The Archive Project

Latest Episodes:

Proving Up: Missy Mazzoli, Karen Russell, & Gabriel Kahane May 23, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, we share a The Archive Project exclusive: a collaboration with Oregon Symphony, featuring their Open Music program. Open Music is a new concert series in which composers featured in the classical subscription season offer a window into their spirit and creative process through an evening of music and conversation at an intimate venue in Portland.

In March, composer Missy Mazzoli joined the program. Time Out New York called Mazzoli “Brooklyn’s post-Millennial Mozart,” and she was recently commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera to adapt George Saunders’s novel Lincoln In the Bardon. At Missy’s Open Music evening, one of the pieces featured was an aria, “Who Owns the Land?,” from her opera Proving Up, which is based on a story from Karen Russell’s collection Vampires In the Lemon Grove.

This intersection of music and literature seemed ripe for further discussion, so we gathered Missy, Karen, and Open Music host and Oregon Symphony creative chair Gabriel Kahane at Literary Arts in downtown Portland for a conversation about adaptation.

These are three creative geniuses, and it is moving to hear them explore the narrative strengths of both the page and the stage. They go beyond direct adaptation of a source text, touching on how media consumption becomes source material, and their relationship to that as artists – how something ends up translated from one medium to another. The conversation is a fascinating look into the creative process.

Missy Mazzoli has composed works for opera, orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo artists, vocal artists, and films. As a performer, Mazzoli is active as a pianist and keyboardist, and often performs with her band Victoire. Mazzoli’s works have been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Young People’s Chorus of New York, pianist Emanuel Ax, Kronos Quartet, and the Detroit Symphony, among others. Her music has also been performed globally by eighth blackbird, the New York City Opera, the Sydney Symphony, and the Minnesota Orchestra. Mazzoli received a B.M. in Music Composition from Boston University in 2002, and an M.M. in Music Composition from the Yale School of Music in 2006. She also participated in graduate studies at the Royal Conservatory of Den Haag in the Netherlands. Mazzoli joined the faculty at Mannes College of Music at The New School in 2013.

Karen Russell won the 2012 and the 2018 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia! (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She has also written Orange World and, most recently, Sleep Donation. She has received a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, the “5 under 35” prize from the National Book Foundation, the NYPL Young Lions Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and is a former fellow of the Cullman Center and the American Academy in Berlin. She currently holds the Endowed Chair at Texas State University’s MFA program, and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and son.

A singer-songwriter, pianist, and composer, Gabriel Kahane works at the blurred edges of journalism, ethnography, storytelling, and music. He is currently the Creative Chair of the Oregon Symphony, which commissioned his 2018 oratorio, emergency shelter intake form. Over the last decade, Gabriel has worked in an array of diverse musical spaces. Memorable projects have included tours with Andrew Bird and Punch Brothers; recordings with Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers, and Blake Mills; and an arrangement of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” written for Paul Simon’s Farewell Tour in 2018. As a composer, he has been commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Carnegie Hall. Gabriel is also a regular guest on American Public Media’s Live From Here with Chris Thile.

Chinese American Cookbooks with Kristina Cho, Brandon Jew, & Tienlon Ho May 16, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a feast of a conversation about Chinese American cookbooks, cuisine, and the history of Chinatowns. The episode is entered on two great cookbooks released last year: Mooncakes and Milkbread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries by Kristina Cho, and Mister Jiu’s In Chinatown: Recipes and Stories from the Birthplace of Chinese American Food by chef Brandon Jew and writer Tienlon Ho. This trio came together with writer and editor Chris Ying to talk about their books, their experiences growing up Chinese American, and the role of Chinatowns.

There are vibrant Chinatowns in pretty much every major city in the world. The panel talks about the Chinatowns they knew growing up, and remember the iconic dishes of their upbringing. Their two cookbooks contain not only recipes but celebrate the history of Chinatowns and Chinese bakeries, respectively, and of Chinese American cooking.

