The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life

A conversation many years in the making, John King and Shawn McKee reckon with the genre-bending oddity that is Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985).

In this week's episode, John interviews the Pulitzer Prize-wining justice journalist and researcher Gilbert King, plus TDO proudly shares a dual book-launch event for Laura Lee Bahr and Erik Deckers.

In this week's episode, John interviews music journalist and biographer Bob Spitz about the massive sixty-year career of The Rolling Stones, how the music moves us, and the process of creating a good book with a tidal wave's amount of material to cover.

On this show, John and Matt Peters continue The Kerouac Project Book Club with a discussion of William S. Burrough's  Naked Lunch .

In this week's episode, John speaks with the poet Henry Hughes about poetry, fishing, patience, creativity, Charles Bukowski, and other matters of literary interest.

In this week's episode, John speaks with the poet Lara Egger about her new book, Flop Era . Other topics covered: the jostling of syntax, the long learning curve of becoming a writer, and how constraints point us towards problem-solving that allows authenticity to bleed through our work.

In this week's episode, John speaks with fiction writer and editor Dave Housley about the joys of using writing prompts, the problem-solving of writing meaningfully improbable stories inspired by pop culture, and the limits of post-modern irony. His newest books is  Aliens Attack! , now out with Mason Jar Press.

In this week's show, Rachael Tillman and I discuss The Bell Ja r, in part 3 of our series on Sylvia Plath. If you are keen, check out the previous installments: episodes 685 ( The Colossus and Other Poems ) and 693 (Emily Van Duyne's Loving Sylvia Plath ).

Sophia Ferrara returns to the secret HQ of TDO to chat about the pleasure-filled dystopia of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World , while John freaks out about the novel's structure or lack thereof.

In #710, Sophia Ferrara returns to the secret HQ of TDO to chat about the dystopia of Rollerball , as imagined in the film and the short story, which was called "Roller Ball Murder." Jonathan E and his pal Moonpie turn out to be a threat to The Corporation while thriving in a technocratic bloodsport. Good times.

In this week's show, John speaks with the poet Philip Schultz about his wonderful new poetry collection,  Enormous Morning . We discuss the self-critical voices that Philip calls the shit-bird, how personas can empower us to become more of ourselves, and the ironies of finding gratitude in our depression in observing how the world tears itself apart.

In this week's show, John speaks with the writer and actor, Felicia Day about her extraordinary page-turner of a graphic novel, The Lost Daughter of Sparta . We discuss how to regulate our bodies as writers, how rich the literature of ancient myth absolutely still is, and how to read for audiobooks, since she has a wealth of acting experience and John doesn't.

In this week's show, the poet Shawn Welcome and I talk about how to love poetry, how to gather together our literary communities, and our beloved city of Orlando, Florida.

On this week's program, I catch up with the amazing Richard Blanco about his recent collected poems, Homeland of my Body , a book sandwiched with two sections of exciting new work.

On this week's program, I talk to Mamie Pound about how flash fiction works, poetry, and finding the authentic, messy, true emotion and understanding despite the editors in our brains.

On this week's program, I talk to Elliot Ackerman about his new novel, Sheepdogs , a hell of a military caper story.

Happy Valentine's Day, world! Listen to Dianne Turgeon Richardson and I discuss the memorable, occasionally exhausting, and morally iffy smut of Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus .

After reading some of Charlotte Brontë's Tales of Angria (#682), John and Sophia go a-Brontë-ing again. They discuss Lucasta Miller's extraordinary survey of the Brontë cult and the durable, troubled legacy of their fiction.

In this week's show, I speak with the comedian Greg Proops about comedy writing, comedy performance, improv, politics, film, and more.

On #700, John speaks with the underrated novelist and essay writer Chuck Klosterman about his wickedly funny and ever-insightful new book called Football. They also speak about post-modernism and humor and how audiences perplexingly invert their expectations about reality when reading fiction and non-fiction. John perhaps goes on a rant about the 1985 New England loss in the Super Bowl.

On this episode, Samantha Nickerson interviews the journalist and memoirist about his new book, Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America .

On this episode, John interviews the rock band Descartes a Kant about the creation of exciting twenty-first century theatrical rock and roll. Listen to & buy DAK's music over at Band Camp .

Here John speaks with his friend Todd James Pierce about his research process, his work on Disney artist Mary Blair, and Todd's wonderful new book,   Making Mary Poppins , now out with Norton.

On this show, John and Matt Peters continue The Kerouac Project Book Club with a discussion of William S. Burrough's third fiction manuscript, Interzone , the cliff before one arrives at Naked Lunch .

The Drunken Odyssey commandeered the Loose Lips oratory series during the tidings of yule and whatnot on December 2, 2025. The readers included Fred Lambert, Rachael Tillman and her deadly horsemen  Shawn McKee, Samantha Nickerson, and that rapscallion John King.