Writer Ana Gavrilovska joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about her recent article for Current Affairs, "Thomas Pynchon Saw American Fascism Coming." Gavrilovska reflects on Pynchon’s long career and his interest in writing about systems, how his time as a technical writer at Boeing informs his work, his classic novels Gravity’s Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49, and his new novel, Shadow Ticket. She explains why Shadow Ticket’s fictional Airmont family seems like stand-ins for the Trumps and considers the significance of a food-stuffed film that cheese mogul Bruno Airmont watches with his daughter Daphne as many ordinary people go hungry. The three also discuss Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-winning movie One Battle After Another, which takes inspiration from Pynchon’s novel Vineland. Gavrilovska reads from Shadow Ticket. 

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Ana Gavrilovska

• "Thomas Pynchon Saw American Fascism Coming" | Current Affairs 

Thomas Pynchon

• Shadow Ticket
• Vineland
• Gravity’s Rainbow
• The Crying of Lot 49
• Inherent Vice
• V.
• Mason & Dixon
• Bleeding Edge
• Against the Day

Others

• One Battle After Another (2025)

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Author Ellie Roscher joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Jennifer Maritza McCauley to talk about her recent book, Fair Game: Trans Athletes and the Future of Sports, which explores the roadblocks transgender athletes face and the triumphs they achieve despite these challenges. Roscher discusses the harmful myths surrounding trans athletes and describes the current bans against their participation as a “solution in search of a problem.” Roscher, who interviewed 20 trans athletes for the book along with her co-author, Dr. Allie Baeth, interrogates the sex-segregation of the sports world and outlines how restrictions put in place to police the participation of trans athletes are rooted in patriarchy and tend to hurt cisgender participants as well. They consider trans athletes competing at the youth level and the negative impacts trans bans have on children who are searching for play and community. She also explains the importance of advocacy and how everyone wins when everyone is allowed to play. Roscher reads from Fair Game. 

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Ellie Roscher

• Fair Game (with Dr. Allie Baeth)
• The Embodied Path
• Play Like a Girl

Others

• Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 9, Episode 5: Max Delsohn on the Importance of Portraying Trans Men
• Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 8, Episode 43: Gary Shteyngart on Vera, or Faith, and American Authoritarians

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Novelist Jeff Boyd joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about his new work of literary crime fiction, Hard Times, which is set in Chicago, where he lived previously. The hosts ask about the influence of police procedurals on the portrayal of the novel’s main character, a mixed-race cop named Curtis, and Boyd considers whether there is a gray area between “good cops” and “bad cops.” He also discusses the character of Curtis’s brother-in-law, a high school teacher named Buddy Mack, and reflects on how his own experience as a teacher informed his writing of Buddy as well as the portrayal of students. He explains how his own childhood as the son of a police officer gives him insight into that profession, and shares his experience of hearing feedback from his father. Boyd reads from Hard Times. 

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Jeff Boyd

• Hard Times
• The Weight

Others

• Law & Order
• The Wire
• Chicago PD
• Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

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Award-winning author Daisy Hernández joins co-hosts Jennifer Maritza McCauley and Whitney Terrell to talk about her new book, Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth. Hernández explains the history of the term “citizenship” and the damaging power it holds over a wide range of marginalized identities. She reflects on how educators can galvanize change around these issues in the classroom, as well as her own family’s relationship with immigration. Hernández reads from Citizenship.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Jennifer Maritza McCauley and Whitney Terrell.

Daisy Hernandez

• Citizenship: Notes on an American Myth
• The Kissing Bug
• A Cup of Water Under My Bed
• Colonize This! (2002)
• Colonize This! (2019)
• Tricycle: The Buddhist Review

Others

• Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa
• Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
• James Baldwin Essays
• The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of AI by Petra Molnar, foreword by E. Tendayi Achiume
• Americans in Waiting by Hiroshi Motomura
• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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Pop culture critic James Sullivan joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the history of American protest music. Sullivan, the author of the book Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs, talks about how music has been an important part of inspiring and supporting protest movements from anti-Vietnam War efforts to the Black Lives Matter Movement and present-day protests against ICE. Sullivan considers the importance of protest music to facilitate camaraderie, build morale, and change minds. He explains how the way a song is sung can transform it into protest, even if the lyrics don’t change; he comments on recent Super Bowl halftime shows and their political relevance. He also reflects on songs that not only protest, but also honor political martyrs. Sullivan reads from Which Side Are You On?

