Thresholds

It’s the end of our ‘experimentation’ capsule of episodes and Jordan is joined in the studio by Thresholds producer Drew Broussard for a grab-bag of outtakes, audience questions, and more. MENTIONED: Sheila Heti asks Jordan a question she’s never been asked before Alexander Chee recommends some books, music, and more to get a person through stressful times Jordan tells Drew about a poem by Jericho...

Sheila Heti joins Jordan to talk about grief, god, the shape of her novel, and what it means to be rooting for the snail. Mentioned: "The Unknown Masterpiece" by Honoré de Balzac The Masterpiece by Émile Zola Sarah Ruhl Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro Sheila Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Motherhood and H...

Jordan talks to Dr. Carl Erik Fisher ( The Urge: Our History of Addiction ) about perceiving addiction as a spectrum, the historical evolution of addiction as a concept, and the psychotic break that led to his own sobriety. Mentioned: Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England by Rebecca Lemon The Faust legend The American temperance movement Franklin Evans; or, The Inebriate by Walt Whitman C...

Sarah Manguso talks to Jordan about thinking she'd never write a novel, processing the place you come from, and the cold silence of whiteness. Mentioned: * the four-minute mile * Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, Wallace Stevens * Antoine Wilson's Mouth to Mouth * "A Boston Toast" by John Collins Bossidy Sarah Manguso is the author of eight books of fiction, nonfiction, and po...

Jordan talks with Kiese Laymon about fear, loving an enemy, trying not to write wack-ass shit, and what it was like to buy back the rights to his first books in order to have them revised and republished. Mentioned: "How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" at Gawker Playing in the Dark by Toni Morrison "Come and Get Me" -- Jay-Z Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize lecture Jesmyn Ward Kiese Laymon is a Bla...

Jordan talks to writer and artist Leanne Shapton about her workspace, her desire to create something large, and being fascinated by the recurring image of Lady Diana getting out of cars. MENTIONED: When Diana Met… hosted by Aminatou Sow Spencer (2021) Be Holding: A Poem by Ross Gay Doubting Thomas Leanne Shapton is an author, artist and publisher based in New York City. She is the co-founder, with...

I'm sharing a special preview of the new podcast, Well-Read Black Girl from Pushkin Industries. Well-Read Black Girl is the literary kickback you never knew you needed. Glory Edim, author and founder of the Well-Read Black Girl community, sits in deep, honest and close conversation with authors like Tarana Burke, Anita Hill, Gabrielle Union, Elizabeth Acevedo and more. You’ll also meet book club m...

To round out 2021, we are revisiting a few of our favorite episodes of 2021. Melissa Febos is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Whip Smart (St. Martin’s Press 2010), and the essay collection, Abandon Me (Bloomsbury 2017), which was a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist, a Publishing Triangle Award finalist, an Indie Next Pick, and was named a Best Book of 2017 by Esquire, Book Riot, The Cu...

To round out 2021, we are revisiting a few of our favorite episodes of 2021. Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry:  Against Which ;  Bringing the Shovel Down ; Be Holding ; and  Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude , winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. His new poem,  Be Holding , was released from the University of Pittsburgh Press in...

What a year it has been! 47 episodes featuring some of the most incredible guests ruminating on the most fascinating topics. We dove into the archives to revisit a handful of memorable moments -- featuring Eileen Myles, Ross Gay, C Pam Zhang, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Lydia Millet, Hanif Abdurraqib, Jericho Brown, Mattilda Sycamore Bernstein, and Maggie Nelson. We'll be back in 2022! See you then! Fo...

Jordan talks to Katie Kitamura about the process of writing, the challenge of calling yourself a writer, and being a slow-moving creature in a world that wants to go fast. Katie Kitamura ’s most recent novel is Intimacies. It was recently named one of the New York Times' Top 10 Books of 2021 and it was also longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a Bara...

Jordan talks to James Han Mattson, author of Reprieve , about a trip to Korea to find his birth family and about harnessing messiness to create fiction that feels real. James Han Mattson was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in North Dakota. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received grants from the Copernicus Society of America and Humanities North Dakota. He has been a featured stor...

