1storypo‪d‬ Sean Thor Conroe

NYC — Shy Watson is a poet and novel-writer. Her new book Horror Vacui (2021) dropped last month from House of Vlad. She is also the author of Cheap Yellow (CCM, 2018). She lives in NYC.

Her book: https://houseofvlad.bigcartel.com/product/horror-vacui-poems-and-other-writings-by-shy-watson

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS


3 min - pelvic health issues
7 min - Philly connections
10 min - where shy grew up
13 min - why shy moved so much in 20s
16 min - how / when HV written / pubbed
19 min - Eileen Myles
21 min - the novel shy workin on
23 min - Convenience store woman by sayaka murata / work by Bud smith
24 min - Sam pink book cover
26 min - ‘autofiction ethicality’ rant / justification
27 min - on writing intimately about Life
30:30 - on religion
34 min - reading god into shy’s books
37 min - on spirituality
39 min - diy sigil
45 min - writing as seduction
47 min - sometimes you gotta turn on the reader
51 min - important for writing and life to get out about
54 min - becoming your own boy
58 min - sillyboys
59 min - crypto
1 hr 2 min - mors tua vita mea
1 hr 4 min - new moon

TORONTO / NYC — Sheila Heti is the author of the short story collection the Middle Stories (2001), the short novel Ticknor (2005), the philosophy book the Chairs Are Where The People Go (2011), co-written by Misha Glouberman, How Should A Person Be? (2012), and Motherhood (2018). She also co-edited the collection Women in Clothes (2014). And wrote the intro to the new release of this Virginia Woolf essay, How Should One Read A Book? (2020). Her next book, Pure Colour, is coming out in January 2022. I first encountered Sheila’s writing in late 2014, when I tore through How Should A Person Be? in a night. I’ve since done a handful of pods on her books, so this is really exciting for me, it’s been a long time coming. We recorded this late last week. Sheila Heti lives in Toronto.

Here is a link to her website, with links to all her books: http://www.sheilaheti.com

Sheila's podcast "Podcast With Raisins": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-with-raisins/id1193833547

CONTENTS

8 min - pod start
12 min - Sheila’s current project
15 min - the book isn’t finished till it’s separate from you
16 min - me tryna turn real life into an Art Idea
20 min - How Ticknor different but also similar to her other books
24 min - friendship/angels
25 min - how I first encountered Sheila's writing
36 min - on walking / Richard Serra
40 min - “art should be taken off the pedestal”
42 min - Middle Stories reactions / why she wrote Ticknor
45 min - publishing right after 9/11
50 min - Sheila outing me for being in school lolol
55 min - Malcolm gladwell story
1 hr 4 min - coin stuff / mysticism
1 hr 7 min - on God
1 hr 11 min - on Nietzsche
1 hr 12 min - “the great writers rearrange your brain”
1 hr 13 min - Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Martin Buber
1 hr 16 - “who decides that something is good is the Culture / having supporters” / Wittgenstein
1 hr 21 min - “the person who loves a book is the one who’s right about it” / criticism
1 hr 28 min - on cigs / tobacco

Intro song: https://soundcloud.com/yeums/thank-you-master

Related episode - solo rant on Motherhood (1.3.2018): https://soundcloud.com/1storypod/29-family-failure-and-procreation-in-motherhood-2018-by-sheila-heti-1storypod-with-st-conroe

Sean Thor Conroe lives in Harlem.

NAPLES — Giancarlo DiTrapano is the founder, editor, and publisher of New York Tyrant. The magazine initially, starting in 2005. And then of Tyrant Books, starting in 2010. I spoke with him in his apartment in Naples two days ago, before flying back to the states yesterday. After flying out there 11 days ago. He wrote for Vice for a minute during the early tens and has ran the workshop Mors Tua Vita Mea, with the writer Chelsea Hodson, in Sezze, Italy since 2015. He grew up in Charleston, West Virginia and spent many years in New York City before moving out to Italy five years ago. We talk about how he came into the game with the magazine and the imprint, what he’s psyched about writing-wise now, a whole bunch of stuff. Thoroughly enjoyed ripping this convo and running it back.

