Let's Deconstruct a Story

Hi Everyone!

I'm really looking forward to sharing this discussion with Toni Ann Johnson. I loved this collection! We will be talking about the story "Time Travel" winner of the 2021 Miller Audio Prize. Please listen to the story at the link below before you tune in to our podcast discussion.

This is the last post of 2022. Thanks so much to the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan and Pages Bookshop in Detroit for supporting us throughout the year. We will be on hiatus until February 2023. Please message me if there are any particular writers you would like to hear on the show.

Happy New Year!

Kelly

Bio: Toni Ann Johnson is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her short story collection Light Skin Gone to Waste was published by the University of Georgia Press in the fall of 2022. She is also an accomplished novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Having grown up in Monroe, New York, in one of the first Black families to live there, many of Johnson’s short stories reflect her experience as a person of color. Johnson’s essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Emerson Review, Xavier Review, and many other publications. Her first novel, Remedy for a Broken Angel, was nominated for a 2015 NAACP Image Award. Her novella Homecoming won Accents Publishing’s novella contest and was published in May 2021. Johnson has won the Humanitas Prize and the Christopher Award for her screenplay of the ABC film Ruby Bridges, as well as a second Humanitas Prize for Crown Heights, which aired on Showtime Television. She also co-wrote the popular dance movie Step Up 2: The Streets. Johnson has been a Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab Fellow, A Callaloo Writer’s Workshop Fellow (2016), and she’s received support for her writing from The Hurston/Wright Foundation, The Prague Summer Program for Writers, and the One Story Summer Conference.

Flannery O’Connor series editor Roxane Gay says of the collection, “Toni Ann Johnson’s Light Skin Gone to Waste is one of the most engrossing short story collections I’ve read in recent memory. These interconnected stories about a black family living in a predominantly white suburb of New York City are impeccably written, incisive, often infuriating, and unforgettable. At the center of many of these stories is Philip Arrington, a psychologist who tries to reshape the world to his liking as he moves through it, regardless of the ways his actions affect the people in his intimate orbit. With a deft eye for detail, crisp writing, and an uncanny understanding of human frailties, Toni Ann Johnson has created an endlessly interesting American family portrait.”

Podcast host Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection  I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020) was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind, (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House, (Kattywompus Press, 2019) was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist and was adapted into a play, written by Robin Martin, which was published in The Kenyon Review Online.  She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts and The InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, as well as online, where she also runs a monthly poetry and fiction blog. www.kellyfordon.com

Well, I'm not going to lie. It was one of the top ten thrills of my life speaking with George Saunders. I was so excited, I thought I might pass out partway through the interview. But he could not have been more unpretentious, kind, and engaging. I learned so much from him, and hope you do too! Every story he writes reminds me that we are all multifaceted and precious, despite our flaws--what a gift.

More thanks are in order:

I am so grateful to George Saunders because he agreed to this podcast as a benefit for Pages Bookshop in Detroit. Plus, the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan bought ten copies of Liberation Day for their patrons from Pages Bookshop, so this really ended up being a great collaboration.

In addition, my gratitude to fellow writers Jenn Goddu, Linda Downing Miller, Ellen Birkett Morris, Suma Rosen, Julie Ann Stewart, Laura Hulthen Thomas, and Gloria Whelan for their incisive questions, and for participating in the class!

Please read "Mother's Day" before listening to our discussion. It's available in his new book, Liberation Day, or in The New Yorker, or for free as a New Yorker Fiction Audio Selection.

Check out this wonderful article (one of many!) about this new collection: The sweet humanity

Next month I'll be talking to Toni Ann Johnson author of Light Skin Gone to Waste about a story from her Flannery O'Connor Award-winning collection.

Thanks for tuning in, everyone.

Kelly

PS: We had some technical difficulties. At one point you might hear some garbage trucks in the background, at another point we got cut off mid-sentence (talking about the hot hands) and had to continue that conversation near the end of the recording, but I managed to edit out most of it, and then I handed it over to podcast engineer, Andrew Mason, at Upwork who managed to clean up the rest. Thanks, Andrew!

PSS: If you would like a transcript of this conversation, please contact me. 

Check out https://kellyfordon.com/lets-deconstruct-a-story/ for more episodes or more info about your host.

#georgesaunders

#penguinrandomhouse

Hi Everyone, 

     "Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author. Today I'll be talking about the short story "Chance" with the author, Peter Ho Davies.

***Content warning: This episode deals with pregnancy/childbirth, miscarriages/abortion***

     Please read the story first and then listen to the podcast, available on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, Anchor, as well as several other platforms.

     "Chance" was first published in Glimmer Train and then later in Catamaran and Drum. It's also the first chapter in his 2021 novel, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself. I'm excited about this episode because after we delved into the creation of the story, Peter shared some insights into how a story morphs into a novel. 

     As usual, if you have any suggestions about writers/stories/people to feature on this podcast, please let me know! I'd love to hear your comments about the discussions as well. 

