EPISODE 19 — ELISSA SCHAPPELL

The guest is Elissa Schappell, author of the story collections Use Me (William Morrow), which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the brand new Blueprints for Building Better Girls, available now from Simon & Schuster.

A former senior editor at The Paris Review, Elissa is a contributing editor and the Hot Type book columnist at Vanity Fair. She is also the co-founder and editor-at-large of Tin House magazine.

Topics of conversation include: feathers, taxidermy, pigeons, Mike Tyson, Tin House, face tattoos, Delaware, Joe Biden, social identity, elegant segues, the Lower East Side, talking in circles, chameleons, empathy, social graces, George Plimpton, The Paris Review, New York City, temporal lobe epilepsy, Berlin, Portugal, Spy magazine, Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, and the abundance of good writers in the world.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, please do. It’s free. Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too. 

Okay then.

Thanks, as always, for tuning in and listening.

Enjoy…

-BL

EPISODE 18 — KATIE ARNOLDI

Today’s guest: Katie Arnoldi, the bestselling author of three novels: Chemical Pink, The Wentworths, and Point Dume.

This one’s gonna blow your mind, people. Just trust me. It’ll make you want to buy a plane ticket. It’ll make you want to stow away on a boat. It’ll make you want to go undercover and rescue a POW in a war-torn Third World country.

Topics of conversation include: marijuana, Mexican drug cartels, surfing, surf Nazis, art, discipline, lighting one’s hair on fire while making a quesadilla, southeast Utah, road trips, books on tape, experiential learning, Blackhawk helicopters, wanderlust, field research, sharks, kids, Tasers, camping, the Venice Biennale, the artist Paul McCarthy, and getting out of one’s own way creatively.

Please subscribe to the show over at iTunes, if you haven’t done so already. It’s free. Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Many thanks & enjoy…

-BL

EPISODE 17 — JOSHUA MOHR

Joshua Mohr is the guest. He’s the author of three novels: Some Things That Meant the World to Me, Termite Parade, and, most recently, Damascus. All are available from Two Dollar Radio, one of America’s finest independent presses.

“The bard of the underbelly,” says Jonathan Evison.

A rave for Damascus from The Rumpus: “It’s as if [Mohr] is standing over your shoulder lighting each page with a match as you read.”

A very good talk with a rising star writer. We discuss things.

Topics of conversation include: teaching, San Francisco, the benefits of insomnia, Hubert Selby Jr., coffee, punk rock, gentrification, creatively permissive cities, Arizona, Kurt Vonnegut, kids, monkishness, priorities, readerships, addiction, The Big Lebowski, fairy tales, reality television, and poets who live in their cars.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, please do. It’s free. Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too. 

Many thanks. Enjoy the show….

-BL

EPISODE 16 — GINA FRANGELLO

Gina Frangello  is the guest. She is the critically acclaimed author of the novel My Sister’s Continent (Chiasmus Press), the story collection Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press), and the forthcoming novel A Life in Men (Algonquin).

She is also the esteemed fiction editor over at The Nervous Breakdown.

Gina’s a good one. (That’s an understatement.) The word “indefatigable” comes to mind. She’s an extremely gifted writer, a college instructor, a mother of three, a publisher, an editor. You name it. She finds a way to do it all. And she’s been a great help to a great many writers for a lot of years.

We get into it.

Topics of conversation include: Chicago, Other Voices Books, growing up Italian-American, how her parents met, jazz, alcohol, poverty, Madison, drug abuse, California, the dirt-poor writer who lived in her parents’ garage, high school, dance clubs, neighborhood violence, parenthood, jogging yuppies, Avignon, keg parties, editing, London, whirlwind romance, psychology, Italy, New Hampshire, Arles, prison, battered women, the MFA, and the institution of marriage.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, go do it. It’s free. Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Many thanks, everybody.

-BL

EPISODE 15 — JILLIAN LAUREN

The guest is Jillian Lauren, author of the memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, a New York Times bestseller, and the brand new novel Pretty, both available from Plume Books.

Kirkus calls her a “deft storyteller,” and Antoine Wilson, author of The Interloper, calls Pretty “a harrowing journey from darkness to light to real life.”

Topics of conversation include: youth, addiction, fearlessness, the difference between dull experience and dull writing, sex work, billionaire psychology, New Jersey, Vietnam, the Prince of Brunei, rehab, therapy, parenthood, beauty college, the Big Apple, LA, transcendental meditation, Weezer, discipline, sobriety, compulsive documentation, Instagram, the vibration of a publicity cycle, bowling, versatility, and acting.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, please do so. It’s free.

Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Many thanks for listening. Enjoy.

