fiction/non/fiction

Latest Episodes:

S8 Ep. 32: Hamilton Nolan on DIY Opinion Writing May 08, 2025

Show notes

Writer Hamilton Nolan joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about opinion journalism. Nolan, who writes frequently about labor and politics, discusses how and why he entered journalism, the myth of objectivity, and how he views the relationship between activism and journalism. He explains how long it took for him to make money on Substack, reflects on what it means to share an opinion in the current political environment, and considers the importance of unions for writers. Nolan reads from his book, The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor.

Hamilton Nolan

Here’s a New Year’s resolution for Trump’s America: no snitching

Hamilton Nolan - In These Times

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S8 Ep. 31: Rešoketšwe Manenzhe on Trump’s South African Connection May 01, 2025

Show notes

South African writer Rešoketšwe Manenzhe joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the influence that wealthy South African immigrants like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are having on the Trump administration and conservative U.S. politics in general. Manenzhe talks about how growing up under apartheid may have shaped these men’s views, how South Africans view Musk now, and what the country’s history can tell us about the current American political situation. She also discusses South Africa’s Immorality Act of 1927 and reads from her novel, Scatterlings.

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 V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, and Hunter Murray.

Selected Readings:

Rešoketšwe Manenzhe

Scatterlings

Others:

“A Biracial Family Risks Persecution in 1920s Cape Town” by V.V. Ganeshananthan
How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa | Elon Musk | The Guardian
Gravity's Rainbow (Classics Deluxe Edition) by Thomas Pynchon
US focuses on persecution claims as white South Africans seek resettlement | Reuters

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S8 Ep. 30: Jodie Hare on the Politics of Neurodiversity Apr 24, 2025

Show notes

Following Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s widely publicized and false claims about autism, writer Jodie Hare joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about the politics of neurodiversity and the importance of autistic communities. Hare, who was diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, explains how the pathologization of the autistic population is historically connected to industrialization and capitalism. She also discusses the discriminatory and criminal history of searching for a “cure” for autism through a series of cruel methods, which have all failed. She challenges the idea that there are normal and abnormal ways of living, and reads from her book, Autism Is Not a Disease: The Politics of Neurodiversity.

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.

Selected Readings:

Jodie Hare

Autism Is Not A Disease: The Politics of Neurodiversity
Why we must politicise neurodiversity | shado
Autism cannot be cured — stop trying | huck, July 2024
The Dehumanisation of Autistic People Must End | Verso blog, May 2022

Others:

Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman
Unmasking For Life: The Autistic Person's Guide to Connecting, Loving, and Living Authentically by Devon Price, PhD
Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker
RFK Jr. Is Using a New Study on Autism Rates to Push His Anti-Vaccine Agenda | Mother Jones
People with autism seek dignity where RFK seeks a cure | Axios
RFK Jr. Calls Autism ‘Preventable,’ Drawing Ire From Researchers | The New York Times
A Kind of Spark by Elle McNicoll
RFK Jr. Set to Launch Disease Registry Tracking Autistic People | The New Republic | The New Republic

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S8 Ep. 29: Vauhini Vara on AI, Art, and Memory Apr 17, 2025

Show notes

Acclaimed novelist and journalist Vauhini Vara joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to discuss her new essay collection, Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age. Vara talks about the rise of the loser tech bro, internet privacy, Google search logs, the power and limits of turning one’s collected personal data into art, and whether a recently publicized AI-authored short story is actually good.

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.

Selected Readings:

Vauhini Vara

Others:

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams
“OpenAI’s metafictional short story about grief is beautiful and moving,” by Jeanette Winterson, The Guardian
“‘A computer’s joke, on us’: writers respond to the short story written by AI,” The Guardian
Vauhini Vara on the Perils and Possibilities of Artificial IntelligenceFiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 17

Alex Reisner on Covering Books3 and Fighting Piracy Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 7, Episode 1

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S8 Ep. 28: Sheila Sundar on International Scholars Apr 10, 2025

Show notes

Following ICE’s detention of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and the sudden revocation of hundreds of student visas across the country, professor and novelist Sheila Sundar joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the targeting of international university students, especially those involved in pro-Palestine speech or protests, by the Trump administration. Sundar reflects on a childhood spent partly among intellectuals travelling between countries, and explains how this led to her recent novel, Habitations, in which the protagonist leaves her home in South India for graduate school at Columbia. Sundar discusses international students’ contributions to American intellectual life and how the current assault on diversity damages academia. She also talks about how work-restrictive policies treat international students as “takers” who are not welcome to integrate fully into American society. Sundar reads from Habitations.

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray and Vanessa Watkins.

Selected Readings:

Sheila Sundar

Habitations (2024)
Yellow Curtains The Massachusetts Review (2023)
Diplomacy Virginia Quarterly Review (2022)
The Death of Tyler Clementi The Threepenny Review(2021)

Others:

Meghan O’Rourke on The End of the University, Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 8, Episode 27
Nearly 150 Students Have Had Visas Revoked and Could Face Deportation - The New York Times
Secretary of State Marco Rubio Remarks to the Press
Trump Immigration Policies Increase Peril For International Students

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S8 Ep. 27: Meghan O’Rourke on The End of the University Apr 03, 2025

Show notes

Essayist, poet, and Yale Review editor Meghan O’Rourke joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her recent New York Times piece, “The End of the University as We Know It.”O’Rourke discusses the situation at Columbia University; the Trump administration’s attacks on other universities, including the threats to deport international students for participation in pro-Palestine protests; the false notion of the radical college campus; and how the political balance on campuses has actually shifted in recent years. She also reflects on how the Cold War reshaped these institutions and made them national assets; the financial relationship between the university and the state; and why schools can’t just spend their endowments. O’Rourke reads from her essay.

