Wherein we discuss respecting readers, the superiority of short works, the sapphic eroticism of the pencil, favorite pencils, the work of Joyce, Beckett and Virginia Woolf, and so much more! 

On Boxcutters and Feast of the Pale Leviathan, on all the places we’ve both lived, on Kurt Vonnegut and finding your people, on working at Powell’s, on scraping by, on mixing genres, Presidents, Polish darkness, anti-fascist postures towards creativity, anger as a generative force, and so much more!

LJ one-on-one with Adrian Sobol, author of The Life of the Party Is Harder to Find Until You’re the Last One Around and Hair Shirt.

LJ talks with Itoro Bassey about her book, Faith, and what writers she returns to again and again, and how she balances journalism, and what they’re inspired by, and why Malarkey is great, and being first-gen, and generational trauma, and ancestors, and more!

LJ Pemberton is the author of the novel Still Alive, as well as the host of the revamped Malarkey Public Radio. Her stories have been published in The Baffler, Exacting Clam, Los Angeles Review, to name only a few.

Laura Paul is the author of Film Elegy. Her writing has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, Los Angeles Review of Books, Tarpaulin Sky Magazine, Pangyrus, minor literature[s], Dream Pop Journal, and other outlets. As an artist, her work has been exhibited at the Armory Center for the Arts, Other Places Art Fair, L.A. Zine Fest, West Hollywood Book Fair, and included at the Omnidawn Poetry Conference, the Community of Writers Poetry Program, and the New Orleans Poetry Festival.

Lauren Bolger is the author of the novel Kill Radio. Her second novel, The Barre Incidents, comes out in October 2025. Her short fiction has been published in numerous litmags and anthologies.

Three excellent novels talk about writing novels!

Alex Miller is the author of the novel White People on Vacation (Malarkey Books, 2022) and the story collection How to Write an Emotionally Resonant Werewolf Novel (Unsolicited Press, 2019). His stories have appeared in Flyway, Bullshit Lit, and MoonPark Review. He lives in Denver.

Patrick Nevins is the author of The Commissioner of Inquiry (Cornerstone Press, 2024) and Man in a Cage (Malarkey Books, 2022). He lives in Columbus, Indiana, where he is an associate professor of English.

LJ Pemberton is the author of Still Alive (Malarkey Books, 2024). Her essays, poetry, and award-winning stories have been featured in The Baffler, Exacting Clam, Los Angeles Review, Northwest Review, [PANK], VICE, the Brooklyn Rail, the Electric Encyclopedia of Experimental Literature, and elsewhere. Her photography has appeared in the Northwest Review, Hobart, the London Photo Festival, and has been featured by Metro Los Angeles. She was previously an assistant editor at NOON and she currently reviews fiction for Publishers Weekly. She holds a BA from Reed College and an MFA from Columbia University.

LJ Pemberton, author of Still Alive and host of Malarkey Public Radio, talks with Mick Carrigan and Axel Kolcow, editors of the esteemed Taco Bell Quarterly, about finding your place in the literary world, which sometimes means making your own space.

Malarkey Public Radio is back! LJ Pemberton talks poetry with Kat Giordano and Adrian Sobol. This is a good time to add that LJ is the author of Still Alive and Adrian is the author of The Life of the Party Is Harder to Find Until You're the Last One Around and Kat Giordano is the author of (among other books) Thumbsucker. All published by Malarkey Books.

This episode of Malarkey Public Radio is dedicated to something everyone in publishing says doesn’t sell: short story collections. Just want to point out that all the writers you’ll hear talking about their books, about stories, about litmags, in this episode all have books for sale in our online store.

Synopsis: Sean Ennis, Sheldon Birnie, Spencer Fleury, Steve Gergley, and Eric Williams join LJ Pemberton on Malarkey Public Radio to talk about how you put a short story collection together, what percentage is new work vs previously published work, flash vs long short fiction, the increasing irrelevance of literary magazines that aren’t online, favorite short stories, and more! 

LJ Pemberton (author of Still Alive) talks with Justin Bryant (Thunder from a Clear Blue Sky) and OF Cieri (Backmask) about how much book promotion sucks.