-BL  

EPISODE 14 — SHANN RAY

The guest is Shann Ray, author of the critically acclaimed story collection American Masculine, now available from Graywolf Press.

A very impressive guy. A college basketball star. A doctorate in psychology. A professor of leadership studies (with an emphasis on forgiveness). And now, the author of a story collection that won the 2010 Bakeless Prize for Fiction.

“Shann Ray’s prose brings to mind Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx but is, thankfully, entirely his own,” says Dave Eggers. “His work is lyrical, prophetic, brutal yet ultimately hopeful.”

Topics of conversation include: Spokane, the medical-industrial complex, Montana, hunting, hunting knives, field-dressing an antelope, taxidermy, the Finca Vigía, mountain lions, crossbows, dogs, basketball, Jack Kerouac, John Edgar Wideman, Pepperdine, Hank Gathers, leadership, Rwanda, forgiveness, John Wooden, Bobby Knight, discipline, vertical leap, cowboys, horses, spirituality, addiction and recovery, family, and what it was like to go to high school on an Indian reservation.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, please do so. It’s free. Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Many thanks for listening.

Enjoy.

-BL

EPISODE 13 — MEGAN BOYLE

Megan Boyle is the guest. She’s the author of selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee, an unorthodox debut poetry collection from Muumuu House.

At the time of this interview, she had been up for 36 hours and was staying at her dad’s place in Baltimore.

Topics of conversation include: Baltimore, Applebee’s, Tao Lin, Las Vegas, Beanie Babies, Brooklyn, Chicago, green juice, juicing, meditative activities, seclusion, Orion’s belt, aliens, acting, awkwardness, relationships, shyness, Internet literature, MDMA, MDMA films, LSD, Bebe Zeva, Jordan Castro, Noah Cicero, Twitter, blogging, iMovie, Brandon Gorrell, Carles, AOL chat rooms, documentary film, birds, social anxiety, adderall, sleeplessness, and accidental books.

You can push PLAY below. You can subscribe for free at iTunes. Or you can subscribe for free at Stitcher.

Many thanks for listening.

-BL

IMPOSE MAGAZINE HAS NICE THINGS TO SAY ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE

Josh Spilker of IMPOSE magazine has written a nice review of the podcast.

Here’s the gist:

there’s been a new entry. Other People Podcast by Brad Listi. Brad is from The Nervous Breakdown and does it right. He talks to novelists about writing. He talks about their personal quirks. He touches a bit on their books, but if you’ve never read their books, you can still hang. Instead Listi brings personality to writers, whether it’s getting at Emma Straub’s baked goods habit, Jonathan Evison’s toilet habits or Blake Butler’s insomnia habit.

I started with Other People on Blake Butler’s episode, became enchanted, found some other writers I knew, and am now moving over to the writers I don’t know, just because Brad uncovers all types of literary life marginalia that brings comfort to us amateurs who wonder if we’re doing it right.

EPISODE 12 — DIANA SPECHLER

A great conversation with Diana Spechler, author of the novels Who By Fire and Skinny, both from Harper Perennial.

We get into it.

Topics of conversation include: tequila, book tour, cocktail waitressing, pizza delivery, horrible bosses, getting fired, the fact that your friendly waitress is not hitting on you, nudity, dancing, weight loss, Boulder, weight loss camps, body image, Wyoming, the obesity epidemic, frisbee, smoking, water aerobics, journaling, typewriters, car accidents, public transportation, moth infestations, Texas, and Missoula.

You can listen at otherpeoplepod.com.  You can subscribe for free at iTunes. Or you can subscribe for free at Stitcher.

Thanks!

-BL

PS. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Email me at letters [at] otherpeoplepod [dot] com.

EPISODE 11 — ADAM LEVIN

Adam Levin is the guest.

He’s the author of The Instructions, a 1,030-page novel published by McSweeney’s in late 2010 to great critical acclaim.

“Evocative of David Foster Wallace,” writes Rolling Stone, “full of death-defying sentences, manic wit, exciting provocations and simple human warmth.”

Topics of conversation include: page counts, cigarettes, discipline, work schedules, exotic fowl, McSweeney’s, readings, paranoia over readings, Facebook, Dave Eggers, Flannery O’Connor, the sound of writing, whispering birds, psychotic muttering, sentient beings, day jobs, teaching, Chicago, metalheads, punk rockers, George Saunders, bad posture, back pain, Hemingway, Nabokov, caffeine, hemorrhoids, Mary Gaitskill, fear of doctors, pedophiles, thyroglossal duct cysts, and more.

You can listen at otherpeoplepod.com. You can subscribe for free at iTunes. Or you can subscribe for free at Stitcher.

Thanks for listening.

-BL

PS. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Email me at letters [at] otherpeoplepod [dot] com.