NYC poet Eve Packer in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

Great NYC poet Eve Packer and I spoke about the loss of our dear friend Steve Cannon, Jeffrey Epstein (Note: this was recorded in mid-July), her own personal #metoo moment with a famous writers, some adventures she had with Allen Ginsberg in London back in the day, and how she went from acting and performing to writing poetry. The last 10 minutes or so, Eve reads some poems. Apologies if this episode left anything in that should have been cut/edited – I’m in NorCal and our power is getting cut off any minute! Wheee!

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

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Sensitive Skin live at LitCrawl, recorded at the Valencia Room, San Francisco.

Instead of the usual conversation, why not give a listen to last week’s Sensitive Skin reading at LitCrawl, live from San Francisco? Readers include Jenny Wade (reading from Mayakovsky Maximum Access), Marc Olmsted, Suzi Kaplan Olmsted, Joel Landmine and me, your host, Bernard Meisler, reading from my brand-new novel, THERE’S NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO DIE. Enjoy!

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

The post S02E03 – Sensitive Skin Live At San Francisco LitCrawl appeared first on My Site.

Gerald Nicosia in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

An absolute must-listen for all fans of Jack Kerouac and the Beats. Gerry and I spoke about his role as an advisor to the film version of “On The Road,” and how he was first introduced to the writing of Kerouac and what inspired him to begin writing his classic biography, “Memory Babe.” Starting in the mid-70s, Gerry travelled over 50,000 miles doing interviews for “Memory Babe,” and interviewed virtually everybody who knew Kerouac, as, except for Jack and Neal, they were all still alive back then. Then we moved on to his new book, “Kerouac: The Last Quarter Century,” which tells the sad tale of how the Kerouac manuscripts (including the ROLLS, not SCROLLS!) have been sold off to the highest bidder, rather than going to a single university for study, and how Kerouac’s daughter Jan and nephew Paul Blake were cut out of his inheritance, due to the forging (!) of his mother’s will. Finally, Gerry reads one of his own poems, “Ferlinghetti.”

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

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Anton Yakovlev in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

Welcome to season 2 of the Sensitive Skin magazine podcast! We discuss Anton’s growing up in Moscow, during the final years of the Soviet Union, his emigration to the United States, and his new book of his translations, The Last Poet of the Village: Selected Poems of Sergei Yesenin, the first bilingual Russian/English edition of Yesenin’s poems, now available on Amazon (or ask your local bookseller or library to get you a copy).

Anton Yakovlev’s latest poetry chapbook, Chronos Dines Alone, winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize 2018, was published by SurVision Books. He is also the author of Ordinary Impalers (Kelsay Books, 2017) and two prior chapbooks: The Ghost of Grant Wood (Finishing Line Press, 2015) and Neptune Court (The Operating System, 2015). His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Hopkins Review, Prelude, Measure, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Amarillo Bay, and elsewhere. Born in Moscow, Russia, he studied filmmaking and poetry at Harvard University and has written and directed several short films. He works in academic publishing in New York City.

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

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A season-opening mini-episode of the Sensitive Skin podcast featuring your host, Bernard Meisler.

I discuss some of last season’s 20 podcasts, what I learned, and the new upcoming season of another 20. Our first guest will be up next week—Anton Yakovlev. We’ll talk about his new book published by Sensitive Skin, The Last Poet Of The Village, Selected Poems of Sergei Yesenin, a bilingual (Russian/English) version Anton translated, which drops on October 19th. I also spoke about our upcoming anthology, Sensitive Skin/Selected Writing: 2016-2018, a collection of short stories, poems and essays first published online, which drops October 15th. I also mentioned about my new novel, a neo-noir satire, There’s Never Been A Better Time To Die, which drops on October 18th. As if that wasn’t enough, I flog the upcoming Sensitive Skin LitCrawl show, at The Valencia Room, 647 Valencia Street in San Francisco, Saturday October 19th at 5:00pm. Featured readers include Patrick O’Neil, Marc Olmsted, Suzi Kaplan Olmsted, Jenny Wade, Joel Landmine and myself. See you here every Monday for the next 20 weeks! Whew!

