Janet Fitch is an author and teacher of fiction writing. A profile on her site says she is “the author of the #1 national bestseller White Oleander, a novel translated into 24 languages, an Oprah Book Club book and the basis of a feature film, Paint It Black, also widely translated and made into a 2017 film, and an epic … Read moreWriting from Personal Experience: Janet Fitch on using the deep parts
When you realize that help is not on the way, what do you do next? Prologue: Saddam Sayyaleh’s job right now is trying to get trucks filled with aid into Gaza and he knows it’s nowhere close to what’s actually needed. (10 minutes) Act One: Tim Reeves runs a hospital in rural Pennsylvania, and he’s … Read more817: The Cavalry Is Not Coming
( Jagjaguwar) Nearly three years after releasing their beautiful and sprawling double album Nobody Lives Here Anymore, Cut Worms (the project of Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Max Clarke) returns with another collection of sunny pop songs steeped deep in classic rock tradition (sweet harmonies, simple melodies, touches of folk and country spun into the arrangments.) What makes … Read moreMusic Review: Cut Worms – Cut Worms
Susan Glasser, the former editor of Politico and Foreign Policy, writes the “Letter from Washington” column for the The New Yorker. Her most recent book, written with Peter Baker, is The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021. “There’s a great benefit to leaving Washington and then coming back, or frankly leaving anywhere and then … Read moreLongform Podcast #565: Susan B. Glasser
Addictive behavior can interfere with our creative life “I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.” – Frida Kahlo During her life artist Frida Kahlo “underwent a total of 35 surgeries, including bone grafts, and became addicted to pain killers and … Read moreAddiction and Creative People
During the highest turkey consumption period of the year, we bring you a This American Life tradition: stories of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, fowl of all kinds—real and imagined—and their mysterious hold over us. Prologue: Ira Glass talks with Scharlette Holdman, who works with defense teams on high profile death row cases, and who has not talked to … Read more816: Poultry Slam
Music Reviews (The Hives AB) Time can be unkind to a band like the Hives. Despite not releasing an album in 11 years, the Swedish rock band has stayed active without pause, presumably considered by most to coast on their early 2000s success. But no one can accuse them of ever running out of gas, … Read moreMusic Review: The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons – The Hives
Jamie Loftus is a comedian, writer, and podcaster. Her new book is Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs. “Comedy has been super helpful to me because it’s so based on failing every night sometimes that I wasn’t afraid of failure in the same way because it’s just like, Well, that’s going to happen … Read moreLongform Podcast #547: Jamie Loftus
People finding themselves in situations that are worse than they thought and deciding to really go with it. Prologue: A Boston woman takes her dog for a walk and suddenly finds herself in a terrible situation she never anticipated. The strange thing is, it helps her. (9 minutes) Act One: Two college friends try to stop … Read more821: Embrace the Suck
Javier Zamora is the author of Unaccompanied, a poetry collection, and Solito, a memoir. “There was something that I felt eating away at me, which made me a very angry and volatile teenager. And I think I was an angry teenager because I had this trauma that nobody around me could talk about, and that … Read moreLongform Podcast #546: Javier Zamora