NY Tyrant: https://nytyrant.com

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POD CONTENTS

6 min - pod start: G dissing and me tryna defend Ferrante lmaoo
8 min - Of Love and Other Demons by Garcia Marquez
9 min - Autoportrait by Edouard Leve / story versus bars/syntax
11 min - translated versus untranslated
11.5 min - G: “We should be recording this.” Me: “Bro it’s recording.”
12 min - coffee ready
13 min - move from kitchen to living room
13 min - McClanahan , bars v. Voice
14 min - on Liveblog (2018) by Megan Boyle
19 min - ‘prep’ = Preparation for the Next Life (2014) by Atticus Lish and ‘shapiro’ = Supremacist (2016) by Dave Shapiro
22 min - story on linking w Atticus Lish
26 min - How to Live is bigger than How to Write
27 min - Louise Gluck
32 min - Babak Lakghomi
38 min - "everything important in literature is about Death"
41 min - on mimicry / imitation
46 min - on exclamation points / nietzsche ecce homo
48 min - Lutz
49 min - Tyrant Vol 3 No 2 / young Diane Lane "the Outsiders"
55 min - story of G pulling up to nyc / FSG
59 min - putting out the first Tyrant mag / Sheila Heti
1 hr 2 min - DFW
1 hr 3 min - “all these lit mags started bc the Internet”
1 hr 6 min - Supremacist by David Shapiro
1 hr 12 min - drugs according to music era
1 hr 18 min - first linking w Castro
1 hr 21 min - what/who G hype on rn / Honor Levy
1 hr 22 min - Christopher Kennedy
1 hr 29 min - mors tua vita mea
1 hr 37 min - on how relevant or not relevant being out here for writing
1 hr 40 min - How the infrastructure of Literature upheld

Intro song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1YnDZXJ7Dj0Uk9Pqu4tdAX?si=evQ3qjohRo2VxpXVIQwtig

Sean Thor Conroe https://mobile.twitter.com/stconroe lives in Harlem.

HARLEM — I met the homie Vern a minute ago. I see him around all the time. I seem to see him once every couple weeks, like clockwork. Usually when the weather gets nicer suddenly, or nice enough to sit courtside or hoop at this lil park I be hooping at. Whenever we link we always torch one and really go in. Like every time it’s like a pod-length powwow. Today (12.11.20) we were goin in, mildly spleed, when he just started going off and I felt moved to set it down.

But what we talking about is, all this past week, I seen a wake going on across the street, mad people out, like 50-60 people gathered, lighting candles, pouring up, playing music for a homie who passed. I hadn’t know what had happened, but then in this convo it came up.

5 min - real life consequences of rappers talking crazy on the track / RIP Fluff
7 min - on staying ready / long johns riff
10 min - walking to the store / on beats / how he tryna go in on the track
12 min - “f**k getting inside your head w the bars I’m tryna get inside you BODY”
12:30-14 min - inside the store
14 min - walking back to the park
14:30 - “no one wants to be a nothing”
15 min - how he was raised vs how youngins today raised
17 min - back at the park / on the homie Fluff , RIP
20 min - my lighter died

https://twitter.com/stconroe lives in Harlem

http://1storyhaus.com

DMV / NYC — Nicolette Polek is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Imaginary Museums (Soft Skull, 2020) is her first book. I saw Nicolette read from this collection a couple times early this year, and reread it a couple times this past fortnight.

Buy Imaginary Museums: https://softskull.com/dd-product/imaginary-museums/

POD CONTENTS

3 min - pod start
4 min - small rooms big rooms card rooms basements
11 min - on “Winners” - https://magazine.nytyrant.com/winners/
14 min - on how life in Slovakia vs. US
19 min - “Field Notes” / Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch
21 min - Krasznahorkai
24 min - on the traditions Nicolette partaking in
25 min - The Middle Stories by Sheila Heti
27 min - Intimate Lighting, dir. Ivan Passer
28 min - on making art in communism
31 min - experience working with Soft Skull
33 min - on how these stories written
36 min - me repeatedly belaboring “the Nature”
37 min - Thomas Tallis / Abba
39 min - on what Nicolette working on now / Marta Becket
41 min - solitude vs. sharing. Kierkegaard definition of a saint: “to will the one thing”
42 min - subsequent books as answers to questions posed in previous ones
44 min - female eels
47 min - on Waldorf
55 min - Rings of Saturn by Sebald
57 min - mycology

– Sean Thor Conroe, http://1storyhaus.com

WISCONSIN / MANHATTAN — Big Bruiser Dope Boy is the author of Foghorn Leghorn, Your First Real Boyfriend (2019), and, most recently, After Denver (October 2020, 11:11 Press). He runs the site Gay Death Trance and lives in Wisconsin.

After Denver, from 11:11 Press: https://1111press.com/after-denver

Read the opening poem to After Denver, "Daddy State of Mind": https://www.youngmag.io/article/daddy-state-of-mind

CONTENTS

4 min - pod start
8 min - once a book is out there it’s out there
10 min - Pink absurdism / magical realism
13 min - how going in in 20s
16 min - “Doubt Doubt”
20 min - writing to be able to change yourself
21 min - on pseudonymity / BBDB’s inception
26 min - cnf vs fiction
29 min - the slab parts / homoeroticism of sports
32 min - coming outta the closet now vs 20 yrs ago
35 min - on “Gay Poet Here”
38 min - on bbdb’s process
40 min - edging on the rip / not going in till time
43 min - alternate writing modes / text messaging as writing
48 min - this type o writing is good for the culture / readability
51 min on working at gay bars / animal stuff / bear culture
59 - who After Denver written for
1 hr 4 min - on Death / strong fatalism