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Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

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David Naimon, Tin House Books

BOOKS ∙ WORKSHOPS ∙ PODCAST

#288

Alexis Wright : Praiseworthy

Today’s guest is one of the most important and celebrated writers in Australia today, Alexis Wright. We look together at the ways Wright reshapes the novel form to accommodate aboriginal notions of story, of time, and of scale. To find a different sound and voice for the novel, one that is multiple and collective. both ancestral and visionary, one that invites us to walk back into relationship with other beings and the land itself, and shows us where we are headed when we don’t. Her latest novel Praiseworthy is set in a world like ours, of extreme weather events, of unchecked white supremacy, of the inexorable pull toward assimilation, erasure and the demanding present-tense of the internet. But the book is also one of aboriginal invention, adaptation, and vision, a novel of both biting humor and wisdom, as people, in the face of it all, search for aboriginal sovereignty. For the bonus audio archive Alexis reads a favorite poem of hers by Bei Dao which joins an immense archive of supplemental material—readings, craft talks, long-form conversations with translators—from everyone from Layli Long Soldier to Dionne Brand, Naomi Klein to Richard Powers. You can find out more about the bonus audio archive and the many other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthcovers) . Finally, here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-alexis-wright-conversation) corresponding to today’s episode. The post [Alexis Wright : Praiseworthy] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/alexis-wright-praiseworthy/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

01 Apr 2024

1 HR 33 MINS

1:33:29

01 Apr 2024

#287

Nam Le : 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem

Over the past fifteen years, Nam Le has published a book in each genre. Best known for his phenomenal 2009 debut story collection The Boat, he followed it with his 2019 debut nonfiction On David Malouf, and now, this year, his debut poetry collection 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem. What is remarkable about these three books, is how, in a way, they are three different strategies aimed at the same goal—how to avoid the flatness and fixity of representation of identity, how to create enough elbow room, to push back against the assumptions, presumptions and expectations that come with one’s identity, and assert one’s sovereignty as a writer. Nam has suggested that 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem could be viewed as one long poem, one poem that consists of many stand-alone poems, but where each individual poem, through your encounter with it, affects, changes, and deforms all the others, and the longer poem as a whole. We look at his three books in a similar spirit, looking at each through the vantage point of the others, to see what we discover about questions of identity, representation and art-making as we do. If you enjoy today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. To find out about all the possible benefits and rewards of doing so, from the bonus audio archive to the Tin House Early Reader subscription, head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, today’s [BookShop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-for-nam-le-conversation) . The post [Nam Le : 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/nam-le-36-ways-of-writing-a-vietnamese-poem/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

17 Mar 2024

2 HR 24 MINS

2:24:42

17 Mar 2024

#286

Anne de Marcken : It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over

Writer, interdisciplinary artist, editor and publisher Anne de Marcken discusses her new book It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over. Winner of the Novel Prize, and thus published simultaneously in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, by New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions and Giramondo respectively, de Marcken’s new book is a deeply philosophical and metaphysical, heartbreakingly funny book about life and death, love and loss. Join our undead protagonist, in search of herself, as she loses one body part after another, yet fills herself with one thing after another. How much can we lose and still be ourselves? How much of our sense of self is built from what we’ve lost? How much of who we are is really ‘other’? Perhaps the crow inside her chest, dead but communicative, speaking human words but not a human language, can tell us. For the bonus audio archive, Anne contributes a reading from her book The Accident: An Account, which joins supplemental readings from everyone from Dionne Brand to Jorie Graham, Natalie Diaz to Christina Sharpe. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio and the other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is today’s [BookShop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-anne-de-marcken-conversation) . The post [Anne de Marcken : It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/anne-de-marcken-it-lasts-forever-and-then-its-over/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

04 Mar 2024

2 HR 11 MINS

2:11:00

04 Mar 2024

#285

Canisia Lubrin : Code Noir

Award-winning poet Canisia Lubrin talks about her debut fiction, Code Noir. The fifty-nine stories in this collection are each prefaced by one of Louis XIV’s fifty-nine “Black codes,” the rules of conduct in France and its colonies regarding slaves and slavery. And each of these codes, each of these edicts, is also engaged with, manipulated and remade by the abstract artist Torkwase Dyson. Together they unmake history, unmake the edicts, one in language and one with a brush. Canisia tells stories that are as short as a line, or told in footnotes, or that take place one thousand years in the future. Stories that remake other stories, and stories that aren’t stories at all. And ultimately, through storytelling, Canisia asks us how we place ourselves in relation to the stories we’ve inherited, the histories which themselves are fictions, and in the ways she herself does and doesn’t engage with the codes, she enacts a different way of living, sounding a future for Black life. For the bonus audio archive Canisia reads from Dionne Brand’s upcoming book Salvage: Readings from the Wreck, from Christina Sharpe’s remarkable “What Could a Vessel Be?” and more that I will leave as surprise. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio and the many other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page.] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) Finally here is today’s [BookShop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-canisia-lubrin-conversation) . The post [Canisia Lubrin : Code Noir] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/canisia-lubrin-code-noir/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

