Book Talk

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with Mark Slouka about story and memory, truth and fiction, tragedy and redemption; guest readers Sam Purdy and Jessica Sager join Oppenheimer to discuss fathers and brothers, power and pain, and why we run the race we run.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with Boris Fishman about belonging, community, and notions of home, along with how fiction is a way to explore alternate lives ("or the lives at which we have not yet arrived"); guest readers Brad Ridky and Shifra Sharlin join Oppenheimer to discuss insiders and interlopers, others and outsiders, driving and being driven.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Jade Chang about what was interesting about writing a book set during the Great Recession ("When you're in a time of upheaval, it's also a time when anything can happen"), and the ways her novel rebels against the traditional immigrant narrative ("I really wanted to write about immigrants who see themselves as absolutely central to their own story and to the story of this country"); guest readers Brian Eng and Jennifer Eng join Oppenheimer to discuss art and artifice, success and failure, and the relationship between being seen and being known.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Nathan Hill about misadventures in Chicago traffic, writing as a source of joy, and what he left out between the 1200-page first draft and the final 620 pages; guest readers Annie Thoms and Jessica Sager join Oppenheimer to discuss ghosts, choosing your own adventure, and the invisible injury.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Imbolo Mbue about race, class, and becoming a writer; guest readers Ian Solomon and Matt Levine join Oppenheimer to discuss what this novel has to say about heroism and humanity, dissembling and deception, and the quest for authenticity.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Lily Brooks- Dalton about writing the quietest post-apocalyptic novel ever and about her choice to end with a cliffhanger ("Coming to a culmination in a place of not knowing is so much of what life is"); guest readers Brian Slattery and Tui Sutherland join Oppenheimer to discuss isolation, loneliness, grief, and hope, and crack each other up playing a game of "Which Astronaut Are You?"

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Liz Moore about her writing process, the way this novel differs from her last, and her character's original secret past; guest readers Sophfronia Scott and Alice Baumgartner join Oppenheimer to discuss grief and ghosts, betrayal and bequests, inheritance and invention.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Deena Goldstone about the morality of mining other people's lives in your own writing and whether it's possible to teach someone to write; guest readers Emily Moore and Matt Higbee join Oppenheimer to discuss gender dynamics, writing and motherhood, and stalkers and figure skaters.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Bob Proehl about his first draft and how he chose when to reveal certain secrets ("[When] you realize a piece of information is going to be in the marketing materials, you have to give that away right off - that's the not-fun answer!"); guest readers Brian Slattery and Alfie Guy join Oppenheimer to consider the ways this novel is both a love letter to comic books and a critique of them, and to see how many times they can say "agency" in 25 minutes.

Host Cyd Oppenheimer talks with author Rebecca Dinerstein about starting her novel with a broken condom ("That sentence absolutely mortifies me") and what her writing workshop had to say about her first draft ("'There's no plot! There's no story!'"); guest readers Brad Ridky and Annie Thoms join Oppenheimer to discuss bread-making and art, beginnings and endings, and why we sometimes need darkness.