Adam Johnson won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for his novel, The Orphan Master’s Son. He won the National Book Award in 2015 for his story collection, Fortune Smiles. He also authored Parasites Like Us and Emporium. Every novel and story is unlike anything that’s come before it. His latest, The Wayfinder, is no exception. Set over 1,000 years ago in the South Pacific, it weaves together the stories of two families and two islands and their opposing views of the world.

Adam joins Marrie Stone to talk about how he’s not only expanded the idea of what a novel can do, but reimagined it entirely. He talks about how oral traditions of storytelling informed the creation of this book and the massive amounts of research necessary to write it. He talks about what forces shaped the writer he’s become, and the many insights about story he shares with his students (Adam teaches in the Wallace Stegner Fellowship program at Stanford). This conversation contains a wealth of insights into craft, process, and storytelling. It also includes a passage from the book which Adam reads and dissects for the listener. (Warning: the passage contains difficult material. Listener discretion is advised.)

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(Recorded on November 11, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)