Public

Amor Towles is our modern day F. Scott Fitzgerald. Sure, he’s a critically acclaimed, award-winning novelist (ever heard of “A Gentleman in Moscow”?) but not because he’s cracked the publishing algorithm. Rather than scheming how many books he can sell or how many critics he can impress, his #1 goal is to fulfill his covenant with his reader.

“They’ve invested in my art, and I owe it to them.”

Towles' work oozes sensory detail and psychological richness. While most writers would describe writing as “creative” or “free-spirited,” he describes it as “accurate” and “careful.” Every sentence he writes serves a larger truth. In this episode, Towles gives one of the most detailed breakdowns of his writing process that we’ve had so far on How I Write. 

You’ll learn the step-by-step process for how Towles drafts each novel; specifically, how outlining your work can free up your creative, poetic side. You’ll learn how to write descriptively — without bogging down your reader in indulgent details. You’ll learn how to master craft through repetition; how to approach your first draft versus your second; how to influence your writing with reading; and how to create art that serves a broader purpose. 

Ultimately, you’ll learn how to tell exceptional stories from one of today's most exceptional storytellers.

SPEAKER LINKS: 

Website: https://www.amortowles.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/amortowles

Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Amor-Towles/author/B004MW8MG6

WRITE OF PASSAGE: 

Want to learn more about the next class Write of Passage?

Click here: https://take.writeofpassage.school/writing-sprints

PODCAST LINKS: 

Website: https://writeofpassage.school/how-i-write/

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-write/id1700171470

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2DjMSboniFAeGA8v9NpoPv

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DavidPerellChannel/videos

ABOUT THE HOST: 

I’m David Perell and I’m a writer, teacher, and podcaster. I believe writing online is one of the biggest opportunities in the world today. For the first time in human history, everybody can freely share their ideas with a global audience. I seek to help as many people publish their writing online as possible.

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In May 2022, just a few months into the war between Russia and Ukraine, we convened a public debate in Toronto about whether the West needed to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate legitimate security interests in order to bring the conflict to a resolution.

John Mearsheimer, one of the world’s leading realist scholars in international relations, argued on stage that the West deserves some blame for Russian aggression. 

After almost two years of fighting, the war, as John predicted at that debate, is nowhere near its conclusion. Mass casualties, a country in ruin, and billions of dollars in western aid has done little to advance the goals of either side.

On this Munk Dialogue, John offers his thoughts on how to resolve this conflict as soon as possible, the threat of a growing alliance between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, and why military power has its limits in a multipolar world.

The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths

Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/

To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [email protected].  

To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership

Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, a free Munk Debates book, newsletter and ticketing privileges at our live events.

This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/

Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz

Editor: Kieran Lynch

The Irish poet, Jessica Traynor, explores one of Frank’s favourite subjects – ageing performers who don’t know when to quit. The collection referenced is ‘Pit Lullabies’ by Jessica Traynor. The cycle of poems referenced is ‘An Island Sings’. The poems referenced are ‘The Parent’s Song’, ‘Song of the Insomniac’ and ‘Nureyev in Dublin’.

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On this episode, we were joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hisham Matar to discuss his brilliant new novel ‘My Friends,’ which tells the story of three exiled Libyan friends living in London over the course of four decades, each marked by an act of real political violence which occurred at the Libyan embassy in St. James’s Square in 1984.

The author is himself an exile, having fled the country as a child due his father’s vocal criticism of the Qaddafi regime, ultimately settling in London, where he has lived for many years.

Hisham spoke to us about the long journey towards completing this highly personal novel; why he believes that authors are rarely in control of their own work; and the challenges of attempting to live freely as an exile, all the while knowing that your compatriots are struggling back home.

The novel is full of warmth, brilliant storytelling, and great style, all attributes which can also be used to describe this episode's guest.

American poet, Billy Collins, makes Frank question the whole Poetry Podcast experience. The poems referenced are ‘Introduction to Poetry’ and ‘American Sonnet’ by Billy Collins.

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Frank trembles at the fragmented beauty of Sappho, the superstar poet of Ancient Greece. The fragment translations are by Aaron Poochigian.

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Frank explores The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Nuff said.

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For our first episode of 2024 we have a very special guest: Sir Michael Palin. From his childhood in 1950s Sheffield, to getting drunk at boarding school, discovering his talent for writing and performing at Oxford University, meeting his wife Helen on holiday at 16 and of course the formation of Monty Python - Michael Palin has had a long and fascinating life. This is a an entertaining, fascinating and sometimes moving conversation, we hope you enjoy it!

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Mea culpa re line 8: I confusedly combined both possible readings-- this is either acephalous hexameter or first foot anapest iambic pentameter.  

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-Write to me about classes! 

-The Error by Don Paterson

-Idealism, Nominalism, Transcendental critique

-Plato, Plotinus, Ockham, Kant

-Paterson's band, Lammas

-His many books

-Michael Donaghy

-Blank Verse by Robert B. Shaw, and the 3 Types

-Nietzsche's "Beyond Good and Evil"

-Pseudo-Dionysius and the Via Negativa

-Plotinus's plenum meets Nagarjuna's vacuum (sunyata)

-God as Eclipse (and my episode/poem on this idea)

-Auto-martyrdom on Yggdrasil

-Beholding the Nothing That Is

Text of poem:

Phantom V

We come from nothing and return to it. 

It lends us out to time, and when we lie

in silent contemplation of the void

they say we feel it contemplating us. 

This is wrong, but who could bear the truth.

We are ourselves the void in contemplation. 

We are its only nerve and hand and eye. 

There is something vast and distant and enthroned

with which you are one and continuous,

staring through your mind, staring and staring

like a black sun, constant, silent, radiant

with neither love nor hate nor apathy

as we have no human name for its regard. 

Your thought is the bright shadows that it makes 

as it plays across the objects of the earth

or such icons of them as your mind has forged.

The book in sunlight or the tree in rain

bursts at its touch into a blaze of signs. 

But when the mind rests and the dark light stills,

the tree will rise untethered to its station

between earth and heaven, the open book

turn runic and unreadable again,

and if a word then rises to our lips 

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

On this special edition of the Munk Debates podcast, host Rudyard Griffiths is joined by senior content producer, Ricki Gurwitz, to discuss some of their favourite debates and dialogues from the over 50 podcast episodes published this year.

They also peel back the curtain to give listeners a glimpse into how these debates come together. How do they decide what debates to convene? What makes for a successful debate? And which debate topics are the hardest to book?  The answers may surprise you.

The host of the Munk Debates is Rudyard Griffiths 

Tweet your comments about this episode to @munkdebate or comment on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/munkdebates/

To sign up for a weekly email reminder for this podcast, send an email to [email protected].  

To support civil and substantive debate on the big questions of the day, consider becoming a Munk Member at https://munkdebates.com/membership

Members receive access to our 15+ year library of great debates in HD video, access to our Friday Focus podcast, a free Munk Debates book, and ticketing privileges at our live events.

This podcast is a project of the Munk Debates, a Canadian charitable organization dedicated to fostering civil and substantive public dialogue - https://munkdebates.com/

Senior Producer: Ricki Gurwitz

Editor: Kieran Lynch