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

James Sullivan

• Which Side Are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs
• Island Cup: Two Teams, Twelve Miles of Ocean, and Fifty Years of Football Rivalry
• 7 Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin

Music

• “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier”
• “We Shall Overcome”
• “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”
• “Which Side Are You On?”
• “Try That in a Small Town”
• “Man in Black”
• “Streets of Minneapolis”
• “American Obituary”
• “Mississippi Goddam”
• “You Don’t Own Me”
• “The Times They Are A-Changin’”
• “Blowin’ in the Wind”
• “This Land Is Your Land”
• “The Preacher and the Slave”
• “Casey Jones (The Union Scab)”

Others

• ICE OUT SING-IN Resistance Songbook
• ‘Streets of Minneapolis’: 32 protest songs inspired by the city's ICE resistance
• Alfred Hayes
• The Man Who Never Died by William M. Adler

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Novelist, essayist, and educator Brian Platzer joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new novel, The Optimists, which follows private school teacher Mr. Keating over three decades. Platzer reflects on the real-life inspiration for the book, his own mentor, Rod Keating, and the fleeting intensity of teacher-student relationships that nevertheless turn out to be formative. He explains how he came to decide that the fictional Keating, struggling to tell the story of his own life, would narrate the story of a remarkable student, Clara, alongside his own. Platzer also talks about the novel’s other central relationships, including Keating’s marriage to his wife, Caroline, and his connection to his ex’s son, Jacob. Platzer, himself a private school teacher, considers the novel’s private school setting, as well as the high cost of elite education and small classroom sizes in New York City, the competitive pressures placed on young people, and the broader impact of the gap between private institutions and public schools. Platzer reads from The Optimists. 

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

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Writer and editor Yi-Ling Liu joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and Jennifer Maritza McCauley to talk about state-controlled censorship. Liu, the author of a new book, The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet, explores what it means to build community through the internet while contending with surveillance and suppression. Liu, Terrell, and McCauley discuss the sale of TikTok to U.S. companies, the growing online surveillance and censorship in the United States, and how American citizens can learn from Chinese “netizens” about how to survive under censorship. Liu tells the stories of four people– a renowned feminist, a gay dating app entrepreneur, an aspiring rapper, and a famous science fiction writer—who all found ways to dance around The Great Firewall and earn success for themselves and for their communities online. Liu details the widespread impact of each of these “wall dancers” and reflects on the inspirations that led them to foster social change through online media. Liu explores the importance of cultural exchange and connection online and considers her own personal experience with living and creating under censorship. Liu reads from The Wall Dancers.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Jennifer Maritza McCauley, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Yi-Ling Liu

• The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet

Others 

• “The Little Man at Chehaw Station” Ralph Ellison
• Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
• Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan, trans. by Ken Liu 
• The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, trans. by Ken Liu
• Sale of TikTok to U.S. Companies | Politico
• TikTok Censorship Investigation | Los Angeles Times
• Sale of NVIDIA Chips to China | Associated Press
• The Great Firewall
• Lü Pin on Feminist Voices
• The Feminist Five
• The Mitu Movement in China

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Novelist Eleanor Shearer joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss her new novel, Fireflies in Winter, which depicts the little-known history of how the Leeward Maroons of Jamaica—a free Black community descended from formerly enslaved Africans and indigenous people—came to Nova Scotia at the end of the 18th century. Shearer, who is British and has Caribbean ancestry, explains the genesis of her interest in the Maroons as an example of successful resistance to slavery, since they fought the British in Jamaica, but also a kind of collusion with it, as they captured and returned runaway slaves to plantations there. She reflects on the connections between her Black heroines’ precarious situation in historic Canada and the situation of immigrants in the U.S. and elsewhere today. She also considers her research process, depicting queer life in earlier periods, the importance of sensory and embodied detail in historical writing, and her choice to write about the past in the present tense. Shearer reads from Fireflies in Winter.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Eleanor Shearer

