Novelist Ches Smith talks about being depressed and vulnerable while being male, the inherent difficulties of writing characters who act suspiciously like a lot of the people you work with — but WHO ARE NOT THEM — and how writing metafiction offers a way to take the undesireable parts of yourself to their logical and worst conclusions, so you can (and should) avoid doing that exact same thing on social media.

Also, we fantasize about what it would be like if Kate could ever remember the titles of books/movies/podcasts she wants to recommend to people.

Photo credit Paula N. Luu

Suggested reads and also mentioneds:

• Jesse Sendejas, Jr.’s fantastic review of The Author is Dead in The Houston Press

• Lore podcast by Aaron Mahnke (explores the “dark historical tales that fuel our modern superstitions”)

• Cory MacLauchlin’s Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces

• Dave Cullen‘s Columbine

• Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses

• Douglas Adams’s A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

• Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama

• Up and Vanished podcast

• Clarice Lispector’s The Chandelier

• Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees

• Gabino Iglesias’s Zero Saints

• Machado de Assis’s Dom Casmurro

Order The Author Is Dead via Indiebound & follow Ches on twitter @writes4attn and on Instagram @ches.smith.