Otherppl With Brad Listi

S.J. Watson is the guest. His novel Second Life is available now in paperback from Harper. It was the official July pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. In today's monologue, I talk about recording in a crowded house. And I talk with my daughter, who is about to celebrate her sixth birthday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lesley M. M. Blume is the guest. Her new book is called Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises, available now from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In today's monologue, I talk about Lesley's book and Ernest Hemingway.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Franzen is the guest. His latest novel, Purity, is available now in trade paperback from Picador. It is the official August selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. In today's monologue, I discuss being in flux. And my dog Walter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dorthe Nors is the guest. Her new book, So Much For That Winter, is available now in the United States from Graywolf Press. I had a great time talking with Dorthe. She is, I believe, the first Danish author to guest on the program.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sloane Crosley is the guest. Her debut novel, The Clasp, is available now in trade paperback from Picador.  A great pleasure to have Sloane on the program.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chuck Klosterman is the guest. His new book, But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past, is available now from Blue Rider Press. So great to have Chuck on the program.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Frances Stroh is the guest. Her new memoir, Beer Money, is available now from Harper. In today's monologue, I talk about the logistics of vacationing with my family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Edison is the guest. He is the former publisher of High Times magazine and was the editor-in-chief of Screw magazine. He is also a musician and a professional wrestler. His new memoir, You Are a Complete Disappointment, is available now from Sterling Books. Great fun talking with Mike. Also heartbreaking. The title of his memoir also happens to be the last thing his father ever said to him. Brutal. But he has found a kind of peace with it, and he has written this fine memoir. Aside from that, Mike is a person who has really lived some lives. He's authored 28 pornographic novels. Has been a correspondent for Penthouse and Hustler. The professional wrestling. He's in a band. High Times. We talk about all of it. Fasten your seat belts. In today's monologue, I talk about my sense of urgency and the heat of summer.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Max Porter is the guest. His debut novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, is the official June pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club.  Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize, it is available now from Graywolf Press. Max and I spoke by telephone. He was at home in London. It was nighttime for him. I was here in Los Angeles, mid-morning. His publication story is a good one. He wrote a book that isn't easily classifiable. Usually such books have a hard road to publication. But Grief found a way, and thank goodness. It's short, poetic, and wonderfully surprising novel. There's a talking bird in it. It takes chances. Packs a punch. The fact that it has gone on to do so well is a testament to Max's vision and skill. Wise, witty, and very deeply felt. A real gift to the reader. In today's monologue, I talk about compression in literature, compression of schedule, the podcast's logistical crossroads, Kickstarter, and my need to podcast in a cloistered environment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/ad

Viet Thanh Nguyen is the guest. His debut novel, The Sympathizer, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016. It is available now from Grove Press. I want to say that Viet is the first Pulitzer winner ever to appear on the program. I could be wrong. (Am I forgetting someone?) I read The Sympathizer earlier this year when I was a judge for the Tournament of Books at The Morning News. (You can read my judgment here.) This was before the Pulitzer. Fortunately I had the good sense to pick it as the winner and advance it to the next round; otherwise this conversation might never have happened. Kidding aside, Viet was great. He showed up ready to talk and was everything one might expect after reading the novel: sharp, funny, opinionated, and full of stories.   In today's monologue, I talk about moving. Again. I promise this will end soon.�� Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Elliott is the guest. He is the founding editor of The Rumpus, the author of seven books, and the director of three films. His latest film, After Adderall, will be premiering at the Rumpus Lo-Fi Los Angeles Film Festival on July 30th. I can't believe it's taken me this long to meet Stephen Elliott. He just moved out to Los Angeles for the summer and he came over and we sat down and talked. I admire Stephen. He does things. He gets things done. He's able to mobilize people. Build communities. He takes risks. He makes stuff. He's a writer. He's the editor of an online literary magazine. And now he's making films. He just keeps going. Great to have had the chance to meet him in person and talk to him for an hour. In today's monologue, I discuss my brief (very brief) history with adderall.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claire Hoffman is the guest. Her new memoir, Greetings from Utopia Park, is available now from Harper Books.  Claire is a friend of mine here in Los Angeles. She grew up in Fairfield, Iowa in an intentional community founded by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Maharishi, for the uninitiated, was a spiritual guru and the progenitor of transcendental meditation, or TM. Claire's memoir deals in family history, her experiences growing up in Fairfield, and her struggle to come to terms with what it means to lead a spiritual life.   In today's monologue, I talk about my friendship with Claire, and about interruptions, and (again) about my impending move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney is the guest. Her debut novel, The Nest, is available now from Ecco Books.  