Understructure

Superstar writers Meghan O'Rourke and Thomas Beller on the allure AI, virtual love, and the power of language.     

John Kelly and Paul Lisicky on storytelling, subversion, and a voice that still breaks our hearts—Joni Mitchell. 

Composers Paul Austerlitz and Daniel Thomas Davis on vodou pilgrimages, lake vibes, life as collaboration, playing the hurdy-gurdy, and more.

A.S.M. Kobayashi on hanging out with archivists, navigating space on wheels, playing with audio, finding transcendence in everyday objects, and more.

Ron Baron on limitless exploration, the history of the urn, hands as tools, and embracing brokenness. PLUS: Preview Laurie Anderson's Amelia.

Masterful novelists Rebecca Makkai and Porochista Khakpour on her latest, Tehrangeles, plus parodies, parables, short attention spans, diaspora drama, K-pop, and more.

Walk on the wild side, with two phenomenal biographers: Cynthia Carr on Candy Darling—dreamer, icon, superstar—and Brad Gooch on pop-art activist Keith Haring.

Revel in all things Carson McCullers, the wunderkind writer who catapulted to fame in 1940 with the publication of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. On tap: Mary V. Dearborn, author of the biography Carson McCullers: A Life; and Suzanne Vega. 

Audio from 1890, the symbolic power of pizza, blue suede shoes, thinking like a vulture, and more in our season roundup of favorite moments, with Nafis White, Chris Rush, Alexi Worth, Odili Donald Odita, Daron Hagen, Sam Lipsyte, Will Hermes, Lee Clay Johnson, David Gates, Brian Evenson, Ilana Boltvinik, Martha McPhee and Edgar Oliver.

Interdisciplinary artist Nafis M. White on unraveling history, finding resilience and beauty in loss, and enlisting raw materials like hair to explore power and identity.