Susan Sherman is the guest.  She’s the author of the acclaimed debut novel The Little Russian, now available from Counterpoint Press.  And she’s also the co-creator of one of the most successful television shows in the history of Disney.

Library Journal, in a starred review, has this to say about The Little Russian:

“Sherman’s extraordinary debut novel plunges her readers into the bitter cold, deprivation, and upheaval of early 20th-century wartime Russia…a fascinating mix of petty vanity, devoted parenting, and breathtaking courage, fleshed out with cinematic detail that’s both irresistible and spectacularly illuminating. All fiction readers will enjoy.”

So much to talk about here.

Topics of conversation include:  Russia, Green Bay, fur, negotiating, luck, television writing, Hollywood, Disney, agents, girl teams, timing, sexism, money, freedom, France, death, collaboration, history, research, immaturity, cave people, narrative sculpture, and religion.

Monologue topics:  complaining, Navy SEALS, perspective, art problems, human agony, man’s search for meaning, and war.

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

Or just push PLAY below.

Many thanks for listening, and enjoy the program…

-BL

PS. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

Other People with Brad Listi

Full Stop magazine has written about the podcast:

In the past week I came across two rather disparate author reactions to their fans. Strangely enough, the “nice guy” writes books that focus on, in his words, “a preoccupation with the invasive nature of violence in our lives.” The not-so-nice guy is a children’s book author.

It all started with Brad Listi’s brilliant “Other People” podcast, specifically an interview with Alan Heathcock, author of the critically acclaimed story collection Volt. Alan spoke about his intensive book touring schedule, which lasted from March through November and involved a lot of time away from his wife and kids. When Brad asked if he ever got tired of the touring grind, Alan shared a surprising answer:

To read the rest, just click right here.

Other People with Brad Listi

D.R. Haney is the guest.  He’s the author of the novel Banned for Life (And/Or Press) and the nonfiction collection Subversia, now available from TNB Books.

PANK magazine calls Subversia “…heartfelt and personal…a joyful read…”

Duke is an old friend.  We get into it.

Topics of conversation include:  city buses, alienation, poor people, fistfights, male vanity, cocaine, acting, cinema, horror, Marlon Brando, Roger Corman, Jason Voorhees, OCD, Charles Manson, Virginia, The Nervous Breakdown, Williamsburg, Serbia, agents, Montgomery Clift, day jobs, night owls, bipolar disorder, editing, therapy, and the Lower East Side.

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

Or just push PLAY below.

Many thanks,

-BL

PS. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

Other People with Brad Listi

Roxane Gay is the guest.  Her debut, Ayiti, is a collection of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and it is now available from Artistically Declined Press.  She is an English professor at Eastern Illinois University, co-editor of PANK magazine, fiction editor at Bluestem, and a regular contributor at HTML Giant.

An interesting conversation with one of indie lit’s most industrious and prolific writers.

Topics include:  Haiti, Ayiti, the pronunciation of “Ayiti,” Omaha, immigration, Phillips Exeter Academy, television, tiger moms, soap operas, sugar cereals, Victor Newman, 90210, architecture, Yale, dropping out, cracking up, road trips, chat rooms, love affairs, older men, Montpelier, Michigan Tech, technical writing, Eastern Illinois, Indianapolis, respect, advanced degrees, titles, online literature, Sean Penn, sugar daddies, insomnia, and philanthropy.

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

Or just push PLAY below.

Many thanks,

-BL

PS. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

Other People with Brad Listi

Other People with Brad Listi

A very unique and gifted writer with a big future ahead of him.

We talk about all kinds of things.

Topics of conversation include:  warts, needles, sunshine, The New Yorker, alligators, Harvard, Dennis Etchison, calculus, SAT scores, television, AFI, story structure, diagrams, moose, Santa Claus, screenwriting, mental hospitals, Darren Arnofsky, God, Echo Park, the grueling nature of writing, premeditation, and the subconscious.

Don’t forget 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!

PS2.  Photo above by Heather Conley.

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

Today’s guest is John Warner.  He’s the author of four books, most recently a debut novel called The Funny Man, available now from SoHo Press.  And he’s also the longtime editor of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Publishers Weekly calls The Funny Man “[An] equally sickening and humorous portrait of the celebrity as a delusional man.”

And the New York Journal of Books says:

“The Funny Man joins a short list of intelligent, dark comedies about self-loathing main characters whose success is built on the poor taste and/or low IQ of the American public…[the book] puts Warner among the most perceptive and edgy chroniclers of an increasingly coarse American culture.”

This one was fun.  Really enjoyed talking with John.

Topics of conversation include:  Lake Charles, McSweeney’s, tent revivals, McNeese State, bicycle cops, Robert Olen Butler, John Hughes, Chicago, Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, South Carolina, church, the phrase “bless your heart,” The Real World, Barry Bonds, living with your parents, the Woody Creek Tavern, Comic Sans, humor writing, and trying to fit your fist in your mouth.

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

Or just push PLAY below.

Thanks for listening, everybody.  Really appreciate it.

-BL

PS.  If you like show, please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes.  (Pretty please?)

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

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

Janet Reitman is the guest.  She is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine and the author of the bestselling Inside Scientology:  The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion, recently named by the New York Times as one of its 100 Notable Books of 2011.

Inside Scientology originated as a story in Rolling Stone and was nominated for a National Magazine Award.

Reitman’s work has also appeared in GQ, Men’s Journal, The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, and Salon, among other publications. She has also appeared on National Public Radio, Anderson Cooper 360, and Countdown with Keith Olberman.

We get into it.  A lot to talk about.

Topics of conversation include:  Scientology (duh), L. Ron Hubbard, science fiction, military service, hucksterism, religion, David Miscavige, Gold Base, yachts, hot pants, blowing, Rolling Stone, investigative reporting, Iraq, Tom Cruise, Jann S. Wenner, and collective shrugs.

Don’t forget to 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.

Thanks, everybody.

-BL

Other People with Brad Listi

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

The guest is Adam Novy, author of the debut novel The Avian Gospels, available now from Short Flight / Long Drive Books, an independent press run by the good people over at Hobart.

“The Avian Gospels has the potential to become a cult classic,” says Publishers Weekly.

Adam and I, we talk about stuff.

Topics of conversation include:  birds, birding, reviews, science fiction, false summits, agents, independent presses, Brooklyn, religion, Chicago, the Bible, 9/11, dislocation, South Pasadena, bad teachers, weddings, Jewishness, Medusa, privilege, war, semantics, Hamlet, gods, the process of un-fucking a manuscript, and the fear of getting squashed by the universe.

Don’t forget to 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 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