     If you would like a written transcript of this podcast, please contact me at www.kellyfordon.com

      Enjoy!

      Kelly 

      Please find a link to the story at www.kellyfordon.com

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author. This week I am talking to Jacob M. Appel about his story "The Frying Finn" first published in Agni and available here. Please read the story first before listening to our discussion. Learn more about Jacob M. Appel on my blog here. 

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author. This week I am talking to Selena Anderson about her Oxford American and later, Best American Short Story, "Godmother Tea!" Please read the story on my website and then enjoy the podcast! 

All best,

Kelly

Bio: Selena Anderson is a writer from Texas. Her stories have appeared in Fence, BOMB, Conjunctions, The Baffler, Oxford American, and The Best American Short Stories 2020. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, The Henfield/TransAtlantic Prize, and The Texas Emerging Star Award. She is working on a novel.

Kelly Fordon

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author.

In this episode, Lydia Conklin and Lillian Li will be discussing the story "Sunny Talks" first published in One Story in January 2022. This conversation was recorded live at Pages Bookshop in Detroit on June 24, 2022.

This episode is part of a series of "Let's Deconstruct a Story" podcasts offered in collaboration with the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan. The GPPL has committed to purchasing ten books by each author this season to give to their patrons! If you are a short story writer who has tried to make money in this game then you know what a big deal their support is to us! My hope is that other libraries will follow the GPPL's lead and be inspired to buy books by these talented short story writers. I will be contacting many libraries this year to suggest this programming. Please feel free to do the same if you enjoy this podcast.

This podcast is also supported by Pages Bookshop in Detroit, and we would be extremely grateful if you purchased the book online through Pages here. Local bookstores won't survive without help from customers like you! 

Lydia Conklin is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Previously they were the Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Fiction at the University of Michigan. They’ve received a Stegner Fellowship in Fiction at Stanford University, a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, three Pushcart Prizes, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a Creative & Performing Arts Fulbright to Poland, work-study and tuition scholarships from Bread Loaf, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, Hedgebrook, the James Merrill House, the Vermont Studio Center, VCCA, Millay, Jentel, Lighthouse Works, Brush Creek, the Santa Fe Art Institute, Caldera, the Sitka Center, and Harvard University, among others. They were the 2015-2017 Creative Writing Fellow in fiction at Emory University. Their fiction has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming from The Paris Review. They have drawn graphic fiction for Lenny Letter, Drunken Boat, and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine. Their story collection, Rainbow Rainbow, will be published in June 2022 by Catapult in the US and Scribner in the UK.

Lillian Li is the author of the novel Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, One Story, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

The host of this podcast is Kelly Fordon and you can find out more about her at www.kellyfordon.com.

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author. For this episode, please read "Goodbye" by Maurine Ogbaa, first published in Agni. 

**Please note we will be talking about suicide on this episode.**

This summer I am posting two episodes with writers who have not yet published their first short story collections. This podcast is dedicated to the work of Maurine Ogbaa and on August 15th I will be posting a conversation with Selena Anderson about her short story "Godmother Tea," which was chosen for the Best American Short Stories anthology in 2020.  I'm thrilled to highlight the work of these two new voices!

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is offered in collaboration with the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan. The GPPL has committed to purchasing ten books by each author this season to give to their patrons. If you are a short story writer who has tried to make money in this game then you know what a big deal their support is for us! My hope is that other libraries will follow the GPPL's lead and be inspired to buy books by these talented short story writers. I will be contacting many libraries this year to suggest this programming. Please feel free to do the same if you enjoy this podcast.

This podcast is also supported by Pages Bookshop in Detroit, and we would be extremely grateful if you purchased any of the books featured here through Pages. Local bookstores won't survive without help from customers like you!

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is available on six platforms. Please listen to the podcast on your preferred platform or on Anchor or Spotify below.

I hope you enjoy this episode. 

Next up on the podcast is Lydia Conklin on August 1st.

Kelly

Maurine Ogbaa is a writer-scholar. Her current project is a short fiction collection which broadly examines intimacy, reconciliation, maturation, and intraracial diversity through stories about Nigerian Americans in Houston, Texas. Stories from this collection have been published in Callaloo, AGNI, and Prairie Schooner, which awarded her the 2020 Glenna Luschei Award. An alumna of the Tin House Summer Workshops, Rivendell Writer’s Colony, and the Pan-African Literary Forum (Ghana), she will be a writer-in-residence at Jentel Arts Residency in summer 2022. Previously, Maurine earned an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Houston. Currently, she teaches graduate and undergraduate prose workshops and literature seminars at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection  I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020) was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind, (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House, (Kattywompus Press, 2019) was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist and was adapted into a play, written by Robin Martin, which was published in The Kenyon Review Online.  She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts and The InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, as well as online, where she also runs a podcast. www.kellyfordon.com

"Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author.

