Virtual Memories Show 448: Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn “The cultivation of the inner life is a way of looking at the self as though the inner sanctum isn’t a lonely, isolating chamber of echoes, but can be transformed into a rich inner garden.” With Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts…
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Virtual Memories Show 445: Heather Cass White “I’m sure that my obsessive focus on reading, as much as it is anything else, is a sign of a wound, or a lack.” Author & professor Heather Cass White joins the show to celebrate her wonderful new book. Books Promiscuously Read: Reading as a Way of Life…
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Virtual Memories Show 437: Keiler Roberts “I still want to write about my life but not obsess about my problems, not obsess about the meaning of everything, but to have experiences in a direct way.” Artist and cartoonist Keiler Roberts returns to the show to celebrate her new book, My Begging Chart (Drawn & Quarterly),…
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Virtual Memories Show 436: Dmitry Samarov “Basically I didn’t have to make anything up. I’ve never understood why anybody has to make anything up. The world is so weird, and the stories you get by shutting up and listening are all you’ll ever need.” With his new book OLD STYLE, artist & author Dmitry Samarov…
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Virtual Memories Show 431: Louis Menand “Writing a book like this is like an advent calendar: each day you open a little window and there’s somebody in there. You hadn’t known about them before and you learn a fascinating story.” Pulitzer Prize-winning author and cultural critic Louis Menand joins the show to celebrate his phenomenal…
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Virtual Memories Show 430: Jesse Sheidlower Lexicographer, bartender and bon vivant Jesse Sheidlower rejoins the show to talk about his new project, the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction. We get into the 20-year-old origins of the project and the ways it mirrors the development of the internet over that span, the importance of fandom and…
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Virtual Memories Show 422: Anahid Nersessian “I’ve never had a period of separation from Keats, like I’ve had with other authors or bands that I love.” Let’s commemorate the 200th anniversary of John Keats’ untimely death with a conversation with Anahid Nersessian, author of Keats’ Odes: A Lover’s Discourse (University of Chicago). We get into…
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Virtual Memories Show 421: Kate Maruyama “We’re all dealing with this, but I think we’re all processing what this new reality means, how it’s changing everything.” Author, editor and activist Kate Maruyama rejoins the show to celebrate the publication of her wonderfully creepy new novella, Family Solstice (Omnium Gatherum). We get into why she wrote…
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Virtual Memories Show 418: Sven Birkerts “Rather than try to think of a book to write about, why don’t I try to think about where I am in the world, in my life, and my preoccupations, and see if an author announces him- or herself?” Is it unhip to search for a meaningful pattern in…
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Virtual Memories Show 417: Mark Wunderlich “Is poetry a place where you want to be restrained, or is a poem where you actually get to exercise some freedom?” A series of deaths and personal losses in 2018 hang over Mark Wunderlich‘s poems in his new collection, God of Nothingness (Graywolf Press). We talk about that…
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Virtual Memories Show 415: Jerome Charyn “Any great work is a shove to the incomprehensible, but it’s JUST on our side instead of the other side. You have to take tremendous risks in order to find your language.” With his amazing new novel, Sergeant Salinger (Bellevue Literary Press), Jerome Charyn evokes and explores J.D. Salinger’s…
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Virtual Memories Show: The Guest List 2020 It’s time for our year-end Virtual Memories Show tradition: The Guest List! I reached out to 2020’s pod-guests and asked them about the favorite book(s) they read in the past year, as well as the books or authors they’re hoping to read in 2021! Thirty guests responded with…
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