Keep the Channel Open

Celeste Ng is a writer based in Cambridge, MA. Celeste's first novel, 2014's Everything I Never Told You, is, without exaggeration, one of the most important books of my life. When I read it in 2016, it gave me my first real glimpse at what representation in fiction could mean, and it was revelatory. Celeste's newest novel, which was just released this week, is called Little Fires Everywhere, and I was thrilled to get the chance to talk with her about it. In our conversation we talked about both books, about the importance of representation in media and culture, our shared obsession with Hamilton, and about Celeste's fascination with family roles. For the second segment, Celeste talked about how she got over her phobia of octopuses.

(Conversation recorded July 27, 2017. Originally aired September 13, 2017.)

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• Celeste Ng
• Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You
• Celeste Ng - Little Fires Everywhere
• Little Fires Everywhere (Hulu)
• Celeste Ng - "How to Be Chinese" (LikeWise Fiction)
• Fresh Off the Boat
• All-American Girl
• Hamilton
• George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo
• Sesame Street - Me and My Llama
• Sesame Street - And Now… The Octopus! [Phobia warning: octopuses]
• Octopus leaps out of water, grabs crab [Phobia warning: octopuses]
• Sy Montgomery - The Soul of an Octopus
• Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Lindsay Hatton
• New England Aquarium
• Peter Watts - Blindsight
• New Scientist - Mirror test shows magpies aren't so bird-brained
• Wendy Cope
• Wendy Cope - The Orange (read by Emma Watson)

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Last month, I was scheduled to moderate a panel at the annual AWP Conference called "The Craft of the Literary Podcast Interview," featuring Rachel Zucker of Commonplace, Dujie Tahat of The Poet Salon, and David Naimon of Between the Covers, three of my favorite literary podcasts. Due to the coronavirus, we ended up having to cancel our appearance at the conference, which makes it all the sweeter to be able to bring you this podcast version of our panel. In this wide-ranging coversation, Rachel, Dujie, David, and I talked all about the "how"s and the "whys" of interviewing, including the importance of establishing rapport with our guests, questions about the ethics of interviewing, and what the role of the host ought to be.

(Conversation recorded March 27, 2020.)

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• Rachel Zucker
• Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and Other People)
• Dujie Tahat
• The Poet Salon
• Luther Hughes
• Gabrielle Bates
• Between the Covers
• Between the Covers - Solmaz Sharif : Look
• Commonplace - Episode 37: Sheila Heti and Sarah Manguso
• AWP 2019 - The Art of the Interview
• VS Podcast
• Open Books: A Poem Emporium
• Dujie Tahat - "salat to be read from right to left"
• CAConrad
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 78: David Naimon
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 94: Rachel Zucker
• Commonplace - Episode 82: Maggie Nelson
• Commonplace - Episode 81: Commonplace goes to Taiwan, Part 2
• Commonplace - Episode 72: Ilya Kaminsky
• Commonplace - Episode 54: Gerald Stern
• Between the Covers - Junot Diaz : This Is How You Lose Her
• Between the Covers - Terese Marie Mailhot : Heart Berries
• Wesley Morris - "The Morality Wars"
• Nicole Chung - "E. B. White's Lesson for Debut Writers: It's Okay to Start Small"
• Commonplace - Episode 26: Alice Notley
• Commonplace - Episode 15: Bernadette Mayer
• Commonplace - Episode 23: Morgan Parker
• Tommy Pico
• Danez Smith
• Robin Coste Lewis
• Commonplace - Episode 60: Robin Coste Lewis
• Alexander Chee - "How to Unlearn Everything"
• Between the Covers - Claudia Rankine : Citizen
• The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind
• Zadie Smith - "Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction"
• Between the Covers - Zadie Smith : Grand Union
• Commonplace - Episode 83: Darcey Steinke
• The Poet Salon - Taneum Bambrick + End of Tour Toddy

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Julian K. Jarboe is a writer based in Massachusetts. Julian's debut story collection, Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel, is a mix of body-horror fairy tales, mid-apocalyptic science fabulism, and blue-collar queer resistance. The stories grapple with body dysmorphia and transformation, and the realities of laboring under late capitalism. In our conversation we talked about different communities responses to the climate crisis, the frustration of white feminism, and "science fabulism" as a genre. Then in the second segment, we talked about different aspects of food and community.

