The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life

Episode 128 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on  iTunes , or right click  here  to download. I n this week’s episode, I interview the musician, Michael Hearst. Plus Danita Berg reads her essay, "A Note on my Skin." TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES Watch Whoopie Golberg's one-woman Broadway show. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CDSak1Pcbs The mus...

Episode 126 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on  iTunes , or right click  here  to download. I n this week’s episode, I talk about Horace's Ars Poetica with Vanessa Blakeslee, plus Sam Slaughter talks about the ignominious beginning of Two Drunken Writers Brewery. Photo by Oxley Photography 2014  NOTES At 3 P.M., on Tuesday, November...

Episode 125 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on  iTunes , or right click  here  to download. I n this week’s episode, I interview the novelist Kent Wascom , Plus Ian Rogers writes about reading  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance . TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES The music accompanying Ian Rogers's Essay is The Lovely Moon 's "And We Dan...

This week is a live show for Horror Movie Poetry Night, starring The Drunken Odyssey All Stars. Drew Johnson, Photo by Leslie Silvia. (That's a blurry John King in golden mouse ears, far left.) On this occasion, The Drunken Odyssey All-Stars included: Amy Watkins (The Walking Dead) Vincent Crampton Dr. Josef Heiter (The Human Centipede) Anna King (The Silence of the Lambs) Drew Johnson (The Shinin...

On this week's show, I present a discussion of and readings from work that resulted in the companionship of Lord Byron, his physician John Polidori, and the Shelley's during the Year without a Summer, in which a ghost story challenge was undertaken. Mary Shelley Mary Shelley, by Richard Rothwell. John William Polidori John William Polidori as painted by F.G. Gainsford. Lord Byron Lord Byron, engra...

In this week’s episode, I share a recording of a Halloween show in Jesse Bradley's prose reading series, There Will Be Words , in which I was a reader. The There Will Be Words Fourth Annual Flash Fiction Spooktacular featured KAREN BEST KEITH GOUVEIA MATT PETERS JOHN KING WHITNEY HAMRICK BRETT PRIBBLE TEEGE BRAUNE JARED SILVIA Karen Best (Photo by Leslie Silvia).

I n this week’s episode, I interview the poet  Vincent Cellucci , Plus  Robert Wallace  writes about reading  The Grapes of Wrath . TEXTS DISCUSSED A Ship on the Line"> NOTES On October 22, if you are in the City Beautiful (that is Orlando),  come see  the Kerouac House receive its own historical marker. This is the house that Jack lived in when  On the Road  came out, where he lived when he wrote...

I n this week’s episode, I talk about Douglas Glover's  Attack of the Copula Spiders  with Vanessa Blakeslee, plus Sam Slaughter writes about how Denis Johnson's  Jesus' Son  changed his life. Photo by Oxley Photography 2014 TEXTS DISCUSSED

Episode 118 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on  iTunes , or right click  here  to download. I n this week’s episode, I interview The verse novelist Holly Thompson, Plus Laryssa Wirstiuk writes about how Jonathan Saffron Foer's  Eating Animals  changed her life. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES Check out Functionally Literate Radio, which on  th...

I n this week’s episode, I interview Pat Rushin, who authored the screenplay for the new Terry Gilliam film,  The Zero Theorem , which opens in the U.S.A on September 19th, Pat Rushin and his wife Mary on the set of  The Zero Theorem . Plus Craig-Paul Moreau writes about Randy Shilts's  And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. Photo by Demian Rosenblatt. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOT...

In this week’s episode, I interview Stephen Corey, Editor-in-Chief of  The Georgia Review , Photograph by William Walsh. Plus August Evans writes about Marilynne Robinson’s  Housekeeping . TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES Margaret Atwood if the first entrant into the Future Library Project, with work to be printed in 2214, from trees in a forest planted this year (reported in a  Guardian story  by Alison Flo...

On this week’s show, I answer some mail with my friend,  David James Poissant , Plus  Clint Peters  writes about how reading Montaigne changed his life. NOTES Check out David James Poissant's wonderful story collection,  The Heaven of Animals. According to  NPR , Robert Hass has won the Wallace Stevens prize. According to   The Guardian , Doris Lessing willed 3,000 books to a library in Harare, Zi...

On this week’s show, I talk to fiction writer and ghost writer extraordinaire, Maya Sloan. TEXTS DISCUSSED   NOTES Learn more about the Kerouac House  here .

On this week’s show, I talk to the poet Sarah Grieve, plus Rose Tran writes about what Sherman Alexie taught her about humor. TEXTS DISCUSSED  

On this week’s show, I talk to Vanessa Blakeslee about what Aristotle's  Poetics  can teach us about fiction writing today, Plus Kevin Bray writes about reading John Gardner's  On Becoming a Novelist . TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES This new project--discussing relevant books about the craft of storytelling--is a continuation of a long defunct feature of the show. Two years ago,  Jaroslav Kalfař and I disc...

On this week’s show, I talk to the Trio Award-winner Iris Jamahl Dunkle, plus Jeffrey Ethan Lee reads his essay, "The Poet's Mother's Deathbed Conversion" at Fergie's Pub in Philadelphia. Books Discussed   NOTES If in Philly, check out the  Moonstone Poetry Series , at  Fergie's Pub . My friends Jared Silvia and Ryan Rivas are new hosting a new show,  Functionally Literate Radio , on WPRK.

On this week’s show, I talk to Ryan Rivas and Nathan Holic about the publication of  Forget How You Found Us: 15 Views of Orlando, Volume III, plus I share readings from stories by Karen Best, Matt Peters, and Jonathan Kosik from the collection. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES Learn about the great youth programs offered by  Page 15  in Orlando. Amazon is having a bad quarter, according to  The New York Tim...

On this week’s show, I talk to writer, teacher, and advocate Pauline Hawkins, plus Caitlin McDonnell writes about discovering her urge to teach, from a night spent in jail, in "The Capacity of Language to Make Us Less Alone." NOTES Harper Lee has contested any participation or approval in Marja Mills's new biography of her, according to  The Guardian . To learn more about Pauline Hawkins' radical...

On this week’s show, I talk to the publisher of Beating Windward Press, Matt Peters, Plus Stephen Scully writes a memoir essay about meeting two baseball legends. TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES The British children's book author Allan Ahlberg refused a lifetime achievement award due to its being sponsored by Amazon, according to  The Guardian .    

On this week’s show, I talk to the fiction writer Boris Fishman, Photo by Rob Liguori Plus Lisa Korthals shares her essay about reading L olita  as a child. TEXTS DISCUSSED

On this week’s show, I talk to the poet and essayist Nicole Callihan, plus Maureen Vance writes about  Jane Eyre . TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES According to  The Guardian , British publishers and the Society for Authors (a trade union for UK writers) are trying to push back against Amazon’s fierce demands for more power in the book industry. They liken Amazon's terms to a form of "assisted suicide." Acco...

On this week’s show, I talk to fiction writer and memoirist-extraordinaire Alden Jones, plus Peter Demarco writes about discovering Harper Lee's  To Kill a Mockingbird . TEXTS DISCUSSED NOTES According to  The Guardian , Salman Rushdie has won the PEN/Pinter award for 2014. Also according to  The Guardian , Quentin Tarantino and Matt Wagner will collaborate on a Django/Zorro crossover comic book.

On this bonus episode, I guide listeners through a lovely tour of  Ulysses  on today, which is Bloomsday. TEXT DISCUSSED NOTES Check out Black 47's music  here , or wherever you buy music. "I Got Laid on James Joyce's Grave" appears on  Trouble in the Land .