Book Fight

We welcome special guest Dave Housley (Barrelhouse editor, author of the forthcoming If I Knew The Way, I Would Take You Home) to discuss Edward Porter's "The White Guy's Guide to Marrying a Black Woman" and also cargo shorts. Talking points include: second-person narratives, writing honestly about race, goatees, Phish tour, Tyler Perry, and buying things only because they're on sale.

This week Tom continues his year-long exploration of books outside his usual reading patterns, with Finnish writer's Anita Konkka's A Fool's Paradise, published by Dalkey Archive Press. And Mike continues his exploration of fan fiction, quizzing Tom on a variety of tropes and terms, some of which might actually be useful if they were adopted by writers of non-fan fiction, too. 

This week is all about genre-bending. We talk about Jo Ann Beard's essay "Werner," which was included in the 2007 edition of Best American Nonfiction, edited by David Foster Wallace, and which makes use of fictional techniques to tell a story that is (more or less) true. We also talk about skorts, against which Mike has a long-standing grudge. 

We welcome guest Leslie Jamson ( The Empathy Exams ) to discuss Michael W. Clune's memoir White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin. Clune was a PhD student in literature at John Hopkins in Baltimore and also a daily heroin user. We also talk about addiction memoirs more generally, Leslie's own forays into writing creative nonfiction, pie shakes, Iowa City, and Haley Joel Osment.  You can preorder Issu...

Welcome back to the Summer of Shorts! This week we're talking about an Andre Dubus story, "The Fat Girl," which follows its protagonist, Louise, from childhood through marriage and pregnancy as she struggles with body image issues and her relationship with food. We're also talking about jorts, the much-maligned (and possibly misunderstood?) garment of choice for construction workers, heavy-metal f...

Our last donor pick of the year, this book by Peter Sotos is pretty disturbing. We talk about trigger warnings, both in general and in relation to this particular book, which delves into pedophilia, child pornography, and several real-life child abductions and murders. We discuss Sotos's career as a transgressive, button-pushing author, and debate the relative merits of this book. Is Sotos seeking...

Today we're kicking off the Summer of Shorts by talking about the Kate Braverman story " Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta " and also bermuda shorts. Is the story meant to be read literally or allegorically? What is the proper length for men's shorts? Is this one of the best American short stories of the twentieth century, as its inclusion in a Vintage anthology would suggest? Why did Tom stop wear...

We're joined this week by Philadelphia native Dan McQuade to discuss the novelisation of Rocky II, which pretty much sticks to the plot of the film, but is narrated by Rocky himself, who turns out to be an even bigger dolt in prose. We talk about the story's possibly racist overtones, and why montage sequences don't work that well in a novel. We also ask Dan about life as a freelance writer, and s...

On this week's Writers Ask, we counsel someone who's been rejected from all the MFA programs to which he's applied. Should he simply give up? Choose a different path? Or put his head down, keep working, and apply again next year? We also tell someone whether they should self-publish, and we share a few of the writing prompts we use in our creative writing classes that have proven particularly usef...

This week's book, Canty's first novel, is one of Mike's favorites, while Tom is reading it for the first time. We talk about doomed teenage romance, small moments carefully observed, and what makes you want to return to a book. We also examine the free Wattpad app, and check out some Adam Levine/The Voice fan fic. 

We revisit the topic of writers conferences, and offer advice on how to choose a good one. Also: do writers need to be well-versed in the literary canon (however that might be defined), or is it ok to mostly read contemporary work? And how can you add conflict and tension to a book without much plot? 

A dystopian Russian novel that explores life after a mysterious "blast" has turned back history, leaving a barely-literate population toiling in mind-numbing jobs and trapping rodents for currency. We try to put the book into some context, talk about Tolstaya's other work, and Tom mulls a new segment that involves him watching terrible daytime television. 

We recorded this episode pretty late at night. I am posting this episode recap pretty late at night. We talked about some things, like how much MFAs cost, whether grad student pay rates are fair, and why Tom is so anal retentive about organizing books on his super fancy bookshelves. We also talked about Baywatch. And now you can download our conversation and put it in your ears. Isn't modern life...

This book won the Man Booker prize, though at least one of us might have thrown it across his living room. We talk about funny novels versus "comic novels," middle-aged male novelists who can't stop writing about their penises, and when it's okay to quit on a book. Also, Mike's got another edition of Fan Fiction Corner, featuring some alternate-universe TV fan fic, and ... well, spanking.  You can...

Finally, listeners, it's here. We're reading the best-selling novel by Tom's nemesis and America's sweetheart, Q. Will Mike be won over by Pat Peoples' struggle to overcome a traumatic brain injury? Will Tom punch Mike in the face? We talk about the book's treatment of race and mental illness, whether its details about football fandom are accurate, and how it might serve as a "playbook," if you wi...

First up this week, Tom checks out several apps promising to provide writing prompts and creative inspiration. In our second segment we're joined by Lucas Mann, author of Class A: Baseball in the Middle of Everywhere , to discuss "unlikeable" narrators in nonfiction, and how to turn yourself into a character.

Well, it's the end of March, and finally Mike gets a pick: Ben Lerner's much-celebrated 2011 novel about a poet on a Fullbright in Spain struggling with a series of major and minor existential crises. We talk about poetry and "poetry," people having "profound experiences of art," and what makes writers' identity crises interesting or not. Mike's also got a new installment of Fan Fiction Corner, mu...

This week we're answering questions about how to best make use of your limited writing time, and how to jolt yourself into action when you're between projects. How do you pick your next project? How do you generate material when you're not sure what you want to write? How do you choose between a bunch of potential writing projects when you've only got so many hours in the day? We also revisit the...

We're joined by musician and novelist Wesley Stace (who you may also know as John Wesley Harding) to discuss the first book in Anthony Powell's 12-novel cycle A Dance to the Music of Time. Mike geeks out over meeting one of his favorite musicians, then we talk about Powell's book, Stace's career, and people's general distrust of actors and musicians who write novels. Plus a lightning round featuri...

Lots of websites and conferences claim they'll help you hone your "elevator pitch," but is this a useful skill for a writer? This week we're taking writing conferences, the agent querying process, and potential scams writers should look out for. We also answer a listener question about how to create confident protagonists who don't come off as parodies of confidence. For more--including links to t...

This modernist classic was a listener pick, and also kind of gross. We talk about unlikeable narrators, depravity, stabbing women with forks, and the Spanish Revolution. In our second segment we consider how a writing instructor should respond to unsettling student work, and how to give students creative freedom while respecting the sensitivities of others in the workshop. 

Tom talks to fan favorite Katherine Hill, author of The Violet Hour, about AWP burnout, getting old, kissing, dogs, creepy dudes, and confrontational panels.

Mike gives updates from Philly on what he's doing while not attending AWP, and talks to Lee Klein, author of Thanks and Sorry and Good Luck, about Austrian authors and The Silver Linings Playbook. 

Tom talks with writer (and longtime friend of Barrelhouse) Erin Fitzgerald about flash fiction, fanfic, and unlikeable characters. 

Tom talks with Hobart  editor Aaron Burch, for some reason.