The Passage

Isaac Fitzgerald reads from American Rambler : Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed , his memoir about following in the footsteps of one of America’s great folk heroes. In this episode, we discuss the book’s opening passage, learning how to write, and how walking became a way to write about family, loneliness, and home. Isaac also talks to Jon and Cory about: Putting “tension" in the bank to keep...

Scott Hawkins reads from Blacktail , a dark fantasy in which a wolf seeks revenge on humanity for the death of his house dog mate. In this episode, we unpack a passage from the opening chapter, told from the perspective of a lynx, that sets up our introduction to the book’s titular character. Scott chats with Jon and Cory about: Writing from the perspective of animals The multiple scrapped project...

Bathsheba Demuth reads from Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait , billed as the first comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic lands and waters that stretch from Russia to Canada. In this episode, we discuss a passage about walruses and the challenges of writing about nontraditional history subjects. Bathsheba talks to Jon and Cory about:  Turning an academic dissert...

Joshua Kendall reads from Trudeau & Doonesbury , his new biography of Garry Trudeau, the famously press-shy Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. In this episode, we discuss a passage outlining the sexism found in strips Trudeau created during his undergraduate years as well as his evolution into more progressive, feminist politics as he reached the national stage. Josh talks to Jon and Cory abou...

Rich Larson reads the opening passage of “In the Hours Preceding the Fall of Tau-Sants,” a cyberpunk-flavored short story published by the online magazine Reactor and available to read for free at reactormag.com . “In the Hours…” follows two operatives that arrive in a rain-drenched city to commission a mysterious weapon. Rich talks to Jon and Cory about: Dropping readers into a scene “as late as...

Bestselling spy novelist Dan Fesperman joins Cory and Jon to discuss Pariah , a satirical thriller about a disgraced comedian recruited by the CIA to spy on an authoritarian Eastern European regime. The passage he reads is a masterclass in building suspense through, let's say... unconventional narrative choices, balancing tension with humor, and crafting dialogue that feels anything but crafted. ...

Oana Aristide reads the opening pages of Astronaut! , her recently-released novel set in late-80s communist Romania. Astronaut! follows two main characters: an eight-year-old girl caught up in a rigged school contest and a detective ordered to pin a string of murders on a man-eating bear. Oana talks to Jon and Cory about: Why the opening was the last chapter she wrote, and also the most difficult...

Author M Lin joins us to discuss her fantastic debut collection, The Memory Museum , a series of stories that move between contemporary China and imagined futures to explore memory, family, censorship, loss, and—perhaps unexpectedly—joy. The passage M reads for us, from the collection’s title story, comes from a scene she added only after nearly a year of revisions—a late breakthrough that ended u...

Award-winning author and actor Sonya Walger ( Lost , For All Mankind ) joins us to discuss her latest novel, Wifehouse —the story of a woman who has always defined herself as a wife and mother, and who, in trying to put her own happiness first, pursues an affair with a much younger French tutor. As Sonya puts it, it's ultimately a novel about "a mother who leaves,” and the questions such a story r...

John Keene reads from "Gloss on a History of Roman Catholics in the Early American Republic, 1790–1825; or The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows," a novella at the heart of his 2015 collection Counternarratives . It’s an experimental piece of fiction imagined as a footnote to an obscure history text, centered on an enslaved woman named Carmel and expanding across the early 19th century Am...

Sam Shelstad reads three short chapters from his (very funny) novel, The Cobra and the Key , a fictional creative writing guide penned by an aspiring literary genius who isn’t going to let little things like talent, self-awareness, or a recent break-up hold him back. Sam talks to Jon and Cory about: Why he resisted packaging the book as a straight satire of writing guides and found the characteriz...

Nigerian short story writer and novelist ’Pemi Aguda reads a passage from her latest work, One Leg on Earth , and discusses the challenges–and rewards–of short vs. longform writing, the writers who keep her inspired, and how liberating it can be to scrap your book and start from scratch. 'Pemi’s critically acclaimed work mixes elements of supernatural, speculative fiction, folk horror, and contemp...

Musician, writer, and biographer Jan Swafford reads not one but two passages! The first from the opening of his biography of the American composer Charles Ives and the second from his massive book on the life of Beethoven, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph–9n his words the hardest thing he’s ever written. He also talks to Jon and Cory about: Why a musical biography has to reflect the subject–an Ives...

Horror and dark fantasy writer Nathan Ballingrud reads a passage from his novella, The Butcher’s Table, originally published in the short fiction collection Wounds (The Atlas of Hell). He talks to Jon and Cory about: The story’s origins as a blog serial His initial struggles to commit to the significant tonal departure from the stories in his first collection, North American Lake Monsters The fear...

The great Russian translator Michael Katz reads a passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and discusses the painstaking process, many challenges, and hard limitations of translation, which he considers a “recreative” act vs. a purely creative one. He also talks to us about what keeps readers coming back to Dostoevsky’s strange, often difficult books, and why a good translation is only goo...

Science fiction writer Tom Toner reads a passage from his latest novel, The Immeasurable Heaven , published under the pen name Caspar Geon. He talks to Jon and Cory about his many notebooks full of longhand worldbuilding ideas, finding inspiration for alien species in David Attenborough nature documentaries, writing under contract vs. writing on spec, and a unique drafting process built more aroun...

Food writer and memoirist Anya Von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking , reads from the epilogue of her latest bestseller, National Dish, and discusses what happens when world-historical events dictate last-minute rewrites—and a project becomes personal.   Anya’s passage, excerpted from National Dish: On February 25, 2022, I woke up after a turbulent night checking news updates...

Author Gabby Squailia reads a passage from her debut fantasy novel Dead Boys , a macabre, rollicking story set in the afterlife. She takes us through the unconventional road from idea to published book, and explains how her writing process continues to evolve. Gabby’s passage, excerpted from Dead Boys: Just beyond the edge of the path, an upended water tower was half-buried in a mound of debris, a...

Writer Daniel Magariel reads a passage from his remarkable second novel, Walk the Darkness Down, and delves into how he creates his characters, his research methods, and the sustained meditation of the writing process. Daniel's passage, excerpted from Walk the Darkness Down. At the age of eighteen, when he first started scalloping full-time, Les suffered from sleep paralysis. The condition is not...

Rolf Potts -- godfather of travel writing in the digital age and bestselling author of Vagabonding, Marco Polo Didn't Go There, and The Vagabond's Way -- reads from his breakout piece "Storming the Beach" and discusses how he came up with the idea of infiltrating the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand, and then how he figured out how to write about it.