Food and cooking and eating are so much about nostalgia and memory, but also about connection – not only back in time, but connecting people with each other. Chinatowns have been a vital part of creating that connection, through food, and it’s a treat to offer this conversation celebrating Chinese American cuisine.

Kristina Cho is a Bay Area–based food blogger, recipe developer, and cooking instructor. She’s originally from Cleveland, Ohio, where she grew up in her family’s Chinese restaurant. Cooking and sharing culture through food were always a huge part of her life. Before becoming a food blogger, Kristina studied and worked in architecture and interior design. Architecture instilled in her a designer’s attention to detail, a disciplined approach to iteration, and creative artistry. She has dedicated her professional career to making, teaching, writing about, and photographing her unique interpretations of Chinese food—everything from noodle soups to dumplings and, of course, baked goods.

Tienlon Ho (何天蘭) is a writer originally from Columbus, Ohio, where the best Chinese food was always in her family’s kitchen. She lives with Jon and Quin in San Francisco.

Brandon Jew (周英卓) is a native San Franciscan and the chef and co-owner with Anna Lee (the Missus) of Mister Jiu’s, a Chinese American restaurant in the heart of North America’s oldest Chinatown.

Richard Powers May 09, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature the novelist, Richard Powers. Powers is a writer whose work is difficult to define. It is literary fiction based in a kind of realism, but with elements of science fiction, fantasy, and highly original structural elements that keep readers a little off balance.

Powers won the National Book Award in 2006 for The Echo Maker. He is perhaps best known for his magisterial, Pulitzer Prize-winning and internationally best-selling 2019 novel, The Overstory. He joined us this year to also talk about his most recent book Bewilderment, which was published in fall 2021.

In his talked called, Easy Travel to Other Planets, which Powers describes as a kind of mini-autobiography, he recalls the facts and circumstances of his childhood, but also the life of his imagination as he grew up. The talk dives right to the heart of Powers’ craft, the mysterious origins of stories, including how Powers was shaped as an artist by watching the moon landing at the age of five.

After the live lecture, some audience members described it as one of the best Portland Arts & Lectures evenings they have ever attended. This is high praise for a series that’s been presenting for 38 years.

“More than any commodity that we humans chase after… we want meaning. Without meaning, all the rest is like drinking salt water: It just makes us thirstier. Something in us is desperate for connection to something out there. An adventure beyond ourselves.”

Richard Powers is the author of thirteen novels, including The Overstory, which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and spent over one year on the New York Times bestseller list. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award in 2006 for his novel The Echo Maker. Powers has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.

Amy Tan May 02, 2022

Show notes

In 1989, an unknown writer named Amy Tan published a novel entitled The Joy Club, and the career of a major American writer was born.

In this episode of The Archive Project, we are reaching deep into the archive to 1991, when we hosted Tan because there’s something very special about hearing from a writer at the very beginning of their career. At the time, The Joy Luck Club had been on the New York Times bestseller list for two full years and the movie of the book was in development, with Tan as the writer and producer. There was lots of anticipation about what this writer would do next. Of course, Tan has gone on to have an incredible literary career, publishing half a dozen novels, including the bestseller The Bonesetter’s Daughter, books for children, nonfiction, and most recently a memoir called Where the Past Begins.

In this talk, Tan takes us back through her life to talk about her parents who immigrated from China in 1949, how Mandarin influenced the ways she wrote—and writes—in English, and how she “found her voice by not finding it.” She also talks about her early days first as a freelancer and novice fiction writer when someone told her, upon hearing the premise of the short story that would become The Joy Luck Club, that “no one wants to read about Chinese mothers.” Of course, we now know that millions of readers in 35 counties actually did.

Amy Tan is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life, Saving Fish from Drowning, and two children’s books, The Moon Lady and The Chinese Siamese Cat, which was adapted into a PBS television series. Tan was also a co-producer and co-screenwriter of the film version of The Joy Luck Club. Her essays and stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and her work has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives with her husband in San Francisco and New York.

