Book Fight

We're joined by Tod Goldberg, author of more than a dozen books, including Gangsterland and The Low Desert, to talk about what he learned about crime writing from Elmore Leonard. Plus, why are MFA programs still so often biased against writers of genre fiction? And what are the challenges of writing a series of novels with the same lead character? You can learn more about Tod, and his books, here:...

We're joined by V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of two critically acclaimed novels, most recently Brotherless Night, which takes place during the Sri Lankan Civil War. Sugi is also a former grad school classmate of ours, and she began Brotherless Night back when all three of us were at Iowa together. So one thing we talk about is that process, and what it's like to write and rewrite a novel over more...

We're joined by writer and editor Aaron Burch, whose novel Year of the Buffalo came out in November. Aaron is also a long-time literary editor, having founded Hobart in the early 2000s and, more recently, HAD , which has made "skull collecting" the newest badge of literary coolness. For our reading, Aaron chose Chris Bachelder's debut novel from 2001, Bear v. Shark , which he remembered loving and...

We're joined by several of the Barrelhouse editors for our annual holiday episode. This year we're reading the David Baldacci novel The Christmas Train, which follows a salty, Mark Twain-loving writer on a cross-country train trip filled with heartwarming hijinks. There's a boa constrictor. There's an Aretha Franklin stand-in. There's an old guy who loves to lecture people about the magic of train...

We're joined by Siân Griffiths (author of Scrapple, and The Heart Keeps Faulty Time) to discuss a short story she regularly teaches and that her students often dislike, in large part because it involves killing cats. And it turns out Mike might be on Team Siân's Students, though for somewhat different reasons (not that he cares for cats being killed, either!). We talk about the pedagogical benefit...

We're joined by Shannon Wolf, a British writer and poet currently making her home in the U.S., who picked this episode's book after hearing us on a previous episode ask, hypothetically, whether there might be a novelization of the movie Legally Blonde. Shannon, a superfan of the film, knew it was actually based on a novel, though the story of that novel's publication is a bit of a twisty one. And...

We're joined by Amy Butcher—author, most recently, of Mothertrucker—who tells us about the outsized influence Jo Ann Beard's work has had on her own writing, including her decision to write creative nonfiction in the first place. We also dig into some of the difficult genre questions posed by Beard's work. Is it fair to call a piece nonfiction when so much of it involves the invention of another p...

We're joined by Jen A. Miller--freelance writer and reporter, and author of Running: A Love Story --to talk about why she loves regency romance novels, and in particular those that explore queer relationships. Jen's book pick for us was The Queer Principles of Kit Webb , the first book in a new series from Cat Sebastian. We talk about the "rules" of romance novels, why they often don't get the res...

We're joined by Stephanie Feldman--author, most recently, of the novel Saturnalia (The Unnammed Press, 2022)--who introduces us to a funny, and surprisingly moving short story about a fictional New Jersey cryptid, Walkdog. The story, by Sofia Samatar, takes the form of a student research paper, but as it progresses we realize it's less about the cryptid in question than about the paper writer's se...

We're joined by Elizabeth McCracken (author, most recently, of the novel The Hero of This Book, out Oct. 4 from Harper Collins) to discuss Mary Gaitskill's 2005 novel Veronica, a book that until recently Elizabeth was scared to re-read. We talk carnality in fiction, and the sweatiness of early 80s New York City. Plus: we compare notes on our time at the Iowa Writers Workshop, discuss trigger warni...

We're joined by Kevin Kearney (author of the forthcoming novel How to Keep Time, and a staff writer for PopMatters) to discuss John McPhee's 1968 book The Pine Barrens, which taught America about the relatively small pocket of New Jersey that seemed to exist outside of time. We also talk to Kevin about his own book, and the process of finding a publisher for it, which can sometimes feel overwhelmi...

We're joined by Adalena Kavanagh (work in Electric Lit, The Believer, lots of other places) to discuss three stories from Best American Short Stories 1985, an anthology that for some reason was lying around her house when she was a kid, prompting her to read some Serious Literary Fiction at a young age. Adalena wanted to revisit the stories to see if they would hold up, or even conform to her memo...

We're joined by poet Celeste Doaks, whose most recent book, American Herstory, focuses on the experience of former first lady Michelle Obama's years in the White House, including the art and decor choices she made while living there. So it's fitting that Celeste had us read an essay by art historian Richard Powell about the official Obama portraits, which in many ways broke with established tradit...

We're joined by Matthew Vollmer, author of several books (most recently, This House is Not Your Home, 2022) and also our former grad-school classmate. We talk about our experiences at Iowa, and how our writing and teaching have evolved in the years since. Also Clarice Lispector's book The Hour of the Star, which Vollmer loves and Tom finds a little confusing. You can find more about Matthew--and l...

We're joined by Catherine Nichols, writer and host of the Lit Century podcast, to discuss Katie Kitamura's novel Intimacies, which Barack Obama loved and at least one of us kinda hated. Plus: what makes an ideal audiobook, why Shakespeare would be useful in a fight, and the subtle joys of a semicolon. You can find Catherine on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/clnichols6 . And check out the Lit Ce...

We're joined by long-time book reviewer Michael Schaub (NPR, Kirkus, Bookslut, elsewhere) to discuss a book that changed the way he thought about books: Ander Monson's debut, Other Electricities . We talk about what separates experiments in form that feel organic to a story versus those that feel superfluous or inscrutable. Also: the ethics of book reviewing, horse ownership, and is everything act...

We're joined by Kristin Keane, author of An Encyclopedia of Bending Time , to discuss A Ghost in the Throat , a genre-crossing memoir by Irish writer Doireann Ní Ghríofa. We talk about strategies for incorporating research into creative nonfiction, what counts as "text" beyond traditional words on a page, and some of the challenges Kristin faced when she decided to structure her own memoir as an e...

It's our 400th episode! Which, to be honest, we didn't realize when we were recording this, because we're bad at math. But that doesn't make it any less exciting! And we inadvertently planned a pretty special one to mark the milestone: we're joined by Becky Barnard and Dave Housley, Barrelhouse editors and authors of the new YA novel The Greys , to discuss one of the craziest movie novelizations o...

Two guests this week, as we're joined by the co-hosts of the literary nonfiction podcast I'll Find Myself When I'm Dead . Though Elena and Justin are also quite accomplished nonfiction authors in their own right. Justin St. Germain is the author of the memoir Son of a Gun , and more recently a book-length essay about Truman Capote's In Cold Blood . Elena Passarello is the author of the essay colle...

We're joined by Michelle Hart, author of the novel We Do What We Do in the Dark and a former editor for Oprah Daily. For our reading this week, Michelle chose a short story by Leopoldine Core, "Hog for Sorrow," about a young sex worker with complicated feelings towards one of her clients and toward one of her coworkers.

Our guest this week is longtime Barrelhouse poetry editor Dan Brady, whose most recent book, Subtexts , uses some interesting constraints to create erasures and layerings of language. His pick for us was another book of poems created through an innovative process: White Bull , by Elizabeth Hughey. The poems in Hughey's book are all assembled from the words of Bull Connor, Birmingham, Alabama's fam...

Our guest this week is Laura McGrath , an assistant professor of English at Temple University, where she teaches literary criticism and contemporary literature--including a class about best sellers. It's in that context that she chose our book, Valley of the Dolls, the 1966 camp classic by Jacqueline Susann. We talk about the book as both a novel and a cultural phenomenon, and what McGrath's stude...

Our guest this week is Inga Saffron, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer. We talk about Jane Jacobs' groundbreaking work in urban studies, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and how it's weathered the test of time since its publication in the 1960s. We also talk about the past and future of journalism, Inga's work as a foreign correspondent in Russia,...

Our guest this week is Danielle Evans ( The Office of Historical Corrections ), who chose the 1929 Harlem Renaissance novel Plum Bun , in part because she's lately found herself interested in narratives about passing. We talk about how Jessie Redmon Fauset's novel compares to other passing novels, how Danielle's students respond to the book, and the complicated politics of writing about race and g...

Our guest this week is Mike Meginnis (Drowning Practice, Fat Man and Little Boy). He joins us to discuss a playful genre-bending novel by Megan Milks, Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body. We also talk about Mike's relationship to genre, the similarities between genre and gender categories, and why he rarely cries. You can find Milks' novel here: https://www.feministpress.org/books-a-m/mar...