26 Feb 2024

2 HR 26 MINS

2:26:53

26 Feb 2024

#284

Diana Khoi Nguyen : Root Fractures

Today’s conversation, with poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen, is not to be missed. Both of her books, Ghost Of and Root Fractures, engage with and are shaped by her brother’s absence and the family silence surrounding it. Two years before his suicide, her brother quietly removed the family photos from their frames on the walls, carefully cut himself out of each photo, and returned them to their frames without him. The redacted photos remained on the walls like this for years before and after his death. In different ways, Diana’s books write into and around the empty space that her brother left in these images, and in her family. We talk about her process of radical eulogy, the ways her work outside of language informs her poetry, how she uses photography—redacted by her own sibling—as a form and constraint in her work, about ghosts and hauntings, rivers and bees, about the Vietnamese declarative and the English subjunctive, about alternate lives not-lived and future ones that might be. One of the topics we cover today is how Diana constructed and crafted Root Fractures as a book, distilling a manuscript of over 200 pages of words and images to a book half that size. For the bonus audio archive Diana discusses this further and reads from some of the body-shaped poems that didn’t make it into the final manuscript, and yet were part of it coming into being. To learn more about how to subscribe to the bonus audio and the other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-diana-khoi-nguyen-conversation) with not only Diana’s books but many of the books mentioned today. Everyone from Eliot Weinberger and Jenny Erpenbeck to Bhanu Kapil and Victoria Chang. The post [Diana Khoi Nguyen : Root Fractures] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/diana-khoi-nguyen-root-fractures/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

05 Feb 2024

2 HR 39 MINS

2:39:49

05 Feb 2024

#283

Álvaro Enrigue : You Dreamed of Empires

Today’s conversation with Álvaro Enrigue about his latest novel, You Dreamed of Empires, translated by Natasha Wimmer, is set during the relatively undocumented first encounter between Moctezuma and Hernán Cortés. The novel dilates the knife’s edge moment when the Aztec emperor invites the conquistador, with his small band of Spanish soldiers, into the palaces of Tenochtitlan as guests. We talk about writing into the gaps of history, fiction’s influence on the “official” record, histories that are actually fictions, and how writing into erased or distorted histories can be a way to speak to the present moment. We talk of hornless deer, ritual cannibalism, psychedelic tomatoes, and a surprising influence of the indigenous cultures of the Americas on all of our lives today. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Find out about all the potential gifts and rewards of doing so at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-alvaro-enrigue-conversation) for today’s episode with all the books, fiction and nonfiction, literary and scholarly, that we reference today. The post [Álvaro Enrigue : You Dreamed of Empires] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/alvaro-enrigue-you-dreamed-of-empires/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

21 Jan 2024

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21 Jan 2024

#282

Mathias Énard : The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild

Is Mathias Énard’s latest book formally influenced by the Buddhist Wheel of Time, by Jewish undertaker guilds, by François Rabelais’s scatological and philosophical prose and linguistic wordplay, by Catholic altarpiece polyptych panel paintings, and by the scandalous diaries of a Polish anthropologist? The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild is dedicated to les pensées sauvages, to the wild thinkers, and today’s conversation is an exploration of Énard’s latest wild book, and of wild thinking itself. If you enjoy today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. There are many potential benefits and rewards of doing so. You can find out about them all at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . In the spirit of Énard’s latest book and our conversation about it, today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-mathias-enard-conversation) is just as wide-ranging—with classics of anthropology, Buddhism, modern Arabic and French literature, and of course, Énard’s own books as well. The post [Mathias Énard : The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/mathias-enard-the-annual-banquet-of-the-gravediggers-guild/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