Oregon Shakespeare Festival: How I Learned What I Learned Apr 25, 2022

Show notes

This episode of The Archive Project is the third in our partnership with Oregon Shakespeare Festival. This week we’ll explore the work and legacy of August Wilson, centered on OSF’s upcoming production of his one-man play, How I Learned What I Learned.

August Wilson was a Pulitzer Prize–winning American playwright. His work focuses on the joys and struggles of African Americans in the 20^th century. He is perhaps most well-known for the ten-play American Century Cycle; each play focuses on African American life in Pittsburgh, his hometown, in a decade of the 20^th century. The cycle includes Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which have both been made into recent feature films.

In this conversation, How I Learned What I Learned is described as a prelude or coda to the American Century Cycle. The autobiographical, one-man play is portrait of the playwright as a young man, the story of his coming up in Pittsburgh and his time with a group of poets and artists in his Hill District neighborhood. Hearing how the play came to be is delightful, and this conversation is a wonderful introduction to one of the most important playwrights in the history of American theater, and one whose work remains incredibly relevant.

In our episode, OSF artistic director, Nataki Garrett, leads a conversation with the director, Tim Bond; the one-man play’s star, Steven Anthony Jones; and Constanza Romero, costume designer and creative consultant on the play – and August Wilson’s wife from 1994 until his death in 2005. It’s a real privilege to listen in on this conversation between four people who are not only so deeply engaged with Wilson’s work and legacy, but who actually knew him, and share sweet and funny stories.

View more information about How I Learned What I Learned on OSF’s website here: https://www.osfashland.org/en/productions/2022-plays/how-i-learned-what-i-learned.aspx

Tim Bond is thrilled to return to OSF with How I Learned What I Learned, and has directed 7 of the 10 plays that comprise August Wilson’s American Century Cycle. During his 11 seasons as Associate Artistic Director at OSF he directed 12 productions. Tim was named Artistic Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley in July of 2020, where he is directing August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean in April. Past leadership posts include Producing Artistic Director at Syracuse Stage, Artistic Director at Seattle Group Theatre, Artistic Director of The Paul Robeson Theatre, and Head of the Professional Actor Training Program at the University of Washington School of Drama. Tim has guest directed at many theatres nationally and internationally, including The Market Theatre (Johannesburg), Baxter Theatre Centre (Cape Town), The Guthrie Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Milwaukee Rep, Arena Stage, Cleveland Play House, Indiana Rep, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Arizona Theatre Company, Portland Center Stage, Dallas Theater Center, and A Contemporary Theatre (ACT). He is the recipient of two Backstage West Garland Awards, two Syracuse Area Live Theatre (SALT) Awards, and a Dallas-Fort Worth Critics Forum Award.

Nataki Garrett is the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s sixth artistic director. Since her appointment in April of 2019, she has guided the organization through numerous transitions and crises, all while building toward a more sustainable producing and fundraising model. Garrett’s forté and passion is fostering and developing new work, including those that adapt and devise new ways of performing the classics. She has directed and produced the world premieres of many well-known and important playwriting voices of our time, including Katori Hall, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Dominique Morriseau and Aziza Barnes. Garrett is a recipient of the first-ever Ammerman Prize for Directing, given by Arena Stage. She also received the National Endowment for the Arts and Theatre Communications Group Career Development Fellowship for Theatre Directors. She is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and a member of the board of directors for Theatre Communications Group, a company member at Woolly Mammoth, and an advisory board member for Mixed Blood Theatre. Garrett is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts with an MFA in directing. Full bio here.

Steven Anthony Jones was the artistic director of the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre from 2011 to 2017. He has worked professionally on stage, television, and in film for 42 years. He has performed in the works of Wilson, (Charles) Fuller, Fugard, Stoppard, Gotanda, Beckett, Pinter, Molière, Shakespeare, Chekhov, and others. Most recently, he played Becker in the Broadway tour of August Wilson’s Jitney.

