Go away, I'm reading

Alex Behr joined us to talk about her new collection of short stories, Planet Grim. Alex is funny and open and a tireless creator. We discuss her music life in San Francisco, run-ins with Nirvana, breastfeeding her infant son and other tales of adoption, writing her book through a divorce, and lots more.

Poet, and cohost of the Lunch Box Podcast, Ed Skoog talks with us about reading and writing poetry, dismantling the patriarchy through bluegrass, the great local poets of Portland, eating gas station boudin, FOMO, describing faces, the likeliest way to get murdered in Russia, and much more.

Listen in. His voice is so so soothing.

It’s Wordstock season in Portland, the time of year when book lovers extrovert for a day, leave the safety of their reading nooks to gather around authors all over the park blocks in downtown Portland. Amanda Bullock, Director of Public Programs at Literary Arts, joined us to talk about what goes into putting on this major holiday for book lovers. We probed for juicy stories of writers behaving badly, talked about stalking chefs, and got the lowdown on all the books we’ll be reading in the coming year. We’ve moved away from the exhaustive list, but here are some of the books Amanda mentioned that have delighted, moved, awed, or otherwise gut punched her in the last little while.

Sing, Unburied, Sing – Jesmyn Ward

This week, we talked to Andrew Roe, author of the novel, The Miracle Girl, and the short story collection, Where You Live, about day jobs, publishing success not necessarily equating to windfalls of cash, reading authors before and after they hit the big time, and more.

Andrew is the second writer we’ve skyped with mid-move from a bedroom in his in-laws’ house. It’s sort of a trend, right?

Hey! We’re back. AND WE ARE RUSTY. Our good friend Jason Gurley joined us to help ease us back into things.

Fair warning: This episode is sloppy as hell, way more so than usual. Every five minutes I’d look over at the monitor where we were recording and see a warning that the destination disk was almost full. I panicked; I let things fall apart.

We’re not doing a whole big blog post for this one. Michelle is away on a writing retreat, and I’m at home parenting for three weeks…who has time for blogging? Or podcasting, even! But hey, we’re planning some new episodes, and we hope they trickle out over the coming months.

And we still don’t know how to pronounce her name. Lepucki. How do you say that?

Joshua Mohr has published five novels and a memoir since 2009. That’s a pretty rapid clip, especially since only one — his memoir Sirens, about the deep lure of self-destruction, getting clean, and relapsing — was written under the urgency of impending death (he didn’t die). We had a great conversation about punk songs as the template for writing scenes, connecting with memoir readers on a whole different level from novel readers, and lots more. Josh is a great talker, smart and funny and compassionate. Give him a listen. And then go read his books!

Sirens – Joshua Mohr

Michelle spent four years at the Pinewood Table, a critique group and Portland institution run by authors Joanna Rose and Stevan Allred. There, she found a writing community and scratched out a couple of hundred pages of a novel. In this episode, we talk to Stevan and Joanna about their talent for close reading, approaching writing with kindness, writing into the sore places, and post-election reading requirements.

To find out more, see The Pinewood Table. And read Stevan and Joanna’s books. They are so beautiful.

The Dark Tower Series – Stephen King

Book critic Jonathan Russell Clark talked with us about the satisfaction he finds in writing criticism, his inspirations and the capriciousness of what hooks him in books. We also talk collecting books (and how they become the most hated objects in the house), unintentional manifestos, handling reader feedback, bridging the gap between older critics and the current literary and digital landscapes, and the way nobody ever takes a book recommendation.

It – Stephen King

Scott Rogers joined us to talk about books we loved in 2016, books that surprised us, trends we noted and trends we bucked. Isaac talks about his reading couches. We discuss reading resolutions. And we get a great update on what’s happening with Big Ed and Summer America Barnham.

The Only Ones – Carola Dibbell

Happy New Year folks! In December, we talked to Aisha Sabatini Sloan about writing non-fiction, and her new collection, Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, which was selected by Maggie Nelson as the winner of the 1913 Open Prose Book Contest and is due out this year. Sabatini Sloan writes personal narrative about subjects — family, race, Detroit, the police — and with a voice that are both relevant and affecting. We talk about casually meandering into theory, as you do, and moving away from the safety net of structure.

Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit – Aisha Sabatini Sloan

Fanny Howe and Danzy Senna