Thresholds

Jordan talks to journalist Lauren Sandler about how close you can or should get to your subjects, about who gets to write what and why, and about the driving forces behind the stories that intrigue her. Lauren Sandler is an award-winning journalist and author based in Brooklyn. Her most recent book is the bestselling This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home ( named a Notable Book of 2020...

Jordan talks to writer Eula Biss about living in the moment of a threshold, about buying a house, about making a career, and about how too much fertile ground for thought can lead to overload. Eula Biss is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had . Her book On Immunity was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review , and Notes from No Man’s Land w...

Jordan talks to Deesha Philyaw about getting out of a bad marriage, learning to embrace life again, and doing it all while putting together a short story collection. Deesha Philyaw ’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies , won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction a...

Jordan visits with poet Mary Ruefle at her home in Vermont for a conversation about the passage of time, the both-sides-ness of thresholds, memory -- and the best way to cook an egg. Mary Ruefle is the author  Dunce (Wave Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize and the 2019 LA Times Book Prize and was long-listed for the 2019 National Book Award and the 2019 National Book Cr...

While you wait for the next episoe of Thresholds, we wanted to share a preview of a new podcast from our friends over at Wondery. Looking for a new podcast that's like Olivia Pope meets your favorite Ryan Murphy show? Or do you just love a good scandal? On True Love, a new fiction podcast from Wondery, you'll hear stories of scandalous flings, secret affairs, and the drama that ensues. TRUE LOVE b...

Jordan talks to Nadia Owusu, author of Aftershocks: A Memoir , about the familial revelations that inspired the book, about her journey through (and reclamation of) madness, and about coming to embrace the forces that have shaped her life. Nadia Owusu is a Ghanaian and Armenian-American writer and urbanist. Her first book, Aftershocks: A Memoir was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and...

In this episode, Jordan talks to Michelle Orange about her new book, Pure Flame , the archetypal relationship between mothers and daughters, and the politics and perils of being a woman. Michelle Orange is author of Pure Flame (2021) and the essay collection This Is Running for Your Life , which was named a best book of 2013 by The New Yorker . Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker , Harper’s...

In this episode, Jordan talks to Rivka Galchen about the projects she never finishes, how hard it is for her to stay in love with an idea, and how often she throws projects away. They also talk about her most recent novel,  Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch , which Galchen says came out in a big “love-affair style rush.” Rivka Galchen is the author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch and...

Kaveh Akbar’s poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry , and elsewhere. His second full-length volume of poetry, Pilgrim Bell , will be published by Graywolf in August 2021. His debut, Calling a Wolf a Wolf , is out now with Alice James in the US and Penguin in the UK. He is also the author of the chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic , published in 2016...

Kristen Radtke is the author of the graphic nonfiction books Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness (July 2021), for which she received a 2019 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and Imagine Wanting Only This (2017) as well as the forthcoming graphic novel Terrible Men , all from Pantheon. She is the art director and deputy publisher of The Believer magazine.  Her work has appeared in The...

Jericho Brown  is author of the  The   Tradition  (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book,  Please  (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His seco...

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the author of three novels, two memoirs, and the editor of five nonfiction anthologies. Her novels include So Many Ways to Sleep Badly , Pulling Taffy , and Sketchtasy . Her first memoir, The End of San Francisco , won a Lambda Literary Award. Her recent memoir, The Freezer Door , has been longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Her most recent anthology,...

Patrick Cottrell is the author of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace (McSweeney's). His work has appeared in numerous places including Granta, Buzzfeed, Vice, Bomb, The White Review, and has been anthologized in Pets (Tyrant Books). He most recently guest-edited an issue of McSweeney's Quarterly dedicated to queer fiction. He's the winner of a Whiting Award in Fiction and his work is being translated into...

Kristen Arnett is the author of With Teeth: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021) and the NYT bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction. She is a queer fiction and essay writer. She was awarded Ninth Letter 's Literary Award in Fiction, has been a columnist for Literary Hub, and was a Spring 2020 Shearing Fellow at Black Mo...

Donika Kelly is the author of THE RENUNCIATIONS (Graywolf 2021) and BESTIARY (Graywolf). BESTIARY is the winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. The collection was also long listed for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for a Publishing Triangle Award and a Lambda Literary Award. A Cave Canem graduate fellow and...

Hilary Leichter is the author of the novel Temporary , which was shortlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her writing has appeared in n+1, The New Yorker, Harper's, The New York Times, and New York Magazine's The Cut. She teaches fiction at Columbia University and has been awarded fellowships from the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Ne...

Born in Beijing, C Pam Zhang is mostly an artifact of the United States. She is the author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold , which won the Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award and the Asian/Pacific Award for Literature, was nominated for the Booker Prize, and was one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year. Zhang’s writing appears in Best American Short Stories , The Cut , McSweeney...

Rachel Kushner is the author of the internationally acclaimed novels  THE MARS ROOM,  THE FLAMETHROWERS, and  TELEX FROM CUBA , as well as a book of short stories,  THE STRANGE CASE OF RACHEL K . Her new book, THE HARD CROWD: ESSAYS 2000-2020  was published in April 2021. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize,...

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His latest book, A Little Devil in America , was released in March 2021 to critical acclaim. His poetry has been published in  Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American,  and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in  The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker , and  The New York Times.  His first full l...

Ahmed Naji , a writer from Egypt, is presently a fellow at the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. His work touches on a variety of themes, including sci-fi, Islamic methodology, sex, friendship, prison literature, music, magic, and masculinity. Naji’s novel,  Using Life , was among the “Tales of a Fantastic Future” shortlisted by the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards (2018). The work also...

Aimee Nezhukumatathil (neh-ZOO / KOO-mah / tah-TILL) is the author of the New York Times best-selling illustrated collection of nature essays and Kirkus Prize finalist, WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS (2020, Milkweed Editions), which was chosen as Barnes and Noble’s Book of the Year. She has four previous poetry collections: OCEANIC  (Copper Canyon...

To celebrate the paperback release of Thin Places , this special episode features Jordan in the interview seat in a conversation with returning guest Lydia Millet! Jordan Kisner writes essays, features, and reviews for n+1, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Believer, and others. She also writes a column for The Paris Review. Her first book, T hin Places , was one of NPR’...

Fariha Róisín is an NYC based, Australian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist with an interest in her wellness, Muslim identity, race, self-care pop culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times , Al Jazeera , The Guardian , Vice , Village Voice and others. She writes a weekly newsletter here and is also the Deputy Editor of Violet Book . She has published How To Cure A Ghost (Abrams, 2019),...

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 Cut, Electric Literature, Bustle, Medium, Refinery29, The Brooklyn Rail, Salon,...

Marie-Helene Bertino is the author of the novels  PARAKEET  (New York Times Editors’ Choice) and  2 A.M. AT THE CAT’S PAJAMAS  (NPR Best Books 2014), and the story collection SAFE AS HOUSES  (Iowa Short Fiction Award). Her fourth book, the novel BEAUTYLAND, is forthcoming from FSG . Her work has been translated into eight languages, and has received The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Fel...