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

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Marc Olmsted in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

Marc Olmsted is a poet whose work has appeared in a million different places, he’s a teacher, of both writing and Buddhist meditation, and he wrote a great memoir about his close friend, Allen Ginsberg, called Don’t Hesitate: Knowing Allen Ginsberg. We spoke about meditation, Shakespeare, his dad, a well-known character actor who appears in the single greatest episode of The Twilight Zone, “To Serve Man,” and our thoughts about Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. Marc also did a great Gregory Corso imitation. Marc reads a couple of pieces, and then we get to hear his band, The Job, play a song called “Birdbrain,” with vocals by none other than Allen Ginsberg himself.

Like I say in the intro, I’ll be taking the summer off after this podcast (OK, maybe one more after this), but will be back in September with more. But should I? Do you want me to? Send an email, or post on our Twitter or FB page or better yet, write a review on our iTunes page (unless you think we suck, in which case you can belay that). Peace!

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here.

The post Episode 20 – Marc Olmsted appeared first on My Site.

Mark Howell in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

Musical archaeologist (and great guitar player) Mark Howell has played with everybody in the – what would you call it? – avant-progressive-jazz-rock scene – Bill Laswell, George Cartwright, Tom Cora, Anton Fier, John Zorn and Elliott Sharp, to name but a few. He was an original member of Fred Frith’s Guitar Quartet, Curlew and Timber, along with Rick Brown (75 Dollar Bill) and Jenny Wade (Swans, Mayakovsky Maximum Access). These days, Mark works as a musical archaeologist, and is creating electronic loops with Camila Montoya. We spoke about all of that, and Mark also related his classic meeting with Jerry Garcia story.

Towards the end of the show, we’ll hear some musical clips, including “Anti-Mother-In-Law Car,” by Timber, which is also the theme music for this podcast. Now you get to hear the whole thing!

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

The post Episode 19 – Mark Howell appeared first on My Site.

Rob Roberge in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

Rob Roberge, novelist (The Cost of Living, More Than They Could Chew, etc.), memoirist (Liar) and guitarist (The Urinals) and I spoke about everything from coal-oven-baked pizza to the corruption of the East Coast towns we grew up in, to the New York Knicks to religion to sudden middle-of-the-night relocations. And we also talked about his upcoming novel, which begins with the a-bombing of the Bikini Atoll, and the paperback reissue of Liar. Of course, we ended up with Charlie Manson.

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

The post Episode 18 – Rob Roberge appeared first on My Site.

Andrew (Drew) Hubner in conversation with Bernard Meisler.

Andrew (Drew) Hubner, is the author of East of Bowery, We Pierce and American By Blood, and an educator at Hostos Community College in the Bronx. We spoke about his new novel, his family’s history of violence and the military, how he got into the NY poetry scene at ABC No Rio, his personal struggles that led to homelessness and institutionalization, and how he overcame them. We also spoke about his writing process, how he’s influenced by the classics, and likes to use “picture words.”

At around the 43-minute mark, Drew reads a powerful excerpt from his new novel.

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

The post Episode 17 – Andrew Hubner appeared first on My Site.

Agneta Falk in conversation with Bernard Meisler

I met poet and painter Agneta (Aggie) Falk at the Live Worms Gallery in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. Aggie and a few friends recently took over the gallery, which was about to close, and are keeping it open, for gallery shows, readings and events. We spoke about her growing up in Sweden, moving to England and ending up in San Francisco in 1998, and how the rent is too damn high. Her most recent book is Heart Muscle, and she’s a regular figure in both the San Francisco and international poetry scenes. At around the 35-minute mark, Aggie reads us some terrific poems – make sure to listen to that!

The Sensitive Skin magazine podcast is now available on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and the other usual places, or listen to it here. New episodes every Monday!

The post Episode 16 – Agneta Falk appeared first on My Site.