In this episode, Christopher Barzak and I cover *a lot* of ground. Because of our shared rural Midwestern experiences, we spend quite a bit of time talking about aspects of rural culture that we both recognize and have experienced. We also talk about his experiences in the global rural through his time living and teaching in Japan, the importance of rural representation in story, and his writing process.

Wanna know about something specific? Here are some of the major topics of our conversation and their time codes :

• 01:37 Where he’s from and its impact on his writing
• 05:15 Searching for home in new places
• 07:35 Sharing aspects of our rural culture
• 10:29 How he defines rural
• 13:00 Our experiences in 4-H
• 17:10 Raising chickens in the suburbs and the role of animals on the farm
• 19:00 Connecting to rural community through reading and seeing it in literature
• 24:27 The exploitation and marginalization of rural America
• 26:33 Disrupting the rural monolith
• 32:50 The global rural
• 38:11 The role of festival in rural collective identity building
• 42:05 His writing process and how its changed over time
• 46:16 Narrative structure of THE GONE AWAY PLACE and experimenting with collective ghost story
• 54:30 Collective trauma in rural places
• 1:00:12 Future projects
• 1:003:11 Advice to writers
• You can find more about Chris and what he’s up to on his website.