The Feminist Present

Greeetings! It's been a while! But we're back and one of us (Laura!) has A BOOK! It's called Pitchcraft: The Writer's Guide to Getting Agented, Published, and Paid , and it's out next week. So this is a short introduction to that book, to the writing life and to how Laura came to write it. We also have important announcements about the future of the podcast -- no worries, we're not going anywhere!...

When Chloé Caldwell began writing Trying , she imagined it being about her fertility journey. That was, until a betraying truth was revealed about her marriage. This week, Chloe joins the podcast to talk about the freedom she found in writing about her life right as it fell apart. Chloé Caldwell is a national bestselling author and writing teacher. She has authored five books including a 2024 nati...

In this episode, Caro De Robertis joins Laura to discuss their new book, So Many Stars: an Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color . Caro and Laura take a deep look into the queer medicine found within the stories of Queer and Trans elders who fought to create space for their full selves in the world. Caro De Robertis is an Uruguayan–American author and profes...

Melissa Febos joins Laura and Adrian to discuss her new book, The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex . Together, the trio dives deep into histories of horny nuns and Melissa’s experience of self discovery and feminist transformation during her period of abstinence. Melissa Febos is the critically acclaimed author of 5 books including Whip Smart and GIRLHOOD , books that weave p...

In this episode, Cat Bohannon joins Laura and Adrian to discuss her most recent book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution , where she reframes the stories we tell about human evolution with women at the center. Cat Bohannon ’s is a poet, academic, and scientist. She completed her PhD in 2022 at Columbia University, where she studied the evolution of narrative and co...

This week, we have the incredible Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs on the show. Her newest work Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde is a biography that offers a new understanding of the life and work of Audre Lorde. Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives and this work illuminates a new perspective on the enduring impact of...

Join Laura for a discussion with Samhita Mukhopadhyay exploring her newest book, The Myth of Making It . The former executive editor of Teen Vogue brings to this conversation her experiences of workplace reckoning to help us reimagine what work can be when we are tired, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of hustle culture. Samhita Mukhopadhyay is is the for...

Join Laura and Adrian as they talk with Vanessa Angélica Villarreal about her newest book, Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders. In this conversation, the crew discusses topics like the queered pop culture icons of the 90's, exploring gender expression as a racialized teenager, and the work of remembering after erasure. Come join Vanessa Angélica Villarreal and our very o...

Sarah Manguso joins Laura to talk about her newest book, Liars . Telling the blistering story of a marriage as it burns to the ground, Liars depicts the slow and normalized forms of abuse and misogyny baked into marriage. Pre-order liars now, for release on July 23rd. Sarah Manguso's book tour comes to San Francisco on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 at 7:00pm @ The Booksmith! Details and RSVP here. Sara...

Jessica Calarco joins Laura and Adrian to unpack her newly released book, Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Social Safety Net. They discuss the histories and the sociological interviews central to Calarco's book, painting a picture of the women who are tasked with holding society together with their labor. Dr. Jessica Calarco is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University o...

Author and self-described "soccer mom Simone de Beauvoir" Lyz Lenz makes a triumphant return to the pod to discuss her new book THIS AMERICAN EX-WIFE with Laura and Adrian. (Please refer to TFP Episode 7 from December 2020 for Lyz's first mid-derecho podcast appearance!) Her third book in five years, THIS AMERICAN EX-WIFE brings Lenz's characteristic blend of incisive sociological research an...

After a stunning revelation about a life-changing moment THE Dr. Roxane Gay offered Laura, Adrian and Laura join acclaimed memoirist Nicole Chung to discuss her second book, A Living Remedy . Following the contours of A Living Remedy , this discussion travels through the national tragedy of American healthcare, what an elite education and successful writing career can and can't do for class mobili...

Laura interviews novelist Lydia Kiesling about her second novel Mobility. Related discussion topics also include the astrology of The Sopranos (Laura and Lydia are both Christopher suns, Mobility' s protagonist Bunny Glenn is more of a Meadow rising), the '90s in girlhood, the time Lydia joined a panel Laura organized at Stanford with a newborn on her chest, how mothers write whole books in stolen...

Laura and Adrian embark on their new series: feminism and the horror genre. We dedicate the first episode of this series to two favorites of ours: Hollywood treasure Sigourney Weaver and slimy aliens with acid for blood. A discussion of 1986’s Aliens , horror and motherhood, and dueling queens.

This episode is basically a PSA: if you’re not watching the Australian feminist crime show Deadloch, then Laura, Adrian and guest Moira Donegan have one question for you: why not? Depressed industrial towns, toxic masculinity, lesbians, a four-hour movie called ‘Poseidon’s Uterus’: this show has everything, and we’re here for all of it.

Midge Decter (1927-2022) has often been called the "grandmother of neoconservatism" -- hers was in some ways a pretty classic trajectory, from New Deal liberalism to profound unease with the social movements of the 1960s, to the center of the conservative movement and Republican politics. But unlike most of her fellow neocons, Midge Decter always framed her trajectory quite openly in terms of gend...

Join us for the first episode of the all-new show In Bed With The Right. For their inaugural episode, Moira and Adrian delve into right-wing (ahem) contributions to the gay marriage debate. Ten years ago the Supreme Court decided Windsor v. US and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which together spelled the beginning of the end of the gay marriage debate (gay marriage would be established nationwide in Ober...

Get a sneak peek at the upcoming, all-new show In Bed With the Right hosted by Moira Donegan and TFP's very own Adrian Daub.

After a few months of absence, your trusty co-hosts return to tell you about new projects, new episodes, and new friends of the pod! Live from cyberspace, it's ... a guestless update spectacular!

Join us for the glorious return of friend of the pod Dr. Anthony C. Ocampo as we talk about his fantastic new book Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons. Anthony Christian Ocampo , Ph. D. is Professor of Sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He is the author of Brown and Gay in LA: The Lives of Immigrant Sons and The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break...

Judith Butler joins Laura and Adrian for the final episode in our series on moral panic. Judith Butler is a renowned philosopher and gender theorist, and the author of numerous books including Gender Trouble and Bodies That Matter . Their first non-academic press book, Who's Afraid of Gender?, is forthcoming from FSG in 2023. Their piece in The Guardian mentioned in the episode can be found here ....

Join Laura and Adrian as they talk to journalist and author Melissa Gira Grant in the latest installment of our series on the trans moral panic. Melissa is a staff writer at The New Republic (her articles mentioned in the episode include "'Libs of Tiktok' and the Right's Embrace of Anti-LGBTQ Violence" and "A Pizzagate in Every City" ); the author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso)...

Laura and Adrian are joined by Liat Kaplan, who in the early 2010s as a teenager started the popular Tumblr page "Your Fave is Problematic." She stayed anonymous as its founder until last year , but the blog has been often cited in the meantime as one of the origin points of cancel culture as we know it today. Liat discusses its intentions, impact, and, for the first time, the full personal histor...

Join us as we continue mythbusting through moral panics with our fantastic guest Jules Gill-Peterson. Adrian, Laura, and Jules discuss how cancel culture has its roots deep in transphobia and the misinformation surrounding the moral panic about transgender kids. Jules Gill-Peterson is Associate Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. Jules is the author of Histories of the Transgender Ch...

Join Adrian and friend of the pod Michael Hobbes for the second half of their conversation on Moral Panic Mythbusting. Michael Hobbes is a journalist and co-host of the podcast Maintenance Phase . He previously was a reporter at The Huffington Post and co-host of the podcast You're Wrong About.