Cleveland Review of Books Podcast

We talk to Ryan William Lackey about his piece, “Finding a Way In: On Michelle Zauner and the Cultural History of Infinite Jest’s Forewords.” DFW, Japanese Breakfast, GTA, the foreword-to-the-reissue-industrial complex, sports, etc. - Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://clereviewofbooks.com/finding-a-way-in-on-michelle-zauner-and-the-cultural-history-of-infinite-jest...

We talk with J. Arthur Boyle about his piece, “The Artist’s Self Interest: On Capitalist Fiction.” Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/dan-sinykin-big-fiction Newsletter: www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Sto...

Joined by special guest, fellow editor Alana Pockros, we talk with Emmeline Clein about her piece, “Recipes, Rumors, and Reminiscence: A Literary Cookbook Gift Guide.” “We talk about opulence, decadence, intransigence, dinner parties, the list as form, stealing husbands, anti-fascist pasta, Italian futurism, what Alice Toklas ate during before and after the war, considerations of oysters, and Salv...

Buy Volume 1, out now, here :) (https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/store/p/volume-01) We talk with Chapman Caddell about his piece “View from the Couch: Success, “The Topeka School,” and “A Fan’s Notes.” Fiction-criticism, criticism-fiction, a loser’s guide to the future of contemporary literature, the careerist novel, “36 on the ACT-core” prose, Henry James in Philly, literary criticism in Argentin...

We talk with Rafaela Bassili about her piece “Andy Warhol Has Been Shot: On Nicole Flattery’s “Nothing Special". It Girls, Invisible yet omnipresent Warhol, Edie Sedgwick (tormenter and tormented), hierarchies of attention-value, fleeing the suburbs for the big city, the difficulty of being cool, avoiding writing preachy, morally simplistic novels, and proto-only fans. Stay in touch with us by sub...

We talk with Philip Metres about his upcoming award winning book of translated poems: “Ochre and Rust: New Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky.” Russian Literature as homeland, (self-)imposed exile, close readings, mothers, slant rhyme being cooler than direct end rhyme, retweeting Walter Benjamin, the deficit model of translation, and the music of language. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to...

We talk with Juliet Gelfman-Randazzo about her piece “Still, Observing: On Christine Kwon’s A Ribbon the Most Perfect Blue”. Labor’s relation to and intertwinement with domestic life, femininity, and craft; upper-level seminar close reading mode, good parties and bad parties, bathtubs, Korean and Korean-American poetry, name-checking your influences, pay-to-play poetry prize chapbook publishing, a...

We talk with Guillermo Rebollo Gil about his piece “Deaths Plural: On Pro Wrestling and Poetry.” Performance, grief, Roland Barthes, the stone cold stunners of Steve Austin, high brow snobbery, low brow elevation, bros, drag, Puerto Rico, and nostalgia. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by produ...

*Trigger Warning: Extended discussion about Suicide.* We talk with Micah Cash about his review of Osamu Dazai’s “Flowers of Buffoonery.” Convalescence, the “I” novel, Western influence on Japanese mores and aesthetic practices, “the fellas” novel, the hard drug “leftist thought,” little mag scenes in Japan, and the emperor is dead, long live the emperor. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our...

We talk with Will Harrison about his review of McKenzie Wark’s “Raving.” Not selling out the scene, Detroit techno, Chicago footwork, k-time, situationism, style extraction, “Punisher” types, and theorizing as a way to both clarify and escape the self. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by produc...

We talk with Erika Dirk about Dizz Tate’s novel, “Brutes.” We discuss Florida, attractiveness as a means of social mobility, adolescent gazes, the novel's “adaptable to the screen”-ness, Jeffrey Eugenides, and first-person plural narration. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of...

We talk with Cary Stough about his review of Michael Palmer’s “The Danish Notebook.” Paratactic poetics, diaristic writing, “Harvard,” post-Imagism, anti-confessionalism, and friendship. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks...

We talk with Kameryn Alexa Carter about her piece “That Which We Call Ecstasy: On Artemesia Gentileschi’s Mary Magdalenes.” Gendered power dynamics embedded in artistic technique itself, the Italian Renaissance, proto-feminism, color theory, public-facing art history, and saving the work of forgotten artists. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print is...

We talk with Devin Thomas O’Shea about his piece “Paranoid Reading: Steamshovel Press and the American Conspiracy Canon.” Midwestern paranoia, our favorite conspiracies, Pynchon, St. Louis’ literary history, etc. Piece: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/popular-alienation Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/newsletter Find subscription pl...

We talk with Caroline McManus about her piece “Maximally Likable: The Stay-at-Home Girlfriend and the White-Collar Woman.” Refracted identities, TikTok, 21st century ressentiment, and wellness routines. Stay in touch with us by subscribing to our newsletter. Find subscription plans, print issues, and merch at our online store. Music/beats by producer aLiVE of Muamin Collective. Piece: https://www....

On episode 10.2 of the CRB Podcast, we talk with our Health and Society Editor Anand Bhat about his recent piece, "Love in the Time of Corona." Major topics include the right-wing's sudden seizure of a left populist movement, "helicopter money," what's going to happen in a situation where the many unemployed rely on their previous employer for insurance, and an analysis of single-payer healthcare...

Episode 10.1 of the CRB Podcast is a reading of a piece by Dr. Anand Bhat, our health and society editor. He describes the present and post-covid epidemic from political, economic, and medical lenses, focusing specifically on how we will deal with a health-care system where most people receive healthcare from work will manage to get by in a system where most people lose their jobs. He also discuss...

9.1 - On this Episode, CRB interviews Philip Metres, whose book "Shrapnel Maps" comes out on April 24. We jump off of J. David's review of the book(https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/home/2020/4/7/why-do-you-laugh-on-philip-metress-shrapnel-maps) and talk about the power of myth and story telling to bridge ideological divides, the politics of representation, and the ability of poetry to do what poli...

On this episode, our eic talks to contributing writer Eric Sandy about his piece "When Disaster Strikes: on Jon Mooallem's 'This is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together.' We discuss how Genie Chance simultaneously broadcasted basic safety information to the local citizens so as to reduce panic, and got the message to the outside world. She held it together. T...

Our eic (Billy Lennon) talks to CRB's Visual Arts Critic Tony Mastromatteo in the first part of a two part series about his piece "Stress and Fear," which is amongst other things a commentary on Peter Sloterdijk's "Stress and Freedom." We unpack the idea of stress and networks, populations, and small groups' ability to handle that stress, and why that is amazing. One such example is declaring "Cle...

An audio version of Anthony Mastromatteo's "Art and Fear: On Peter Sloterdijk's 'Stress and Freedom', Coronavirus, and the Media's Production of Panic". Actual Reading doesn't begin until around 2:30. Read article here: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/home/2020/3/5/art-and-fear-on-peter-sloterdijks-stress-and-freedom-coronavirus-and-the-medias-production-of-panic Music Credit: A-Live of Muamin Co...

An audio version of Eric Betts' article "Anti-Panic: On Svetlana Alexievich's 'Voices from Chernobyl.'" Actual Reading doesn't begin until like 3 minutes in. Read article here: https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/home/2020/3/30/anti-panic-on-svetlana-alexievichs-voices-from-chernobyl Music Credit: Projection Hotline (https://projectionhotline.bandcamp.com/) (https://soundcloud.com/projection-hotline)

Billy Lennon (eic of the journal) and Berlin-based writer Eric Betts discuss the latter's article: Anti-Panic: On Svetlana Alexievich's "Voices From Chernobyl." We discuss the disaster itself in relation to the covid-19 epidemic now, how people reacted then and how their actions reflect ours now with the caveat of maybe learning a new way forward, and the end of history. Read the article here: htt...

This is the first installment of of our "Art of Podcasting" interview series (which is a play on the Paris Review's (whom we greatly admire) "Art of Fiction" interview series . We sat down with Bryan Quinby, one half of Street Fight (the other being Bret Pein) to discuss his craft, the actual work that goes into making a podcast, blending comedy with politics, and his view of the show as being mai...

Note: First part is the reading of the piece, Interview starts at 10:30. An audio version of Matt Morgenstern's Review of Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart's "The Hundreds" is followed by an interview between the editor and Matt. Music Credit: A-Live (Muamin Collective), LCD Soundsystem, Projection Hotline