"There's an intense pleasure in viewing the flaws of the people around you and saying, I'm not a part of that, even if maybe at the beginning you want to be or even maybe you still do, but you learn to come from where you stand. And that's part of what Jordan is doing. She's very comfortable in her discomfort…" Nghi Vo won the Hugo Award for Debut Novella with The Empress of Salt and Fortune, the first volume of her Singing Hills Cycle. Nghi's remixed and remastered The Great Gatsby for her new paperback, The Chosen and the Beautiful, and she joins us on the show to talk about re-imagining an American classic with a layer of magic, taking Gatsby out of the male gaze and putting Jordan Baker in the center of everything, the art of Vietnamese paper cutting, interesting arc of her career (starting with the slush pile), her next novel, Siren Queen (based on the life of Anna May Wong) and more with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer. And we end the episode with a TBR Topoff featuring book recommendations from Margie and Marc.

Featured Books:

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

Pussy, King of the Pirates by Kathy Acker

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes Saturdays).

A full transcript of this episode is available here.