On today's show, Rachael and I discuss George Saunders's discussion of seven short stories by Russian authors. Since Saunders's book is the result of teaching these stories in MFA craft courses over multiple decades, this book and today's discussion simulates an important part of the MFA experience, for those who wonder what that might be like.

The stories:

1. Anton Chekhov's "In the Cart" (1897)
2. Ivan Turgenev's "The Singers" (1852)
3. Anton Chekhov's "The Darling" (1899)
4. Leo Tolstoy's "Master and Man" (1895)
5. Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose" (1836)
6. Anton Chekhov's "Gooseberries" (1898)
7. Leo Tolstoy's "Alyosha The Pot" (1905)

This ep. features a conversation with Pulitzer prize-winning poet Diane Seuss about her latest book of verse, Modern Poetry. With bursts of internal rhyme about thorny subjects, Modern Poetry awaits the reader with a spirit of mourning and loss and self-creation, which is, for this reader anyway, joyous.

Thanks to Brian Salmons for bumpering this replay episode.

On today's show, Samantha Nickerson interviews the fiction writers Celeste Ng and Ben Fountain!

On #613, Chelsea Alice speaks with Jamel Brinkley about his new short story collection Witness, plus John King speaks with M. Evelina Galang about her new short story collection, When the Hibiscus Falls. Special Thanks to Miami Book Fair.

Samantha Nickerson and I delve into Anaïs Nin's posthumously published slender volume of erotica, Little Birds.

On today's show, John King chats with poet Matt Mason about the poetic necessity of engaging with the popular culture that is part of the fabric of our American life, including rock music and obviously, obviously, the Disney phenomenon.

On today's show, John King chats with journalist Rebecca Renner and poet Major Jackson at Miami Book Fair.

Today's show features novelist Meg Cabot and memoirist Kelle Groom in conversation with TDO correspondent Samantha Nickerson, recorded during Miami Book Fair 2023.

On today's show, John talks to the poet and memoirist Maggie Smith about the complexities of trying to merge reality with narrative structure, and discusses the same, in different ways, with the novelist Michael Cunningham!