fiction/non/fiction

Marine biologist Jasmin Graham joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss her new book, Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist, which is about the beauty and diversity of sharks and her career studying them inside and outside of academia. Graham, who left a doctoral program and subsequently founded the community-based organization Minorities in Shark Science to make the field more accessible and inclusive, unpacks how Jaws-inspired fears about sharks fail to understand the species. She also talks about seeing similarities in how sharks and Black people are misrepresented, misunderstood, brutalized, and threatened. Graham reads from Sharks Don’t Sink.  

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Jasmin Graham 

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Romance novelists Elle Everhart and Ellie Palmer join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about the genre’s increasing popularity. Everhart, the London-based author of the new book Hot Summer, featuring a protagonist who joins the cast of a reality show only to realize she’s interested in a fellow contestant, discusses coming to romance writing as a fourth grader fascinated by kissing, and wonders why as sales boom, the U.S.—but not the U.K.—is seeing more romance-specific bookstores. Palmer, the author of the new book Four Weekends and a Funeral, whose main character is a carrier of the BRCA1 mutation, recalls falling in love with the genre as she prepared for her own preventative double mastectomy. She reflects on how the genre’s structure promises positive endings for those who need them at challenging moments, and how the language of romance gave her a way to think about her own body and sexuality. Everhart reads from Hot Summer and Palmer reads from Four Weekends and a Funeral. 

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Elle Everhart

Ellie Palmer

• Four Weekends and a Funeral

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New York Daily News columnist Harry Siegel joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about his recent piece about the Supreme Court’s decision to permit what he has dubbed “after-the-fact bribery.” Siegel, who has covered corruption for years, explains how the legality of accepting gratuities, tips, and gifts has become so nuanced that it’s now almost impossible to prosecute a politician who’s been bought off, and details why the newest version of the law is “fundamentally incoherent.” Siegel also talks about the language, literature, and history around ducking the rules, including the origin of the word “scofflaw,” and reads from a recent New York Daily News article.

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Harry Siegel

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Novelist Sally Franson and critic Emily Nussbaum join host V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about reality television. Franson, a recent reality TV show winner whose new novel, Big in Sweden, is from the point of view of a woman who joins the cast of a program in that country, reflects on transforming her real-life experience into fiction. Nussbaum, a staff writer at The New Yorker whose new nonfiction book, Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV, addresses the history of what she calls the “dirty documentary” genre, discusses the hundreds of interviews she conducted with reality show staff, as well as the form’s surprisingly early origins and the influence of The Apprentice on national politics. Nussbaum and Franson trade notes on how the relationships between people on camera and people behind the camera influence edited footage; the way race was and is handled on reality television; and what it’s like to be a contestant or producer. They also talk about poor labor conditions on sets and what that means to the genre. They read from their work.

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Sally Franson 

Emily Nussbaum

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In the wake of the recent Trump-Biden debate, public relations operative Phil Elwood joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about his career spinning stories in favor of infamous international leaders. Elwood, whose clients previously included figures like Libya’s Gaddafi family and Syria’s al-Assads, recalls his strangest assignments, his biggest regret—helping Qatar to secure soccer’s World Cup—and his proudest accomplishments, including spotlighting the mental health treatment that has helped him. He reflects on how his career shifted when he was swept up in then-FBI Director Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and also explains tactics such as “detonating the bomb in a safe location,” which means giving an unavoidable, damaging story to a second-tier publication so that the “hit isn’t so bad.” Elwood reads from his new book, All the Worst Humans: How I Made News for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians.

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Phil Elwood

• All the Worst Humans: How I Made New for Dictators, Tycoons, and Politicians

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As Literary Hub observes July 4, we return to our archives for a 2017 episode that remains relevant today. We will return with a new episode July 11.

In episode 6, V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell talk political betrayal past and present with novelist Jess Walter and poet Kiki Petrosino. Jess Walter once interviewed an ailing Mark Felt, aka "Deep Throat" of Watergate fame, and he gives us the skinny on the literary qualities of Nixon, Trump, Flynn, NY mobsters, and his 2005 novel Citizen Vince. Plus, would John Gotti have liked the president? On the eve of the release of her new book, Witch Wife, Kiki Petrosino talks to us about MacBeth's witches and how Shakespeare can help us decode our current age of political skulduggery. What Trump Administration officials would you cast in Macbeth? Readings: All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward; Citizen Vince by Jess Walter; Witch Wife by Kiki Petrosino; The Tragedy of Macbeth; The Tempest; The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

In the Stacks: J.J. Cantrell interviews Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT and Savoy Bookshop & Cafe in Westerly, Rhode Island.

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Novelist Maxim Loskutoff joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about his new novel, Old King, which is about Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, who moved to Montana to withdraw from society. Loskutoff, who grew up in Missoula, Montana, discusses the mythology that draws men like Kaczynski—who sought to be in nature, and to avoid technology and other people—to his home state; the gap between the imaginary American West and its reality; and how these connect to American settler colonialism. He also explains how he positioned the Kaczynski of his novel not as a hero or even an antihero, but as a symbol of this dark and unhealed facet of American society. Loskutoff reads from Old King.

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Maxim Loskutoff

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Journalist and novelist Nicolás Medina Mora joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about Mexico’s president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who will be the first woman and first Jewish person to lead the country. Medina Mora explains current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s history, his hold on Mexico’s political imagination, and how his connections to Sheinbaum will affect policy moving forward as he uses his last days in office to attempt 18 changes to Mexico’s constitution. Medina Mora, who is an editor at the Mexican magazine Nexos, reflects on writing about Lopez Obrador through both fiction and journalism. He elaborates on a pre-election piece he wrote for The New York Review of Books and also reads from his novel, América del Norte, in which he plays with the relationship between fiction and nonfiction.

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Nicolás Medina Mora

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In this Pride Month episode, Navy veteran and author Karen Solt joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about her experience of being gay while serving in the military. Solt, who retired as a senior chief petty officer in 2006 and served both before and during “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” talks about the Clinton-era policy that prohibited the harassment of gay service members while requiring that they stay closeted. Solt explains the impossible position gay military members were in before and during DADT, as they faced questioning from investigators, the threat of losing their jobs if found out, and being separated from their partners rather than being moved together as their straight counterparts often were. Solt reads from her book, Hiding for My Life: Being Gay in the Navy.

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Karen Solt

• Hiding for My Life: Being Gay in the Navy

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A Former Marine Looks Back on Her Life in a Male-Dominated Military, by V.V. Ganeshananthan, The New York Times | April 17, 2024

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With summer approaching, Army veteran and long-distance hiker Akuna Robinson joins host V.V. Ganeshananthan and guest co-host Matt Gallagher to talk about the experience of through hiking, or long-distance hiking a trail from end to end. Robinson, the first Black man to complete the Pacific Crest Trail, the Appalachian Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail—the Triple Crown of through hiking—recounts how he was inspired by the movie Wild to attempt the Pacific Crest Trail as a way of managing post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service in Iraq. Robinson reflects on encountering greater diversity on the trail in recent years, seeing the landscape affected by climate change, and the individualized nature of packing for a months-long journey. He also discusses hiking with Gallagher, and reading and writing on the trail. Gallagher reads from his 2021 ESPN profile of Robinson. 

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 episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Akuna Robinson

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