(Conversation recorded March 13, 2020.)

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• Julian K. Jarboe
• Julian K. Jarboe - Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel
• Franz Kafka - "The Metamorphosis"
• Uncanny - "Disabled People Destroy Fantasy!"
• Steve Locke
• Parasite

• Editing/Mixing: Callie Wright
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Jon Sands is a poet based in Brooklyn, NY. I first became acquainted with Jon as one of the co-hosts of the podcast The Poetry Gods, one of my all-time favorites, and the poems in his latest collection, It's Not Magic, are both exuberant and profound. In our conversation we talked about being braver on the page, about balancing self-love and accountability, and about writing toward growth. Then in the second segment we talked about how having kids changes how you see other people, and we talked about the work of Aracelis Girmay and how she uses personification in her poems.

(Conversation recorded February 18, 2020.)

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• Jon Sands
• Jon Sands - It's Not Magic
• The Poetry Gods
• Aziza Barnes
• José Olivarez
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 33: José Olivarez
• Jon Sands - The New Clean
• Rico Frederick
• Barely South Review - "Living Brave, Writing Braver: an Interview with Jon Sands"
• Jon Sands - "Moons Over My Hammy"
• Geoff Kagan Trenchard
• Carlos Andrés Gómez
• Aracelis Girmay
• Aracelis Girmay - Kingdom Animalia
• Aracelis Girmay - The Black Maria
• Planner vs. Pantser
• Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
• Frank Ocean - Blonde

• Editing/Mixing: Callie Wright
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Brandon Taylor's debut novel, Real Life, is one of the best books I've read in years. Real Life is the story of Wallace, an introverted, black, gay graduate student studying biochemistry. Over the course of a summer weekend, a series of confrontations with his friends and labmates and a confusing encounter with a straight classmate bring all of the unspoken tensions in the group to the surface. In our conversation, Brandon and I talked about the craft of writing a novel, the question of what real life is, the banality of racism, and the hidden selfishness inside altruism. Then in the second segment, we talked about digital communities and how our interactions in those communities have changed over time.

(Conversation recorded November 12, 2019.)

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• Brandon Taylor
• Brandon Taylor - Real Life
• Brandon Taylor Book Tour (PRH website)
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 38: Brandon Taylor
• Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker, Op. 71, Act 2: No. 14 Pas de deux

• Editing/Mixing: Callie Wright
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Lilliam Rivera is a writer based in Los Angeles, CA. In her young adult novels The Education of Margot Sanchez and Dealing In Dreams, Lilliam tells familiar stories in new ways—instead of a typical teen drama or dystopian science fiction, she centers Latina characters in stories that take on topics like colorism and gentrification. In our conversation, we talked about why she's drawn to write stories about young people, what it means to buy into the American Dream, and whether violence is actually empowering. Then for the second segment, we discussed Jeanine Cummins' recent novel American Dirt and the controversy around it.

(Conversation recorded January 23, 2020.)

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• Lilliam Rivera
• Lilliam Rivera - The Education of Margot Sanchez
• Lilliam Rivera - Dealing in Dreams
• Lilliam Rivera - Never Look Back
• Last Exit
• Orpheus and Eurydice
• Black Orpheus
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 87: David Bowles
• Myriam Gurba - "Pendeja, You Ain't Steinbeck: My Bronca with Fake-Ass Social Justice Literature"
• Commonplace - Episode 67: John Biewen
• Scene on Radio - Seeing White
• Scene on Radio - MEN
• Burning
• Parasite

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Philipp Scholz Rittermann is a photographer based in the San Diego, CA area. In his photographic work, Philipp has long been interested in trying to see the impossible, and in his latest series sight • time • memory, he tries to imagine what it would look like if his gaze could encompass more than just the present moment—using a large-scale projector, he projects a landscape image from a previous season onto the same landscape, then rephotographs the resulting scene. In our conversation, we talked about his fascination with time and memory, the pleasure of figuring out the "puzzle" of an image, and how to make images that reward long engagement. Then for the second segment, we discussed the decline of hand-making in our culture, the nature of authenticity, and the emotional impact of change.

