The guest is Barry Eisler.  He’s the author of several bestselling thrillers, the most recent of which is The Detachment, which caused a stir in publishing earlier this year when Eisler turned down a six-figure deal from St. Martin’s and decided instead to strike out on his own and self-publish—before eventually winding up with an exclusive deal at Amazon.

We talk about that.  We talk about other stuff.

Barry is an incredible talker.

Topics of conversation include:  media filters, government, the Kodokan, Jon Stewart, drone strikes, manipulation of language, Anwar al-Alaki, Jose Padilla, due process, legacy publishers, Glenn Greenwald, the CIA, intelligence, Scott Horton, publishing, J.A. Konrath, brand consciousness, retarding the growth of digital, and Amazon.

Please remember to subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher. It’s free.

Or just push PLAY below.

Thanks, everybody.  Enjoy the show.

-BL

PS. If you like the podcast, please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

Other People with Brad Listi

Publishing impresario Richard Nash with some kind words for the show.

Other People with Brad Listi

I’ve been interviewed by Drew Nellins over at HTML Giant.

An excerpt:

Other People with Brad Listi is a twice-weekly author interview show with a unique literary emphasis. Rather than focusing on their books, Listi asks his writer guests to open up about their lives as writers, what’s driving them, how they work, their personal philosophies and their opinions of other writers’ books. Sometimes an episode seems to be about everything except the subject’s latest book. Whatever they talk about, the shows—which typically clock in at just over an hour—are almost always filled with interesting conversation, and Listi has, in just a few months, had a lot of terrific guests, including Blake Butler, Steve Almond, Victoria Patterson, Joshua Mohr, and Dennis Cooper….

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE

Other People with Brad Listi

Charles Shields is the guest.  He’s the author of And So It Goes — Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, now available in hardcover from Henry Holt.  Shields is also the author of Mockingbird:  A Portrait of Harper Lee, also available from Holt.

This is the first authoritative biography of Vonnegut ever written, with Vonnegut himself authorizing the project prior to his death in 2007.

We talk all things Kurt.

Topics of conversation include:  Indianapolis, Dresden, Cornell, PTSD, suicide, The Great Depression, family, journalism, WWII, The Battle of the Bulge, Billy Pilgrim, Slaughterhouse Five, Joe Crone, creative burnout, Jill Krementz, Cape Cod, New York City, Sardi’s, divorce, tragedy, self-loathing, and the psychology of meeting famous people.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show over at iTunes, if you haven’t already done so. It’s free. Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Or just push PLAY below.

Many thanks, & enjoy the show…

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Dennis Cooper is the guest.  He’s the author of several books, including The Sluts, God Jr., the five novels of the George Miles cycle, and, most recently, The Marbled Swarm, now available from Harper Perennial.

“Disquieting, humbling, and sadly beautiful in the way only Dennis Cooper can be,” raves Patrick deWitt.  “The Marbled Swarm is a mystifying and courageous novel that represents [Cooper's] finest work to date.”

And Booklist says:  “Readers unfamiliar with transgressive fiction would do well to brace themselves for what will either be the shock of the unrelentingly different or, perhaps, the shock of recognizing writing that speaks to their souls.”

Dennis is a great guest.  We talk about stuff.

Topics of conversation include:  Los Angeles, Paris, F Troop, growth spurts, Rimbaud, Sade, vegetarianism, self-publishing, punk, anarchy, school, Ginsberg, Burroughs, England, Little Caesar, blogging, New York, Blake Butler, Art Forum, SPIN, the Pompidou, sex, violence, David Lynch, and porn writing as a creative exercise.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher.  It’s free.

Or just push PLAY below.

Thanks for listening.

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Darin Strauss is today’s guest.  He is the author of three novels—Chang & Eng, The Real McCoy, and More Than It Hurts You.  And his most recent book is a memoir called Half a Life (McSweeney’s) which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The New York Times Book Review calls it “…elegant, painful, [and] stunningly honest.”

And Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, says, “[Half a Life] is a searingly self-disciplined work of literature, and of self-examination…the impact is staggering and unforgettable.”

Plenty to talk about here.

Topics of conversation include:  short books, Courier New, guilt, PTSD, the performative aspects of grief, auto-responders, subconscious motives, Dave Eggers, writing slowly, conjoined twins, Philip Roth, emoticons, David Lipsky, gestation periods, and the difference between history and memoir.

Please be sure to subscribe to the show over at iTunes, if you haven’t already done so. It’s free.  Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Or just push PLAY below.

Many thanks, and enjoy the show…

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

I’ve been interviewed by Electric Literature, which has some really nice things to say about the podcast.  Many thanks to Julia Jackson, editor of the Electric Dish.

Here’s the intro to the interview:

A few weeks ago, I first listened to a new literary podcast: Other People with Brad Listi, which I found through Melissa Febos‘ Facebook profile. She was interviewed on it, as well as other people that I admire and am interested in: Victoria Patterson, Megan Boyle, Steve Almond, Emma Straub, and more. While I expected the podcast to be interesting I was blown away, finding it downright enjoyable — and now I’m hooked. In a world full of distractions — where almost everything I encounter is practically begging me not to write — Brad Listi’s podcast has made me hit the pause button on my iTunes, blow off social obligations, and sit my ass down in a chair and write. The show is funny, insightful, entertaining, affirming, and, more than anything — inspiring. It easily one of the best podcasts on the web. Because I am now such a fan I wanted to ask Brad a few questions, and he kindly obliged.

To read the rest, just click right here.

Other People with Brad Listi

The guest is Elissa Schappell, author of the story collections Use Me (William Morrow), which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the brand new Blueprints for Building Better Girls, available now from Simon & Schuster.

A former senior editor at The Paris Review, Elissa is a contributing editor and the Hot Type book columnist at Vanity Fair.  She is also the co-founder and editor-at-large of Tin House magazine.

Topics of conversation include: feathers, taxidermy, pigeons, Mike Tyson, Tin House, face tattoos, Delaware, Joe Biden, social identity, elegant segues, the Lower East Side, talking in circles, chameleons, empathy, social graces, George Plimpton, The Paris Review, New York City, temporal lobe epilepsy, Berlin, Portugal, Spy magazine, Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, and the abundance of good writers in the world.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, please do. It’s free.

Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Or just press PLAY below.

Okay then.  Thanks, as always, for tuning in and listening.

Enjoy…

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Today’s guest:  Katie Arnoldi, the bestselling author of three novels:  Chemical Pink, The Wentworths, and Point Dume.

This one’s gonna blow your mind, people.  Just trust me.  It’ll make you want to buy a plane ticket.  It’ll make you want to stow away on a boat.  It’ll make you want to go undercover and rescue a POW in a war-torn Third World country.

Topics of conversation include:  marijuana, Mexican drug cartels, surfing, surf Nazis, art, discipline, lighting one’s hair on fire while making a quesadilla, southeast Utah, road trips, books on tape, experiential learning, Blackhawk helicopters, wanderlust, field research, sharks, kids, Tasers, camping, the Venice Biennale, the artist Paul McCarthy, and getting out of one’s own way creatively.

Please subscribe to the show over at iTunes, if you haven’t done so already.  It’s free.

Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Or just push PLAY below.

Many thanks & enjoy…

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Joshua Mohr is the guest.  He’s the author of three novels:  Some Things That Meant the World to Me, Termite Parade, and, most recently, Damascus.  All are available from Two Dollar Radio, one of America’s finest independent presses.

“The bard of the underbelly,” says Jonathan Evison.

A rave for Damascus from The Rumpus:  “It’s as if [Mohr] is standing over your shoulder lighting each page with a match as you read.”

A very good talk with a rising star writer.  We discuss things.

Topics of conversation include: teaching, San Francisco, the benefits of insomnia, Hubert Selby Jr., coffee, punk rock, gentrification, creatively permissive cities, Arizona, Kurt Vonnegut, kids, monkishness, priorities, readerships, addiction, The Big Lebowski, fairy tales, reality television, and poets who live in their cars.

If you haven’t subscribed to the show over at iTunes, please do. It’s free.

Or, if you’re a Stitcher person, you can subscribe there, too.

Or just press PLAY below.