For this episode please read or listen to the audio recording of "Shape-Ups at Delilah's" in The New Yorker before listening to our discussion.

This is part of a series of "Let's Deconstruct a Story" podcasts offered in collaboration with the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan. The GPPL has committed to purchasing ten books by each author this season to give to their patrons! If you are a short story writer who has tried to make money in this game then you know what a big deal their support is for us! My hope is that other libraries will follow the GPPL's lead and be inspired to buy books by these talented short story writers. I will be contacting many libraries this year to suggest this programming. Please feel free to do the same if you enjoy this podcast.

This podcast is also supported by Pages Bookshop in Detroit, and we would be extremely grateful if you purchased the book online through Pages here. Local bookstores won't survive without help from customers like you!

Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of the story collection, The World Doesn’t Require You (Norton/Liveright, August 2019), a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and winner of the 2020 Towson Prize for Literature. His debut story collection, Insurrections (University Press of Kentucky, 2016), was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. His work has been published in places such as The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Crab Orchard Review, Best Small Fictions 2020 and The Rumpus, among others. His story, “Shape-ups at Delilah’s” was published in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020. He was raised in Silver Spring, Maryland and earned an MFA from George Mason University where he won the Mary Roberts Rinehart award, a Completion Fellowship and an Alumni Exemplar Award. He has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writing Conference, Kimbilio and the Colgate Writing Conference as well as a 2019 Maryland Individual Artist Award. Presently he teaches Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.

Find him on twitter and instagram: @ReeAmilcarScott

Kelly Fordon is the host of this podcast and you can find out more about her at www.kellyfordon.com. 

Hi Everyone,

I'm thrilled to welcome Ellen Birkett Morris to the show today. Please read her story, "Inheritance" (available at www.kellyfordon.com) before listening to our discussion.

During our talk, Ellen also mentioned a book by Ron Carlson called "Ron Carlson Writes a Story" which is out of print unfortunately but you might find a used copy here.

Next month, Rion Amilcar Scott will record his session with me on June 28th at 6 pm at Pages Bookshop in Detroit. If you would like to sign up for the FREE live zoom session with us, please register here: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqceqqpj4oH90WB1dmqCvRaHNT-DQkmzUU 

Many thanks to the Grosse Pointe Public Library and Pages Bookshop in Detroit for their support of this podcast. Please let your local schools, libraries, and bookstores know about "Let's Deconstruct a Story," if you find the material valuable. LDAS is a labor of love, but every donation (on our website) helps, and we are deeply grateful for them.

Enjoy!

Kelly

**Content warning: sexual assault and suicide. 

Ellen Birkett Morris is a native of Louisville. She is the author of LOST GIRLS, a short story collection, and SURRENDER, a poetry chapbook. LOST GIRLS is a finalist for the 2021 Clara Johnson Award for Literature and winner of the Pencraft Award for short stories. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Queens University - Charlotte. Her short stories have appeared in Antioch Review, Shenandoah, South Carolina Review, Upstreet, and elsewhere.

Podcast host, Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection, I HAVE THE ANSWER (Wayne State University Press, 2020) was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, GARDEN FOR THE BLIND, (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, GOODBYE TOOTHLESS HOUSE, (Kattywompus Press, 2019) was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist and was adapted into a play, written by Robin Martin, which was published in The Kenyon Review Online.  She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts and The InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, as well as online, where she runs LDAS. www.kellyfordon.com

Purchase "Lost Girls" from Bookshop or Amazon. Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I'm excited to share my interview with Sara Majka about the title short story, "Cities I've Never Lived In." Here's a brief description of the collection from the publisher Graywolf Press:

"Fearlessly riding the line between imagination and experience, fact and fiction, the linked stories in Sara Majka’s debut collection offer intimate glimpses of a young New England woman whose life must begin afresh after a divorce. Traveling the roads of Maine and the train tracks of Grand Central Station, moving from vast shorelines to the unmade beds of strangers, these fourteen stories circle the dreams of a narrator who finds herself turning to storytelling as a means of working through the world and of understanding herself. A book that upends our ideas of love and belonging, and which asks how much of ourselves we leave behind with each departure we make, Cities I’ve Never Lived In exposes, with great sadness and great humor, the ways in which we are most of all citizens of the places where we cannot stay."

Before you listen to our discussion, first please read "Cities I've Never Lived In" here.

Thanks,

Kelly

Bio:

When she was young, Sara Majka's family moved along the New England coast, living in Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and small towns in Maine. She received graduate degrees from Umass-Amherst and Bennington College and was awarded a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her first book, Cities I've Never Lived In, was published by Graywolf Press / A Public Space in 2016. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island where she teaches writing at RISD.

Sara Majka's book can be purchased here on Bookshop and here on Amazon as well as directly from the publisher, Graywolf Press.

Let's Deconstruct a Story host, Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection  I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020) was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind, (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. She lives in Detroit. www.kellyfordon.com