10 Jan 2024

1 HR 49 MINS

1:49:05

10 Jan 2024

#281

Tin House Live : Denis Johnson : 2003

We are kicking off the new year with a serious blast from the past. A recording from the very first Tin House writers workshop in the summer of 2003 with novelist, short story writer, poet, playwright, and screenwriter Denis Johnson. This three-part episode includes a remarkable reading from Johnson’s novella Train Dreams, an interview of Johnson by writer Chris Offutt that is an unforgettable exploration of a writer’s process and philosophy, and finally, after Denis takes a cigarette break, Johnson, Offutt and Charles D’Ambrosio perform the first act of Johnson’s play Psychos Never Dream. Books by all three of today’s writers can be found in this episode’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-denis-johnson-episode) . And you can find out more about all the potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . The post [Tin House Live : Denis Johnson : 2003] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/tin-house-live-denis-johnson-2003/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

05 Jan 2024

1 HR 30 MINS

1:30:33

05 Jan 2024

#280

Elle Nash : Deliver Me

Perhaps it is fitting that today’s episode, with writer and founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine, Elle Nash, is launched on the shortest day of the year, the longest night of darkness. Nash’s new novel Deliver Me explores the ways society tries to keep the light and the dark separate, to hide our unasked questions and forbidden desires in the shadows. Nash’s writing insists on bringing them uncomfortably together and we explore what it means to transgress in one’s writing, to risk oneself on the page, to write dangerously and with a burnt tongue. Whether engaging with motherhood under capitalism, industrial animal slaughter, or cross-species kink, Deliver Me leads us into the darkness, crosses the borders of the acceptable, and then looks back at the well-lit world to see it anew. For the bonus audio archive Elle reads the opening of Elizabeth V. Aldrich’s Ruthless Little Things. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio, and about the countless other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-elle-nash-conversation) . The post [Elle Nash : Deliver Me] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/elle-nash-deliver-me/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

21 Dec 2023

1 HR 47 MINS

1:47:07

21 Dec 2023

#279

Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part Two

Today’s part two of the conversation with Naomi Klein about Doppelganger highlights the Jewish elements in the book, and looks at them through the lens of Palestine and Israel. We discuss Zionism, Marxism, and the Jewish Labor Bund’s notion of “hereness.” We look at the battles over the definition of antisemitism and the ways accusations of antisemitism have been weaponized to silence legitimate political speech. And together, as two people who’ve both been involved in Jewish activism in relation to Palestinian solidarity, we take stock of the current upsurge in organizing, direct action, and civil disobedience on the Jewish Left in relation to Palestine. For the bonus audio archive Naomi reads for us from Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock, a book that features prominently in her book. She reads a letter that fake Philip Roth (his doppelganger) writes to the real Philip Roth. It is not to miss. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and explore the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-naomi-klein-part-two-conversation) for today’s conversation, full of the books we reference but also additional books by Palestinian authors on the topics we discuss today. The post [Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part Two] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/naomi-klein-doppelganger-part-two/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

08 Dec 2023

2 HR 28 MINS

2:28:12

08 Dec 2023

#278

Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar : Tone

In Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar’s Tone they construct a shared voice, that of the “Committee to Investigate the Atmosphere.” Yes, they do this to investigate tone, in the writings of everyone from Nella Larsen to Clarice Lispector, W. G. Sebald to Franz Kafka, Renee Gladman to Bhanu Kapil. But in chasing the ever-elusive notion of tone, discovering its relational and atmospheric qualities, Zambreno & Samatar end up troubling the notion of selfhood and the individual, and in doing so, they trouble the notion of literary form as well. Tone becomes an investigation not just of tone, but of the collective, of the communal, of the collaborative, and reveals the ways all writing is collaboration. In the spirit of their collaboration they have created a wonderfully robust 40-minute call & response contribution for the bonus audio archive. One where Kate discusses and reads from works important to their project (everything from Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart to Renee Gladman’s Calamities) and after each reading/meditation by Kate, Sofia responds with a reading of her own, speaking to Kate’s reading through her choices (from Nella Larsen’s Quicksand to writing by H. Bustos Domecq, the pseudonym of the collaborative writing of Borges and Casares). The bonus audio archive is only one possible benefit of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Every supporter gets the resource email with each episode and can join our collective brainstorm of who to invite on the show going forward. And then there are many other things to choose from as well, from the bonus audio to the Tin House Early Reader subscription. You can check it all out at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Lastly, because Tone is engaging with and indebted to so many books, this is the largest [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-kate-zambreno-sofia-samatar-conversation) ever! The post [Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar : Tone] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/kate-zambreno-sofia-samatar-tone/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

