fiction/non/fiction

Latest Episodes:

S5 Ep. 2: The Country Roads Ahead: Julia Elliott and DaMaris B. Hill Consider the Future of Rural Writing Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

Novelist Julia Elliott and poet and writer DaMaris B. Hill join hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to consider the writing and face of rural America—particularly as it might look 30 years from now. First, Elliott talks about growing up as an outsider in her own South Carolina hometown, and reads from her debut novel The New and Improved Romie Flutch. Then, Hill, who was born in West Virginia, speaks to the diversity of rural spaces and reads a historical poem, “Beloved Weirdo,” from her forthcoming poetry collection Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood. Hill also speaks about judging the Maya Angelou Book Award.

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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel, Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and our website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Hayden Baker and Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected readings:

DaMaris B. Hill

Julia Elliott

Others:

Toni Morrison
Gail Jones
Octavia Butler
Crystal Wilkinson
Nikki Finney
Denise Low
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Gwendolyn Brooks
Frank O’Hara
Lucille Clifton
Angela Davis
“Talking to Maya Angelou’s Son About the New Award Named in Her Honor” by Anne Kniggendorf
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry by John Murillo
Pilgrim Bell by Kaveh Akbar
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Sometimes I Never Suffered by Shane McCrae
The Wild Fox of Yemen by Threa Almontaser
Our Lies: Jenny Offill and James Plath on Conspiracy Theories in History and Literature (Season 4, Episode 8 of Fiction/Non/Fiction)
Airships by Barry Hannah
Geronimo Rex by Barry Hannah
Westworld
Paul West
“The New and Improved Romie Futch” New York Times review by Lincoln Michel
Carson McCullers
George Saunders
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Leonora Carrington
Meat Racket by Christopher Leonard
Hunter S. Thompson
David Cronenburg
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Langston Hughes
Alice Walker
Latino Writers Collective - Home
Frank X Walker - Affrilachian Poet, Educator, Author of Black Box, Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York, and Affrilachia

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S5 Ep. 1: WTF, Texas … Again?: Elizabeth Wetmore and Kathryn Nuernberger on SB8, the History of Abortion, and Roe v. Wade in Danger Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

Novelist Elizabeth Wetmore and essayist and poet Kathryn Nuernberger join hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss Texas’s new abortion law. As the Lone Star State’s SB8 invites anyone to sue those “abetting” an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, Roe v. Wade has never seemed more at risk. In this episode, Wetmore talks about the Southwest’s history of suppressing women’s rights to birth control and reads from her novel, Valentine, which takes place in Texas and depicts a cast of women struggling to navigate the aftermath of sexual violence and access to abortion in 1976. Then, Nuernberger reads from her essay collection, The Witch of Eye, and her poetry collection, RUE; she discusses midwives, witch trials, herbalism, torture, and how these subjects help us interpret the history of women’s reproductive rights.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected readings:

Elizabeth Wetmore

Kathryn Nuernberger

Others:

SB8
“Abortion on the border: Legislation in Texas and criminalization in Chihuahua” by Veronica Martinez (La Verdad) and Victoria Rossi (El Paso Matters)
"Abortion on the border: Activists stay resilient" by Veronica Martinez (La Verdad) and Victoria Rossi (El Paso Matters)
“What It's Like to Run a Planned Parenthood in Texas” by Olga Khazan (The Atlantic, 2016)
“Why I Violated Texas's Extreme Abortion Ban” by Alan Braid (The Washington Post)
Interventions for Women by Angela Hume
Eve's Herbs by John M. Riddle
The Book of Difficult Fruit by Kate Lebo
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
WTF, Texas? Lacy M. Johnson and Natalia Sylvester on Surviving the Recent Storm and Unraveling the Whitewashed Myth of Texas (Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 4, Episode 12)

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 26: Bullshit Saviors: Helen Benedict and Nadia Hashimi on Depictions of the American Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq Sep 23, 2021

Show notes

Novelists Nadia Hashimi and Helen Benedict join hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the mistakes American writers and culture made in depicting the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.In the wake of the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and President Biden’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, have American fiction and film truly confronted the cost of these wars, especially to civilians overseas? In this episode, Benedict discusses the persistent and problematic glamorization of conflict, and reads from her 2017 novel, Wolf Season, which is about the Iraq War and its aftermath. Then, Hashimi speaks about centering Afghan voices in her fiction and reads from her novel Sparks Like Stars, which begins in 1978 Kabul during the Saur Revolution.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected readings:

Nadia Hashimi

Helen Benedict

Others:

The Storytellers of Empire, By Kamila Shamsie – Guernica
Unbecoming by Anuradha Bhagwati
“A Former Marine Looks Back on Her Life in a Male-Dominated Military” by V.V. Ganeshananthan (New York Times)
Elliot Ackerman and Anuradha Bhagwati on the Role of the Military in American Politics, Fiction/Non/Fiction, season two, episode 21
Charlie Wilson’s War
Afghan Women are In Charge of Their Own Fate by Cheryl Benard
“The Other Afghan Women” by Anand Gopal (New Yorker)
“What Should a War Movie Do?” by Whitney Terrell (The New Republic)
The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Generation Kill by Evan Wright
Karate Kid
Matt Gallagher
Teen Wolf
Casualties of War directed by Brian De Palma
The Messenger
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves and Miranda Seymour
Corpse Exhibition by Hassan Blasim
The Taliban indoctrinates kids with jihadist textbooks paid for by the U.S. Washington Post, 2014
Sylvester Stallone in First Blood (1982)
Katey Schultz
Jesse Goolsby
Cara Hoffman

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 25: Tolstoy Forever: Brigid Hughes and Yiyun Li on Retweeting a Russian Classic Sep 09, 2021

Show notes

Editor and publisher Brigid Hughes and writer Yiyun Li join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about reading War and Peace over the course of 85 days with others around the world. The unusually broad and lively Twitter conversation, organized in 2020 by A Public Space and led by Li, is captured in the newly published volume Tolstoy Together. In this episode, Li discusses her love of Russian novels and describes what it was like reading War and Peace in sections at the ends of newspapers when she was growing up in Beijing. Hughes, who read the book for the first time during this project, explains how the community of readers who contributed to the online book club made the experience special.

