Skylight Books Podcast Series

Latest Episodes:

Made in L.A., Vol. 2: Chasing the Elusive Dream Aug 06, 2019

Show notes

The Made in L.A. indie author co-op presents contributors to the latest installment of their annual fiction anthology series, Made in L.A. Vol. 2: Chasing the Elusive Dream. Join a publication party with local authors who have a passion for writing about their home.

While the first volume was rooted in Los Angeles, this second volume focuses on goals, dreams, and the distant horizon. It explores the fantasies people carry with them to L.A., as well as the dreams Angelenos dream while surrounded by this vast and evolving city.

This anthology series showcases a diverse range of voices and genres. Like the City of Angels where these stories were born, nothing is off-limits. Literary or contemporary, fantasy or science fiction, each story in this volume invites you to view this urban landscape through a different lens. The evening will include discussions about what we find inspiring about Los Angeles, how our stories came about, and a behind-the-scenes peek at indie publishing and the DIY production of hyper-local literary culture.

Lisa Taddeo, "THREE WOMEN" w/ Clarissa Cruz Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

Lina, a homemaker in suburban Indiana, is a decade into a passionless marriage when she embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming and transforms her life. Sloane, a glamorous entrepreneur in the northeast, is married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. Maggie, a high school student in North Dakota, begins a relationship with her English teacher that will have extraordinary consequences for them both—as well as the community in which they live.

For nearly a decade, Lisa Taddeo, an award-winning journalist and longtime contributor to New York magazine and Esquire, embedded herself with Three Women to write this deeply immersive account of their erotic lives and longings. The result—shocking, powerful, and timely—reads like George Packer’s The Unwinding, but for the state of female desire. Three Women is a major work from an exhilarating new voice.

Taddeo is in conversation with Clarissa Cruz, Features Editor at Entertainment Weekly.

Janet Fitch, "CHIMES OF A LOST CATHEDRAL" Aug 02, 2019

Show notes

The story of The Revolution of Marina M. continues in bestselling author Janet Fitch's sweeping epic about a young woman's coming into her own against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution.

After the events of The Revolution of Marina M., the young Marina Makarova finds herself on her own amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War---pregnant and adrift in the Russian countryside, forced onto her own resourcefulness to find a place to wait out the birth of her child. She finds new strength and self-reliance to fortify her in her sojourn, and to prepare her for the hardships and dilemmas still to come.

When she finally returns to Petrograd, the city almost unrecognizable after two years of revolution, the haunted, half-emptied, starving Capital of Once Had Been, she finds the streets teeming with homeless children, victims of war. Now fully a woman, she takes on the challenge of caring for these civil war orphans, until they become the tool of tragedy from an unexpected direction.

But despite the ordeal of war and revolution, betrayal and privation and unimaginable loss, Marina at last emerges as the poet she was always meant to be.

Chimes of a Lost Cathedral finishes the epic story of Marina's journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century---as a woman and an artist, entering her full power, passion, and creativity just as her revolution reveals its true direction for the future.

Words Uncaged Reading Aug 01, 2019

Show notes

"When I first visited California State Prison, Lancaster what I saw there were not prisoners, but cages filled of hundreds of lights —lights of knowledge, wisdom, compassion, love, insight and remorse. It was as if hundreds of candles had been locked in a distant closet, or that the stars had been hidden behind the blanket of the desert night, denying us the light that they had to shine upon the world." --Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy

Words Uncaged is a creative platform, created by the men of A-Yard California State Prison, Lancaster, and CalState LA professor Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy. Its purpose is for incarcerated artists, writers, students and poets to dialogue and critically engage with you. We invite you to experience our voices--uncaged from the prison walls. We invite you to rethink who incarcerated men are. We invite you to explore our common humanity together. We invite you to imagine alternatives to our current system of mass incarceration in the United States.

David Marlett, "AMERICAN RED" Jul 31, 2019

Show notes

The men and women of American Red are among the most fascinating in American history. When, at the dawn of the 20th century, the Idaho governor is assassinated, blame falls on “Big Bill” Haywood, the all-powerful, one-eyed boss of the Western Federation of Miners in Denver. Close by, his polio-crippled wife, Neva, struggles with her wavering faith, her love for another man, and her sister’s affair with her husband. New technologies accelerate American life, but justice lags behind. Private detectives, battling socialists and unions on behalf of wealthy capitalists, will do whatever it takes to see Haywood hanged. The scene is set for bloodshed, from Denver to Boise to San Francisco. America’s most famous attorney, Clarence Darrow, leads the defense—a philandering U.S. senator leads the prosecution—while the press, gunhands, and spies pour in. Among them are two idealists, Jack Garrett and Carla Capone—he a spy for the prosecution, she for the defense. Risking all, they discover truths about their employers, about themselves and each other, and what they’ll sacrifice for justice and honor—and for love.

David Marlett is an award-winning storyteller and writer of historical fiction, primarily historical legal thrillers bringing alive the fascinating people and events leading to major historical trials.

Evening of Poetry with Red Hen Press Jul 30, 2019

Show notes

Join Red Hen Press for an evening of poetry readings, featuring Eloise Klein Healy, Ron Koertge, Kim Dower, and Francesca Bell.

Claudia D. Hernández, "KNITTING THE FOG" w/ Josie Méndez-Negrete Jul 29, 2019

Show notes

Weaving together narrative essay and bilingual poetry, Knitting the Fog is the complex self-portrait of a young Chapina girl who wakes up to find her mother gone. When her mother returns three years later, they begin a month-long journey to El Norte.

Once settled in California, Claudia has trouble assimilating--she doesn't speak English, and her Spanish is "weird"--but when back in Guatemala, she is startled to find she no longer belongs there either. Claudia Hernández alternates between lyrical prose and poetry, English and Spanish, to tell the human story of one girl—her struggles, her triumphs, and her growing sense of self—as she navigates a turbulent world in the eighties and nineties. It is a story told in unforgettable vignettes, and is a vivid portrait of immigration, both specific to its time and as timely as ever.

Hernández is joined in conversation by Josie Méndez-Negrete, Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

SWITCHBLADE MAGAZINE: Live Reading Jul 10, 2019

Show notes

Join the writers of Switchblade Magazine, a quarterly noir fiction digest-sized magazine now going into its 10th issue, for a selection of readings. Readers include A.B. Patterson, Ashley Erwin, Andrew Miller, Jon Zalazny, Rex Weiner, Renee Asher Pickup, Lisa Douglass, Richard Risemberg, and Scotch Rutherford.

Darrel McLeod, "MAMASKATCH" Jul 09, 2019

Show notes

As a small boy in remote Alberta, Darrel J. McLeod is immersed in his Cree family’s history, passed down in the stories of his mother, Bertha. There he is surrounded by her tales of joy and horror—of the strong men in their family, of her love for Darrel, and of the cruelty she and her sisters endured in residential school—as well as his many siblings and cousins, and the smells of moose stew and wild peppermint tea. And there young Darrel learns to be fiercely proud of his heritage and to listen to the birds that will guide him throughout his life.

But after a series of tragic losses, Bertha turns wild and unstable, and their home life becomes chaotic. Sweet and eager to please, Darrel struggles to maintain his grades and pursue interests in music and science while changing homes, witnessing domestic violence, caring for his younger siblings, and suffering abuse at the hands of his brother-in-law. Meanwhile, he begins to question and grapple with his sexual identity—a reckoning complicated by the repercussions of his abuse and his sibling’s own gender transition.

Thrillingly written in a series of fractured vignettes, and unflinchingly honest, Mamaskatch—“It’s a wonder!” in Cree—is a heartbreaking account of how traumas are passed down from one generation to the next, and an uplifting story of one individual who overcame enormous obstacles in pursuit of a fulfilling and adventurous life.

PEN America: Emerging Voices Meet & Greet Jul 08, 2019

Show notes

PEN America presents the 2019 Emerging Voices Fellows, alumni, and mentors in conversation on the 2020 application cycle at Skylight Books.

The evening will include summer cocktails, short readings, a fellowship overview, and audience Q&A. Featuring Judy Choi, Anthony Hoang, Fajer Alexander Khansa, T.K. Lê, Dare Williams, and Fellowship Manager Amanda Fletcher.