fiction/non/fiction

By fiction/non/fictionNews Arts

fiction/non/fiction episodes

May 07, 2020S3 Ep. 16: Solitude Versus Sociability: David Means and Candace Bushnell on Being Alone and Making Connections
In this episode, acclaimed fiction writer David Means and Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell share their experiences with solitude and sociability in quarantine. Means, author of the recent short story collection Instructions for a Funeral, talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about how writers use solitude to their advantage. Bushnell discusses the crucial role social life and friendship plays in Sex and the City and in the lives of New Yorkers. She also speaks about her new novel Rules for Being a Girl.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And check out video excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel.
This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.
Guests:
David Means
Candace Bushnell
Selected readings for the episode:
David Means
Instructions for a Funeral
Assorted Fire Events
The Secret Goldfish
The Spot
Hystopia
“Two Ruminations on a Homeless Brother”
Candace Bushnell
Rules for Being a Girl (co-written with Katie Cotugno)
Is There Still Sex in the City?
Sex and the City
Summer and the City
The Carrie Diaries
Lipstick Jungle
Others
I See the World by Jamaica Kincaid, Paris Review Daily
On Isolation and Literature, The Millions
William Carlos Williams
Katie Cotugno
Anna Karenina
Edith Wharton
Jane Austen
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa
Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

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59 min
April 23, 2020S3 Ep. 15: Poetry, Blackness, and Friendship: Danez Smith on Language, Connection, and 'Homie'
In this episode, acclaimed poet Danez Smith discusses the role friendship plays in their most recent collection of poetry, Homie. Smith talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the isolating effect COVID-19 has had on black communities, using space on the page inventively, and writing about money. This episode is presented in conjunction with the Loft Literary Center’s literary festival, Wordplay, which this year is a virtual event.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
This episode was produced by Andrea Tudhope. This week's sponsor is the University of Colorado's Master of Arts in Journalism Entrepreneurship program. Learn more at ce.colorado.edu/tellthestory to invent your future in journalism today.
Poetry, Blackness, and Friendship: Danez Smith on Language, Connection, and ‘Homie’ from The Virtual Book Channel on Vimeo.
Guests:
Danez Smith

Selected readings for the episode:
Danez Smith
Homie
Don’t Call Us Dead
Two Poems
what was said on the bus stop: a new poem by Danez Smith
my president
VS podcast, from the Poetry Foundation, hosted by Danez Smith and Franny Choi
Others
Corona Correspondences: #28 by Danielle Evans (The Sewanee Review)
Review: ‘Homie,’ a Book of Poems That Produces Shocking New Vibrations by Pahrul Sehgal
Frank O’Hara
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Angel Nafis
Hieu Minh Nguyen
Douglas Kearney
1977: Poem for Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer by June Jordan
Recordings of June Jordan from Harvard Library Digitized recordings and more digitized recordings
‘Feet’ and ‘Spoon’ from Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay
Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone by Eduardo Galeano

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49 min
April 09, 2020S3 Ep. 14: Alternate Histories and Silenced Women: Sue Monk Kidd on Her New Novel The Book of Longings
In this episode, New York Times bestselling author Sue Monk Kidd discusses her upcoming novel The Book of Longings, which is from the point of view of Ana, the wife of Jesus. Kidd talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about how alternate histories can be vehicles for silenced voices of the past, and how our present might be different if Jesus being married was part of the Bible’s story. Kidd also talks about her research process and writing the character of Judas Iscariot.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
Alternate Histories and Silenced Women: Sue Monk Kidd on her Novel The Book of Longings from The Virtual Book Channel on Vimeo.
Guests:
Sue Monk Kidd

Selected readings for the episode:
Sue Monk Kidd
The Book of Longings
The Secret Life of Bees
The Invention of Wings
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter
Traveling With Pomegranates (with Ann Kidd Taylor)
Others
Others
The work and teachings of psychoanalyst Carl Jung
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Empire City by Matt Gallagher
Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld (forthcoming)

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47 min
March 26, 2020S3 Ep. 13: Literature in the Face of COVID-19: Rigoberto González and Deb Olin Unferth on Writing and Teaching in a Time of Crisis
In this episode, poet Rigoberto González and novelist Deb Olin Unferth discuss how literary life has altered under COVID-19. González, director of the MFA program at Rutgers University-Newark, talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the struggles universities face in the transition to online classes, and also reads from his latest collection, The Book of Ruin; Unferth speaks about her new novel, Barn 8, its disrupted book tour, and what we can learn from animals and nature as we navigate a global pandemic.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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. And this episode, for the first time, we feature video excerpts of our interviews. See LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel for more.
Guests:
Rigoberto González
Deb Olin Unferth
Selected readings for the episode:
Rigoberto González
The Book of Ruin
from "Apocalipsixtlán" [5. Signs of the End of the World] by Rigoberto González - Poems
Butterfly Boy
Deb Olin Unferth
Barn 8: A Novel
Deb Olin Unferth Didn’t Expect to Be Writing From the Point of View of a Chicken (LitHub)

