The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan

Latest Episodes:

Daniel Halpern on the Secret Sauce of Ecco Press Jan 04, 2021

Show notes

John Fowles. Annie Dillard. Russell Banks. Raymond Carver. Carolyn Forché. Richard Ford, Louise Glück. Anthony Bourdain. What do all of these writers have in common? They and many more have all been published by Daniel Halpern. On today’s episode of The Literary Life, Mitchell talks to publisher and poet Daniel Halpern about ushering 2021 and celebrate him and the fiftieth anniversary of his publishing imprint, Ecco Press.

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David Hopen on Translating the Pardes Legend to Modern Times Dec 18, 2020

Show notes

On today's episode, Mitchell talks to David Hopen about his debut novel, The Orchard, and the balance between secular involvement and rigorous tradition in modern Orthodox Judaism.

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The Team at Books & Books Recommends Their Holiday Picks Dec 11, 2020

Show notes

On today's episode, Mitchell's joined by Books & Books colleagues Cristina Nosti, Gaël LeLamer, and Christina Russell to discuss their favorite books of the year to add to your holiday gift list.

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Deesha Philyaw on the Pleasure of Writing the Lives of Dissatisfied Women Nov 27, 2020

Show notes

On today's episode, Mitchell talks to Deesha Philyaw about her National Book Award nominated collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, publishing a book during a pandemic and writing about dissatisfied women.

Deesha Philyaw's writing on race, parenting, gender, and culture has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney's, the Rumpus, Brevity, TueNight, and elsewhere. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, she currently lives in Pittsburgh with her daughters.

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Carlos Lozada: What Were—and What Now Are—We Thinking? Nov 13, 2020

Show notes

This week on The Literary Life, Mitchell Kaplantalks with Carlos Lozada about his new book, What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era. They discuss what led to writing the book, the current election results, and what is going to happen next in America.

Carlos Lozada is the nonfiction book critic of The Washington Post and winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

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What Must Happen Next? Russell Banks, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Blanco, and Fernand Amandi on the Current Election Nov 09, 2020

Show notes

Post-election, there are still urgent questions of the political and legal moment that must be addressed. Mitchell Kaplan is joined by Russell Banks, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Blanco, and Fernand R. Amandi to discuss what just happened and what must happen next, especially on how the Democratic party can connect with Trump voters across America.

RUSSELL BANKS, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is one of America’s most prestigious fiction writers, a past president of the International Parliament of Writers, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Common Wealth Award for Literature. He lives in upstate New York and Miami, Florida.

EDWIDGE DANTICAT is the author of numerous books, including Everything Inside: Stories (Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Story Prize and the 2020 Vilcek Prize in Literature), The Art of Death, a National Book Critics Circle finalist; Claire of the Sea Light, a New York Times Notable Book; Brother, I’m Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist; The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and winner of the inaugural Story Prize; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and Krik? Krak!, also a National Book Award finalist. A 2018 Neustadt International Prize for Literature winner and the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” grant, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, and elsewhere.

RICHARD BLANCO is the award-winning author of several books. Blanco’s poetry collections include City of a Hundred Fires,Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and How to Love a Country. He currently serves as the first-ever Education Ambassador for the Academy of American Poets and is a member of the Obama Foundation’s advisory council.FERNAND R. AMANDI is the managing partner of Bendixen & Amandi, the nation’s leading multilingual and multiethnic public opinion research and strategic communications consulting firm. Mr. Amandi is also an MSNBC contributor, instructor at the University of Miami, and host of the #StrangeDaysPodcast.

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Pete Souza on When Generosity of Spirit Reigned in Politics Oct 30, 2020

Show notes

This week, in lieu of the upcoming election, we revisit our conversation with Pete Souza, the former White House Staff Photographer to President Barack Obama, discuss his world famous photos, his *Shade Instagram,* special moments in the Obama White House and what’s to come in American politics.

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Jill McCorkle on the Voice She Channels When It's Time to Write a Rant Oct 23, 2020

Show notes

On this episode of The Literary Life, Jill McCorkle talks with Mitchell Kaplan about her new book, Hieroglyphics, and the role of a writer in difficult times.

This episode of The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan was recorded between North Carolina and Miami. Subscribe now on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you find your podcasts!

Jill McCorkle’s first two novels were released simultaneously when she was just out of college, and the New York Times called her “a born novelist.” Since then, she has published six novels and four collections of short stories, and her work has appeared in Best American Short Stories several times, as well as The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Five of her books have been New York Times Notable books, and her most recent novel, Life After Life, was a New York Times bestseller. She has received the New England Booksellers Award, the John Dos Passos Prize for Excellence in Literature, and the North Carolina Award for Literature. She has written for the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Garden and Gun, the Atlantic, and other publications. She was a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard, where she also chaired the department of creative writing. She is currently a faculty member of the Bennington College Writing Seminars and is affiliated with the MFA program at North Carolina State University.

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Allie Brosh: Everybody Wants to Touch Something in the Void Oct 16, 2020

Show notes

On this episode of The Literary Life, Allie Brosh talks with Mitchell Kaplan about her new book, Solutions and Other Problems, and how bad things still happen to good people.

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This episode of The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan was recorded between Bend and Miami. Subscribe now on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you find your podcasts!

Allie Brosh is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Hyperbole and a Half, which was named the Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Best Humor Book of the Year. Brosh has also given herself many prestigious awards, including “fanciest horse drawing” and “most likely to succeed.”

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"It's Our Turn Now": Writers Against Trump on the Fight for Democracy Oct 09, 2020

Show notes

On this episode of The Literary Life, Diane Roberts, Todd Gitlin, and Carolyn Forché talk with Mitchell Kaplan about Writers Against Trump, and how what started in response to a crisis of language became a full-fledged movement against fascism. To learn more about Writers Against Trump, go to https://www.writersagainsttrump.org/.

Host: Mitchell Kaplan

Producer: Carmen Lucas

Editor: Justin Alvarez, Lit Hub Radio

https://booksandbooks.com/

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