fiction/non/fiction

Professor Karen Weingarten joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about a new anthology she has edited, Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade. Weingarten reflects on the complicated history of abortion, the varied use of abortifacients, abortion’s ties to eugenics and state control of bodies, and the rise of the anti-abortion movement. She discusses how access to abortion facilitates other kinds of resistance, and explains how the book came to include authors like Maria Sybilla Merian, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Lucille Clifton, and Eugene O’Neill alongside oral histories from formerly enslaved persons and groundbreaking politicians like Shirley Chisholm. She talks about the stories she hopes to see represented in post-Dobbs writing and reads from her foreword to the anthology.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Karen Weingarten

Others

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Canadian authors Suzette Mayr and Kai Thomas join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the repercussions of President Trump’s recent threats to annex and tax Canada. They talk about the possible empowerment of the Canadian right as a result of Trump’s extreme remarks, as well as measures their communities are taking to unify in the current political environment. Mayr and Thomas read from their recent novels, The Sleeping Car Porter and In the Upper Country. 

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Suzette Mayr

Kai Thomas

• In the Upper Country

Others:

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New York Times reporter Nicholas Fandos, author of a recent article titled “An Emboldened Trump Seeks to Bend New York City to His Will,” joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about why President Trump wants to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Officials in Trump’s Department of Justice say they want Adams to be free to aid Trump’s immigration crackdown in the Big Apple, which since 2014 has been a sanctuary city. But conservative federal prosecutors like Danielle Sassoon and Hagen Scotten say this amounts to a quid pro quo and have resigned rather than drop the case against Adams. Fandos reflects on what might happen next and the larger implications for the Department of Justice.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Nicholas Fandos

Others:

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New Atlantic staff writers Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer, authors of a recent article called “The Tech Oligarchy Arrives,” join host Whitney Terrell to talk about tech oligarchs’ influence over President Trump’s administration. They discuss the significance of prominent billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos attending Trump’s inauguration as visible supporters, how these tech leaders have changed their opinion of Trump over time, and the regulatory and legal benefits they may gain from their close association with the new administration. They also discuss Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and the fallout from that group’s efforts to access Treasury data and dismantle USAID.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Ashley Parker & Michael Scherer

Ashley Parker

Michael Scherer

Others:

|Yahoo! News |January 7, 2025

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Essayist Thomas Dai joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss his new collection, Take My Name But Say It Slow, in which he writes about place and identity. Dai talks about the imperialist impulse behind Trump’s attempt to turn the Gulf of Mexico into the “Gulf of America,” the power of naming, and the appeal and uncertainty of mapping. He also reflects on the surprising history of border policing, queer cartographies, and the sometimes paradoxical relationship between inner self and physical space. Dai reads from Take My Name But Say It Slow.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Thomas Dai

• Take My Name But Say It Slow

Others

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Acclaimed novelist and Director of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop Lan Samantha Chang joins Fiction/Non/Fiction hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the role that literary personas may–or may not–have played in recent revelations about Alice Munro, Neil Gaiman, and Cormac McCarthy. Chang discusses how writers often develop literary personas as their public profiles grow. Chang also discusses how personas can be both protective and damaging when they no longer align with the writer's true self, the impact of personas on writers' privacy and the industry's role in shaping and maintaining these personas. She reads from her novel All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Lan Samantha Chang

Others:

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Novelist and former Huffington Post climate reporter Sarah S. Grossman joins Fiction/Non/Fiction co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about the Los Angeles wildfires. Grossman, who lives in Los Angeles and whose 2024 novel A Fire So Wild centers on a wildfire in Northern California, discusses how communities are coming together to support each other in the wake of the devastation. She reflects on the damage to the historically Black neighborhood of Altadena; the fact that people are differently affected by climate change, even as wealth cannot completely shield anyone; the factors that contributed to the wildfires; and what it is like to prepare to evacuate, or, alternatively, to offer shelter to others. Grossman reads from A Fire So Wild.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Sarah S. Grossman

Others:

New wildfire concerns in Los Angeles: Strong winds could return next week. | USA Today

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Acclaimed novelist Charles Baxter joins Fiction/Non/Fiction hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss his recent novel Blood Test: A Comedy. Baxter talks about turning to humor in dark times, the burden of expectations, and writing a protagonist, Brock Hobson, who some readers love and others detest. He discusses how seeing websites and ads that predicted his likes and dislikes led to him inventing a fictional company, Geronomics, which predicts a certain future for Brock and is invested in that scenario playing out one way or another. Baxter also analyzes the craft of writing an antagonist who is a Trumper, but who is never explicitly identified as such. He reads from Blood Test.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Charles Baxter

Others:

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Following the ouster of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, novelist Ream Shukairy joins Fiction/Non/Fiction co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the country’s future. Shukairy, who grew up in California and spent summers in Syria, reflects on the long history of Syrian resistance to oppression, as well as how parts of her family emigrated. She also talks about how it feels to emerge from a culture of fear and surveillance, what it’s like to revisit what she previously wrote about Assad, and the places she wants to see when she returns to Syria for the first time in years. Shukairy reads from her young adult novel The Next New Syrian Girl.

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 Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Ream Shukairy

Others:

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Novelist Jacinda Townsend and writer James Bernard Short join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the movie American Fiction, which is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. Townsend and Short discuss how the film addresses race in the publishing industry via its central character, Black author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, who tries to make an ironic point by writing a book exploiting Black stereotypes and finds, to his dismay, that it’s received in earnest and a bestseller. Townsend and Short analyze director Cord Jefferson’s approach and the film’s themes of family dysfunction, freedom in storytelling, and the importance of portraying the complexity of Black lives. 

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.

Jacinda Townsend

James Bernard Short

Others:

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