Dennis is joined via Zoom by novelist Tim Murphy to discuss his latest novel Speech Team, which he describes as a book about "small T trauma." The book is about four friends in their 40's who were on their high school speech team who reunite and decide to confront the teacher who led the group and said some f-ed up things to each of them back in the 80's. Tim talks about how this is his most autobiographical novel yet and how he actually prefers to write about characters who are less close to home. Dennis, who was also on his high school speech team in Arizona, compares notes and memories with Tim about what the experience meant to them and they each recall the different "cuttings" they performed at tournaments. Dennis also asks Tim about his earlier novel, Christadora, and how he was able to write so vividly and accurately about the worlds of addiction, recovery and early AIDS activism. Other topics include: his substack Caftan Chronicles where he does long-form interviews with gay men of a certain age, the Phil Collins song that reminds him of his favorite speech team memory, how he sometimes cried when he writes and the pride he takes in having "stuck with writing all these years out of some base belief that something would come out of it."

https://thecaftanchronicles.substack.com/