01 Dec 2023

2 HR 30 MINS

2:30:10

01 Dec 2023

#277

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Touching the Art

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore returns to Between the Covers to talk about her remarkable new book, Touching the Art. A mixture of memoir, biography, criticism, and social history, Touching the Art is above all a complicated love letter to Mattilda’s grandmother, abstract artist Gladys Goldstein. Through an exploration of Mattilda’s love for Gladys’ art, Touching the Art becomes a book about so many things—women in abstract expressionism, queer identity and homophobia, structural racism and white flight, antisemitism and Jewish assimilation into whiteness, family gaslighting and middle class norms, and dreams and visions of solidarity and liberation both in the world of art and in the world. For the bonus audio archive, Mattilda contributes a reading of the first chapter of their future book Terry Dactyl. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio and about the many other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over to the show’s [Patreon page.] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) And here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-mattilda-bernstein-sycamore-conversation) . The post [Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Touching the Art] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/mattilda-bernstein-sycamore-touching-the-art/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

09 Nov 2023

2 HR 34 MINS

2:34:18

09 Nov 2023

#276

Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters

Bhanu Kapil’s postcolonial feminist road novel Incubation: A Space for Monsters has long been out of print. The book of hers that most engages with the mythos and reality of America, Incubation follows Laloo, a British woman of Indian descent, who arrives in the US to give birth to a monster. This fictional story parallels Bhanu’s own arrival in the United States, a move that was meant to be a permanent one, a leaving behind of England forever. And yet, now, as Incubation has a second renewed life in the US and arrives for the first time in the UK, Bhanu herself is, decades later, living again in England. We talk about questions of migration, immigration, home, hospitality, performance, ritual, memory, family, and gendered, racialized, and institutional violence, in light of Bhanu’s own return to the place she thought she never would. “What is a monster?” is a question that animates this book and animates our conversation today. How do monsters relate to writing and form, to identity and belonging, and to Bhanu’s own writing and teaching? We talk about all this and more. For the bonus audio archive Bhanu contributes an extended reading for us: of Annie Ernaux, Eunsong Kim, Kate Zambreno, Sofia Samatar, and recent writings from Bhanu’s own notebook. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio and the other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-bhanu-kapil-conversation) . The post [Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/bhanu-kapil-incubation-a-space-for-monsters/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

01 Nov 2023

2 HR 34 MINS

2:34:20

01 Nov 2023

#275

Colleen Burner : Sister Golden Calf

Colleen Burner’s novella Sister Golden Calf is the story of two sisters on the road set in a world without men. Inspired, in part, by Vanessa Veselka’s essay “Green Screen: The Lack of Female Road Narratives and Why it Matters,” Sister Golden Calf by its very existence interrogates the road novel tradition it now becomes a part of. As Leni Zumas says: “In shiveringly beautiful prose, Colleen Burner maps a wild voyage into grief, love, and radical forms of kinship. Their novel unstitches the fixed seams of self and stranger, inviting us to touch the peculiar, precise commotions that link one creature to another. A truly extraordinary book.” If you enjoy today’s conversation, consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Find out all the potential rewards and benefits of doing so at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-colleen-burner-conversation) . The post [Colleen Burner : Sister Golden Calf] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/colleen-burner-sister-golden-calf/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

23 Oct 2023

57 MINS

57:35

23 Oct 2023

#274

Kate Briggs : The Long Form

Essayist and translator Kate Briggs’ first novel The Long Form is a book about, and happening within, the relationship between Helen and her infant daughter, Rose. What does making a novel baby-centric, not a novel about babies, but where the baby is a main character, a vital actor that shapes the story that unfolds, that shapes the experience of time and duration, what does that do to the novel? And what does it tell us about the history of novels, of the biases baked into the ways we traditionally tell stories? What gets considered worthy of characterization and why? What is considered dramatic or utterly banal, and what are the implications of these long-standing sensibilities? The Long Form meditates deeply on what a novel is thanks to baby Rose. And invites us to do so alongside her. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Every supporter gets the resource-rich email with each episode and can participate in shaping who comes on the show going forward and there are many other potential rewards and gifts to choose from. You can check it all out at the show’s [Patreon page] (https://www.patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . And here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-kate-briggs-conversation) for today’s conversation. The post [Kate Briggs : The Long Form] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/kate-briggs-the-long-form/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

