fiction/non/fiction

Latest Episodes:

S7 Ep. 25: Ivy Pochoda on Iowa Basketball Star Caitlin Clark and Women Athletes in Popular Culture Mar 21, 2024

Show notes

Following a record-smashing performance by University of Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark, now the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division I basketball, novelist and former professional squash player Ivy Pochoda joins host V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about portrayals of women athletes in media, literature, and film. Pochoda considers the gender binary that continues to divide most sports and how athletes from Serena Williams to Lynette Woodard to Clark have been treated differently due to systemic bias. She discusses the lack of adult literary fiction featuring women athletes, as well as her new favorite novel in this category, the Booker-nominated Western Lane. Pochoda also reflects on how her athletic training helps her as a writer and reads an excerpt from a middle grade fantasy book she wrote with Kobe Bryant, Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof, in which sports play a central role.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Ivy Pochoda

Sing Her Down
These Women
Wonder Valley
Visitation Street
Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof(with Kobe Bryant)

Others:

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S7 Ep. 24: Lessons for Survival: Emily Raboteau on Mothering and Climate Change Mar 14, 2024

Show notes

Writer Emily Raboteau joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about mothering in the face of climate change and systemic inequality. Raboteau discusses the difference between “resilience” and “trauma-informed growth,” and considers which one more realistically describes how people react to devastation. She also reflects on writing about Indigenous communities and histories, developing language to capture shifting environmental realities, and the intersections of climate and racial justice. Finally, she explains the influence of her late father, Albert Raboteau, a groundbreaking professor of African American religion, on her community-minded approach to these topics. She reads from Lessons for Survival, her new collection of essays about care and mothering in the climate crisis.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Emily Raboteau

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S7 Ep. 23: Alabama’s Embryos: Briallen Hopper on the Personal and Political Consequences of the New IVF Court Decision Mar 07, 2024

Show notes

Writer Briallen Hopper joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about in vitro fertilization and the recent Alabama State Supreme Court ruling declaring that frozen embryos have the same rights as children. Hopper speaks about the science and thought behind freezing embryos versus eggs, as well as the religious language embedded in the court’s decision. She reads an excerpt from a 2019 Washington Post essay about her choice to freeze embryos as a single person and reflects on repeating the process later, with a partner.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Briallen Hopper

Hard to Love: Essays and Confessions
Gilead Reread (forthcoming, Columbia University Press)
“Single Women Looking to Extend their Fertility Usually Freeze Eggs. I Froze Embryos.”|Washington Post, May 10th, 2019

Others:

James LePage, et al. v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Association | Supreme Court of Alabama
The Human Life Protection Act | Alabama - May 15, 2019
Tammy Duckworth | Access to Family Building Act
Dobbs |The Supreme Court- June 24, 2022
The Radical Freedom Of IVF by Krys Malcolm Belc, Romper

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S7 Ep. 22: Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: Rachel Bitecofer on Democratic Strategies to Counter Republicans in the 2024 Election Feb 29, 2024

Show notes

Rachel Bitecofer, author of the new book Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game, joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk shop about the election strategies Democrats should implement to combat Republicans and prevent fascism. Bitecofer discusses how Republicans use “negative partisanship” to win elections by slamming Democrats as a whole, and argues that Democrats must turn the tables and attack the GOP’s now-extremist brand, which poses an urgent threat to Americans. Bitecofer reads from a section of Hit ’Em Where it Hurts that describes what it means to “wedge” an issue, and talks about how Democrats can do this.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Rachel Bitecofer

Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game, with Aaron Murphy

Others:

Dobbs |The Supreme Court
State of the Union Address 2023
Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project
Stephen Miller(Southern Poverty Law Center)
"At CPAC, Stephen Miller Describes His Plan to Round Up Migrants into Camps and Deport Them" | MediaMatters for America
"The Benghazi Timeline, Clinton Edition” by Eugene Kiely, June 30, 2016 | factcheck.org
Hur Report | The Justice Department
"Trump vows to end birthright citizenship for children of immigrants in US illegally" by Ted Hesson | Reuters

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S7 Ep. 21: The Road From Belhaven: Margot Livesey and What Literature Can Tell Us About The Future Feb 22, 2024

Show notes

As the 2024 Presidential race heats up, award-winning fiction writer Margot Livesey joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the value of seeing the future in politics and in family life. Are the polls right? Will Donald Trump beat President Joe Biden in the November election? Livesey talks about the role predictions play in our political landscape and in her new novel, The Road from Belhaven, in which a young woman named Lizzie Craig, raised by her grandparents in 19th century Scotland, has the gift of second sight. Livesey discusses the ways that literature has handled the concept of “seeing the future” over time, including the role second sight plays in Macbeth. She reads from her novel.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Margot Livesey

