Leif Høghaug (who is currently translating Finnegans Wake into Norwegian) and David M. Smith join Chad and Kyle Semmel to talk about The Calf, one of the strangest books to come out in 2025. They provide curious readers with some guideposts to approaching this book, talk about influences and specific Norwegian dialects, David’s choice to write this in the Appalachian dialect his dad speaks, deciding to “write like an idiot” and enjoy the play and music of language, and much more. If you’re at all curious about this unique book, this episode may well convince you to pick up a copy.

This episode’s music is “Idiot Box” by Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

George Henson (Pitol’s translator) and Mark Haber (Lesser Ruins, Ada) join Chad to celebrate the recent release in English of the third volume in Sergio Pitol’s “Carnival Triptych,” Married Life. They talk about that book, but also spend a lot of time discussing The Art of Flight and the “Trilogy of Memory,” which propelled Pitol into the global spotlight both when it came out in the original Spanish, and in George’s translation. There’s also talk of translation theory and finding a voice, editing practices and intertextuality, and much more.

This episode’s music is “Marriage” by Gold Panda.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

Dropping on the same day that Hagfish’s first publication—To Smithereens by Rosalyn Drexler—was named as one of the New York Times’s “100 Notable Books of 2025,” this podcast explores the Hagfish business model with its cofounders, Julia Ringo and Naomi Huffman. They discuss how the press came to be, what draws them to particular titles, the difficulty of distribution, why they’re only doing two titles a year, and much more.

The conversation also focuses on their second title, Man Hating Psycho by Iphgenia Baal, a brilliant collection of stories that’s raucous, well-crafted, and, like what Dylan Thomas said about At Swim-Two-Birds, “just the sort of book to give your sister if she’s a loud, dirty, boozy girl!” (It really would make a great holiday present . . . just saying.)

This is part of a new thread of Three Percent Podcasts in which an indie press discusses the inner workings of publishing, through the lens of one of their recent publications. This episode on World Editions and The Cracks We Bear by Catalina Infante & Michelle Mirabella was a sort of soft launch for this, and we do have several episodes lined up for the next few months . . .

This week’s music is “The Bitter End” from Molly Nilsson.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

Christine Swedowsky, the newest publisher of World Editions, and Michelle Mirabella, translator of Catalina Infante’s The Cracks We Bear join Chad to discuss the various eras of World Editions and how an indie press can evolve over time, and a few upcoming titles. The conversation focuses on Mirabella & Infante’s forthcoming novel, discussing how the book is much more than another book about motherhood, the difficulty of translating certain titles for the American market, and how valuable a collaborative experience with your publisher can be.

This week’s music is “Burn This Atlas Down (2 of Clubs)” from Hallelujah the Hills.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find the Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

Quick Reminder: All Open Letter books either written or translated by women are on sale for 40% off to celebrate Women in Translation Month through August 31st! Shop the whole collection here!

Jen Calleja, translator, author, musician, recent PhD recipient, joins Chad to talk about her recent book, Fair: The Life-Art of Translation. They discuss the origins of the book, the various types of “translation” books out there, Fair’s unique structure, the translator as storyteller, Jen’s writing voice, the role performance has played in her life, and much more.

Three songs from Calleja on this podcast: “Transmitters” and “The Bridge” open and close the episode, with a bit of “Erase” popping up where appropriate.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find the Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

In our ongoing celebration of Women in Translation Month, Chad talked to Suzanne Jill Levine about Unfaithful: A Translator’s Memoir, recently released by Bloomsbury Academic. They discuss her life as a translator who was there during “The Boom” and her work with Manuel Puig (who deserves another rediscovery), Adolfo Bioy Casares (Chad relates his Lost story about The Invention of Morel), Severo Sarduy (Cobra is now available as a Dalkey Essential), G. Cabrera Infante, Emir Rodríguez Monegal, intimacy and translation, and more.

This episode’s music is “Lightning” by Arcade Fire, a problematic band for sure, but, given the storm that disrupted this recording, a song that sort of fits. (And isn’t Imagine Dragons.)

Also, for the month of August, all Open Letter books either written or translated by women are on sale for 40% off to celebrate Women in Translation Month. Shop the whole collection here!

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find the Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

On this special 200th episode of the Three Percent Podcast, Tom Roberge—original co-host, former publicist for New Directions, co-founder of Riffraff Books, and current head of residencies at the Jan Michalski Foundation—returns to talk about life in Switzerland, his media diet, Swiss support for culture, how he no longer follows the Mets very closely, and much more.

A number of books and authors are mentioned on the podcast, but special attention should be drawn to After 8 Books and A Forest Petrifies: Diamond Feedback by Félicia Atkinson.

This episode’s music is “Box Elder” by Pavement.

Also, for the month of August, all Open Letter books either written or translated by women are on sale for 40% off to celebrate Women in Translation Month. Shop the whole collection here!

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find the Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

On this episode, Blake Butler (Molly, Void Corporation, Uxa.Gov, the Dividual Substack) joins Chad to discuss his recent piece, “What I Want In an Ideal Publisher.” They discuss various disconnects in publishing, what makes a great indie publisher, the possibility of doing things in a new way, financial transparency and editorial vision, and much more.

Intro and outro music is “Couldn’t Get Ahead” by The Fall.

Also, for the month of August, all Open Letter books either written or translated by women are on sale for 40% off to celebrate Women in Translation Month. Shop the whole collection here!

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

In this episode, Tom Comitta (The Nature Book, Patchwork) joins Chad to talk about their book(s) People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels, for which they used survey results, The Bestseller Code, various best-selling novels, and the OpenAI Playground to write two very entertaining novels: one using everything people want in a book, the other doing the exact opposite. The result is a wildly compelling reading experience that opens up ideas about aesthetics, readerly desires, the future of “collage literature,” and, naturally, a little bit of baseball talk.

You may want to watch this episode on YouTube, since there are graphs, charts, data, and other images that Comitta refers to in explaining their process.

The music on this episode is “The Most Wanted Song” and “The Most Unwanted Song.” (The latter of which is far far far more interesting!)

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also find Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!

In the final entry in this series of podcasts on the NEA (for now . . . there may be a return to industry-based Three Percent episodes in the near future), Chad welcomes Hilary Plum (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, Rescue Press, author of State Champ) and Lissie Jaquette (executive director of Words Without Borders, translator from the Arabic of Minor Detail, Thirteen Months of Sunrise, The Queue, among others) to discuss the way in which nonprofit literary presses distinguish themselves from their for-profit counterparts, and what makes a convincing narrative to attract public and private funding. Specifically: what value can a nonprofit press provide to culture that goes beyond the transactional nature of producing and selling books?

Part One of this series is available here and is a scripted presentation on the history of the NEA and various attacks it has suffered over the years. (Possibly the most professional Three Percent Podcast episode ever?) And Part Two is a conversation with three literary organizations and presses about the immediate impact of these lost grants.

The music for these NEA episodes is the Matmos version of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” which deconstructs John Philip Sousa’s patriotic march.

If you want to support Open Letter’s publications and all related activities—such as this podcast, reading tours, etc.—consider contributing to Deep Vellum Publishing, the nonprofit organization subsidizing and supporting OL’s operations.

You can subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Mining the Dalkey Archive podcast at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and watch us on YouTube.

And be sure to follow our sister podcasts: Two Month Review (Apple, Spotify) and Mining the Dalkey Archive (Apple, Spotify) for more book and industry talk!