Constanza Romero is a costume designer and creative consultant. She has been the executor of the August Wilson Estate since 2005; has produced Wilson’s works, including: Jitney (Manhattan Theater Club) and Fences (Cort Theatre, with Denzel Washington, 2010); and was a key participant in Q&A’s with the cast for multiple screenings of the 2016 film of Fences at various U.S. cities. Romero is an associate artist for Signature Theatre Company’s August Wilson Series. In five season at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Romero has worked on The Liquid Plain, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Trip to Bountiful, Topdog/Underdog, Richard II, and The Comedy of Errors (OSF, Portland). She has an MFA from the Yale School of Drama, and has taught costume design at the University of Washington and scenic design at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Verselandia! 2021 Apr 18, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature some of the incredible slam poets who performed as part of Verselandia!—the annual, city-wide youth poetry slam championship event, presented by Literary Arts—in 2021.

Each year, Portland-area youth spend the year writing and competing with their peers, and each April about twenty student finalists compete for the title of Portland Slam Champ. Because of the pandemic and school closures last year, we had to re-invent the live event to be a virtual competition in which poets submitted videos of their performances for the judges to rank.

What is important about this episode is that these young poets are thrilling to hear. They will give you chills, and perhaps bring tears to your eyes. And at this moment when it feels our society is cleaved with deep divisions, it is so important to take the time to really listen to young voices who are, after all, the future. These young writers come from all walks of life in the Portland area, and have incredible stories to tell.

In addition to these stunning performances, we’ll hear an original work from our event’s emcee and Oregon’s Poet Laureate, Anis Mojgani.

Content note: Some of these poems contain explicit language and mature content, which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Anis Mojgani is Oregon’s current Poet Laureate and the author of five books of poetry. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, and in journals Bat City Review, Rattle, Buzzfeed Reader, Thrush, and Forklift Ohio, amongst others. A two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam, Anis has done commissioned work for the Getty Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Portland Timbers, and has been awarded artist residencies from the Vermont Studio Center, AIR Serenbe, and the Bloedel Nature Reserve. Originally from New Orleans, Anis currently lives in Portland, OR, where he serves on the Board of Directors for Literary Arts. His latest collection is In the Pockets of Small Gods.

Three Poets from Portland Book Festival 2021 Apr 11, 2022

Show notes

As part of our celebration of National Poetry Month, this week on The Archive Project we feature excerpts from three Portland Book Festival virtual events, which took place in November 2021.

We’ll hear three conversations: First, a conversation with Christopher Rose and Donika Kelly, author of The Renunciations, which Oprah.com called “a lionhearted odyssey through the self,” in which the poet “offers us the words to create our own destinies.” Then poet and critic David Biespiel interviews Atsuro Riley, author of Heard Hoard, about his inventive, lyrical new collection told in a chorus of voices calling back to his birthplace in the South Carolina low-country. And finally, Devon Walker-Figueroa, author of Philomath, which contemplates, beauty, nature, and the landscape of the eponymous town in Oregon, dives deep into language, with poet Jennifer Perrine.

The three poets joined us remotely, beaming in from Iowa, San Francisco, and Brooklyn, and the interviewers were live from Literary Arts and Powell’s Bookstore as part of an evening of literary programming.

David Biespiel is a contributing writer at the New Republic, The New Yorker, Poetry, Politico, The Rumpus, and Slate. He is the author of six collections of poetry, four books of nonfiction, and is the editor of two anthologies. His most recent books include the memoirs, A Place of Exodus and The Education of a Young Poet, which was selected a Best Books for Writers by Poets & Writers, and a book of poems, Republic Cafe. Recipient of two Oregon Book Awards, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and Lannan, National Endowment for the Arts, and Stegner fellowships, he has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Award. He is Poet-in-Residence at Oregon State University where he teaches in the graduate Creative Writing Program and founder of the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters.

Donika Kelly is the author of Bestiary, winner of the 2015 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the 2017 Hurston/Wright Award for poetry, and the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Her most recent collection is The Renunciations. She teaches at the University of Iowa.

Jennifer Perrine is the author of four award-winning books of poetry: Again, The Body Is No Machine, In the Human Zoo, and No Confession, No Mass. Their recent poems, stories, and essays appear in New Letters, The Seventh Wave Magazine, JuxtaProse, The Rumpus, Buckman Journal, and The Gay & Lesbian Review. Perrine lives in Portland, Oregon, where they co-host the Incite: Queer Writers Read series, teach creative writing to youth and adults, and serve as a diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) consultant.

Atsuro Riley is the author of Heard-Hoard (University of Chicago Press, 2021), winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, and Romey’s Order (University of Chicago Press, 2010), winner of the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, The Believer Poetry Award, and the Witter Bynner Award from the Library of Congress. His work has been honored with the Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, the Pushcart Prize, and the Wood Prize given by POETRY magazine. Brought up in the South Carolina lowcountry, Riley lives in San Francisco.

Christopher Rose is originally from Seattle, Washington, and he teaches poetry, African American Literature, and Science Fiction at Portland Community College in Portland, Oregon. His poems have appeared in Fjords Review: Black American Edition, The Pariahs Anthology, Yellow Chair Review, TAYO Literary Magazine, The Hawaii Review, and others. He is a NEH Summer Institute Scholar and a Cave Canem Fellow.

Devon Walker-Figueroa is the author of Philomath (Milkweed Editions, 2021), selected for the National Poetry Series by Sally Keith and of the chapbook, So Lame (Berfrois, 2019). A graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the current Jill Davis Fellow in fiction at NYU, her work has appeared in the The Nation, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.

Charles Simic Apr 04, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature Charles Simic from a Poetry Downtown event in 2007. Charles Simic was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1938, and some of his earliest memories are of German bombs falling on the city. Later the Russian army would arrive. In 1954, Simic was brought to the United States by his family and, at the age fifteen, he began to learn English.

It’s remarkable that nearly half a century later, Simic would be named Poet Laureate of the United States, the same year of this recording. Over the course of his career, Simic has won nearly every prize for poetry, including the Pulitzer, and has published essays, edited anthologies and translated poetry from French, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovenian.

In this recording, Simic reads from work that spans his career, from his violent and also tender childhood, to his early life in Chicago and New York, and then later about New Hampshire where he taught for decades. One reviewer’s comments seem to sum up the experience of reading and hearing his work: “There are few poets writing in America today who share his lavish appetite for the bizarre, his inexhaustible repertoire of indelible characters and gestures… Simic is perhaps our most disquieting muse.”

And in the contrasts among his poems, as he leapfrogs around the decades, a strange resonance can be found with our world today, both here in the US and abroad, at this very strange and particular moment.

Charles Simic, poet, essayist, and translator, was born in Yugoslavia in 1938 and immigrated to the United States in 1954. Since 1967, he has published twenty books of his own poetry, in addition to a memoir; the essay collection The Life of Images; and numerous books of translations for which he has received many literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin Prize, the MacArthur Fellowship, and the Wallace Stevens Award. Simic is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and in 2007 was chosen as poet laureate of the United States. He is emeritus professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he has taught since 1973, and is distinguished visiting writer at New York University.

Paulann Petersen‘s collections of poetry include The Wild Awake (2002), Blood-Silk (2004), A Bride of Narrow Escape (2005), Kindle (2008), and The Voluptuary (2010). Her work has appeared widely in journals such as Prairie Schooner, Calyx, Poetry Northwest, and Poetry. A former Wallace Stegner fellow and recipient of two Carolyn Kizer Awards, Petersen has also received the Stewart Holbrook Award for Outstanding Contributions to Oregon’s Literary Life. She is on the board of the Friends of William Stafford, and helps organize events and celebrations of the poet across the country. In 2010, she was elected the state of Oregon’s sixth Poet Laureate.

