The Artist's Statement

Jonathan Gleason joins us to talk about his debut essay collection Field Guide to Falling Ill. Drawing from personal experience, history, and medical science, Gleason’s moving book explores “the human lives behind the corporate, legal, and cultural practices that shape disease.” During our conversation, we discuss what inspired this book and the techniques Gleason used to create it. He reads from the essays “Inheritance,” about the origins of Taye-Sachs disease, and “Blood in the Water,” which illuminates the life of Gaëtan Dugas, a gay flight attendant who became known as “patient zero” in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.

Gleason is the winner of the inaugural Yale Nonfiction Book Prize and was described by contest judge Meghan O'Rourke as a "layered, reflective, and unusually poised debut." He was a recipient of a 2023 Elizabeth George Grant and a finalist for our very own 2024 Granum Foundation Prize. His work has appeared in the Best American Essays, The Sun Magazine, New England Review, and Kenyon Review. He teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago.

Host: Davin Malasarn

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by ⁠The Granum Foundation⁠.

Nicky Gonzalez joins us to discuss her Gothic debut novel, Mayra (2025, Random House), a story about two friends who reunite in a mysterious house in the Florida Everglades and uncover a hidden history. It’s a book that Karen Thompson Walker describes as "part coming-of-age story, part Twilight Zone episode, part thoughtful meditation on all of the ways that memory is itself a haunted house." 

Gonzalez hails from Hialeah, Florida. She earned her MFA from the University of Oregon, where she also taught fiction and composition. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB Magazine, Kenyon Review Online, and Taco Bell Quarterly, among other publications. In 2021 she was a finalist for the Granum Foundation Prize.

Host: Davin Malasarn

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation.

Puloma Ghosh joins us to discuss her debut short story collection Mouth (2024, Astra House). We discuss her vision for the genre-crossing book, her creative process, and how she got interested in writing, including her love of fan fiction. She reads from her stories “In The Winter” and “Persimmons.”

Ghosh was born in Kolkata, India and raised outside Boston, Massachusetts. She earned her undergraduate degree from Tufts University and her MFA from Bennington College. She currently lives in Chicago.

Ghosh’s short stories have appeared in One Story, Craft, Cutleaf, The Cantabrigian, and Another Chicago Magazine. She was the winner of the 2020 Craft Literary Flash Fiction Contest and the Morse Hamilton Fiction Prize. She was a Tin House Summer Workshop Scholar and a Bennington College Alumni Fellow. 

Host: Davin Malasarn

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by ⁠The Granum Foundation⁠.

2023 National Book Award for Fiction winner Justin Torres joins us to discuss his novels We The Animals (2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Blackouts (2023, Farrar, Straus and Giroux). We talk about what Torres considers success in his writing, the value of fiction that diverges from the realm of reality, and how he approached his award-winning new work.

Inspired in part by the book Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns, Blackouts moves between fact and fiction as it explores the life of an unnamed narrator referred to as "nene," his older friend Juan Gay, and historical figure Jan Gay. Torres creates stories from what's missing, challenging readers to confront questions that have no answers.

Torres's bestselling debut, We the Animals, won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, was translated into fifteen languages, and was adapted into a feature film. He was named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35,” a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and a Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Tin House, The Washington Post, LA Times Image Magazine, and Best American Essays. 

Host: Davin Malasarn

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation.

Season 3, Episode 1, features poet Denton Loving. He is the author of two poetry collections, Crimes Against Birds, published by Main Street Rag in 2014, and his new book, Tamp, published by Mercer University Press earlier this year. Set in Appalachia,Tamp's central theme focuses on the grief and sense of loss that followed the death of Loving’s father. He also explores ancestry, religion, and our interactions with both the natural and dream worlds.

Loving’s work has appeared in River Styx, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Chattahoochee Review among other journals. He earned his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and has received scholarships and fellowships from organizations such as the Eckerd College Writers Conference and the Key West Literary Seminars.

For over a decade, he co-directed the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University where he also co-edited drafthorse: the literary journal of work and no work. He’s also a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. 

Loving reads "The Fence Builder," "Genealogy," "A Love Poem about an Exploding Cow," "Hag Stone, Hex Stone, Holy Stone," and "There is a barn."

Host: Davin Malasarn. Music by Joe Rivers. Artwork by Ayumi Takahashi.

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation.

Season 2, Episode 3 brings you poet and inaugural Granum Foundation Prize winner, Nicole Sealey. We begin the discussion with Sealey's earlier works, The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and Ordinary Beast

She reads "Candelabra with Heads," "In Defense of Candelabra with Heads," "The First Person Who Will Live to Be One Hundred and Fifty Years Old Has Already Been Born," and "Object Permanence." Sealey also provides a preview from "The Ferguson Report: An Erasure."

Season 2, Episode 2 features Julie Otsuka, best-selling author of When the Emperor Was Divine, The Buddha in the Attic, and her latest novel, The Swimmers. We discuss the inspiration and evolution of The Swimmers, and some of the technical challenges associated with Otsuka's frequent use of the first person plural point of view. She discusses how she became a writer and her work routines, including how they have changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also explore how Otsuka relies on intuition and intellect to create her work. 

In this interview, Otsuka reads excerpts from The Swimmers, including the opening pages and a selection from her chapter entitled "Belavista."

Host: Davin Malasarn. Music by Joe Rivers. Artwork by Ayumi Takahashi.

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation. Visit us at granumfoundation.org.

Season 2 of The Artist's Statement opens with journalist, essayist, and novelist, Ben Ehrenreich, winner of a 2021 American Book Award for his non-fiction work Desert Notebooks: A Roadmap for the End of Time. Ehrenreich discusses the inspiration for this poignant book that followed his time in Palestine and his return to American society under the presidency of Donald Trump. Beginning in the awe-inspiring landscapes of Joshua Tree National Park and moving to the alternative desert of Las Vegas, Ehrenreich reflects on our perceptions of time in the face of change and trauma. He draws on the ancient texts of Mayan, Greek, and Roman civilizations to argue against the myth of inevitable progress. Ehrenreich also talks about his own writing career and his hopes for the future. 

In this interview, Ehrenreich reads an excerpt from Desert Notebooks.

Host: Davin Malasarn. Music by Joe Rivers. Artwork by Ayumi Takahashi.

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation. Visit us at granumfoundation.org. 

In Episode 10 of The Artist's Statement, we chat with Claire Vaye Watkins, author of three works of fiction, including her latest novel, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness (Riverhead, 2021). Watkins discusses the blurred boundaries between fiction and fact in her new work, and the story threads she brought together to complete it. We explore the impact of her viral essay "On Pandering" and her evolving relationship with writing, and how the influence of classical works can both help and hinder creativity. Watkins shares how she came to work with her agent, Nicole Aragi. She also offers her insights for students as they complete their first major projects.

In this interview, Watkins reads excerpts from I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness.

Host: Davin Malasarn

The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation.