John Wray is the guest. He is the author of the novel GODSEND (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux). His other novels include The Lost Time Accidents, Lowboy, Canaan's Tongue, and The Right Hand of Sleep. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library, and a Mary Ellen von der Heyden Fellowship from the American Academy in Berlin, he was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists in 2007. A citizen of the United States and Austria, he currently lives in Mexico City.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Gumbiner is the author of the debut novel THE BOATBUILDER, available from McSweeney's. It was nominated for the National Book Award. Gumbiner is the managing editor of THE BELIEVER magazine. He was born and raised in Northern California, graduated from UC Berkeley in 2011, and now lives in Southern Nevada.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lydia Kiesling is the author of the debut novel THE GOLDEN STATE, available from MCD Books. Kiesling is a 2018 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, and her writing has appeared at outlets including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker online, The Guardian, and Slate. She lives in San Francisco with her family.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Listi talks with Leah Dieterich, author of the debut memoir VANISHING TWINS: A MARRIAGE (Soft Skull Press). Dietrich's essays and short fiction have been published by Lenny Letter, Buzzfeed, LitHub, and Bomb Magazine among others. She is also the author of a book of thank-you notes, entitled "thxthxthx: thank goodness for everything" (Andrews McMeel, 2011). She lives in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andre Dubus III is the bestselling author of the novel GONE SO LONG (W.W. Norton). His other book include "House of Sand and Fog," "The Garden of Last Days," and a memoir called "Townie." A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Magazine Award for Fiction, his books are published in over twenty-five languages, and he teaches full-time at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Fontaine, a modern dancer, and their three children.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meghan O'Gieblyn is the author of the essay collection INTERIOR STATES (Anchor Books). It is the official October pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. O'Gieblyn's essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, n+1, the New York Times, The Guardian, Oxford American, Ploughshares, newyorker.com, The Point and Tin House, and have been included in the Pushcart Prize anthologies and in The Best American Essays 2017. She lives in Wisconsin.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristi Coulter is the author of the essay collection NOTHING GOOD CAN COME FROM THIS (MCD/FSG Originals). Coulter holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan. She is a former Ragdale Foundation resident and the recipient of a grant from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The Awl, Glamour, Vox, The Mississippi Review, Longreads, and elsewhere. She lives in Seattle, where she is working on her next book.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Laura van den Berg is the author of the novel THE THIRD HOTEL (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux). Her other books include two collections of stories, The Isle of Youth (FSG, 2013) and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009), and the novel Find Me (FSG, 2015). Laura van den Berg is a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard University and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She lives in Cambridge, MA.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices