Otherppl with Brad Listi: Books & Culture

Latest Episodes:

Episode 256 — Adrianne Harun Mar 02, 2014

Show notes

Adrianne Harun is the guest. Her new novel, A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain, is now available from Penguin. Jess Walter calls it “Mythical, magical, and chillingly real…Adrianne Harun’s writing can hold you breathless.” And Library Journal raves “Harun’s mastery clearly lies in establishing atmosphere and mood. Much as it does to the novel’s characters, the gothic ambiance wraps around the reader and won’t let go. Laced with local color, this debut will please fans of the macabre.” Monologue topics: AWP 2014, negative reviews, literary criticism.

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AWP 2014 Special — Live at The HTMLGIANT House Mar 01, 2014

Show notes

This special episode of the podcast was recorded spur-of-the-moment on the afternoon of February 28, 2014. I had the chance to talk with some folks at The HTMLGIANT House who are up in Seattle for AWP. (The 'house' in question is the house that HTMLGIANT rented for the festivities.) Mira Gonzalez. Spencer Madsen. Gene Morgan. Some guys named Gabe and Patrick who were sitting in a hot tub. Hear it all, now, raw and uncut. Raw and uncut.

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Episode 255 — Kelcey Parker Feb 26, 2014

Show notes

Kelcey Parker is the guest. Her new novella, Liliane's Balcony: A Novella of Fallingwater, is now available from Rose Metal Press. Booklist says "The latest from Parker is an inventive novella hybrid, a mix of prose and poetry, past and present, heartbreak and humor. At the core is Liliane Kaufmann, the wife and first cousin of the philandering Edgar Kaufmann, who commissioned architect Frank Lloyd Wright to create the audacious Fallingwater, a Pennsylvania house built over a waterfall. Rippling out from the couple is a cast of characters spanning centuries. Without introduction or background, a different voice narrates each chapter as the iconic home itself becomes a central character. Interspersing fiction with fact (although fact outweighs fiction in this well-researched story), Parker reveals the tragic life of strong, intelligent Liliane, who is slowly eroded by a complicated marriage gone toxic. Adding dimension to her portrayal are three other women, all at different points of self-discovery, all potentially bound for a similar fate as Liliane. Not unlike Fallingwater’s structure, which masterfully balances the man-made with the natural, Parker sculpts and controls myriad, nearly unwieldy elements to construct a driven plot that illuminates the perched house and those who live within it." Monologue topics: mail, my long creative struggle, creativity identity, showing your work.

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Episode 254 — Randa Jarrar Feb 23, 2014

Show notes

Randa Jarrar is the guest. Her debut novel, A Map of Home, is now available from Penguin. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, raves Jarrar's sparkling debut about an audacious Muslim girl growing up in Kuwait, Egypt and Texas is intimate, perceptive and very, very funny. Nidali Ammar is born in Boston to a Greek-Egyptian mother and a Palestinian father, and moves to Kuwait at a very young age, staying there until she's 13, when Iraq invades. A younger brother is born in Kuwait, rounding out a family of complex citizenships. During the occupation, the family flees to Alexandria in a wacky caravan, bribing soldiers along the way with whiskey and silk ties. But they don't stay long in Egypt, and after the war, Nidali's father finds work in Texas. At first, Nidali is disappointed to learn that feeling rootless doesn't make her an outsider in the States, and soon it turns out the precocious and endearing Arab chick isn't very different from other American girls, a reality that only her father may find difficult to accept. Jarrar explores familiar adolescent ground—stifling parental expectations, precarious friendships, sensuality and first love—but her exhilarating voice and flawless timing make this a standout. Monologue topics: being in a rush, technology, my brain, teaching my daughter about music, Freddy Mercury, Billy Idol.

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Episode 253 — Spencer Madsen Feb 19, 2014

Show notes

Spencer Madsen is the guest. He is the founder of Sorry House, an independent press based in Brooklyn, and his new book of poetry, You Can Make Anything Sad, is due out from Publishing Genius Press in April. Dennis Cooper raves "When I read Spencer Madsen’s poetry, I not only feel awe because he’s so good, one of the best, but I also think about how everything in the world is happening at the same time, and how the world we get to know is so heavily edited down. It’s the hugest, weirdest feeling. I wish Spencer Madsen could be everywhere at once. I really love You Can Make Anything Sad.” Monologue topics: Mira Gonzalez, mail, misophonia, change of location.

