Brandon Taylor practices moral worldbuilding in his fiction—that means an essential piece of these worlds is the “real possibility that someone could get punched in the face.” Brandon, author of the novels Real Life and The Late Americans, joins Stephanie Insley Hershinow for a wide-ranging, engrossing, and often hilarious conversation about the stakes of theContinue reading “7.3 What do the PDFs say about this?: Brandon Taylor and Stephanie Insley Hershinow (CH)”
Tag Archives: #bookpodcast
7.2 You Write Because You Want to Feel Free: Katie Kitamura and Alexander Manshel (SW)
Although Katie Kitamura feels free when she writes—free from the “soup of everyday life,” from the political realities that weigh upon her, and even at times from the limits of her own thinking—she is keenly aware of the unfreedoms her novels explore. Katie, author of the award-winning Intimacies (2021), talks with critic Alexander Manshel aboutContinue reading “7.2 You Write Because You Want to Feel Free: Katie Kitamura and Alexander Manshel (SW)”
7.1 Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds (JP)
Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly makes time for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and ND host John Plotz. She reads from The Wren, The Wren and discusses the “etherized” state of our inner lives as they circulate on social media. Anne says we don’t yet know if the web has become a spaceContinue reading “7.1 Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds (JP)”
6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff (JP)
Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and ND host John Plotz to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetized diary entries as well as a series of dialogues in the New Yorker with an AI named Alice. Drawing on her background in Jewish Studies, Sunny prompts Sheila to unpackContinue reading “6.6 Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff (JP)”
6.5 Attention is Love: A Discussion with Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath (SW)
Just days before the release of her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds (Riverhead Books, 2023), three-time National Book Award Finalist and The New York Times-bestselling author Lauren Groff sat down to talk to critic Laura McGrath and host Sarah Wasserman. Although Groff admits that she wants “each subsequent book to destroy the one” that cameContinue reading “6.5 Attention is Love: A Discussion with Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath (SW)”
6.4 “We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”: A Discussion with Shehan Karunatilaka and Sangeeta Ray (CH)
Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Norton, 2022), which won the Booker Prize in 2022, is a thriller that begins in the afterlife, an uproarious murder mystery set amid the tragedies of Sri Lanka’s long civil war. Its protagonist, a war photographer, has become a ghost with just seven moons to find hisContinue reading “6.4 “We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”: A Discussion with Shehan Karunatilaka and Sangeeta Ray (CH)”
7. On Rewriting the World
“Writing is a community practice,” Garza says. “When we write, we write with others. We always write with materials that are not our own.”
6. On Having Something to Say
“I write only when I have something to say” — How should a Caribbean writer of my generation take this? Moreover, Is it a good advice for a teacher to give her writing students?
2.5 Stitching the Past to the Present: Caryl Phillips speaks with Corina Stan (JP)
Caryl Phillips, professor of English at Yale, world-renowned and prize-winning novelist (from The Final Passage to 2018’s A View of the Empire at Sunset) shares his thoughts on transplantation, on performance, on race, even on sports. Joining him here are John and the wonderful comparatist Corina Stan, educated in Romania, Germany, France and the US, authorContinue reading “2.5 Stitching the Past to the Present: Caryl Phillips speaks with Corina Stan (JP)”
5. Writing Home
“Home is a place where I exist at every age.”
2.4 In Medias Res: Kamila Shamsie and Ankhi Mukherjee (AV)
Acclaimed novelist Kamila Shamsie joins esteemed Oxford scholar Ankhi Mukherjee for a wide-ranging discussion of literature and politics. Ankhi raises the unique challenges facing postcolonial and specifically Muslim writers in the wake of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan, including the pressure to become commentators in times of crisis (our episode was recorded in AugustContinue reading “2.4 In Medias Res: Kamila Shamsie and Ankhi Mukherjee (AV)”
4. Sigrid Nunez’s Visions of Life
Novels, she says, should provide a “vision of life” rather than a “fascinated horror” of it.
