56 min - Rachel Cusk , Rings of Saturn by Sebald

1 hr - me virtursignalling that I've read Wuthering Heights

1 hr 2 min - the line between wanting to sleep with someone and be them

1 hr 5 min - the 'Dylan' character and forgiving your parents

NYC / WV — Scott McClanahan (b. 1978) is the author of eight book: Stories (2008), Stories II (2009), Stories V! (2011), The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. 1 (2012), Crapalachia (2013, Two Dollar Radio), Hill William (2013, Tyrant Books), The Incantations of Daniel Johnston (2016, Two Dollar Radio), and The Sarah Book (2017, Tyrant Books), which NPR called "brave, triumphant and beautiful." It is. They also said "it reads like a fever dream, and it feels like a miracle." It fkn does. https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pre-order-the-sarah-book-by-scott-mcclanahan

Sarah Book excerpt (2017): http://magazine.nytyrant.com/excerpt-sarah-book/

Scott also co-founded the press Holler Presents.

Very grateful to Scott for a taking a sec to riff one time.

Intro song 'broders' by yamz from Filadelphia Yamz.

http://1storyhaus.com/index.html

- STC