Drinks with Tony

Ted Kessler is the author of The Authorized Unauthorized History of Billy Childish: To Ease My Troubled Mind.

June 11, 2025 join me for Books For Breakfast, a non-intellectual conversation about Victor Hugo.

June 17, 2025 join me for a free online writing workshop. Registration at the link. 

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Jon Ronson is the author of So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I interviewed him in 2015 when the book came out and it’s pretty mind blowing where cancel culture has ‘matured’ ten years since.

Check out Writing Is Hard and Why You Should Write at dushane.substack.com.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Lucinda Berry is the author of One In Four: A Thriller.

We chat child psychology, running marathons, how the brain works, and her transition to full time author.

New creative writing workshops and book groups coming in May and June on DuShane.substack.com, subscribe to stay up to date.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. and Friday at 11 a.m. on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Rachel Paris is the author of See How They Fall: A Novel.

We discuss the humiliating vulnerability of writing and why everyone should do it, why we should never write for the market, or as she says, ‘Write what’s eating us inside’ … because that’s everything, write our soul onto the page, it’s the only way to fly, and other fun stuff.

Free online creative writing workshop for May will be announced on dushane.substack.com later this week. If you live in the Los Angeles area the next two creative writing workshops I’m teaching at the Los Feliz library are June 4th and July 2nd, so come on out.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Chuck Klosterman is the author of tons of books. This is a tape from my interview with him around 2012 when he was promoting The Visible Man. We met at Zam Zam in San Francisco. I’m having fun just going through a bunch of old interviews that I found. Next week my guest is Rachel Paris so we’re back on current authors for the show.

Go to dushane.substack.com to enjoy some book articles as well as upcoming free creative writing workshops via zoom. There’s a lot planned there popping up in May and June.

Also, join my free creative writing workshop at the Los Feliz Branch Library on Hillhurst and Franklin in Los Feliz on Wednesday, May 7th at 6pm. Just show up, that’s your ticket, just arrive. We have good fun.

Listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Matthieu Ricard is the author of Happiness. I interviewed him around 2003 and he introduced the idea of mindfulness to me. He is also assistant and translator for the Dalai Lama. I was lucky his publicist got in touch with me for the book and you’ll probably hear what a mess I was when trying to command an interview.

I even refer to “mindfulness” as “timelessness” at some point. I was that out of it.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Marlon James won the Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings. I caught up with him in 2005 when he was touring his first book John Crow’s Devil. So, another tape from the archives we have fun exploring this week on Drinks with Tony.

I’m still putting together the final details on my world famous workshop: Write Your Novel in Three Years or More. Stay Tuned.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Colum McCain is the author of Twist: A Novel. We had a great time talking NYC, Ireland, the obsessive structure of writing environments for novels, and his really cool organization Narrative 4 that taps the storytelling in our hearts to young people. Yes, storytelling is everything.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Tuesday at 4pm and Friday at 11am on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Richard Hell is the author of Godlike. And this interview is old, like 2003 or 2004 taping. We met at a bar called The Argus in San Francisco, he was mad at me that it wasn’t a radio studio, but we chatted and he became lovely. He was mad that the cab ride cost him $15, so, I told him how to take Muni back to where he’s staying and he didn’t have cash, so I gave him bus money and waited with him until his correct bus came. And it was glorious. I’m glad to share it with you.

Make Joy You Fool referenced on the show for your pleasure.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Thursday evening at 6pm on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.

Miranda July, two interviews from the archives. The first one is from 2015 regarding her novel The First Bad Man. The second one is from 2005 regarding her film Me and You and Everyone We Know.

I thought the 2005 interview was lost, I can’t believe I found it. And the photos in the graphic are ones I took of her after recording that interview, they’re very low-res as I don’t have the originals from my camera, remember, it was 2005 kids.

I’m so excited to present this to you this week. I have one more interview that we did on video, I think I may need to get it transferred from MiniDV, yeah, that long ago.

Subscribe to DuShane.substack.com and listen to Drinks with Tony on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, and other podcast outlets. It also airs every Thursday evening at 6pm on 92.9FM, Los Gatos and 101.9FM, Santa Cruz on Pirate Cat Radio.