14 Oct 2023

2 HR 21 MINS

2:21:51

14 Oct 2023

#273

Lydia Davis : Our Strangers

Today’s conversation with Lydia Davis about her latest story collection, Our Strangers, a collection of 143 stories, is a deep dive into storytelling. These stories, whether incredibly short or quite long, often eschew backstory, exposition, context, or psychological interiority. Sometimes they even comment on other stories within the collection, or revise themselves, becoming something else entirely. Regardless of their length or style, they often raise the questions “is this a story?” and “if it isn’t a story, what is it?” In that spirit, you could consider today’s conversation a deep dive into poetry (syntax and the poetics of the sentence), into nonfiction (the ways autobiographical and found materials are incorporated into her fiction), and into translation as well. And all along the way, we get to hear Lydia read her singular stories of varying shapes and styles. For the bonus audio archive, Davis contributes a discussion of the work of Swiss writer Peter Bichsel and then reads one of her translations of his stories. If you enjoyed today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. There are a wealth of potential benefits and rewards of doing so, including the bonus audio archive. You can check it all out at the show’s [Patreon page.] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) Finally, here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-lydia-davis-conversation) . The post [Lydia Davis : Our Strangers] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/lydia-davis-our-strangers/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

02 Oct 2023

1 HR 58 MINS

1:58:06

02 Oct 2023

#272

Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part One

Naomi Klein’s new book, Doppelganger, is a departure for her. One some of her closest friends even cautioned her against. On the one hand, it is what we’ve come to expect from Klein, a brilliant framing, through the coining of new language, of our current political moment. And yet Doppelganger is decidedly more personal, more vulnerable, more inward-looking than her previous books. And not only does it have a strain of a more literary nonfiction running through it, it also centers literature and the ways the literary history of doubles and doppelgangers can help us make sense of the doubling we are encountering in our lives—whether fake news narratives for everything from COVID to climate change; or AI; or the avatars that we create to represent us on social media; or the friends we’ve lost to what Klein calls “the mirror world” since the pandemic, over vaccines and masks. And the new political terms she is engaging with, from sacrifice zones to shadowlands, are deeply relevant to the choices we make as writers and art-makers as well. And writers from China Miéville to Kim Stanley Robinson are some of the many luminaries singing Doppelganger‘s praises. For the bonus audio archive Naomi reads for us from Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock, a book that features prominently in her book. She reads a letter that fake Philip Roth (his doppelganger) writes to the real Philip Roth. It is not to miss. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and explore the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-naomi-klein-conversation) corresponding to today’s episode. The post [Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part One] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/naomi-klein-doppelganger/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

20 Sep 2023

2 HR 18 MINS

2:18:24

20 Sep 2023

#271

Tin House Live : Matthew Zapruder on Story of a Poem

You could say that Matthew Zapruder’s Story of a Poem is about the revision of a poem, that it follows the life of one poem, from its first phrase to its final draft, and invites us, in the most mesmerizing way, behind the curtain of the creative process of composition. And you wouldn’t be wrong. But really it is also the story of the revision of the poet as well, a revision of the stories that make up his own sense of self, that situate him in the world. When his son is diagnosed with autism many of the things that Zapruder had organized his own sense of identity around—a facility and quickness with language to name but one—were called into question. To show up as the father he wanted to be for his son, to truly see him on his own terms, he had to revise his notion of himself. He had to find a new form of being. Zapruder’s new book is also a new form, part prose, part poetry, and is the story of this journey, one that looks at how a poem comes to be, how the poet enters a place that is provisional by welcoming a certain unknowingness, as a guide toward doing the same for himself. Story of a Poem is about poetry and story, revision and self-becoming, coming together and coming undone, and more than anything about building a world where the people and things you most love can thrive. If you enjoy today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Find out about the many possible benefits and rewards of doing so at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . The post [Tin House Live : Matthew Zapruder on Story of a Poem] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/tin-house-live-matthew-zapruder-on-story-of-a-poem/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

12 Sep 2023

1 HR 07 MINS

1:07:50

12 Sep 2023

#270

Major Jackson : Razzle Dazzle

Poet and host of the The Slowdown podcast Major Jackson joins us to talk about Razzle Dazzle, his collection of new and selected poems that captures two decades in the life of a poet. Last year Major also released a book his selected prose, A Beat Beyond, his meditations on poetry and its relation to music, to race, to selfhood, to inheritance and community. We place these two career-spanning works side by side, prose and poetry, and explore them together in today’s conversation. We look back across his work, considering how his poetry and his thoughts on poetry have evolved over the years, and what looking back does to moving forward. It’s a conversation that looks at identity, voice, and the mysteries of selfhood, at multiple ways of evoking the ecological and nonhuman within ones work, at fraught questions of race and nation, and at questions of influence, lineage, and reaching across difference. For the bonus audio archive Major Jackson introduces us to and contributes a reading of John Ashbery’s “More Pleasant Adventures” which joins readings from so many iconic contemporary poets, from Dionne Brand to Layli Long Soldier, Arthur Sze to Rosmarie Waldrop. The bonus audio is only one potential benefit of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Find out about all the possible benefits and rewards at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-for-major-jackson-conversation) for today’s episode with many of the books mentioned, from Sonia Sanchez to Evie Shockley, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge to Brenda Hillman. And of course the books by Major himself. The post [Major Jackson : Razzle Dazzle] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/major-jackson-razzle-dazzle/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

