I HAVE BEEN INTERVIEWED BY 16-YEAR-OLD BOOK BLOGGER ROBBY AULD

I’ve been interviewed about Other People and The Nervous Breakdown by 16-year-old book blogger wünderkind Robby Auld.

To read, please click right here.

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

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.

NEW WRITING ABOUT RADIATION, PARANOIA, EGOS, LETTERS, STRANGERS, HUMAN CONDITION, ENNUI, LONELINESS, COSMIC ONENESS

Have a couple of new posts up over at The Nervous Breakdown.

The first one is called “The Plume,” and it’s about that plume of radiation that floated across the Pacific to America last week.  And it’s about radiation and paranoia in general.  And it’s also about my ego.  And MacGuyver.

The second one is called “Excerpts from Letters I Received from Strangers.”  The title pretty much explains it:  It’s about these letters I received from strangers.  In it, I offer short, anonymous excerpts from a bunch of the letters I got from people I don’t really know, the cumulative effect of which ranges from crushingly sad to kind of inspiring. 

Okay. 

-BL

PS.  That photo up above was taken in the Hollywood Hills a couple of weeks ago.  I included it for no real reason.  Just a nice view….

AN INTERVIEW OVER AT THE BEST DAMN CREATIVE WRITING BLOG

I’ve been interviewed by The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog.  Here’s an excerpt:

We are huge fans of your site, The Nervous Breakdown.

Thanks so much.  We appreciate it.

Tell us a little bit about its evolution and how the title came about.

I founded the site The Nervous Breakdown in 2006 in my apartment.  It happened by accident, almost.  These were pre-Twitter days.  Pre iPhone days.  So much has changed in such a short amount of time.  I was having some success building a readership online and figured that it would be more interesting  to do it in concert with other writers.  The technology was there.   Barrier to entry was low.  I realized that writers could create their own publications.  I figured:  Why not?

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THE 24-HOUR LITERARY MARATHON

I’ll be appearing at the 24-Hour Literary Marathon on Saturday, July 24th as part of an author panel which will also feature Deirdre Shaw, Mark Sarvas, and Brooke Berman.

Feel free to come by for a cocktail….

SUBVERSIA TRAILER

THE VIEW FROM THE WEST - VOL. 2

A few words about readings.

Authors and poets standing up in front of people and reading from their work.

I have it in my head that a good reading should take on the character of its town.  Meaning:  a New York reading should be different than a New Orleans reading.  A Seattle reading should be different than a Portland reading.  A Chicago reading should be different than an Austin reading.

And so on.

Here in LA, it seems like a reading has to be entertaining.  Meaning:  It can’t just be a reading; it also must be a show.  I don’t mean this in a bad way, either.  It’s a natural extension of LA culture.  The Entertainment Capital of the World.  “A reading with jazz hands,” I like to say.   People in Hollywood seem to expect jazz hands.  They want some pyrotechnics, some musical theater, some weirdness, some special effects.

Maybe even some fake blood.

Or, on a lucky night, some nudity.

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