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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected readings:

Yiyun Li

Brigid Hughes

A Public Space

Others:

The Translation Wars (The New Yorker)
Her Private Space: On Brigid Hughes, Editor (LitHub)
Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Lit Mags (and Likely More) (FnF episode)
#APStogether : Events
Infinite Happiness (originally published in A Public Space, by Jamel Brinkley)
Cattle Haul (by Jesmyn Ward)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
The Raid and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
Matt Gallagher
Dewaine Farria
Alexandra Schwartz
ZZ Packer

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 24: Obama Era Redux: Nawaaz Ahmed on Islam, Sexuality, Politics, and Publishing His First Novel Aug 26, 2021

Show notes

Writer Nawaaz Ahmed joins co-host V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his debut novel, Radiant Fugitives, in this special live episode of the show held with Elliott Bay Books in Seattle, Washington. Ahmed’s book, set in California against the backdrop of Obama-era politics, explores how differences in faith and sexuality affect an Indian Muslim family when two estranged sisters—one a doctor more religiously observant than their parents, the other a political organizer who is lapsed, queer, recently divorced, and newly pregnant—reunite to support their ill mother. Ahmed also discusses his career shift from computer science to fiction, his decision to identify as a gay writer, and how these changes have strengthened his position as an activist.

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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected readings:

Nawaaz Ahmed

Radiant Fugitives

Others:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 23: From the Mouths of Babes: Wayne Miller and Elizabeth Gaffney on Writing About Children in Uncertain Times Aug 12, 2021

Show notes

Poet Wayne Miller and novelist Elizabeth Gaffney join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss writing from the point of view of children before and during the pandemic. First, Miller discusses the unknowable interior lives of children, reads poems from his new collection We the Jury, and talks about connections to his essay “Learning to Write About Your Own Children.” Later, Gaffney reads an excerpt from her 2014 novel When the World Was Young, and discusses how the traumas her child narrator survives during WWII compare to the challenges children have faced during COVID-19.

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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This episode is produced by Anne Kniggendorf and Whitney Terrell.

Selected readings:

Wayne Miller

We The Jury
Learning to Write About Your Own Children, LitHub
When Talking About Poetry Online Goes Very Wrong, LitHub

Elizabeth Gaffney

Others:

Catcher in the Rye
Family Ties
The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright
Kindred by Octavia Butler

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Fiction/Non/Fiction Presents Wondery's True Love Aug 08, 2021

Show notes

While you wait for the next episoe of Fiction/Non/Fiction, we wanted to share a preview of a new podcast from our friends over at Wondery.

Looking for a new podcast that's like Olivia Pope meets your favorite Ryan Murphy show? Or do you just love a good scandal? On True Love, a new fiction podcast from Wondery, you'll hear stories of scandalous flings, secret affairs, and the drama that ensues. TRUE LOVE brings these relationships to life through reimagined stories about love, lust and heartbreak. From secret celebrity hookups that play out under the cover of night to the web of lies it took to protect a high profile politician from revealing his secret life, each character finds themselves mixed up in every form of drama imaginable. This is just a preview of True Love, but you can listen to full episodes at wondery.fm/TL_FictionNonFiction.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 22: Why Be A Critic? Laura Miller on Reading, Listening to, and Writing About Books Jul 29, 2021

Show notes

Acclaimed Slate books and culture columnist Laura Miller joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the ins and outs of being a critic. Miller discusses a recent piece about diversity and representation in audiobook narration. She also talks about reading for pleasure versus work, and why, when she’s not reviewing, she often finds herself listening to authors.

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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.

Selected readings:

Laura Miller

Others:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 21: Fiction/Non/Fiction at 100 Episodes: Whit, Sugi, and Special Guest Jabari Asim Reflect on the Podcast’s Indelible Interviews and Controversies From the Past Four Years Jul 15, 2021

Show notes

For the 100th episode of Fiction/Non/Fiction, co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan hand out the first-ever “Nonnie Awards” for the podcast’s standout moments from the past four years. Then author, poet, and playwright Jabari Asim reflects on how the discourse on racism and police brutality has shifted since last summer. Asim also reads from his upcoming novel Yonder, out in January 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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.

Selected readings:

Jabari Asim

Yonder(out January 2022, available for pre-order)
Stop and Frisk
We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival
Mighty Justice

Others:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

S4 Ep. 20: ‘Goldfish Memory’: Adam Serwer on Critical Race Theory and the Very American Fear of Owning up to Our Racist Past and Present Jul 01, 2021

Show notes

Atlantic staff writer and author Adam Serwer joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss how opposition to critical race theory aligns with our country’s historical resistance to acknowledging the truth and changing. Serwer reads from and discusses his new book The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America, out this week.

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 excerpts from our interviews at LitHub’s Virtual Book Channel and Fiction/Non/Fiction’s YouTube Channel, and don't miss our brand-new website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This podcast is produced by Andrea Tudhope.

Selected readings:

Adam Serwer

Others:

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.