fiction/non/fiction

Latest Episodes:

S6 Ep. 17: Chatbot vs. Writer: Vauhini Vara on the Perils and Possibilities of Artificial Intelligence Jan 26, 2023

Show notes

Novelist and journalist Vauhini Vara joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss how ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, may—or may not—impact publishing, education, journalism, and the humanities in general. Vara explains differences between ChatGPT and another OpenAI tool, GPT-3, which she used as a way into writing about the death of her sister, a topic she had previously found unapproachable. She reads from the resulting essay, “Ghosts,” which was published by The Believer and anthologized in Best American Essays 2022.

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 podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Vauhini Vara

Others:

Review: ‘The Immortal King Rao,’ by Vauhini Vara - The New York Times
Meet GPT-3. It Has Learned to Code (and Blog and Argue). - The New York Times
Is This the Start of an AI Takeover? - The Atlantic
AI Has Come to Save the Arts from Themselves - The Washington Post
AI Reveals the Most Human Parts of Writing | WIRED
Don’t Ban ChatGPT in Schools. Teach With It. - The New York Times
Microsoft Bets Big on the Creator of ChatGPT in Race to Dominate A.I. - The New York Times
ChatGPT: Optimizing Language Models for Dialogue
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 episode 16: In Memory of Russell Banks: Rick Moody on an Iconic Writer’s Life, Work and Legacy
W.B. Yeats’ Autoscript
‘Even the spirits get a say’: A Look Into James Merrill's Ouija Poems by Harriet Staff
Exquisite Corpse poetry
Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing? Online programs can churn out decent papers on the cheap. What now? – The Chronicle of Higher Education
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3 Episode 25: No Innocents Abroad: Scott Anderson and Andrew Altschul on the CIA and US Provocateurs in Foreign Politics

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S6 Ep. 16: In Memory of Russell Banks: Rick Moody on an Iconic Writer’s Life, Work and Legacy Jan 19, 2023

Show notes

Writer Rick Moody joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to celebrate the life and legacy of the late novelist Russell Banks, who died earlier this month. Moody and Terrell, who were previously Banks’s students and became his friends, reflect on his deep working-class roots, his cultivation of his own voice even in his more experimental writing, and his commitment to writing about race in the United States. Moody reads and discusses a passage from Banks’s 1985 novel Continental Drift.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Rick Moody

Russell Banks

Hamilton Stark
The Relation of My Imprisonment
The Sweet Hereafter
Continental Drift
Affliction
The Darling
“Who Will Tell the People? On waiting, still, for the great Creole-American novel,” by Russell Banks, from Harper’s Magazine, June 2000

Others:

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S6 Ep. 15: Vintage Contemporaries: Dan Kois on the Joys and Sorrows of Literary New York in the 1990s and 2000s Jan 12, 2023

Show notes

Writer and editor Dan Kois, who works at Slate, joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss his debut novel, Vintage Contemporaries, which features a young woman who begins her career as an agent’s assistant in New York in the 1990s. He explains distinctive aspects of the era, including apartment building squatting and communal living. He also reflects on the pleasures of being an editor—a job he loves and that his protagonist eventually takes on. He reads an excerpt from the novel and compares his heroine’s prospects with the prospects of publishing staffers today, and comments on the HarperCollins strike.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Dan Kois

Vintage Contemporaries
Facing Future
The World Only Spins Forward (with Isaac Butler)
How To Be a Family
The Martin Chronicles

Others:

The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
Ours to Lose by Amy Starecheski
Alex Haley
Charles Baxter
Slate
Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
Maxwell Perkins
Nuyorican Poets Cafe
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5 Episode 18: “Unlivable and Untenable.” Molly McGhee on the Punishing Life of Junior Publishing Employees

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S6 Ep. 14: Brotherless Night & Friends: V.V. Ganeshananthan with Curtis Sittenfeld and Whitney Terrell on Editing A Work in Progress Jan 05, 2023

Show notes

Novelist Curtis Sittenfeld joins V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell as a special guest co-host to discuss Ganeshananthan’s newly released novel, Brotherless Night. Sittenfeld and Terrell ask Ganeshananthan about growing up in the Washington, D.C. metro area and how she came to write a book about a Tamil family living in Jaffna, Sri Lanka during the 1980s, the earliest years of the Sri Lankan civil war. Ganeshananthan reads an excerpt and talks about working on the novel for almost 20 years with help from many readers; how Terrell’s notes helped her with characterization; and how a comment from Sittenfeld altered the first line of the book and part of the plot.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

