Today, my 2009 interview with Dylan Landis on her debut novel-in-stories, Normal People Don’t Live Like This, a singularly poignant, tough and smart coming-of-age novel set in 1970s New York City. This is a good one, folks.  

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

My guest this week is short story writer Mary Jones. She has written and published dozens of short stories for many years, earning acclaim, and establishing a reputation, all of which is affirmed in her debut collection, 28 short stories, titled The Goodbye Process. The short and short-short stories offered in The Goodbye Process are dark, funny, meditative, often initially realistic episodes which necessarily and logically enter the comically, tragically absurd via empathetic and artful fable. These are economically and powerfully communicated short moments and everyday stories about loss and tragedy and betrayal transformed into deeply resonant, deadpan sincere, sometimes fabulist but simultaneously grounded tales of the familiar turned profound and, occasionally, tragedy turned into empathy or painful wisdom.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

My guest this week is Kevin Allardice, the author of short stories and five novels, of which I have no read three. His most recent is Weft, and it’s a full-length work like his debut novel, Any Resemblance to Actual Persons. I’m also a big fan of his shorter works, closer to novellas but no less rich in voice, wit, fabulist or absurdist themes, each a celebration of association, word choice, digression and totally entertaining immersion in character and place. These are totally engaging romps, fast-paced, and wildly imaginative.  He discusses all his books, his writing career, and especially to talk about and read from Weft, a kind of horror novel meets critique of late-stage capitalism, take-apart of the long con, and an examination of the collapse of a self-constructed identity. Wicked fun, thoughtful play, and both an embrace and elevation of the form. Here’s his website: https://kevinallardice.com/

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

My guest this week is Suzanne Greenberg, a much-published short story writer whose novel Lesson Plans was a Library Journal Editor’s pick.  Her previous short story collection Speed-Walk and Other Stories won a Drue Heinze Literature Prize.  Now Suzanne Greenberg is out with Shopping for Dad and Other Stories, its title, from one of the defining stories, a helpful nod to the wry, funny, sad engagement with irony, sincerity, loss and unlikely insights offered in these sixteen stories, many centered on missing children, estranged spouses, and disappeared domestic objects. Deadpan tragedy meets necessary if qualified hope, with plenty of attention to the everyday quantification of emotional transaction. Shopping for Dad is out now from Arroyo Seco Press. Suzanne Greenberg teaches creative writing at Cal State University Long Beach 

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

To kick off the next season of Bibliocracy Radio on Community of Writers Podcasts, we are presenting a very special episode.

A Journal of the Plague Years, a compendium of work which developed out of the excellent online journal founded by writer Susan Zakin.

The views expressed in this program are those of its presenter and guests, and do not necessarily reflect the values of the Community of Writers or its Board of Directors.

Gail Tsukiyama delivers the closing talk to round out the fifty-fourth year of the Community of Writers summer workshops. Introduced by Karen Joy Fowler.

Gail Tsukiyama is the author of nine novels, including Women of the Silk, The Samurai’s Garden, The Color of Air, and her latest novel, The Brightest Star. She has been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence, and the Asia Pacific Leadership Award from the Center of the Pacific Rim and the Ricci Institute. One of fifty authors chosen by the Library of Congress to participate in the first National Book Festival in Washington D.C., she has taught at San Francisco State University, University of California, Berkeley, and Mills College.

Alex Espinoza, Monica West, Andrew Nicholls & Janet Fitch. Moderated by Lisa Alvarez.

Dana Johnson, Karen Joy Fowler, Susanne Pari, Amy Tan & Monica West discuss Voice & Dialogue in this panel.

Rachel Howard delivers a craft talk on Improvisation in writing.

Rachel Howard is the author of a novel, The Risk of Us, and a memoir, The Lost Night. Her stories and essays have appeared in StoryQuarterly, ZYZZYVA, the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other venues. She served as Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow and Interim Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing at Warren Wilson College and teaches nonfiction and novel writing at Stanford Continuing Studies. For more than 20 years she has written dance criticism for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Sands Hall, Michelle Latiolais, Keenan Norris, and David Ulin discuss genre.