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1 hr 10 min
March 12, 2020S3 Ep. 12: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: Rebecca Solnit on Her Memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence
In this episode, writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit reflects on her new memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence. Solnit talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the deep impact of gendered violence on daily life and what it means to be treated as unreliable witnesses to our own individual and collective experiences, as well as how her activism arose out of a deep love and what she calls “a positive engagement with uncertainty.” She also reminisces about her earliest writing spaces and formative experiences in political and artistic communities.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
Guests:
Rebecca Solnit

Selected readings for the episode:
Rebecca Solnit
Recollections of My Nonexistence
Hope in the Dark
Men Explain Things To Me
Other books
My dream candidate exists – and her name is Elizabeth Warren (The Guardian)
Rebecca Solnit: When the Hero is the Problem (LitHub)
Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump (LitHub)
How Rebecca Solnit Became the Voice of the Resistance (New York Times)
Others
The Walk by William deBuys
Jia Tolentino and Claire Vaye Watkins Talk Abuse, Harassment, and Harvey Weinstein (Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast Season 1, Episode 2)
Roxane Gay narrates an ad for Elizabeth Warren
The Public Voice of Women by Mary Beard
The Odyssey by Homer
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Opinion | Elizabeth Warren Has a Poet on Her Team. Here’s Why That’s a Good Idea. (New York Times)

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59 min
February 27, 2020S3 Ep. 11: Bill Fletcher, Jr. and Chavisa Woods on the Sanders Campaign, Race, and Gender
In this episode, author and activist Bill Fletcher, Jr. and author Chavisa Woods discuss Bernie Sanders’ frontrunner status in the Democratic primary, the campaign’s efforts to build a diverse coalition in 2020, and whether or not those efforts have worked. Fletcher talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about how Sanders has altered his approach to reaching out to black voters; Woods compares the Sanders and Warren campaigns, reflects on their appeal to women, and analyzes how voters talk politics online.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
Guests:
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Chavisa Woods
Selected readings for the episode:
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path Toward Social Justice
“They’re Bankrupting Us!” And 20 Other Myths about Unions
The Man Who Fell from the Sky
Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral (co-editor)
To the Point (The Progressive Magazine, February 3, 2014)
Chavisa Woods
100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism
The Albino Album: A Novel
Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country
The Memoir I Never Wanted to Write (LitHub, June 26, 2019)
Others
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Marx
Engels
Dream Defenders’ endorsement of Bernie Sanders
Hey, Obama boys: Back off already! (Rebecca Traister in Salon, April 14, 2008)

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1 hr 14 min
February 13, 2020S3 Ep 10: Coronavirus and Contagion: Laurie Chen and Richard Preston on Writing About the Spread of Disease
In this episode, South China Morning Post reporter Laurie Chen and bestselling science writer Richard Preston talk about the global panic over coronavirus, China’s response, and how societies defend themselves against viral outbreaks like Ebola. Chen talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about how misinformation about coronaviruses spreads on social media; Preston discusses his nonfiction books The Hot Zone and Crisis in the Red Zone.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching).
Guests:
Laurie Chen
Richard Preston
Selected readings for the episode:
Laurie Chen
Outbreak has stoked a rise in xenophobia, Chinese living abroad say
Will China’s city lockdowns stop the spread of the coronavirus?
Wuhan doctors beaten up, overworked, under supplied
Left at home disabled boy dies after carer isolated for virus checks
China’s ‘demon’ virus leaves experts at odds on when infection rate will slow
China coronavirus: YouTube and Twitter show realities of life in lockdown
Live from Wuhan: millions tune in to watch China build hospitals
China sends in military doctors to help fight coronavirus outbreak
Wuhan coronavirus confirmed in 29 of China's 31 provinces
China coronavirus: rush is on in Wuhan to build treatment centre for up to 1,000 patients
Scientists debate whether China coronavirus came from bats or snakes
Debunking the myths around China’s deadly coronavirus outbreak
How Taiwan Strait tensions could hamper efforts to fight Wuhan virus
Richard Preston
Crisis in the Red Zone: The Story of the Deadliest Ebola Outbreak in History, and of the Outbreaks to Come
The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus
The Hot Zone: a six-part National Geographic mini-series
Others
To Be Asian With a Face Mask During the Coronavirus Outbreak (KQED)
A Virus's Journey Across China (The Daily podcast)
"Wuhan coronavirus" and the racist art of naming a virus by Marie Myung-Ok Lee (Salon)
South China Morning Post coverage and interviews
Coronavirus: Everything you need to know in a visual explainer (updated daily)
Coronavirus: A View From China
Coronavirus outbreak