(Conversation recorded January 10, 2020.)

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• Philipp Scholz Rittermann
• Philipp Scholz Rittermann - sight • time • memory
• Photo LA
• Black & White Magazine - "Philipp Scholz Rittermann: China In Transition"
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 56: Chris Engman
• Daniel Abraham - "Writing craft philosophical provocation of the day"
• WMFA
• Martha Graham on creative satisfaction
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 95: Robert Calafiore
• Martin Scorsese - "I Said Marvel Movies Aren't Cinema. Let Me Explain."
• Roma
• My Brilliant Friend (series)
• Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend (novel)

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Paula Riff is a photographic artist based in Los Angeles, CA. Combining the cyanotype and gum bichromate processes, Paula Riff creates bold, colorful images that push the boundaries of the photographic medium. In our conversation, Paula and I talked about what photography is to her, why she's attracted to alternative processes, and how her work is ultimately autobiographical. Then for the second segment, we talked about the value of physical art spaces.

(Conversation recorded December 3, 2019.)

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• Paula Riff
• Paula Riff - Blue Is Not the Sky
• Building Bridges Art Exchange - "All Women Are Dangerous II"
• Center for Photographic Art - "Winter Blues, Contemporary Cyanotypes"
• Mark Rothko
• László Moholy-Nagy
• Alfred Stieglitz
• Catalyst: Interviews - Paula Riff
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 8: Bryan Ida
• The Diffusion Tapes - Tape no. 7: Mike Sakasegawa
• The lemon video
• Paula Riff - Postcards from Russia
• Harvey Quaytman at Blum & Poe Gallery
• Constructed Mythologies: Luis González Palma
• Mike Sakasegawa - Sheets: A Love Letter

Rakesh Satyal is a writer and editor. Rakesh's novel No One Can Pronounce My Name was an utterly delightful read, subverting the stereotypical tropes of the immigrant story with humor and empathy to create something wonderfully unexpected. In our conversation, Rakesh and I talked about expanding the notion of what kinds of immigrant stories can be told, using humor to create connection, and writing toward what you want to know. Then in the second segment we talked about ASMR.

(Conversation recorded November 15, 2019.)

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• Rakesh Satyal
• Rakesh Satyal - No One Can Pronounce My Name
• Rakesh Satyal - Blue Boy
• NPR - Code Switch
• Code Switch - "Hold Up! Time For An Explanatory Comma"
• A Novel Idea (Bend, OR)
• A Novel Idea 2018 - Rakesh Satyal Presentation
• The Brain-Tingling Sounds of ASMR
• The Joy of Painting
• Janet Jackson - Rhythm Nation 1814
• The Great British Bake Off
• Commonplace - Episode 67: John Biewen
• FKA twigs - MAGDALENE

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet from Columbus, Ohio. For today's episode I was pleased to talk to Hanif about his 2016 book The Crown Ain't Worth Much, one of my favorite reads of 2016. The poems in this book are an intensely personal account of his experiences growing up in Columbus, and in our conversation we talked about Hanif's approach to writing from experience, and how art can engender empathy. We also talked about music, a subject he's very familiar with as a music and culture writer for MTV News. For the second segment, we talked about a subject near and dear to Hanif's heart: the Columbus Blue Jackets.

(Conversation recorded January 23, 2017. Originally aired March 1, 2017.)

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• Hanif Abdurraqib
• Hanif Abdurraqib - The Crown Ain't Worth Much
• Hanif Abdurraqib - They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us
• Hanif Abdurraqib - Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest
• Hanif Abdurraqib - A Fortune for Your Disaster
• Hanif Abdurraqib (MTV.com)
• Button Poetry
• Belly
• Nate Marshall - Wild Hundreds
• Kendrick Lamar - Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City
• Hanif Abdurraqib - "Chance the Rapper: Artist of the Year"
• Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book
• Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment - Surf
• Hanif Abdurraqib - "We Can't Stop Livin': Listening to Marvin Gaye On the Morning After"
• Jay-Z/Kanye West - Watch the Throne
• Columbus Blue Jackets
• Hannah Stephenson
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 20: Hannah Stephenson
• Columbus Crew SC
• Columbus Arena District
• Columbus Clippers
• Aziza Barnes - i be, but i ain't