Gary Shteyngart Mar 28, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature a reading and conversation about the pandemic lockdowns and how people tried to get through them. They contain stories both sad and funny, strange and completely every day. We thought you’d want to hear them as we all begin to reckon with this strange and challenging time.

First up is Katherine D. Morgan, who reads her short essay, Wish You Were Here, at the Portland Art Museum as part of the 2020 Portland Book Festival. Then we hear from the hilarious novelist and essayist Gary Shteyngart, in conversation with Portland-based writer Jon Raymond, from the 2021 Portland Book Festival.

Note: Parts of this conversation touch on mature themes that may not be suitable for all listeners.

Katherine D. Morgan is the author of the debut chapbook No Self-Respecting Woman (Dorsa Brevia, ‘19). Her essay about the presidential election of Donald Trump will be featured in the upcoming anthology Fury: Women’s Lived Experience During the Trump Era, published by Pact Press in May 2020. Katherine’s work has appeared or is forthcoming at Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Portland Mercury, HelloGiggles, Pass/Fail, Ravishly, JMWW, and The Establishment. She lives in Portland, Oregon, where you can find her snuggling with her cat Ramona, and crying during the series finale of Frasier.

Gary Shteyngart was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. His debut novel, The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His second novel, Absurdistan, was named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. His novel Super Sad True Love Story won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and became one of the most iconic novels of the decade. His memoir, Little Failure, was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and a New York Times bestseller.His most recent novel is Lake Success. His books regularly appear on best-of lists around the world and have been published in thirty countries. His most recent book is Our Country Friends.

Jon Raymond is the author of three novels, Rain Dragon, The Half-Life, and Freebird, and the short-story collection Livability. His work has appeared in Tin House, the Village Voice, Bookforum, and other places. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Everybody Reads: Mira Jacob Mar 21, 2022

Show notes

In this episode of The Archive Project, we bring you a talk from Mira Jacob, which was the culminating event of the 2022 Everybody Read’s program.

Every year, the Multnomah County Library chooses one book they hope the whole city of Portland will read. Between January and April, the Library and their partner organizations, host events based around the themes of the book. And they distribute thousands of free copies—thanks to The Library Foundation—to readers of all ages from across the county. Here at Literary Arts, our role is to bring the featured author to town for a talk in front of a live audience.

This year, the Library selected Mira Jacob’s graphic memoir Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations.

In 2017, Jacob started posting comics to Instagram, featuring conversations with her young son. He had a lot of questions, many of them about Michael Jackson, and she did her best to answer them honestly. That project became Good Talk. The book is about her immediate and extended family, and it’s about coming of age and living in America as a woman, as a person of color, and as an artist. It asks more questions than it answers. Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere, said, “By turns hilarious and heart-rending, it’s exactly the book America needs at this moment.”

The talk you are about to hear is remarkable not only for its depth of insight, but also for its range. Jacob is by turns tender, hilarious, sarcastic and sincere. Jacob talks about the deeply personal creative journey to creating Good Talk, and also explores the national context in which it was created—the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson or the political rise of Donald Trump, for example—and how they challenged her understanding of herself, her family, and the narrative about America she’s heard her whole life.

“The thing I love about us is that we are the animals that will [talk to each other] again and again and again with this brazen hope that this time we will be understood. And sometimes we really are understood. Sometimes we really do hear each other. Sometimes it really is a good talk.”

Mira Jacob is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, and the graphic memoir Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations. Her recent work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Vogue, Glamour, Tin House, Electric Literature and Literary Hub. She lives in Brooklyn.

“[Art is] something that no one has asked you for, and yet you feel compelled to create it.”

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Content note: Some of these poems contain explicit language and mature content, which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Note: Parts of this conversation touch on mature themes that may not be suitable for all listeners.

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected