1storypod

N 41ST ST — Convo w my neighbor Glenda, 52. On my last day on the block (07/31/2019), after living there 2 plus yrs.

WEST PHILLY — Nicholas Baptiste is a Philly-based writer, reader, musician, and MFKN LIBRARIAN YO. So sick. We post up on a blasted summer day on Baltimore Ave and powwow off the cuff about a whole gang of shit, returning throughout to our most recent reads: Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) and Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son (1992), respectively. We talk writing processes and what we consider constitutes the best art. Where this leads might be summed up as: that which investigates the difficult, touchy, taboo ideas, without either valorizing or condemning any one version of them.

Sean Thor Conroe was born Sho Kamura in Tokyo in 1991.

Latest story: https://expatpress.com/that-fire-sean-thor-conroe/

Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stconroe

IG: https://www.instagram.com/seanthorconroe/

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/1storypod/id1238415112?mt=2

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/1storypod

Website: http://1storyhaus.com

BKLYN-PHILLY — Eric Conroe, 33, is a writer and builder living in Brooklyn. He is the author of the poetry chapbook TOP BLOCKER (2017), available here: https://bit.ly/2M7ZvVV. He is my cousin.

He read Thrown (2014) by Kerry Howley in a sitting two weeks ago. I read it in multiple sittings a year ago.

Kerry Howley, 38, teaches nonfiction at University of Iowa. Thrown is her first book.

SOUTH PHILLY/SOUTH JERSEY — Still asking the same questions about monogamy, marriage, loyalty, child rearing, father/motherhood, the nuclear family, and work v. “love.” How these questions play out in Jenny Offill’s Dept of Speculation (2014), which charts a relationship from its inception to marriage to childbirth to infidelity, complicates things. Read in sips over the past three weeks and recorded during my CSA delivery route in South Philly (till I ran outta gas), during my route in South Jersey (after getting more gas), and on the way to the dentist, on foot, the following morning. Sound quality turned out surprisingly decent.

New 500-word story 'That Fire' I dropped last week: https://expatpress.com/that-fire-sean-thor-conroe/

Website: http://1storyhaus.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/stconroe

IG: http://instagram.com/seanthorconroe

PHILLY VIA BOSTON — In this special Lent pod, I catch up with the homie Aaron, 28 (1SP episodes 003 and 015), about the below topics during his weekend visit to Philly from Boston. Read is blog (http://somedayyeasayer.blogspot.com/). He's got some recent poems up about a hitchhiking trip he took around Scotland late last year.

0:00 - intro (03.11.2019)

2:44 - start of convo (03.09.2019)

6:00 - on criticism

9:00 - on keeping silent

13:00 - on editing

16:00 - on the accordion method

19:00 - on Bon Iver lol

23:00 - relocation from back to front

of house

25:00 - on Lent

28:00 - on rules

38:00 - on writing about the body

39:00 - on social integration

42:00 - on community

45:00 - on marriage/family

47:00 - on cults

48:00 - how should a person be?

50:00 - on civic unity

54:00 - on the gay science

56:00 - final thoughts

Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stconroe

IG: https://www.instagram.com/seanthorconroe/

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/1storypod/id1238415112?mt=2

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/1storypod

Website: http://1storyhaus.com

PHILLY — New Bolaño novel dropped 11 days ago, written when he was 31.

New story I mention: https://softcartel.com/2019/02/18/a-seat-in-the-circle-by-sean-thor-conroe/

PHILLY — Really hit close to home, this one, especially with how dang nippy out it's getting; feeling of late like hibernation is just about all I'm up for. Otessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018), her fourth book and second novel, is about a mid-twenties Manhattanite intent on blocking out the world by ingesting an increasingly harrowing cocktail of sedatives. Read it last week, mostly lying on my side, on my couch, on Benadryl, but also walking places, in the daytime, in the cold. In this episode, which I recorded at 7 a.m. while walking to the dentist, I get into why this character wants to block out the world and whether she's able to find her way back into the world. Also: my shifting affinities towards character-driven rather than auto-fictional writing. And: how being an alt bro doesn't change the fact that you're still, physiologically and temperamentally, a bro.

Sean Thor Conroe has written stories for X-R-A-Y (http://x-r-a-y.com/author/sean-thor-conroe/) and has another coming soon from Soft Cartel. He lives on twitter at http://twitter.com/stconroe and in Philadelphia, where he works on his health.

MANTUA — Damn y'all, been rougher than some goddamn rough ass sandpaper, this past one. Still antibio-ed, roided, and limping after a long weekend in the pen, so synapses are firing on less than all cylinders. But this one finds its groove, considering, eventually: how this early Houellebecq stacks up against later, less optimistic iterations; how Houellebecq's emphasis on touch is interesting in the context of his typically mechanical view of intimacy; and how, even in today's secular world, we still adhere to mono- vs. polytheistic outlooks. Also: how research adds so much to a novel's depth. And: how crazy old German dude Wim Hof's breathing techniques could well be the answer to keeping me out of the hospital.

Full blog post, with a list of referenced quotes: http://1storyhaus.com/pod/1sp031-touch-tourism-polytheism-in-michel-houellebecqs-platform-2002

Sean Thor Conroe has written stories for X-R-A-Y (http://x-r-a-y.com/author/sean-thor-conroe/) and has another coming soon from Soft Cartel. He lives on twitter at http://twitter.com/stconroe and in Philadelphia, where he works on his health.

LOS ANGELES — Sergio González Rodríguez (1950–2017) was a Mexican journalist and writer. A friend and colleague of Roberto Bolaño's, he was the primary source of information on the femicides—the countless unsolved rape-murders of women, primarily factory workers—in Ciudad Juárez, for the late Chilean novelist's novel, 2666.

Sean Thor Conroe's work has appeared in X-R-A-Y and is forthcoming from Soft Cartel. He tweets @stconroe and archives other art at http://1storyhaus.com

LOS ANGELES — Been a trip and a half reading Motherhood while posted with the mother this past month of holiday fam time / convalescence out here in LA. Has really propelled me into the nitty-grit of thangs. In this ep, I go in with more gripes about Sheila's stance on procreation than I come out with. I consider her view on the importance or lack thereof of Art. I hash out her ideas on family extending beyond the nuclear. And I give her props on the deepest idea of all: that Failure can never be communicated, must always be private, and yet is the only way to Freedom.

Sean Thor Conroe's work has appeared in X-R-A-Y, on sidewalks and in fields. He tweets @stconroe and archives other art at http://1storyhaus.com