Many thanks.  Enjoy the show….

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Megan Boyle is the guest.  She’s the author of selected unpublished blog posts of a mexican panda express employee, an unorthodox debut poetry collection from Muumuu House.

At the time of this interview, she had been up for 36 hours and was staying at her dad’s place in Baltimore.

Topics of conversation include: Baltimore, Applebee’s, Tao Lin, Las Vegas, Beanie Babies, Brooklyn, Chicago, green juice, juicing, meditative activities, seclusion, Orion’s belt, aliens, acting, awkwardness, relationships, shyness, Internet literature, MDMA, MDMA films, LSD, Bebe Zeva, Jordan Castro, Noah Cicero, Twitter, blogging, iMovie, Brandon Gorrell, Carles, AOL chat rooms, documentary film, birds, social anxiety, adderall, sleeplessness, and accidental books.

You can push PLAY below. You can subscribe for free at iTunes. Or you can subscribe for free at Stitcher.

Many thanks for listening.

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

“Evocative of David Foster Wallace,” writes Rolling Stone, “full of death-defying sentences, manic wit, exciting provocations and simple human warmth.”

Topics of conversation include:  page counts, cigarettes, discipline, work schedules, exotic fowl, McSweeney’s, readings, paranoia over readings, Facebook, Dave Eggers, Flannery O’Connor, the sound of writing, whispering birds, psychotic muttering, sentient beings, day jobs, teaching, Chicago, metalheads, punk rockers, George Saunders, bad posture, back pain, Hemingway, Nabokov, caffeine, hemorrhoids, Mary Gaitskill, fear of doctors, pedophiles, thyroglossal duct cysts, and more.

You can push PLAY below.  You can subscribe for free at iTunes.  Or you can subscribe for free at Stitcher.

Thanks for listening.

-BL

PS.  Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  Email me at letters [at] otherpeoplepod [dot] com.

Other People with Brad Listi

Good news!  The editors at McSweeney’s have included Other People in the latest edition of their ‘McSweeney’s Recommends’ column.

Some very kind words about the show:

My thanks to the folks at McSweeney’s!

And: humbling to have the show compared to WTF.  Marc Maron is brilliant. If you’re not listening to him, something’s wrong with you.

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Alexander Maksik is the guest.  An old buddy of mine, one of the original writers at The Nervous Breakdown, and a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, where he was a Truman Capote Fellow.

He’s now the author of You Deserve Nothing, one of the most buzzed-about novels of the fall season.  It’s available from Tonga Books, an imprint of Europa Editions.

We get into it.

Topics of conversation include:  book tour, wayward youth, Australia, lost cause love affairs, Andy Warhol, Lycra biking shorts, method acting, teaching, Brooklyn, pizza delivery, body waxing, Bill Paxton, Planet Hollywood, Paris, Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, exhaustion resulting from the complete dismantling of a fantasy, Craig’s List, Alice Sebold, Spain, luck, persistence, Iowa, Top Gun, Ketchum, the future, and more.

Don’t forget:

Subscribe at iTunes (free!).  Subscribe at Stitcher (free!).

Or, if you’d like, just push PLAY below, or just download straight to your desktop.

Etcetera.

Thank you!

-BL

PS.  Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  Email me at letters [at] otherpeoplepod [dot] com.

Other People with Brad Listi

Okay then.  Here we go.  Episode 8 is here.  It’s ready.  You can listen to it.  Just push PLAY (below).  Or subscribe for free at iTunes.

The guest is Victoria Patterson, author of the story collection Drift and the debut novel This Vacant Paradise, both from Counterpoint, both critically acclaimed, both set in Newport Beach, California.

We cover a lotta ground.  A lotta interesting backstory…Tory’s upbringing in The OC.  What that was like.  Her struggles as an adolescent.  Her struggles with substance abuse.  Her eventual transcendence.  Her time in graduate school.  Her writing.

It’s an illuminating conversation.

Thanks, as always, for listening.  Back on Sunday with another show.

Stay tuned.

-BL

PS.  Questions?  Comments?  Concerns?  Email me at letters [at] otherpeoplepod [dot] com.

Other People with Brad Listi