04 Sep 2023

2 HR 33 MINS

2:33:52

04 Sep 2023

#269

JoAnna Novak : Contradiction Days

Five months pregnant, fearful of the future, and creatively blocked, JoAnna Novak becomes obsessed with the life, writings, and paintings of Agnes Martin. She fashions a three-week intensive writing regimen in northern New Mexico, where Martin lived and painted (and where Novak writes this book we discuss today). The structure of this retreat is inspired by Martin’s 6×6 gridded abstract paintings that so appealingly keep out the clutter of life, and by Martin’s life philosophy—her notions of “positive freedom” and her pursuit of inner perfection. Because of this, today’s conversation becomes a dual exploration of both Novak’s own artistic journey and that of Martin’s. In addition, we look at the various ways Novak uses constraints and experimental techniques as part of her writing practice, about the different ways she has portrayed pregnancy in her poetry versus her prose, about writing into the unspoken stigma of prenatal depression, and much more. For the bonus audio archive JoAnna contributes a reading of the children’s picture book Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, written some sixty years ago by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and loved by JoAnna’s now four-year-old son. The bonus audio archive is only one potential benefit of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. You can find out about all the potential rewards and benefits of doing so at the show’s [Patreon page.] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) And here is the link to today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-for-joanna-novak-conversation) . The post [JoAnna Novak : Contradiction Days] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/joanna-novak-contradiction-days/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

21 Aug 2023

1 HR 56 MINS

1:56:58

21 Aug 2023

#268

Jorie Graham : To 2040

Jorie Graham’s first appearance on the show in 2021, to discuss her collection Runaway, is one of the most relistened to episodes in the show’s history, a conversation that, with each revisitation, seems to reveal something new about how to will oneself into presence as an artist and as a human. And it is a conversation that many other guests on the show since have told me is now part of their syllabi at the universities where they teach. And yet as rich and deep as it was, even after those many substantive hours spent together, there was still so much left to explore about Jorie Graham’s poetics, which makes her return to Between the Covers, to discuss her latest collection, To 2040, particularly exciting. Both of these conversations are stand-alone episodes, and yet, I think to fully grasp Jorie’s poetics, both conversations are necessary to do so, as they approach her body of work from opposite vantage points. Whereas the first explores how to be present to and embodied before one’s life and one’s art, the second looks at how to make art, and to live an embodied life within a deeply and increasingly disembodied world. Today’s conversation is about the body—the body in relation to self and other; the body politic in relation to truth, fact, and shared reality; and the body that is the planet we call home. The body in relation to the virtual, the body in relation to language, and how to find a language in a world where we’ve lost our way. The last time Jorie was on the show she contributed a remarkable bonus reading of several poems about rain (by Robert Creeley and Edward Thomas). The bonus audio archive, which includes bonus readings from everyone from Alice Oswald to Arthur Sze to Layli Long Solider to Dionne Brand, is one of many potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. To find out more head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthcovers) . Lastly, here is today’s [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-jorie-graham-conversation) with many of the books mentioned today. photo credit: Alvaro Almanza The post [Jorie Graham : To 2040] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/jorie-graham-to-2040/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

09 Aug 2023

3 HR 00 MINS

3:00:28

09 Aug 2023

#267

Tin House Live : Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah on Surrealism

Today’s craft talk, “Why So Surrealism” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, was recorded at the 2022 Tin House Summer Workshop. Prompted by a journalist who asked him to talk about how surrealistic and speculative conceits operated in and informed Black fiction, in this craft talk Adjei-Brenyah looks at the tropes of surrealist and speculative fiction within his own work, at not only what effects they have, but what they open up for him as a writer. Adjei-Brenyah is the bestselling and critically-acclaimed writer of the story collection Friday Black and the dystopian novel Chain-Gang All-Stars. The post [Tin House Live : Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah on Surrealism] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/tin-house-live-nana-kwame-adjei-brenyah-on-surrealism/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

