INTERVIEW WITH ELECTRIC LITERATURE

I’ve been interviewed by Electric Literature, which has some really nice things to say about the podcast. Many thanks to Julia Jackson, editor of the Electric Dish.

Here’s the intro to the interview:

A few weeks ago, I first listened to a new literary podcast: Other People with Brad Listi, which I found through Melissa Febos‘ Facebook profile. She was interviewed on it, as well as other people that I admire and am interested in: Victoria Patterson, Megan Boyle, Steve Almond, Emma Straub, and more. While I expected the podcast to be interesting I was blown away, finding it downright enjoyable — and now I’m hooked. In a world full of distractions — where almost everything I encounter is practically begging me not to write — Brad Listi’s podcast has made me hit the pause button on my iTunes, blow off social obligations, and sit my ass down in a chair and write. The show is funny, insightful, entertaining, affirming, and, more than anything — inspiring. It easily one of the best podcasts on the web. Because I am now such a fan I wanted to ask Brad a few questions, and he kindly obliged.

To read the rest, just click right here.  

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 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  

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 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.

MCSWEENEY’S RECOMMENDS ‘OTHER PEOPLE’

Good news! The editors at McSweeney’s have included Other People in the latest edition of their ‘McSweeney’s Recommends’ column. Some very kind words about the show:

My thanks to the folks at McSweeney’s!

And: humbling to have the show compared to WTF. Marc Maron is brilliant. If you’re not listening to him, something’s wrong with you.

-BL  

EPISODE 10 — ALEXANDER MAKSIK

Alexander Maksik is the guest. One of the original writers at The Nervous Breakdown, and a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow.

He’s now the author of You Deserve Nothing, one of the most buzzed-about novels of the fall season. It’s available from Tonga Books, an imprint of Europa Editions.

We get into it.

Topics of conversation include: book tour, wayward youth, Australia, lost cause love affairs, Andy Warhol, Lycra biking shorts, method acting, teaching, Brooklyn, pizza delivery, body waxing, Bill Paxton, Planet Hollywood, Paris, Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, exhaustion resulting from the complete dismantling of a fantasy, Craig’s List, Alice Sebold, Spain, luck, persistence, Iowa, Top Gun, Ketchum, the future, and more.

Don’t forget: Subscribe at iTunes (free!). Subscribe at Stitcher (free!). Or, if you’d like, just push PLAY below, or just download straight to your desktop. Etcetera.

Thank you!

-BL

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

EPISODE 8 — VICTORIA PATTERSON

Victoria Patterson is the guest.  She’s the author of two books, both set in the moneyed coastal regions of Orange County, California.

The first is the story collection Drift, which was a finalist for both the California Book Award and the Story Prize.  And the second his her acclaimed debut novel, This Vacant Paradise, which was hailed far and wide by a variety of publications, including the New York Times. 

And just yesterday, the OC Weekly named her Best Author in its annual ‘Best of’ edition.  (Congrats to Tory!)

Listen to the show:

-At iTunes

-At Stitcher

-At the official website of Other People

It’s all free.  All the time.

Go get it.

-BL