The Passage

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.