A few months ago I interviewed Anna North for this podcast, and the character of her novel, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, got me thinking about the idea of likeability. What we allow female characters to get away with, or not. And what we

Ep 22: Hal Niedzviecki

Nov 18th, 2015 47m 36s

With pre-sales of commercial flights to Mars being offered and Google executives touting the coming singularity our culture might be at peak-futurism. In Hal Niedzviecki's new book, Trees on Mars (Seven Stories Press), the cultural critic looks

Ep 21: Midwest Vs NYC

Nov 11th, 2015 35m 30s

Emily has been in seclusion with edits on her new novel, but Truth & Fiction comes out of hiding with this live episode recorded at Word Books in Brooklyn. The theme was Midwest versus NYC and was produced in collaboration with Vol 1 Brooklyn.

Ep 20 Sarah Gerard

Sep 1st, 2015 55m 18s

Sarah Gerard's novel Binary Star (Two Dollar Radio) was called "hallucinatory" by NPR and "deeply affecting" by Vanity Fair. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her new chapbook is BFF. Sarah came

Sarah Gerard Reads from Binary Star

Aug 26th, 2015 4m 2s

Our full interview with author and essayist Sarah Gerard will be here September 2nd. For now, listen to Sarah read from her novel Binary Star in our studio.

Ep 19: J Ryan Stradal

Aug 10th, 2015 55m 13s

Kitchens of the Great Midwest is the debut novel from Los Angeles author J Ryan Stradal and he stopped by our Brooklyn studio while on tour to talk about food, family, Michigan versus Minnesota, and growing up VHS in the 1980s. With near univer

Ep 18 Michael V Smith

Jul 26th, 2015 49m 4s

Writer, comedian, filmmaker, and performance artist Michael V. Smith has published two novels and two volumes of poetry. This summer we met up in New York, in a small room at the Jane Hotel, to talk about his new acclaimed memoir, My Body Is Yo

Julia Fierro: Encore

Jul 6th, 2015 58m 25s

A year ago, Emily spoke with Julia Fierro in her Brooklyn home about her novel Cutting Teeth, which Entertainment Weekly called “a delicious Big Chill like novel.” It was a great talk. Not just about the book but about anxiety. The writing kin

Ep 16: Anna North

Jun 22nd, 2015 52m 25s

In her new novel, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark, Anna North has crafted a portrait of a female artist as complex and relentless on her rise to fame in the film world. North has been a writer and editor at Jezebel, BuzzFeed, and Salon, and

Ep 15: Emily Schultz on Tour

Jun 2nd, 2015 35m 54s

Everything you wanted to know about book tours but were afraid to ask. Emily's novel The Blondes was released by St. Martin's Press this May and she spent the month on the road doing readings and interviews. Producer and tour companion Brian J

Ep 14: Carl Wilson

Nov 3rd, 2014 47m 3s

Five years ago critic Carl Wilson released a book in the 33 1/3 series, Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. It was about the best-selling album by Celine Dion and how taste is constructed. Thanks to support from James Franco,

Ep 13: Megan Stielstra

Sep 30th, 2014 53m 26s

Megan Stielstra’s book of essays Once I Was Cool is available now from Curbside Splendor Press. Roxane Gay called Stielstra “a masterful essayist, warm and open and wise.” Megan and Emily talk about nonfiction writing versus the freedom of goin

Encore: Emily St. John Mandel

Aug 26th, 2014 47m 8s

Emily St. John Mandel is the author of the new, stunning novel, Station Eleven, due out for September 9 and available for preorder. She was also brave enough to be the very first guest on our podcast back in March 2013. This is an encore post o

Episode 11: Andrew Lewis Conn

Jul 17th, 2014 59m 36s

Today I catch up with Andrew Lewis Conn about his new novel, O Africa! Set in 1928, the novel follows twin brothers from Coney Island as they embark on their latest film project. We talk about writing historical fiction, avoiding too much resea

Episode 10: Julia Fierro

May 17th, 2014 59m 13s

Emily talks with Julia Fierro, the author of the novel Cutting Teeth. It was a long journey to the novel for Julia and she talks candidly about her time at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, being a New York writer, founding the Sackett Street Writers

Episode 9: Rachel Cantor

Apr 13th, 2014 1h

Episode 8: Natalee Caple

Nov 11th, 2013 57m 20s

In Calamity’s Wake is Natalee Caple’s new novel from Bloomsbury. The author unravels and reties western mythology into the story of Miette, a woman on a journey to find her mother: the infamous soldier, drinker, and exhibition shooter, Calamity

Episode 007: Tamara Faith Berger

Aug 28th, 2013 1h 4m

Last year, Canadian author Tamara Faith Berger's third book, Maidenhead, found breakout success with critics and readers. It won the Believer Book Award and was nominated for several others. Tamara’s early novels have also just been reissued by

Episode 006: Anne Swan and Reality TV

Jul 9th, 2013 48m 11s

MTV’s The Real World is now in its 22nd season and reality TV is no longer just one thing. We have competitive reality, soap docs, reality dating and everything inbetween. At this point you can’t say reality is one part of television. It is tel

Episode 005: Roxane Gay

Jun 11th, 2013 39m 23s

When I think about the reason we started this podcast it comes down to one thing: we wanted to meet writers whose work we love. Roxane Gay’s short stories have appeared on Joyland, and in dozens of literary journals. She’s written essays and

Episode 004: James Greer

May 8th, 2013 47m 1s

James Greer is an author and screenwriter though many also know him as being a member of Guided By Voices during the mid-1990s. After leaving the band James wrote two stunning, genre-melting novels, Artificial Light and The Failure, both for

Episode 003: Ben Greenman

Apr 12th, 2013 33m 58s

If there’s one word that can describe Ben Greenman’s fiction style it is “play.” His writing is a game that always invites the reader in whether he’s writing a story using charts, adapting Chekhov to star Paris Hilton or, as Ben does in his new

Episode 002: Ami Greko

Mar 19th, 2013 43m 52s

Publishing is a predominately female staffed business. As that business becomes a digital-first platform, it is running into the world of tech, a historically male centric world. What happens from here and why women still don’t feel confident

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