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Episode 252 — Nina McConigley Feb 16, 2014

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Nina McConigley is the guest. Her debut story collection, Cowboys and East Indians, is now available from FiveChapters Books. Antonya Nelson says “What I love about this collection of stories is its wit and warmth. McConigley’s characters are “the wrong kind of Indians living in Wyoming,” and their struggles as exoticized and denigrated community members could be, in a less interesting writer’s hands, yet another scolding tract on America’s guilty conscience. Instead, this book celebrates human pluck and humor, a new sensibility for a new time, when everyone is both at home and utterly alien in the contemporary American west. A terrific read.” And Eleanor Henderson raves “Nina McConigley crafts out of the Wyoming landscape a West few readers have known before–a place where, when you don’t look like everyone else, there aren’t many places to hide. And yet anyone who has ever felt a complicated kind of love for home, country, and family will find pleasure and wisdom in these stunning stories.” Monologue topics: Valentine's Day, hatred of holidays, Presidents Day, love.

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Episode 251 — Aubrey Hirsch Feb 12, 2014

Show notes

Aubrey Hirsch is the guest. Her story collection, Why We Never Talk About Sugar, is now available from Braddock Avenue Books. Matt Bell says "In Why We Never Talk About Sugar, Aubrey Hirsch posits an uncertain world, offering us her characters at their most confused, frightened, obsessed. As protection against their troubles, these men and women cling often to science, and also to story and if these two ways of seeing cannot always save them, then still they might provide some comfort, some necessary and sustaining faith, the mechanisms of what greatest mysteries might await us all, when all else is stripped away." And Roxane Gay says "Aubrey Hirsch is a bright shining star of a writer and the stories in her flawless debut collection, Why We Never Talk About Sugar, are a little disturbing and a little strange and a little sweet but always a lot to hold on to. Hirsch shows us the charm of her imagination and how carefully she will break your heart. This is a book you will keep coming back to, the one you won t be able to stop talking about because it's that damn good." Monologue topics: mail, congratulating myself, Elizabeth Ellen, Fast Machine

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Episode 250 — Chris Parris-Lamb Feb 09, 2014

Show notes

Chris Parris-Lamb is the guest. He is a literary agent at The Gernert Company in New York City. His clients include Chad Harbach (The Art of Fielding) and Garth Risk Hallberg (City on Fire). The New York Observer says "Mr. Parris-Lamb has managed over the past year to sell a tall stack of books by first-time authors, some of them for money that would please even the most seasoned veterans." Also on this episode: A segment of my conversation with Gina Frangello, author of A Life in Men (Algonquin Books), the official February selection of The TNB Book Club. To hear the full hour with Gina, simply click here and sign up for Other People Premium. Monologue topics: insomnia, TED Talks, anger, disgust, tweets.

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Premium: Gina Frangello Feb 06, 2014

Show notes

Gina Frangello is the guest. Her new novel, A Life in Men, is the official February selection of The TNB Book Club. It is available now from Algonquin Books. Booklist raves “In this bravura performance, a quantum creative leap...Frangello astutely dissects the quandaries of female sexuality, adoption, terminal illness, and compound heartbreak in a torrent of tough-minded observations, audacious candor, and storytelling moxie.” And Emily Rapp says “Gina Frangello’s luminous novel is deeply human, darkly funny, seriously sexy; it brims with artistry and intelligence and heart...Frangello illuminates the ways in which life itself is an illusion, but a grand and beautiful and heartbreaking and brilliant one.” ***Note: This is a Premium episode. It is available for Premium subscribers only. Please sign up for Premium. It costs $2. That's it. Two bucks a month. (Or else you can pay $4.99 for six months of access, or $8.99 for a year.) You do that, you can listen to Gina's episode—plus you'll have access to the podcast's complete archives. Every single show. You can listen online here, or else you can listen while on the go via the free, official Other People app, available now for your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android device. Thanks for listening, everybody. -BL

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Episode 249 — Kyle Minor Feb 05, 2014

Show notes

Kyle Minor is the guest. His new story collection, Praying Drunk, is now available from Sarabande Books. Publishers Weekly raves "Similar to a great magic trick, the 13 stories in Minor's latest lure reader investment with strong visuals while simultaneously pulling the rug out from underfoot with clever, literary sleights-of-hand. Though not necessarily linked in the traditional sense, there is a sequential order to the collection--ideas, locations, incidents, and characters echo as the volume chugs forward--and the result is an often dazzling, emotional, funny, captivating puzzle." And Kirkus, in a starred review, says “An award-winning short fiction author offers twelve stories so ripe with realism as to suggest a roman à clef. . . . This brilliant collection unfolds around a fractured narrative of faith and friends and family, loved and lost.” Monologue topics: mail, co-branding, the inevitability of co-branding, Katy Perry, Rihanna, the virtue of unskillful co-branding.

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