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

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore discusses her book 'Touching the Art', exploring topics such as women in abstract expressionism, queer identity, structural racism, Jewish assimilation, and family gaslighting. She also delves into her relationship with her grandmother, an abstract artist, and the emotional connection to her art.

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. Finally here is today’s Bookshop.

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. Finally here is today’s Bookshop.

In this lively discussion, essayist and translator Kate Briggs shares insights from her debut novel, which centers on the compelling relationship between a mother, Helen, and her infant daughter, Rose. She challenges traditional storytelling by positioning the baby as a vital character that reshapes the narrative. The conversation delves into motherhood's impact on creativity, the evolution of the novel, and the importance of diverse representations in literature. Briggs invites listeners to reconsider what narratives deserve exploration and recognition.

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. Finally, here is today’s Bookshop.  

Naomi Klein discusses her new book 'Doppelganger' which explores how literature can help us understand the doubling we encounter in our lives. She introduces new political terms and delves into topics like fake news, AI, and the mirror world. The podcast also highlights the significance of Philip Roth's work and explores themes of doubles in literature and art.

Matthew Zapruder's 'Story of a Poem' takes us on a journey of poem revision, self-identity, and parenting challenges. The magic of storytelling and vulnerability in writing, creative insights into poetry, and transformative power of words are all explored in this engaging discussion.

Major Jackson, poet and host of The Slowdown podcast, discusses his collection of new and selected poems, 'Razzle Dazzle'. They explore the evolution of his poetry over the years, the intersection of poetry and music, questions of race and nation, and the influence of other writers on his work. The conversation also highlights the power of storytelling, the merging of self and art, and the impact of cancel culture on the art community.

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. And here is the link to today’s Bookshop.  

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. Lastly, here is today’s Bookshop with many of the books mentioned today. photo credit: Alvaro Almanza