2.3 Because I Couldn’t Be a Dancer: Sigrid Nunez and Tara Menon (JP)
The brilliant New York writer Sigrid Nunez‘s most recent novel is What Are You Going Through; her previous one, The Friend, (2018) won the National Book Award. She speaks with Tara Menon, of the Harvard English department, and author of a terrific article about Sigrid Nunez in the Sewanee Review. The conversation ranges widely andContinue reading “2.3 Because I Couldn’t Be a Dancer: Sigrid Nunez and Tara Menon (JP)”
2.1 Fiction as Streaming, Genre as Portal: Jennifer Egan and Ivan Kreilkamp (JP)
We are just delighted to welcome you back to the second season of Novel Dialogue, putting scholars and writers together to chew the fat, and spill secrets of the trade. It begins with a bang; who better to interview the prolific and prize-winning American novelist Jennifer Egan than Ivan Kreilkamp? The distinguished Indiana Victorianist showedContinue reading “2.1 Fiction as Streaming, Genre as Portal: Jennifer Egan and Ivan Kreilkamp (JP)”
1.7 Helen Garner is Hacking at the Adverbs (Elizabeth McMahon, JP)
Helen Garner sits down with John and Elizabeth McMahon, a distinguished scholar of Australian literature. Helen’s novels range from the anti-patriarchy exuberance of Monkey Grip (1977) to the heartbreaking mortality at the heart of The Spare Room (2008). She has also authored a slew of nonfiction, plus screenplays for Jane Campion’s Two Friends and GillianContinue reading “1.7 Helen Garner is Hacking at the Adverbs (Elizabeth McMahon, JP)”
1.5 Getting Into Other Worlds: James Robertson with Penny Fielding (JP)
James Robertson, brilliant author of The Testament of Gideon Mack, and University of Edinburgh’s top prof. Penny Fielding beam in from their respective corners of Scotland. Extensive reference is made to (John’s madly beloved) James Hogg and to Robert Louis Stevenson, especially his Jack-the-Ripperesque Jekyll and Hyde. The violence that underpins slavery–aye, even in Scotland,Continue reading “1.5 Getting Into Other Worlds: James Robertson with Penny Fielding (JP)”
1.4 Feral Fiction: Catherine Lacey and Martin Puchner (JP)
Novel Dialogue sends Martin Puchner (polymathic author of The Written World and most recently The Language of Thieves) out to speak with Pew author Catherine Lacey. They go a-wandering. Lacey’s earlier works include a 2018 collection of short stories, Certain American States, and two novels: The Answers in 2017 and 2014’s Nobody is Ever Missing, a delightful roadContinue reading “1.4 Feral Fiction: Catherine Lacey and Martin Puchner (JP)”
1.2x Bonus: Orhan Pamuk reads and glosses the end of Snow
Pamuk plays scholar and novelist both. He reads the cheekily postmodernist final page of his novel Snow, while also talmudically interspersing comments on the text. Listen to the Bonus here:
1.2 That Demonic Novelistic Impulse: Orhan Pamuk with Bruce Robbins (JP)
In Episode Two of Novel Dialogue, critic and scholar Bruce Robbins sits down with Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. They have taught classes on the political novel together at Columbia for years, and it shows. They ask how the novel can ever escape its roots in middle-class sensibility and perspective: Joseph Conrad comes up, but so does modern BrazilianContinue reading “1.2 That Demonic Novelistic Impulse: Orhan Pamuk with Bruce Robbins (JP)”
1.0 Introducing a New Podcast: Novel Dialogue with Aarthi Vadde and John Plotz
Novel Dialogue : where unlikely conversation partners come together to discuss the making of novels and what to make of them. Join Aarthi Vadde, a scholar of contemporary literature and Victorianist John Plotz as they take a four-continent journey (ok, fine a virtual four-continent, Zoomish journey….) to talk turkey with novelists and critics the worldContinue reading “1.0 Introducing a New Podcast: Novel Dialogue with Aarthi Vadde and John Plotz”
Novel Dialogue 