Stephen Thomas: One Foot in Another World

This week we shine a spotlight on Lee Suksi’s delicious debut The Nerves, a book we published in 2020. Enjoy a sampling of 10 chapters from 8 different voices. Special thanks to Inez, Ami, Dillon, Vic, Aley, Asher, Zoe and Carmen for contributing readings to this episode. https://www.metatron.press/work/the-nerves/ The Nerves subverts the literary approach to sexuality by treating the erotic not as a site of anxiety but of reverie. Set in an imaginary world where our sense memories tell us who we are, Lee Suksi's literary debut is psychedelic, attentive, cinematic and hot. Writing toward sensitivity and ecstasy,  exploring touch as healing abandon, The Nerves is charged with desire, devotion, and creative fantasy. Through a series of joyful encounters, Suksi reminds us that pleasure can be abundant, nuanced and that it can heal. Engaging in a queer erotics of language, Suksi’s debut is a bundle of wet atmospheres, speaking to the faith found in touch. The Nerves went on to win the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Erotica. Playlist: Inez - Janus Inez - Winny Ami - Oris Dillon - Jara Vic - Sassa Ami - Keet Aley - Lulu Asher - Hearth Zoe - Rus Carmen - Arma

Join Aeon Ginsberg this week from Baltimore as we talk about being stupid vs being dumb, working in bars, cyborgs, movement, transition, and death, and most importantly Aeon's beautiful poetry book, Greyhound. Aeon also closes out this episode with a new poem from a new series. Aeon Ginsberg is a trans feminine agender bitch from Baltimore City, MD. Eir work 'Greyhound' was the 2019 Noemi Press Poetry Prize winner in 2019 and was a Lambda Literary award finalist for transgender poetry in 2020.

Join Stephen Thomas this week from his apartment in New York as we talk about his work including his debut book The Jokes (Book*hug, 2016), his essay The Legion Lonely about the epidemic of loneliness for men, doing an MFA in Alabama, the difficulties of writing a novel, and weird Facebook. We also discuss taking a step back from writing, what it means to put too much pressure on yourself to produce and how it's healthy to have a life outside of writing.  Stephen Thomas' website is http://www.stephenthomaswriter.com

Join Rollie Pemberton this week in Montreal as we talk about Rollie's memoir, Bedroom Rapper, which serves not only as a personal history but also as a history of rap and a documentation of creative communities in Edmonton and Montreal. We also talk about his music as Cadence Weapon, his time as the Poet Laureate of Edmonton, our mutual respect and admiration for Buck 65, what it's like to write memoir at a young age, the difference between the practices of writing songs and writing poems, and what it felt like to be booed by a massive audience of Rihanna fans.  Rollie Pemberton, aka Cadence Weapon, is a Canadian rapper, producer, writer, and DJ whose latest album Parallel World won the 2021 Polaris Music Prize and whose memoir Bedroom Rapper was published by Penguin Random House in 2022. Order Bedroom Rapper here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/671425/bedroom-rapper-by-rollie-pemberton/9780771051883

In this episode we sit down with Rachelle Toarmino, founder and editor in chief at Peach Mag and author of the poetry collection That Ex, to talk about poetry, community, and academia. Currently doing an MFA at UMass Amherst, Rachelle tells us about her last three years focusing primarily on poetry, we talk about the creation of Peach Mag and why it felt necessary at the time to do something against the mainstream with an ethics of care at its forefront, and we talk about being online and whether its a necessity or not, as a writer, to engage with social media. We also touch on writing practice, coming to writing later in life, neuroticism, and the joys of beginning to write fiction. Rachelle Toarmino is a poet from Niagara Falls, New York. She is the author of the poetry collection That Ex and the chapbooks Comeback, Feel Royal, and Personal & Generic. She is the founding editor in chief of Peach Mag, an independent literary publishing project with an online journal, print anthologies, live and virtual events, and an editorial apprenticeship for teens. She is also an editorial advisor to Foundlings Press. She lives between Buffalo and Western Massachusetts, where she is an MFA candidate in poetry at UMass Amherst.

Join Cody Caetano this week in Toronto. In this episode we talk about Cody's new book, Half-Bads in White Regalia, a memoir of growing up in a complicated and fraught family dynamic that is never the less light-hearted and filled with warmth. We also talk about his mentor, Lee Maracle, and how their relationship informed Cody's book as well as his essay, The Shadow Land: Indigenous Memoirs and the Question of ‘Trauma Porn.’ We also discuss writing as pleasure, how music is connected to writing, writing about trauma and audience, particularly in regards to indigenous literature. Cody Caetano is a writer and literary agent. His first book, Half-Bads in White Regalia, is out now.  Order Half-Bads in White Regalia here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/666015/half-bads-in-white-regalia-by-cody-caetano/9780735240865

Join Šari Dale this week in Prince George. In this episode we talk about Šari's debut poetry book, Para-Social Butterfly, in which the narrator, a young woman disillusioned with her life, decides to live in a digital space called The Ultra-Glam, blurring the lines between the reality experienced in physical and digital spaces. Šari also talks about how her work as a copywriter plays into the writing of her poetry, as well as early experiences in internet chat rooms and current experiences in social media. We discuss persona and influence, her obsession with reality TV, and her current work which draws from the influence of nature and of monster trucks.  Šari Dale writes from Prince George, BC on unceded ancestral lands of the Lheidli T'enneh. She holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, where she was the recipient of The Creative Writing Prize. Her poetry has been published in Arc, Grain, and The Malahat Review among others and anthologized in Best Canadian Poetry 2021 and Poetry Daily. Order Para-Social Butterfly: https://www.metatron.press/work/para-social-butterfly/

Join legendary Canadian poet bill bissett this week on Metacösm. Deemed The Godfather of Canadian Poetry, bill bissett is a prolific artist whose writing and painting span seven decades. In that time bill has published over seventy books as well as created countless paintings and albums of music, has performed hundreds of readings, ran blewointment magazine and blewointment press, was the subject of documentaries, was persecuted for his work by conservative politicians, received support from Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, and bpNichol, was sampled by The Chemical Brothers, has been an advocate for gay rights, women's rights, and the environment, and so much more. His writing, which is lyrical at heart and employs a style often described as unconventional, employs purposeful misspelling, visual and auditory elements, and focuses on love, pain, death, politics, sex, longing, beauty, and an attempt to make sense of the senselessness of this world. He is a true artist. In this episode our host Brad Casey pieces together several recordings done with bill over the last seven years, beginning in 2014 when he contacted bill to do a formal interview on his life, an interview which became lost. Since then Brad has conducted several informal interviews with bill, the latest being in late 2021, and pieced together clips from all of these interviews to create this episode which serves primarily as a portrait of Bill Bissett but also a tribute to the friendship that has grown between bill and Brad over those years.

Join Marlowe Granados this week in Toronto. Find out why Marlowe prefers hanging out with poets over fiction writers, or why she eye-rolled her way through her university creative writing program. We also get a behind-the-scenes peek at what it was like to publish and release Happy Hour, including being profiled in New York Magazine, hiding out in her hotel during her press tour in NYC, and what it's ultimately like to be perceived through your writing. Marlowe is a writer and filmmaker. She co-hosts The Mean Reds, a podcast dedicated to women-led films. Her advice column, "Designs for Living," appears in The Baffler. After spending time in New York and London, Granados currently resides in Toronto. Happy Hour is her début novel. Order Happy Hour: https://www.marlowegranados.com/ With music by Blue Hawaii: https://bluehawaii.bandcamp.com/

Join writer, actress and filmmaker Sofia Banzhaf in her living room in Tkaron:to/Toronto for the next episode of Metacösm. Her and Brad discuss bimbos, the void that writing fills, booby trapping your journals, how writing can reveal more things about the reader than the author, how writing is the art of asking impossible questions, the power of Jean Rhys, losing your archive and more. Music by Dana Gavanski. Sofia Banzhaf is a writer, actress, and filmmaker whose poetry and fiction have appeared in The Fanzine, Hobart Pulp, Peach Mag, Riddle Fence, X-R-A-Y, and Bad Nudes, among others. Her novella Pony Castle won the Metatron Prize for Rising Authors. She resides in Toronto.