The Artist's Statement

Jonathan Gleason joins us to talk about his debut essay collection  Field Guide to Falling Ill . Drawing from personal experience, history, and medical science, Gleason’s moving book explores “the human lives behind the corporate, legal, and cultural practices that shape disease.” During our conversation, we discuss what inspired this book and the techniques Gleason used to create it. He reads fro...

Nicky Gonzalez joins us to discuss her Gothic debut novel, Mayra (2025, Random House), a story about two friends who reunite in a mysterious house in the Florida Everglades and uncover a hidden history. It’s a book that Karen Thompson Walker describes as "part coming-of-age story, part  Twilight Zone  episode, part thoughtful meditation on all of the ways that memory is itself a haunted house...

Puloma Ghosh joins us to discuss her debut short story collection Mouth (2024, Astra House). We discuss her vision for the genre-crossing book, her creative process, and how she got interested in writing, including her love of fan fiction. She reads from her stories “In The Winter” and “Persimmons.”   Ghosh was born in Kolkata, India and raised outside Boston, Massachusetts. She earned her undergr...

2023 National Book Award for Fiction winner Justin Torres joins us to discuss his novels We The Animals (2011, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Blackouts (2023, Farrar, Straus and Giroux). We talk about what Torres considers success in his writing, the value of fiction that diverges from the realm of reality, and how he approached his award-winning new work. Inspired in part by the book Sex Variants...

Season 3, Episode 2, features K-Ming Chang. She is the author of debut novel Bestiary, short story collection Gods of Want, and her latest novel, Organ Meats, her third book in what she describes as mythic tryptich, published by One World/Random House.  Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, and an O. Henry Prize Winner. In this conversation, we discuss her evol...

Season 3, Episode 1, features poet Denton Loving. He is the author of two poetry collections,  Crimes Against Birds , published by Main Street Rag in 2014, and his new book,  Tamp , published by Mercer University Press earlier this year. Set in Appalachia, Tamp 's central theme focuses on the grief and sense of loss that followed the death of Loving’s father. He also explores ancestry, religio...

Season 2, Episode 3 brings you poet and inaugural Granum Foundation Prize winner, Nicole Sealey. We begin the discussion with Sealey's earlier works, The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named (Northwestern University Press, 2016) and Ordinary Beast (Ecco, 2017). Sealey recounts her editorial decisions in her first publications, and how they sparked ideas for new work. We also explore her sourc...

Season 2, Episode 2 features Julie Otsuka, best-selling author of When the Emperor Was Divine , The Buddha in the Attic , and her latest novel, The Swimmers . We discuss the inspiration and evolution of The Swimmers , and some of the technical challenges associated with Otsuka's frequent use of the first person plural point of view. She discusses how she became a writer and her work routines, incl...

Season 2 of The Artist's Statement opens with journalist, essayist, and novelist, Ben Ehrenreich, winner of a 2021 American Book Award for his non-fiction work Desert Notebooks: A Roadmap for the End of Time . Ehrenreich discusses the inspiration for this poignant book that followed his time in Palestine and his return to American society under the presidency of Donald Trump. Beginning in the awe-...

In Episode 10 of The Artist's Statement, we chat with Claire Vaye Watkins, author of three works of fiction, including her latest novel, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness (Riverhead, 2021). Watkins discusses the blurred boundaries between fiction and fact in her new work, and the story threads she brought together to complete it. We explore the impact of her viral essay "On Pandering" and her ev...

Episode 9 of The Artist's Statement features Marytza K. Rubio, author of Maria, Maria, and Other Stories (Liveright/W. W. Norton, 2022). Rubio discusses the inspiration and evolution of her debut collection, and how she shared her vision with her agent and editor. We chat about the occult, the significance and power behind the name "Maria," and the details behind the mystic setting of her centerpi...

What happens during the translation process of a literary work from Japanese to English? In Episode 8 of The Artist's Statement, we speak with Michael Emmerich, author of more than a dozen literary works in translation, including those by authors such as Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata, Banana Yoshimoto, Genichiro Takahashi, and Hiromi Kawakami. Emmerich discusses the role of Japanese literature...

In Episode 7 of The Artist's Statement, we're joined by Donika Kelly, poet and author of The Renunciations (2021) and Bestiary (2016), both published by Graywolf Press. Kelly discusses the The Renunciations and the journey of self-exploration and therapy that led to its creation. She talks about the importance of having and nurturing a speaker and a safe space from which to create, along with the...

In this bonus episode of The Artist’s Statement, we speak to Jenny Boully about the ancient art of Sak Yant and the role of the Thai language and Buddhism in her writing life. Boully reads her essay “On the Eve of My Eternal Marking,” which first appeared in The Paris Review on July 10, 2019. Host: Davin Malasarn The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation. Learn more at gran...

Jenny Boully, 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and author of Betwixt and Between: Essays on the Writing Life , The Book of Beginnings and Endings , The Body , not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them , and other works joins us from Bennington, Vermont, for Episode 6 of The Artist's Statement Podcast. Boully discusses the origins of her recent books and how her work bridges genres. "I...

The Artist's Statement Episode 5 features legendary poet Nikki Giovanni. She discusses the importance of spirituals as inspiration for her work and how artist's from poets to novelists to dancers inhabit truth. Giovanni recounts her early days as an activist and writer along her path to success, including her time at Fisk University. The conversation touches on space travel, her experiences as an...

In this episode of The Artist's Statement, we feature short fiction writer Kuzhali Manickavel, whose work has been described as surreal, sci-fi, absurdist, and weird. Manickavel, who calls in from Bangalore, India, discusses how she characterizes her own work and how international perspectives can lead to alternative definitions. We examine her stories, "The Decline and Fall of Western Dance in a...

Kathy Fish reads her flash fiction story, "Tenderoni."  (Contains explicit language.)

Kathy Fish joins us for this episode of The Artist's Statement focused on flash fiction, defined as stories under 1,000 words. She discusses the genre, its origins, and how it can be distinguished from short stories and prose poetry. She also elaborates on techniques she uses to create her flash pieces, including juxtaposition, contradiction, and repetition, and how she finds titles for her work....

Irish author Colm Toibin joins us for the inaugural episode of The Artist's Statement. He discusses his early writing career and his evolution from poet to journalist to novelist, and his return to poetry.  We examine Toibin's novella, A Long Winter , and short story "One Minus One" from his collection, The Empty Family . He reads from his latest novel, The Magician , which tells the story of...

Writing is a balance of forces, the pull of intellect versus emotion, technique versus intuition. I’m Davin Malasarn. In the Artist’s Statement, we talk to writers about how they navigate those dynamics to create their work. What happens between that initial inspiration and the final, published piece? And, how do you find that spark in the first place? Join me as we talk with some of today’s most...