Community of Writers Podcasts Community of Writers

Novelist, short story writer, and acclaimed teacher Molly Giles. The author, most recently, of the novel The Home for Unwed Husbands, is out with a memoir in short episodes, vignettes, and meditations, built on her life crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. In Life Span, Giles defines, examines, celebrates, and interrogates her writing life by way of the iconic bridge, each chapter marking a year in her own life. A terrific conceit, this is a joyful, wry, honest autobiography of a pers...

My guest this week is acclaimed short story writer and, now, novelist Venita Blackburn. Her debut novel, Dead in Long Beach, California arrives after two acclaimed short story collections, Black Jesus and Other Superheroes and How to Wrestle a Girl. This new novel is a multi-form, multi-voiced chronicle of loss, self-discovery, of desperately sad if also playful strategies of identity and investigation. Its brilliant premise is matched by its engagement with language, much of it delivered via...

My guest today is Julie Schumacher, who will talk about and read from the final book in a trilogy which has earned its place on the shelf with other favorites in the weird, wonderful genre of academic satire, right next to Richard Russo’s Straight Man and, as it happens her first two novels chronicling the cheerfully doomed life of one Professor Jason Fitger, a divorced professor of English and creative writing, stalled-out writer and all-around sour puss…if for good reason, or at least good ...

My guests this week further remember, celebrate, and, today, read from (!) the work of the late short story writer, teacher, friend and mentor Dwight Yates (1945-2023). I am joined in Part 2 of this “tribute” by Susan Straight (Mecca), Victoria Patterson (The Secret Habit of Sorrow), and Gary Amdahl (The Daredevils), all accomplished and acclaimed writers. Dwight Yates was the author of dozens of short stories, many of them available in two award-winning collections, Bring Everybody and Haywi...

My guests this week remember and celebrate the life and work of the late short story writer, teacher, friend and mentor Dwight Yates (1945-2023). I am joined by Susan Straight (Mecca), Victoria Patterson (The Secret Habit of Sorrow), and Gary Amdahl (The Daredevils), all accomplished and acclaimed writers for the first of a two-part show. Dwight Yates was the author of dozens of short stories, many of them available in two award-winning collections, Bring Everybody and Haywire Hearts and Slid...

My guest this week is the writer, activist and podcaster from Chapo Trap House, Amber A’Lee Frost. Her debut book Dirtbag is a personal memoir, a journalistic account, a political autobiography, a take-apart of grassroots collective action, an insider look at Democratic Socialists of America, Occupy Wall Street, the Bernie campaign and, yes, podcast culture --- all offered with great stories, wicked humor and yet smart, sincere analysis which defines the best of the so-called “dirtbag left.”