Otherppl with Brad Listi

James Frankie Thomas is the author of the debut novel Idlewild, available from The Overlook Press. It was the official September pick of the Otherppl Book Club. Thomas is a lifelong New Yorker. He attended the City College of New York and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has worked as a video store clerk, a Shakespeare tutor, and the "YA of Yore" columnist for the Paris Review; he was most recently...

C Pam Zhang is the author of the novel Land of Milk and Honey, available from Riverhead Books. Zhang's other book is the debut novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold, winner of the Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, long-listed for the Booker Prize, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 117, my conversation with Susan Straight, author of the novel Mecca (FSG). This episode first aired on March 5, 2014. Straight's other novels include the national bestseller Highwire Moon, a finalist for the National Book Award, and A Million Nightingales, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, as well as the memoir In the Country of Women, n...

Vauhini Vara is the author of the story collection This is Salvaged, available from W.W. Norton & Co. Vara has been a reporter and editor for the Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and the New York Times Magazine, and is the prize-winning author of the novel The Immortal King Rao, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly...

Mona Awad is the bestselling author of the novel Rouge, available from Marysue Rucci Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Awad's other books include the novels All's Well, Bunny, and the story collection 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl. Bunny was a finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and the New England Book Award. It was named a Best Book of 2019 by Time, Vogue and the New York Public Librar...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 257, my conversation with Natalie Baszile, author of the novel Queen Sugar (Penguin Books). This episode first aired on March 5, 2014. Baszile is the author of the novel Queen Sugar, which was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2014, longlisted for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and adapted for television...

Anne Enright is the author of the novel The Wren, The Wren, available from W.W. Norton & Co. Enright is author of seven novels, most recently Actress. She has been awarded the Man Booker Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Irish Book Awards. She lives in Dublin. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-...

Karl Ove Knausgaard is the author of the novel The Wolves of Eternity, available from Penguin Press. Translated by Martin Aitken. Knausgaard's My Struggle cycle of novels is one of this century’s most celebrated works of literature and it has been heralded as a masterpiece all over the world. Over the course of his career, Karl Ove has been awarded the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature, the B...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 147, my conversation with Joyce Johnson, author of the biography The Voice is All: The Lonely Victory of Jack Kerouac (Viking). This episode first aired on February 10, 2013. Johnson is the author of eight books, including the award-winning memoir Minor Characters, Missing Men, and Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, 1957-1958 (with Jack Ker...

A new 'Craftwork' episode, all about anti-heroes. My guest is Tod Goldberg, author of the novel Gangsters Don't Die, available from Counterpoint Press. Goldberg is the author of more than a dozen books, including Gangsterland, a finalist for the Hammett Prize; Gangster Nation; and The Low Desert: Gangster Stories, named a Southwest Book of the Year and a finalist for several literary prizes. He li...

Lauren Groff is the bestselling author of the novel The Vaster Wilds, available from Riverhead Books. Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, and Matrix, and the short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won the Story Prize and the Joyce Carol Oates Priz...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 374, my conversation with Matt Sumell, author of the novel-in-stories Making Nice (Picador). It first aired on August 5, 2015. Sumell is a graduate of UC Irvine's MFA program, and his fiction has since appeared in Esquire, the Paris Review, Electric Literature, One Story, Noon, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles, California.  *** Otherppl with Brad...

Yiyun Li is the author of the story collection Wednesday's Child, available from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Li is the author of several works of fiction--The Book of Goose, Must I Go, Where Reasons End, Kinder Than Solitude, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, The Vagrants, and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl--and the memoir Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life. She is the recipient of many...

Myriam Gurba is the author of the essay collection Creep: Accusations and Confessions, available from Avid Reader Press. Gurba is a writer and artist. She is the author of the true-crime memoir Mean, a New York Times Editors' Choice. O, the Oprah Magazine, ranked Mean as one of the best LGBTQ books of all time. Publishers Weekly describes Gurba as having a voice like no other. Her essays and criti...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 546, my conversation with Laura van den Berg, author of five works of fiction. It first aired on October 10, 2018. Laura van den Berg was born and raised in Florida. Her books include The Third Hotel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears (Farrar, Straus and...

Maggie Downs is an award-winning journalist, travel writer, and the author of the memoir Braver Than You Think:Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Lifetime (Counterpoint Press). Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Palm Springs Life, and McSweeney's and has been anthologized in The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology: True Stories from the World...

Rebekah Bergman is the author of the debut novel The Museum of Human History, available from Tin House. It is the official August pick of the Otherppl Book Club. Bergman's fiction has been published in Joyland, Tin House, The Masters Review anthology, and other journals. She lives in Rhode Island with her family. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth intervie...

Today, a special episode remembering the life and work of Tom Hansen, who died this week of esophageal cancer. Hansen was born in Seattle and raised by adoptive parents in nearby Edmonds, Washington. A failed skateboarder, dishwasher, and punk rock guitarist, he turned to shooting and dealing smack. He later kicked his habit, returned to school, and eventually earned an MFA in writing from the Uni...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 24, my conversation with biographer Charles Shields, author of And So It Goes— Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, available now in trade paperback from St. Martin's Press. It first aired on December 7, 2011. Shields's other books include Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, and I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers). He grew...

Maya Binyam is the author of the debut novel Hangman, available from Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Binyam is a fiction writer and critic whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, New York, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor at The Paris Review and has previously worked as a...

In today's 'Craftwork' episode, a conversation with Emily Rapp Black about "truth" in creative nonfiction. Emily is the author of five books of creative nonfiction: Poster Child, The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Sanctuary, Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg, and I Would Die if I Were You (forthcoming). She is Professor of Creative Writing at UC-Riverside and a...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 364, my conversation with Mat Johnson, author of the novel Invisible Things and other books. Johnson is a Philip H. Knight Chair of the Humanities at the University of Oregon. His publications include the novels Loving Day and Pym, the nonfiction novella The Great Negro Plot, and the graphic novel Incognegro. Johnson is the recipient of the American Bo...

Brando Skyhorse is the author of the novel My Name is Iris, available from Avid Reader Press. Skyhorse's debut novel, The Madonnas of Echo Park, won the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award and the Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His memoir, Take This Man, was named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014 and one of NBC News's 10 Best Latino Books...

In today's 'Craftwork' episode, a conversation with Kathleen Schmidt. She is a longtime publishing industry veteran with in-depth experience in a variety of roles, including as a publicist, literary agent, acquisitions editor, and ghostwriter. She has worked over the years on 50 New York Times bestsellers. Kathleen is the founder and CEO of Kathleen Schmidt Public Relations, and her Substack newsl...

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 460, my conversation with Melissa Febos, author of Body Work, Girlhood, and other books. Girlhood was a national bestseller, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Body Work was also a national bestseller, an LA Times Bestseller, and an Indie Next Pick. Her fifth book, The Dry Season, is...