04 Aug 2023

41 MINS

41:02

04 Aug 2023

#266

Roger Reeves : Dark Days

Poet Roger Reeves calls the essays in his debut book of prose “fugitive essays.” And we explore what it means to write fugitively, to write into and from and toward fugitivity. If, as Fred Moten says, fugitivity is “a desire for and a spirit of escape and transgression of the proper and the proposed. . . . a desire for the outside, for a playing or being outside, an outlaw edge proper to the now always already improper voice or instrument,” how does writing fugitively effect a writer’s orientation to self and selfhood, to one’s own community and people, to nation and nationhood, to the canon and canon formation, to otherness and the stranger, to life and living in the ever-unfolding apocalypse? We look together at what a poet writing essays tells us both about the essay form and about Roger’s poetry and poetics. Deep dives into questions of time, progress, repetition, metaphor, history, ancestry, futurity, presence, sound, and silence. For the bonus audio archive, Roger contributes an extended reading from Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani’s novella Return to Haifa. This joins an ever-growing archive of supplemental audio from everyone from Natalie Diaz to Dionne Brand, Isabella Hammad to Christina Sharpe. You can find out more about how to subscribe to the bonus audio and the many other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . The [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-for-roger-reeves-conversation) for today’s episode contains many of the books mentioned, referenced, or read from. The post [Roger Reeves : Dark Days] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/roger-reeves-dark-days/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

26 Jul 2023

2 HR 16 MINS

2:16:44

26 Jul 2023

#265

Isabella Hammad : Enter Ghost

Isabella Hammad’s latest book Enter Ghost is about a Palestinian theater group attempting to put on a production of Hamlet in the West Bank. The actors come from many different Palestinian experiences, one to the next. Some have Israeli citizenship. Others live in refugee camps or Ramallah or in the diaspora in Europe. But why Hamlet? We look at the unique history of this play within the Arab world, its history of being both performed and banned, but also at how the very act of striving to create a shared performative space, while living under occupation, is a political act in and of itself. Today’s conversation covers many things, from writing against essentialism to the revolutionary potential of art-making. For the bonus audio archive Isabella contributes a reading of a prison letter that Palestinian political prisoner Walid Daqqa wrote twenty years into his still-ongoing incarceration. This letter, called “Parallel Time,” was adapted for the stage in 2014 and performed in Haifa. The theater that performed it was then defunded by the Israeli government, threatening its ability to continue as a theater (a topic we discuss in the main conversation). Daqqa’s letters have yet to find publication in English. This translation is by Dalia Taha. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and the other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-for-isabella-hammad-conversation) for today’s episode. The post [Isabella Hammad : Enter Ghost] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/isabella-hammad-enter-ghost/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

08 Jul 2023

1 HR 45 MINS

1:45:25

08 Jul 2023

#264

Tin House Live : Max Porter on Shy

Even though each of Max Porter’s books is a stand-alone book, some have called Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, Lanny, and his latest, Shy, a “trilogy of boyhood,” a framing Max himself embraces. After a truly electrifying short reading from Shy, Max and I explore his impulse to examine and evoke boyhood across these three books and how his choices on the page engage with the crisis that is contemporary masculinity. We talk about fatherhood and parenting, the extra-literary influences on his writing, whether comics or music or visual art, about the mythic and the wild in relation to the human and language, and much more. Today’s conversation was recorded live in Portland, Oregon, at the downtown location of Powell’s Books in May of 2023. Don’t miss Max’s [first appearance on the show] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/max-porter-lanny/) in 2019 for his book Lanny. Back then, Max contributed a reading of a poem of his to the bonus audio archive. The singer-songwriter Joan Shelley had reached out in admiration of his books. They began a correspondence (which eventually resulted in some of his words becoming lyrics to her songs) and part of that correspondence included this poem he wrote for her. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and the other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Lastly, here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-max-porter-conversation) for today’s episode. The post [Tin House Live : Max Porter on Shy] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/tin-house-live-max-porter-on-shy/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

01 Jul 2023

1 HR 14 MINS

1:14:00

01 Jul 2023

#263

Megan Fernandes : I Do Everything I’m Told

Spareness, economy, and distillation are often put forth as obvious virtues in poetry. But what if there were a politics undergirding this aesthetic preference? In today’s conversation with poet Megan Fernandes we look at questions of poetics and aesthetics in relation to capitalism and colonialism and how a messier, more unruly poetics can trouble borders and boundaries—of self, of nation, of species. We talk about questions of home and belonging, community and solidarity, how we might create kinship across difference both on the page and in one’s life, creating a sense of shared living through a poetics of diaspora and dislocation. We also talk about time and how to live, love, and create art within an ongoing crisis. Personal, poetical, and geopolitical, this is a conversation not to miss. If you enjoy today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers as a listener-supporter. Find out about all the potential rewards and benefits of doing so at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Finally, here is the [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-megan-fernandes-conversation) for today’s episode. The post [Megan Fernandes : I Do Everything I’m Told] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/megan-fernandes-i-do-everything-im-told/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

