The Virtual Memories Show

Author Scott Edelman checks in from West Virginia. We talk about how the pandemic has derailed his podcast, Eating the Fantastic , after 120 episodes, all the conventions that have been cancelled and how much he misses them (and why Readercon is his fave), the solace he takes from Middlemarch , the books he's hoping to get to now that he's not reading for pod-guests, whether his zombie fiction has...

Illustrator and cartoonist Ken Krimstein checks in from Chicago. We talk about how the process of finishing his next book helped him muscle through the early stages of social distancing and isolation, and how the content of the book — adaptations of anonymous autobiographies of Jewish teens in pre-war Lithuania — helped him with perspective on the trials people have gone through in the past. We al...

Yiddish historian Eddy Portnoy checks in from Harlem. We get into how he's managing the work/home setup now that his sofa has molded itself to his body, how the Yiddish papers covered the 1918 flu and the analogs that has for our present situation, the Displaced Persons exhibition he's working on for 2021 at the UN (fingers crossed), his long-gestating project on a pair of Yiddish puppeteers , a 1...

Author Maria Alexander checks in from Los Angeles, where we talk about finishing her Bloodlines of Yule trilogy with the upcoming Snowblind (and reworking the ending to be a little less downbeat, given the current moment). We also get into her pandemic-binges, like Bewitched and the Preston/Child Agent Pendergast novels, her social-media distancing, her experience with an emotional vampire (prompt...

Artist, teacher and graphic medicine practitioner Kriota Willberg checks in from Manhattan. We talk about the importance of building routines during home confinement (inspired by Ellen Forney ), reaching domestic equilibrium in a 2-cartoonist, 1-bedroom apartment (they're both working on new books), holding Netflix Sync parties with friends in lieu of having people over, volunteering at a food ban...

Doug Wright Award-nominated cartoonist Sylvia Nickerson checks in from Hamilton, ON. We talk about her artist residency and how its postponement has led her to rethink her artistic direction, the fate of the invisible people she documented in her debut book, CREATION (Drawn & Quarterly), why it can be a good time for people to think about creating other worlds, the dual inspirations of Lynda Barry...

Cartoonist, illustrator & writer Summer Pierre checks in from Highland Falls, NY. We talk about the importance of work & parenting routines, keeping sane with freelance work, making diary comics, diving into National Poetry Month, the joy of sending & receiving letters (and getting a recent letter from Seth ), crying at the supermarket, having the impulse to drive down to New York City just to cru...

New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake checks in from Brooklyn. We talk about the challenges of making gag comics in the COVID era (and finding jokes outside of Zoom conferences and toilet-paper hoarding), adapting her Shitshow and Nightmares live events to an online audience, stocking up on art supplies but worrying about the pharma supply chain from India, conning her kid into a reading contest as a...

Photojournalist Kyle Cassidy checks in from Philadelphia. We talk about his new photo series, Between Us and Catastrophe (recently excerpted at Hidden City ), where he's photographing and interviewing (at a distance) the healthcare workers, essential personnel and volunteers who are keeping the world going during the pandemic. We talk about the awful choices that nurses have to make, the technical...

Translator Alta L. Price joins the show to talk about co-curating the 2020 (now 2021) edition of Festival Neue Literatur with Tess Lewis . We talk about the bureaucratic snafu that led her into a life of translation, how she fights the urge to revise translations between editions, the differences between translating a classic vs. a contemporary work, her work for gender parity among translators an...

Last time Eva Hagberg checked in, she'd just gotten her positive COVID-19 test . Three weeks later, she fills us in on the most harrowing medical experience of a life filled with harrowing medical experiences (seriously, read her memoir ). We talk about her attempts to cope with the virus without going to the hospital, the system-wide assault the virus conducts on body and mind, how the experience...

Essayist and journalist (and one of my very first pod-guests!) Jane Borden checks in from LA. We talk about memoir-metamorphosis, her recent Vanity Fair piece on the art of making art during a plague , the solace of deep time, working for Tom Wolfe, the Ishion Hutchinson essay that recently blew her mind, the intertwining of arts criticism and memoir, whether it's healthy to try to interpret the p...

Writer and critic Whitney Matheson checks in from Brooklyn, after a multi-week bout with COVID-19 (her doctor thinks she's past it, but still dealing with after-effects). We talk about the irony of her being debilitated just when the world needs pop culture recommendations most, her best Zoom angles, the amount of good, bad and ugly art that will come out of this period, the restaurant she misses...