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Selected Readings:

Meghan O'Rourke

Opinion | The View Inside Trump’s Assault on Universities - The New York Times: The End of the University as We Know It by Meghan O’Rourke
The Yale Review | Meghan O'Rourke
Yale’s Unsafe Spaces | The New Yorker
The Invisible Kingdom(2023)
Sun in Days (2019)
Once (2013)
The Long Goodbye (2012)
Halflife (2008)

Others:

Creating the Market University | Princeton University Press by Elizabeth Popp Berman
20 Colleges With the Biggest Endowments | The Short List: Colleges | U.S. News

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S8 Ep. 26: Alex Higley on True Failure and Shark Tank Mar 27, 2025

Show notes

Novelist Alex Higley joins host V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his new novel, True Failure, in which a man fired from his job decides not to tell his wife what happened and attempts to change his fortunes by applying to join the cast of a Shark Tank-like show. Higley discusses how he experiences the news in Trump 2.0; lying as avoidance and as emotional refuge; and two big American lies (that an individual can succeed on his own and that we can’t collectively organize to make change). He also talks about Shark Tank as a curated and tidy presentation of entrepreneurship and capitalism, and his choice to have his protagonist focus not on what he will sell or invent, but on how he can bluff his way to what he wants. Higley reads from True Failure.

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell.

Selected Readings:

Alex Higley

Others:

Choice by Neel Mukherjee
Cue the Sun! by Emily Nussbaum
Dana Spiotta
Being There (Film, 1979)
Shark Tank
The Apprentice
Big Brother
Organizing My Thoughts
Today in Tabs
Sally Franson and Emily Nussbaum on Reality TV Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 7, Episode 42

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S8 Ep. 25: Edmund White on The Loves of My Life Mar 20, 2025

Show notes

Novelist, memoirist and biographer Edmund White joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his recent book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir. White talks about the changes he has witnessed the LGBTQ+ community go through over the years and the hostility the transgender population faces under the Trump-Vance regime. He discusses a general concern older members of the community have about losing Social Security and health coverage should gay marriage become Trump’s next target, as well as this administration's attempt to erase queer language from governmental archives. White previews his forthcoming novel about Louis XIV’s gay brother titled Monsieur and reads from The Loves of My Life.

This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Ian Johnson, Hunter Murray, and Vanessa Watkins.

Selected Readings:

Edmund White

The Loves of My Life(2025)
The Humble Lover (2025)
Nocturnes for the King of Naples (2024)
A Previous Life (2023)
A Saint from Texas (2022)
The Unpunished Vice (2018)
The Flaneur (2015)
Inside a Pearl (2015)
Jack Holmes & His Friend (2012)
City Boy (2010)
A Boy Story (2009)
Marcel Proust - A Life (2009)

Anthologies, Foreword & Others:

The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame (2022)
A Luminous Republic (2020)
The Stonewall Reader (2019)
Such Small Hands (2017)
The Violet Quill Club, 40 Years On - The Gay & Lesbian Review by David Bergman, January-February 2021
Felice Picano, Champion of Gay Literature, Is Dead at 81 - The New York Times
Edmund White and Emily Temple on Literary Feuds, Social Media, and Our Appetite for Drama Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 4

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S8 Ep. 24: Curtis Sittenfeld on Show Don’t Tell Mar 13, 2025

Show notes

Bestselling fiction writer Curtis Sittenfeld joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her new collection of stories, Show Don’t Tell. Sittenfeld discusses the title story, which depicts graduate students in creative writing competing for funding, and its connections to her time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, when that practice was common. She also considers how President Trump’s attacks on DEI reveal some people’s true natures, and what it means to write about “the hypocrisy of being a person.” Finally, she explains why she thinks of time as a plot twist, and reflects on returning to the protagonist of her debut novel, Prep, Lee Fiora, who reappears in the new collection’s final story, which features her thirtieth high school reunion. Sittenfeld reads from Show Don’t Tell.

This podcast is produced by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Curtis Sittenfeld

Show Don’t Tell (2025)
Romantic Comedy (2023)
Rodham (2021)
The Best American Short Stories 2020 (ed. with Heidi Pitlor)
You Think It, I’ll Say It (2019)
Eligible (2016)
Sisterland (2013)
American Wife (2008)
The Man of My Dreams (2006)
Prep (2005)

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S8 Ep. 23: Karen Weingarten/Abortion Stories Before Roe v. Wade Mar 06, 2025

Show notes

Professor Karen Weingarten joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about a new anthology she has edited, Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade. Weingarten reflects on the complicated history of abortion, the varied use of abortifacients, abortion’s ties to eugenics and state control of bodies, and the rise of the anti-abortion movement. She discusses how access to abortion facilitates other kinds of resistance, and explains how the book came to include authors like Maria Sybilla Merian, Langston Hughes, Dorothy Parker, Lucille Clifton, and Eugene O’Neill alongside oral histories from formerly enslaved persons and groundbreaking politicians like Shirley Chisholm. She talks about the stories she hopes to see represented in post-Dobbs writing and reads from her foreword to the anthology.

This podcast is produced by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan.

Selected Readings:

Karen Weingarten

Others