• Fireflies in Winter
• River Sing Me Home
• ‘Rebranded plantations’: how empire shaped luxury Caribbean tourism | Slavery | The Guardian

Others

• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• Davos 2026: Special address by Mark Carney, PM of Canada | World Economic Forum
• Prime Minister Carney delivers remarks at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
• Black Loyalist Heritage Center, Nova Scotia
• Carrefour Atlantic Emporium Bookstore
• Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 8, Episode 22: Suzette Mayr and Kai Thomas on Canada Versus Trump

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Award-winning journalist, activist, poll worker, and former attorney Anjali Enjeti discusses her new book, Ballot, which considers the real and metaphorical role that ballots play in our democracy. Co-hosts Whitney Terrell and Jennifer Maritza McCauley (in her first episode joining the co-host rotation) talk to Enjeti about her childhood encounters with ballots, the history of ballots in America, and the problems she encountered with Republican-installed Dominion voting machines in Fulton County, Georgia, where she was an election worker during the 2020 presidential race. She debunks the false claims of election fraud in Fulton County during that election and discusses the Trump Administration’s recent seizure of 700 boxes of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, what those ballots represent, and whether or not the administration might try to alter them. She reads from Ballot.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Anjali Enjeti

• Ballot
• The Parted Earth
• Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change

Others

• Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 8: Lacy Johnson and Anjali Enjeti on the State of Reproductive Rights
• FBI raid in Georgia has little legal basis – but serves Trump’s goal to weaken trust in election results | The Guardian
• FBI’s Search of Fulton County, Georgia, Election Center Is Unprecedented, Experts Say | ProPublica
• Trump is trying to change how the midterm elections are conducted | The Washington Post
• Move to Seize Ballots Thrusts F.B.I. Into Trump’s Election Conspiracy Claim | The New York Times
• Trump’s Mug Shot Is Released After Booking at Fulton County Jail | The New York Times
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

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Award-winning nonfiction writer and former investigative journalist Joe Jackson joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about President Trump’s “Don-roe Doctrine” and his imperial ambitions in Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland, and beyond. Jackson, the author of a new book, Splendid Liberators: Heroism, Betrayal, Resistance, and The Birth of American Empire, explains how Trump’s plan relies on the template set by the Spanish-American War, through which the U.S. rose as a world power and ended Spanish rule in the Western Hemisphere. Jackson sheds light on the rhetoric that fueled the war, as well as the violent history of U.S. military interference in Cuba and the Philippines. Jackson takes us through iterations of the Monroe Doctrine and outlines the impact of that philosophy on Trump’s desire for imperial expansion as well as his authoritarian control domestically, in cities like Minneapolis. He discusses how the Spanish-American War served as a turning point for America’s soul, including writers of the time, and how it birthed a culture of war that has continued to impact the nation, its citizens, and the world ever since. Jackson reads from Splendid Liberators.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Joe Jackson

• The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire
• Atlantic Fever: Lindbergh, His Competitors, and the Race to Cross the Atlantic
• Black Elk: The Life of an American Visionary

Other Books:

• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
• The Winning of the West, Volumes 1-4, by Theodore Roosevelt
• Carl Sandburg
• McTeague by Norris
• "The Storytellers of Empire" by Kamila Shamsie – Guernica 
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T.E. Lawrence
• Jose Marti Reader: Writings on the Americas
• Noli mi Tangere (Touch Me Not) by Jose Rizal
• On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
• Cuba in Wartime by Richard Harding Davis
• The Essential Frank Norris, incl. The Octopus
• Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

Other Links:

• Society of American Historians
• Western Writers of America
• True West Magazine
• Monroe Doctrine (1823, archive.gov)
• Roosevelt Corollary (19o5, archive.gov)
• “Manifest Destiny” by John Fiske, March 1885 Harper’s Magazine Archives (subscription to read)
• Trump’s Manifest Destiny - Project Syndicate
• Library of Congress: “Remember the Maine!”

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