Others

Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Fiction/Non/Fiction: Season 3, Episode 24: “Summer Books Extravaganza: Margot Livesey and Jaswinder Bolina on Beach Reading When the Beach is Closed”
Fiction/Non/Fiction: Season 5, Episode 35: "Boris Johnson: Margot Livesey on British Politics, the Brexit Blunder, and the Prime Minister’s Lies"
No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
L.M. Montgomery

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S7 Ep. 20: ‘They Want What We Have’: Matt Gallagher on Supporting Ukrainians' Struggle for Liberation Feb 15, 2024

Show notes

Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, novelist, journalist, and veteran Matt Gallagher joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the current state of the Russo-Ukrainian war and why the country desperately needs the emergency aid in a bill currently under consideration in Congress. Gallagher, whose new novel Daybreak is set in Ukraine, weighs in on where the U.S. stands on the war by comparing it to military conflicts of the past, from World War II to more recent involvements in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. He also reflects on how reporting and training civilians in Ukraine influenced Daybreak, in which an Army veteran explores his own motivations for aiding the country’s fight for freedom as well as the flawed, messy realities of war. He reads from the novel.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Matt Gallagher

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S7 Ep. 19: American Fiction: Jacinda Townsend and James Bernard Short on the Joy, Pathos, and Complexity of Black Experience in the Oscar-Nominated Film Feb 08, 2024

Show notes

Novelist Jacinda Townsend and writer James Bernard Short join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the movie American Fiction, which is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. Townsend and Short discuss how the film addresses race in the publishing industry via its central character, Black author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, who tries to make an ironic point by writing a book exploiting Black stereotypes and finds, to his dismay, that it’s received in earnest and a bestseller. Townsend and Short analyze director Cord Jefferson’s approach and the film’s themes of family dysfunction, freedom in storytelling, and the importance of portraying the complexity of Black lives.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Jacinda Townsend

James Bernard Short

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S7 Ep. 18: AWP 2024 Preview: Glenn North on Kansas City’s Jazz, Poetry, and Barbeque Feb 01, 2024

Show notes

With AWP’s annual conference headed to Kansas City next week, poet and activist Glenn North joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to tell incoming writers where to find the best food and coolest hangouts in the city. North discusses Kansas City’s diversity, its history of racial covenants, and its newly rejuvenated Crossroads Arts District, which is near the convention site. North and Terrell, who also lives in Kansas City, highlight a variety of spots to check out, including the Green Lady Lounge, Swordfish Tom’s, The Blue Room, the American Jazz Museum, and Kansas City’s not-to-miss barbeque scene. North reads his poem, “Harmony on the Vine,” about the 18th & Vine Historic Jazz District, where he is the current poet laureate, as well as an excerpt from his poem for the 25th anniversary of the American Jazz Museum.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Glenn North

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S7 Ep. 17: ‘What is History?’: Ed Park on Korea’s Past, Real and Imagined Jan 25, 2024

Show notes

Novelist Ed Park joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the role of alternate histories and counternarratives in popular culture, public record, and the general consciousness, via his new novel, Same Bed Different Dreams. Park talks about depicting and reimagining well known events and eras, including the Japanese occupation of Korea between 1910-1945; Korean resistance to that occupation in the form of the Korean Provisional Government; the post-World War II division of Korea into North and South, which became sovereign nations in 1948; and the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to until 1953. He reflects on writing about more recent history, as well as his hometown of Buffalo, New York. The conversation suggests that positive alternate timelines, like the one Park creates, invite readers to learn more about actual events, whereas a more pernicious spin on the past may edit for the benefit of a particular group. Park reads from the novel.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Ed Park

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S7 Ep. 16: Former Biden Speechwriter Nate Rawlings on Claudine Gay, Neil Gorsuch, and the Politics of Plagiarism Jan 18, 2024

Show notes

Journalist Nate Rawlings, who spent a stint as a speechwriter for then-Vice President Joe Biden, joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the politics (and nuances) of plagiarism. Rawlings discusses how plagiarism accusations derailed Joe Biden’s presidential run in 1987. He examines how the right-wing activist-led plagiarism accusations against former Harvard President Claudine Gay fit into the context of prior plagiarism scandals, and considers the possibility that new technologies like AI will intensify future politically motivated attacks. He also reflects on why some plagiarism allegations stick and shift opinion, and others don’t.

This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Nate Rawlings

Nate Rawlings | TIME.com

Others:

"The North’s Jim Crow" by Andrew W. Kahrl|The New York Times,May 27, 2018

"How We Squeezed Harvard to Push Claudine Gay Out" by Christopher Rufo | Wall Street Journal

Grace: President Obama and Ten Days in the Battle for America by Cody Keenan

What It Takes: The Way to the White House by Richard Ben Cramer

"Plagiarism charges downed Harvard’s president. A conservative attack helped to fan the outrage" by Collin Binkley and Moriah Balingit | AP

Elise Stefanik

Claudine Gay

“Echoes of Biden’s 1987 plagiarism scandal continue to reverberate” by Neena Satija | The Washington Post, June 5, 2019