V.V. Ganeshananthan

Brotherless Night
Love Marriage
“On Authenticity, Research, and Writing From the Diaspora,” Literary Hub

Curtis Sittenfeld

Others:

A young woman's family is torn apart during the lengthy Sri Lankan civil war in this propulsive masterpiece by a Minnesota writer. |by May-lee Chai, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

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S6 Ep. 13: Lit Hub’s Favorite Books of 2022, with Emily Temple and Katie Yee Dec 29, 2022

Show notes

Author and Literary Hub Managing Editor Emily Temple and Lit Hub Associate Editor Katie Yee join hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about Lit Hub’s 38 favorite books of the year as chosen by the staff. The list spans genres from historical to memoir to post-digital post-capitalist manifesto to lesbian Sasquatch novel. Each editor reads a selection from a favorite, Temple from St. Sebastian’s Abyss by Mark Haber and Yee from The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Emily Temple

The Lightness

Katie Yee

Others:

Our 38 Favorite Books of 2022, Literary Hub
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5 Episode 26: “This is Such Bullshit.” Shelly Oria and Kristen Arnett on the Reproductive Rights Crisis
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1 Episode 4: Edmund White and Emily Temple on Literary Feuds, Social Media, and Our Appetite for Drama
The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux
Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen
How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
St. Sebastian’s Abyssby Mark Haber
My Three Dads by Jessa Crispin
Fight Like Hell by Kim Kelly
The Bond King by Mary Childs
Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
An Immense World by Ed Yong
The Sky is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith
Elderflora by Jared Farmer
https://moonpalacebooks.com/browse/filter/t/kelly%20link/k/keyword
Kelly Link
Donald Barthelme
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica
The Ultimate Best Books of 2022 List ‹ Literary Hub

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S6 Ep. 12: The Legacy of ISIS: Dunya Mikhail on Yazidi Women Captives in Iraq Dec 22, 2022

Show notes

Poet, journalist, and novelist Dunya Mikhail joins hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about the Yazidis, who are indigenous to Kurdistan and have been targeted by ISIS because of their religious beliefs. After ISIS slaughtered thousands of Yazidi men in northern Iraq in 2014—an event deemed an act of genocide by the U.N.—they kidnapped thousands of Yazidi women and children who were bought, sold, and traded as sexual slaves among ISIS fighters. Mikhail, who is Iraqi-American, previously wrote about the women in the National Book Award-nominated nonfiction book The Beekeeper. She discusses that book and its relationship to her new novel, The Bird Tattoo, which draws on some of the same histories.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Dunya Mikhail

Others:

The Security Is Better, Seriously (by Whitney Terrell, Slate, 2011)
This poet put the Yazidi women’s suffering and strength into words (PBS NewsHour)
ISIS Forced Them Into Sexual Slavery. Finally, They've Reunited With Their Children. (New York Times)
Dunya Mikhail Finds Freedom in Fiction (Publishers Weekly)
Dunya Mikhail: 'The War Works Hard' (NPR)
UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture awarded to poet Dunya Mikhail and actress Helen Al-Janabi (UNESCO)
Who are the Yazidis and why is Isis hunting them? (The Guardian)
Iraqi doctor provides care and comfort to Yazidi survivors (UNCHR)

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S6 Ep. 11: The Best and Worst Dinner Parties in Literature: Mar-A-Lago Edition, featuring Michael Knight Dec 15, 2022

Show notes

Following Donald Trump's dinner at Mar-A-Lago with Ye (formerly Kanye West) and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, novelist Michael Knight joins hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about the best and worst dinner parties in literature. They discuss the pressures of hosting, what makes someone a great guest, signature dishes, post-party regrets, and festive successes, as well as scenes in literature featuring all of these things. Knight also reads from a classic dinner party scene in his novella The Holiday Season.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Michael Knight

Others:

“The inside story of Trump’s explosive dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes,” by Marc Caputo
The Days of Afreketeby Asali Solomon
To the Lighthouseby Virginia Woolf
Leo Tolstoy
“The 8 best Festivus moments from ‘Seinfeld,’ ranked,” USA Today
“Curb Your Enthusiasm”: Bad Middling
Bobcat and Other Storiesby Rebecca Lee
Light Yearsby James Salter
Last Nightby James Salter
Belovedby Toni Morrison
The Great Gatsbyby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mrs. Dallowayby Virginia Woolf
The Dark Tower VIIby Stephen King
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafeby Fannie Flagg
The Family Chaoby Lan Samantha Chang
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Jim Harrison
Alice in Wonderlandby Lewis Carroll
Jesus’ Sonby Denis Johnson
The Sun Also Risesby Ernest Hemingway
Redwall series by Brian Jacques

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Introducing Where There’s a Will: Finding Shakespeare Dec 08, 2022

Show notes

We’re changing things up a bit today and bringing you a preview of a new podcast we’re enjoying and think you will, too. Where There’s a Will searches for the surprising places Shakespeare shows up outside the theater. Host Barry Edelstein, artistic director at one of the country’s leading Shakespeare theaters, and co-host writer and director Em Weinstein, ask what is it about Shakespeare that’s given him a continuous afterlife in all sorts of unexpected ways?

You’ll hear Shakespeare doing rehabilitative work in a maximum security prison, helping autistic kids to communicate, shaping religious observances, in the mouths of U.S. presidents, and even at the center of a deadly riot in New York City. Join Barry and Em as they uncover the ways Shakespeare endures in our modern society, and what that says about us. In this preview, Barry takes us into California’s Centinela State Prison for a one-of-a-kind production of Shakespeare’s English history plays performed by incarcerated individuals. Barry asks: What makes Shakespeare a force of transformation and transcendence behind bars?

Hear more from Where There’s a Will at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/wtaw?sid=fnf.

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S6 Ep. 10: White Horse: Erika T. Wurth on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Intergenerational Trauma, and Heavy Metal Dec 08, 2022

Show notes

Novelist Erika T. Wurth joins hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about the thousands of Indigenous women who go missing or are murdered in the U.S. every year. Wurth’s new literary-horror novel White Horse begins with the protagonist, a 35-year-old urban Native named Kari, receiving a bracelet that once belonged to her mother, who disappeared years ago. Wurth discusses what gets in the way of tracking the missing; how people talk about violence against Native women; intergenerational trauma; the real-life bracelet that led to the one in the book; why Kari loves Megadeth and Stephen King; and writing towards catharsis. She also reads from the opening of White Horse.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Erika T. Wurth

Others:

“Dave Mustaine lesson: Learn about exotic voicings, major and minor diads and ‘upside down’ chords” by Dave Mustaine
Native Hope
Department of Justice - Missing or Murdered Indigenous People
Russell Means
Ward Churchill
Stephen Graham Jones
Rebecca Roanhorse
Brandon Hobson
Kelli Jo Ford
V. Castro
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1 Episode 10: “Indigenous Imaginations: Native American Writers on Their Communities”
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 Episode 9: “With the Ancestors: Buki Papillon on African Folklore and Wakanda Forever”
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6 Episode 8: “Live from Writers for Readers in Kansas City: Alexander Chee on Editing Best American Essays 2022”
Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5 Episode 8: “Paul Lisicky and Terese Marie Mailhot on the Long-Term Mental Health Effects of the Pandemic”
Talking Scared Podcast Episode 117: “Erika T. Wurth & Bigfoot in Your Dreams”
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Report
MMIWUSA.org
“A Crisis Ignored: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women,” by Andrea Cipriano
Stephen King
Megadeth
Guns N’ Roses
Metallica

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S6 Ep. 9: With the Ancestors: Buki Papillon on African Folklore and Wakanda Forever Dec 01, 2022

Show notes

Buki Papillon, inaugural winner of the Maya Angelou Book Award in fiction, joins hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss African folklore’s impact on popular culture. They talk about how the newly released blockbuster Black Panther: Wakanda Forever draws on the myths, histories, and languages of many African nations, including the tradition of calling to ancestors for guidance. Papillon, who was born in Nigeria, also reads from her prize-winning debut novel, An Ordinary Wonder, and discusses how she included folklore, proverbs, and deities from the Yoruba pantheon in the story, which follows an intersex protagonist seeking to claim her identity.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Buki Papillon