It's Infrastructure Week on Thresholds! Kind of! Jordan talks with Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade, about how developing a structure can change your writing life, about the paralysis of options, and creating the character of Francie in her latest book. Aimee Bender is the author of six books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998) which was a NY Times Notable Book, An Invisible Sig...

Jordan talks donuts, taking big leaps, and writing with/for/about pleasure with Ryka Aoki, author of Light from Uncommon Stars. Ryka Aoki  is a poet, composer, and teacher and author of Seasonal Velocities , He Mele a Hilo (A Hilo Song) , Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul and The Great Space Adventure. Her latest novel, Light from Uncommon Stars , is out now from Tor Books. Ryka is also a...

Jordan is joined by Pulitzer-winning poet and memoirist Gregory Pardlo — currently teaching at NYU in Abu Dhabi — to talk about sobriety, understanding the stories of one’s life, and answering the self-imposed question “What god are you serving, Pardlo, when you write X?” Gregory Pardlo was born in Philadelphia in 1968. He is the author of Air Traffic (Knopf, 2018), a memoir in essays, and the poe...

Hi listeners – I just started a new miniseries from Wondery and Topic Studios called Operator, the untold true story of the phone sex line company that took over the world. Make sure to Follow “Operator” on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adcho...

Jordan talks Susan Orlean (author of On Animals and The Library Book and The Orchid Thief and those hilarious tweets) about finding the right way to tell a story, taking risks in hopes an audience will come along, and starting out as a beat reporter writing about the drudgery of city government. Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of eight bestselli...

Jordan talks to memoirist and fiction writer Saïd Sayrafiezadeh about growing up in the Socialist Workers Party, deprogramming from childhood, and how even in fiction, the memoirist doesn't fall far from the memoir. Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is the author, most recently, of the story collection American Estrangement . His memoir,  When Skateboards Will Be Free , was called one of the 10 best books of the...

Jordan sits down to a wild, funny, moving conversation with violinist, composer, Bad Seed, and author of Nina Simone's Gum Warren Ellis. It's an honest examination of where Warren's new book came from, how he learned how to write it, and why the potato is the miracle of the tuber world. Warren Ellis is an Australian multi-instrumentalist and composer, most famous for his work as collaborator and b...

Jordan talks to the incomparable Rita Dove about discovery, about taking a break from creating and publishing, and about re-learning to hold a pen again after her MS diagnosis. Rita Dove , Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, is the only poet honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. Her recent works include Playlist for the Apocalypse , Sonata...

Sanaë Lemoine tells Jordan about the moment she learned her father had a second family and the ways that that reveal changed her life, her family, her relationship to secrets -- and helped inspire The Margot Affair . Sanaë Lemoine was born in Paris to a Japanese mother and French father, and raised in France and Australia. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and...

Jordan talks to Andrew Martin about a trip to Montana in the midst of a tumultuous year, putting on a persona for writing, and how the two combined to change the way he tells stories. Andrew Martin 's most recent book is a story collection entitled Cool for America. His first novel Early Work was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and a finalist for the Cabell First Novelist Award. His stories...

Jordan chats with writer and critic Rebecca Carroll about the tricky nature of writing memoir, being the mother of a Black son, and about the power of being the one to tell the story. Rebecca Carroll is a writer, creative consultant, editor-at-large, and host of the podcast Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 Essential Conversations about Race in a Pivotal Year for America (WNYC Studios). Most r...

Jordan talks to Maggie Nelson about hope, about hitting one's threshold, and about trying to respond to current events in On Freedom without dating the text. Maggie Nelson is the author of several books of poetry and prose, most recently On Freedom . She's also the author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Argonauts . She teaches at the University of...

Jordan talks to author Alexandra Kleeman about the threshold of the natural and the man-made, about how we are and will continue to consistently cross that threshold back and forth, and about how cognitive science influenced her new book. Alexandra Kleeman is the author of Something New Under the Sun as well as Intimations: Stories and the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine , which was awarde...