Sonya Walger is the author of the debut novel Lion, available from New York Review Books.

Walger is a British-American actress, writer and podcaster. Walger began her career as a film and television actress in 1998 and is perhaps best known for her role as Penny Widmore in the ABC series Lost and later for starring as Molly Cobb in the Apple TV+ original For All Mankind. A student of English literature at Christ Church College at the University of Oxford and host of the literature podcast bookish, Walger is a long-time literary enthusiast whose debut novel Lion is a work of autofiction about her relationship with her father.

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Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

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Character Study, Vol. 5. 'Character Studies' is a new series on the podcast featuring interviews with 'civilians'—ordinary adult humans of all ages and backgrounds, talking with Brad about their lives, anonymously.

In Vol. 5, a conversation with a 49-year-old man named Dave, an entrepreneur originally from the Ozarks who now lives in São Miguel, a remote island in the Azores archipelago.

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Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

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Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Volume 39 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...The Baldwins' neglected dogs defecate on Alec's $40,000 hand-woven Parisian rug...Hilaria demands that Alec take her salsa dancing...Mel Gibson will make a sequel to The Passion of the Christ...Morgan Wallen breaks the land speed record for white male fragility...and more...

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

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Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Sanjena Sathian is the author of the novel Goddess Complex, available from Penguin Press.

Sathian is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Gold Diggers, which was named a Top 10 Best Book of 2021 by The Washington Post and longlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. It won the Townsend Prize for Fiction. Her short fiction appears in The Best American Short Stories, The Atlantic, Conjunctions, One Story, Boulevard, and more. She’s written nonfiction for The New York Times, New York magazine, The Drift, The Yale Review, and NewYorker.com, among other outlets. She’s an alumna of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has taught at Emory University, the University of Iowa, and Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. In spring 2025, she will serve as the Ferrol A. Sams Jr. Distinguished Chair of English at Mercer University.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Character Study, Vol. 4. 'Character Studies' is a new series on the podcast featuring interviews with 'civilians'—ordinary adult humans of all ages and backgrounds, talking with Brad about their lives, anonymously.

In Vol. 4, a conversation with a 25-year-old woman named Jessa who works as a packaging and e-commerce designer in The Bronx.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Volume 38 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...The Baldwins make their best episode yet...Hilaria wears a sexy mini-dress when she goes to meet her stepdaughter's baby...Tiger Woods consummates his relationship with Don Jr.'s ex-wife...Brad explains the majesty of Dua Lipa to Mira, and declares Future Nostalgia to be a dance pop masterpiece...

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Paul Lisicky is the author of the memoir Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, available from HarperOne.

Lisicky is the author of seven books, including Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door, Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, The Cut, Fence,the New York Times, Ploughshares, and in many other publications. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Rose Dorothea Award from the Provincetown Library. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Antioch University Los Angeles, Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere. He is currently a Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University–Camden, where he is Editor of StoryQuarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Character Study, Vol. 3. 'Character Studies' is a new series on the podcast featuring interviews with 'civilians'—ordinary adult humans of all ages and backgrounds, talking with Brad about their lives, anonymously.

In Vol. 3, a conversation with a 54-year-old man named Michael who works as a housing entrepreneur in Berkeley, California.

If you or someone you know would like to be considered for a guest slot in this series, you can email Brad at [email protected]. Please note that this is not a literary interview series. Brad is hoping to talk with a wide range of people from around the world. There are no parameters other than fluency in English and a willingness to have a candid conversation, in good faith.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Volume 37 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Alec in therapy...Hilaria in fishnets...Kanye copyrights his child's name...Kim gets medieval...Tracy Morgan projectile vomits on the court at Madison Square Garden...& more....

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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

Sarah Chihaya is the author of the memoir Bibliophobia, available from Random House. It is the official March 2025 pick of the Otherppl Book Club.

Chihaya is a book critic, essayist, and editor. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, New York magazine, The Atlantic, andThe Yale Review, among other places, and she is the co-author of The Ferrante Letters: An Experiment in Collective Criticism. She has taught at Princeton University, New York University, and UC Berkeley. She is currently a contributing editor at Los Angeles Review of Books and lives in Brooklyn.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.

Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter.

Support the show on Patreon

Merch

Twitter

Instagram 

TikTok

Bluesky

Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com

The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.

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