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1 hr 6 min
January 30, 2020S3 Ep. 9: All the President's Henchmen: Susan Choi and Garrett Graff on Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and the Long History of Henching in Politics and Literature
In this episode, novelist Susan Choi and journalist Garrett Graff talk to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about henchmen in political headlines and political literature. Graff talks about the word’s mob connotations, as well as its connections to the Trump and Nixon administrations; Choi talks about degrees of loyalty, and henchmen in literature, from Falstaff to Trust Exercise and American Woman.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
Guests:
Garrett Graff
Susan Choi
Selected readings for the episode:
Garrett Graff
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror
Susan Choi
Trust Exercise: A Novel
American Woman: A Novel
Camp Tiger
Others
Trouble Is My Business by Raymond Chandler, including the story “Finger Man”
Thumb-headed henchman | LRC Presents: All the President's Lawyers
Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine Henchman Lev Parnas Roped in Everybody, But the Funniest Is Devin Nunes
The Godfather: 50th Anniversary Edition
All the President's Men

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1 hr 15 min
January 16, 2020S3 Ep. 8: Who Can Be A Citizen?: Rohini Mohan and Praveen Donthi on Hindu Nationalism, Exclusion, and Belonging in Modi's India
In this episode, journalists Rohini Mohan and Praveen Donthi talk to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about the recent widespread protests in India over the Modi government’s Citizenship Amendment Act and why many see the act as a threat to India’s secular nature and constitution. Donthi talks about his time reporting in Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state, and the abrupt change in its autonomous status, announced in August; Mohan speaks about covering Assam, a state in India’s northeast where the debates over who belongs have a longer history.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
Guests:
Rohini Mohan
Praveen Donthi
Selected readings for the episode:
Rohini Mohan
Inside India’s Sham Trials That Could Strip Millions of Citizenship, Vice, July 29, 2019
India’s Immigration Crackdown Could Make Millions Stateless, Time, August 14, 2018
Prove your grandfather is Indian: People who lack flawless paperwork cannot just be jailed as illegal migrants, August 2, 2019
Prove your Grandfather is Indian: Ground Reportage on NRC / Bangalore International Centre video interview
Seasons of Trouble: Life Amid the Ruins of Sri Lanka's Civil War (Verso)
Praveen Donthi (all pieces from The Caravan)
Modiʼs war: Dispatches from a seething Kashmir September 22, 2019
“One Solution, Gun Solution”: Ground report: Kashmir in shock and anger, August 16, 2019
The liberals who loved Modi May 16, 2019
Others
Books
Basharat Peer Curfewed Night
Mirza Waheed (multiple novels)
Under Siege: Mirza Waheed on Kashmir (LitHub, September 10, 2019)
Karan Mahajan The Association of Small Bombs: A Novel
Madhuri Vijay, The Far Field: a novel
Articles
Ground report: On a cold night in the new year, JNU attacked by a masked mob; Delhi Police watched, The Caravan, January 5, 2020
India’s first-time protesters: Mothers and grandmothers stage weeks-long sit-in against citizenship law, By Niha Masih, The Washington Post, Jan. 13, 2020
Reading the Signs: The protest poster is where art meets agitation, poetry meets politics. In India, it was born during the freedom struggle, and grew up through post-Independence struggles against inequality. With the anti-CAA protests, it embraces a new digital life. by Benita Fernando, The Indian Express, January 5, 2020
Blood and Soil in Narendra Modi's India, by Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker, Dec. 9, 2019
‘Hum Dekhenge’: Singer and writer Ali Sethi explains how to read (and interpret) Faiz’s poem, Scroll, Jan. 9, 2020
Why the National Population Register is more dangerous than the Assam NRC, by Harsh Mander & Mohsin Alam Bhat, Scroll, Jan 12, 2020
Pankaj Mishra and Mirza Waheed on the Death of India's Liberal Self-Image, Scroll, Jan. 5, 2020
Behind Campus Attack in India, Some See a Far-Right Agenda, By Kai Schultz and Suhasini Raj, The New York Times, Jan. 10, 2020
Earlier attacks on students: Attack on art, by Anupama Katakam, Frontline Magazine, May-June 2007
Earlier, Rohini Mohan on Kashmir in The Wire: In Kashmir, Doctors Bear Witness, Sept. 5, 2016
Earlier, Praveen Donthi on Assam in The Caravan: How Assam's Supreme Court-mandated NRC project is targeting and detaining Bengali Muslims, breaking families, July 1, 2018

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1 hr 9 min
January 02, 2020S3 Ep. 7: Live at the Miami Book Fair: T.C. Boyle on Writing About LSD and Outside Looking In
In this episode, taped live at the Miami Book Fair, writer T.C. Boyle talks to Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell about writing his latest novel, Outside Looking In. The novel looks at the history of LSD, and tracks the marriage of a Harvard graduate student who works with psychologist and LSD researcher Timothy Leary. Boyle offers candid insights into his research process, his own experiences with drugs, his relationship with nature, and how he writes and revises.
To hear the full episode, subscribe to the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast 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.
Guests:
T.C. Boyle
Readings for the Episode:
T.C. Boyle
Outside Looking In
Road to Wellville
The Women
Drop City
The Tortilla Curtain
The Inner Circle
Michael Pollan
How to Change Your Mind

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50 min

About fiction/non/fiction

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Hosted by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan, fiction/non/fiction interprets current events through the lens of literature, and features conversations with writers of all stripes, from…