20 Jun 2023

1 HR 59 MINS

1:59:45

20 Jun 2023

#262

Johanna Hedva : Your Love Is Not Good

What if you gave your fictional main character all of your own biographical details and family history but had them, at every point, choose “wrong”? At every point do the thing you yourself would be against? Johanna Hedva does just that, and their novel Your Love Is Not Good is not just full of sex battles and high-stakes art openings, but also high-stakes moral quandaries. Set in the institutional art world of museums and galleries, Your Love Is Not Good looks at making art (and love) under capitalism, at a mixed-race Korean American painter striving for universality (and whiteness) and yet wanting to be authentic, to build community and solidarity. When forced to choose, where and with whom will she stand? Johanna Hedva is also a musician and a performance artist. And their contribution to the bonus audio archive is one of the most unique ones ever, and one created specifically with us in mind. After we recorded this conversation they went on book tour and, while traveling from city to city, recorded themselves moaning, grunting, screaming, and breathing; recorded themselves reading text they wrote while touring. They then sent all these voice files to LA audio engineer Henry Glover along with the voices of the universe itself: sonifications of a black hole and the helix nebula, raw audio of the sun, a field recording of the aurora borealis. Hedva explained to Glover the vibe and scenario they imagined as he mixed and mastered a layering of voices, personal and “universal,” into this unique track: “The Saddest Thing of All Is When a Lone Astronaut Falls in Her Suit—Who Is There to Help Her Up?” To learn about how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and the many other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter head over to the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . The [Bookshop] (https://bookshop.org/lists/books-for-johanna-hedva-conversation) for today’s episode. The post [Johanna Hedva : Your Love Is Not Good] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/johanna-hedva-your-love-is-not-good/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

10 Jun 2023

2 HR 46 MINS

2:46:58

10 Jun 2023

#261

Tin House Live : Katie Holten on The Language of Trees

In Early Medieval Ireland there was a language called Ogham that was sometimes referred to as the “Celtic Tree Alphabet'” because its letters each corresponded to and depicted a different tree. At one point Ireland, now one of the most deforested countries in Europe, was largely covered in forest, its culture deeply entwined with the life of trees. Irish visual artist Katie Holten has created a new contemporary tree alphabet, gathered the voices, thoughts, poems, and meditations of some of the great thinkers about trees and the natural world, and translated their writings into “tree.” A book of image and a book of text, the wisdom of Ursula K. Le Guin and Richard Powers, Ross Gay and Robert Macfarlane, Amitav Ghosh, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Ada Limón, and many more, is transformed into tree language as they each, in their own way, evoke the complex beings that are trees, and argue, as Richard Powers does, that “this is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.” If you enjoy today’s conversation consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Find out about all the potential rewards and benefits of doing so at the show’s [Patreon page] (http://patreon.com/betweenthecovers) . Today’s conversation was recorded at Powell’s Books in downtown Portland before a live audience. The post [Tin House Live : Katie Holten on The Language of Trees] (https://tinhouse.com/podcast/tin-house-live-katie-holten-on-the-language-of-trees/) appeared first on [Tin House] (https://tinhouse.com) . ... Read more

01 Jun 2023

52 MINS

52:02

01 Jun 2023

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Alexis Wright : Praiseworthy

#287

Nam Le : 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem

#286

Anne de Marcken : It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over

#285

Canisia Lubrin : Code Noir

#284

Diana Khoi Nguyen : Root Fractures

#283

Álvaro Enrigue : You Dreamed of Empires

#282

Mathias Énard : The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild

#281

Tin House Live : Denis Johnson : 2003

#280

Elle Nash : Deliver Me

#279

Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part Two

#278

Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar : Tone

#277

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Touching the Art

#276

Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters

#275

Colleen Burner : Sister Golden Calf

#274

Kate Briggs : The Long Form

#273

Lydia Davis : Our Strangers

#272

Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part One

#271

Tin House Live : Matthew Zapruder on Story of a Poem

#270

Major Jackson : Razzle Dazzle

#269

JoAnna Novak : Contradiction Days

#268

Jorie Graham : To 2040

#267

Tin House Live : Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah on Surrealism

#266

Roger Reeves : Dark Days

#265

Isabella Hammad : Enter Ghost

#264

Tin House Live : Max Porter on Shy

#263

Megan Fernandes : I Do Everything I’m Told

#262

Johanna Hedva : Your Love Is Not Good

#261

Tin House Live : Katie Holten on The Language of Trees