Cartoonist and playwright Dean Haspiel checks in from Brooklyn (home of his superhero, The Red Hook !). We talk about making art (good, bad or ugly) during the plague, finding yourself while putting your life on hold, how our social norms may change after the pandemic subsides, the virtue of online comics, bingeing on 1970s comics by Steve Gerber, feeling sad (but not self-pity) when his play, The...

Author Christopher Brown checks in from the edgelands of East Austin, TX. We talk about the final edits of his upcoming novel, Failed State (which is part of the universe of his previous novels, Tropic of Kansas and Rule of Capture ) , and how the border between dystopia and utopia are kinda permeable. We also get into his amazing weekly e-mail, Field Notes , nature's reclamation projects, the pot...

Author Matt Ruff checks in from Seattle and we talk about his brand-new novel, 88 Names . We get into what gaming and the internet reveal about human character(s), how he handles VR nausea and whether VR measures up to what Neuromancer semisorta promised us, the pros and cons of a virtual book tour (including an upcoming one on Altspace VR on 4/17/20 ), the fluidity of identity in the virtual land...

Translator Tess Lewis joins the show to talk about co-curating the 2020 (now postponed to 2021) edition of Festival Neue Literatur , why editing a bad translation is much tougher than just translating it yourself, the book she's proudest of translating (Maja Haderlap's Angel of Oblivion ), and the project that is the most difficult (Ludwig Hohl's Notizen ), how the business and culture has changed...

Fantasy author Ilana Myer checks in from eastern PA. We talk about cancelled travel plans, the virtual tour for her new book, The Poet King , what she learned in the course of finishing her Harp and Ring trilogy, the difference between reading about the pandemic and living it, making the plunge into Wodehouse (and avoiding dystopian fiction), and more. Follow Ilana on Twitter and Instagram , and r...

Cartoonist Jennifer Hayden checks in from central NJ. We talk about the need to micro-vent during self-isolation with her family, the graphic memoir she finds herself immersed in (and which keeps growing in scale), her changing understanding of aspects of the Goddess, and how this situation is bringing her to terms with herself. Follow Jennifer on Twitter , Facebook and Instagram and read her grea...

Silent-film accompanist Ben Model checks in from the Upper West Side of NYC. We talk about how the pandemic and self-isolation led him and his partner Steve Massa to launch the Silent Comedy Watch Party , a livestream on YouTube that airs every Sunday at 3pm EDT. We also get into the ups and downs of Zoom teaching, the challenges of playing piano for a telepresent audience, how he can't wait for N...

Author Michael Tisserand checks in from New Orleans. We talk about how his wife (a pediatrician) got through her recent bout with COVID-19, how the city has had to change its traditions and practices even when jazz funerals beckon, the Krazy Kat strips that are giving him solace, the comparisons with Katrina, and more. Read KRAZY , Michael's biography of George Herriman, and follow Michael on Twit...

Writer, editor and rare book dealer Henry Wessells checks in from Montclair, NJ. We talk about the books & authors he's bingeing on, the big project of selling Ricky Jay's collection, the joy of a walk in the woods, the one cooking ingredient he wishes he'd stocked up on before battening down the hatches, and more. Follow Henry on Twitter and go check out his book, A Conversation Larger Than The U...

Cartoonist James Sturm checks in from Hartland, VT. We talk about how COVID-19 has affected learning at the Center for Cartoon Studies (he's the founder and director of that institution), his weekly digital Sabbath, recording video-dispatches with cartoonists about this experience, missing Tom Spurgeon and how he would have helped us cope with this, and more. • Follow James Instagram and follow CC...

Urban fantasy horror writer Richard Kadrey checks in from San Francisco. We talk about how self-isolation impacts his writing, the history of urban plagues, his stab at passing the time by learning to use Windows, Clive Barker as "comfort food" reading, why he doesn't binge on TV series, risking his life for his favorite bourbon, the difference between folk horror and rural horror, and more. • Fol...

Artist & writer Dmitry Samarov checks in from Chicago to talk about self-isolating in a packed-up apartment (he's supposed to move in a month). We talk about his paintings, the lack of social distancing in some neighborhoods he's seen, his current reading ( Tropic of Cancer and Ben Katchor's The Dairy Restaurant ), and more. • Follow Dmitry through his weekly e-mail • Listen to our most recent ful...