Cynthia is living the dream. Or at least one kind of dream. It's a common dream: write novel, sell novel for big advance, watch as novel becomes New York Times bestseller, do media tour for novel, feel somewhat weird and even at times guilty that novel is doing so well. And so on. Really good time talking with Cynthia. Very candid conversation. And one of the best conversations I've ever had about what it really takes to make a book a bestseller. In today's monologue, I talk about moving, and customer service representatives, and spiritual depletion at the hands of customer service representatives. And also my dog's bleeding anus.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jung Yun is the guest. Her debut novel, Shelter, is now available from Picador.  Jung's novel has gotten an incredibly warm critical reception. Not surprisingly, it took years to write, the gestation was arduous, the psycho-spiritual agony along the way was often intense. This, I'm finding, is what's called "the creative process." This is what I'm learning as I do this show and have these conversations. This particular conversation I remember fondly for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that Jung is a first-generation Korean American from Fargo, North Dakota whose father is a world-renowned martial arts instructor. We had fun. In today's monologue, I read some tweets from my @BradListi twitter account. Lucky you.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nayomi Munaweera is the guest. Her new novel, What Lies Between Us, is available now from St. Martin's Press. And here it should be mentioned that Nayomi's debut novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, was long-listed for the Man Asia Prize. The story of that book—its arduous, unconventional road to publication and eventual glory—should be heartening to anyone out there slaving away in obscurity. Nayomi was a lot of fun. She's originally from Sri Lanka but immigrated to the States as a child by way of Nigeria. Pretty sure she's the first Sri Lankan-American author to appear on this program. Happy to share this episode with you guys. In today's monologue, I field questions from Twitter followers.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dana Spiotta is the guest. Her new novel, Innocents and Others, is available now from Scribner. It is the official May selection of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. This is Dana's second appearance on the podcast. (Her first appearance, Episode 31, can be heard via Otherppl Premium.) I spoke with her by phone. She was at home in Syracuse, New York. We talked a lot about movies, which feature prominently in her fiction and especially in Innocents. And towards the end of our conversation, we discussed her writing process—how it tends to take her five years to write a novel, how she drafts, how she edits, and so on. It's illuminating. And that's really a good word for Dana Spiotta, as both a person and a writer. She's illuminating.   There isn't much of a monologue today—I just get right to the main event—but for those of you who can't live without my rambling, I talk a bit at the end of the show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the guest. Her debut story collection, Night at the Fiestas, is now available in paperback from W.W. Norton & Company. I first met Kirstin on April 1, 2016, at the Ace Hotel Theater in downtown Los Angeles. We were standing side-by-side in the wings, just as she was being introduced at Literary Death Match. She went to walk out onstage, and as she did I turned to her and said, in a deadpan/jokey way, "Don't fuck this up." She smiled, but only kind of (to be fair, it was dark, and things were happening fast), and then almost immediately I began to question my judgment, wondering if the joke had been ill-advised. The good news is, Kirstin didn't hold it against me. In fact, she barely remembered it. In today's monologue, I talk about mediocrity and Hollywood and delusions of grandeur. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan are the guests. They are the co-authors of a flash fiction collection called Rift, available now from Unknown Press. Rift was the official December 2015 selection of the TNB Book Club.   Kathy and Robert were in town for AWP about a month ago. Normally I interview book club authors in the month that their book is featured. In this case, we waited a bit so that we could record in-person. It was worth the wait. Fun meeting these guys. We got into all sorts of stuff. And I think they're the first flash fiction authors I've ever interviewed. I could be wrong. But to the best of my recollection they're the first.  In today's monologue, I answer some mail from a listener. He wants to know how I feel about the work of authors younger than I am.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Crane is the guest. Her new novel, The History of Great Things, is available now from Harper Perennial.  Great to see Elizabeth again. She came over not too long ago and sat down across from me and we caught up. Her new novel is all about her late mother. It's about other things, too, but mostly it's about her mom. We get into that. We also talk about writing and fiction vs nonfiction and childhood and fears. We talk about preconception of structure vs intuitive making-it-up-as-you-go. We talk. In today's monologue, I answer questions as smooth jazz plays in the background. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tony Tulathimutte is the guest. His debut novel, Private Citizens, is available now from William Morrow.  Had a good time talking with Tony. He's a smart guy. I feel like he has a lot of intensity to him. There's a coiled intensity thing happening. He doesn't miss much. He had a hard childhood. We talk about that. His novel has gotten the kinds of reviews that debut authors dream about. It's a promising beginning to a career. We talk about that, too. We talk about a lot of stuff.   In today's monologue, I experiment with a groundbreaking new broadcasting technique and share a short conversation I had with Bud Smith, whose novella, I'm From Electric Peak, is the official April pick of The Nervous Breakdown Book Club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices