667: Samantha Nickerson interviews Sally Wen Mao and Susan Mauddi Darraj

On this show, John speaks with the literary scholar, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who writes lucidly about classic American fiction in readable, important, and enjoyable prose. One of Dr. Fishkin's areas of expertise is Mark Twain. Her new book is Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade.

While John attempts his convalence from his contempible cold, here is a replay of a classic episode from 2013 with the fiction writer Tessa Mellas.

In Margie Sarsfield’s debut novel, Beta Vulgaris, a hipster Brooklyn couple take on temporary work at a Minnesota beet farm at harvest time in order to earn extra money to help them maintain their Brooklyn lifestyle. Elise, the protagonist, who suffers from anxiety that she is no longer medicated for, notices that her fellow workers disappear, either because the work is too difficult or else other mysterious reasons. Elise’s experience becomes more anguishing when her boyfriend also disappears, and then the beets start materializing around her wherever she goes, and the beets gradually begin to speak to her.

On this show, correspondent Samantha Nickerson speaks with Sally Wen Mao about her story collection, Ninetails, plus Samantha speaks with Susan Mauddi Darraj about her new novel, Behind You Is The Sea.

In honor of the passing of David Lynch, John and Stephen McClurg discuss the peculiar mysteries of a screenplay for a legendary project that was never made, Ronnie Rocket.

In this week's show, John speaks with Jaydra Johnson about her new book, Low: Notes on Art and Trash, and the tensions and connections between class perception, politics, and creation of art.

On today’s show, I speak with the poet and editor Rigoberto Gonzales about the curation of the Library of America anthology of Latino Poetry. Then Richard Blanco reads "Como Tú," his poem that is collected in that anthology, and he and I catch up a little bit.

0On #633, Rachael Tillman and I discuss the surreal paradoxes and sullen joys of Bill Knott's debut collection of poetry, The Naomi Poems: Corpse and Beans, which was recently reprinted by Black Ocean Press.

On today’s episode, Samantha Nickerson speaks with fiction writer Rufi Thorpe about her striking novel Margo's Got Money Problems. In this episode, you learn about more than just Margo's money problems. Samantha and Rufi discuss Only Fans, wrestling, creating characters, and motherhood’s thorny identity. Samantha then speaks to Susan My-Nutt about erotic obsession, alienation, hyper-thinking, and the presentation of dialogue without quotation marks as they appear in her new novel, Don’t Be a Stranger.

In this episode, John interviews the notable flash fiction writer Kathy Fish about the anxious nuances of that medium and genre. Is flash fiction just a very short story, with all the rules of fiction at work? Or is flash fiction a less traditional, immersive fictional happening that takes somewhere between the length of a flash of lightning and the length of time needed to smoke a cigarette? The complicated answer is yes and yes in this delightful conversation recorded at The Kerouac Project of Orlando.