229 episodes

Hosted by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan, fiction/non/fiction interprets current events through the lens of literature, and features conversations with writers of all stripes, from novelists and poets to journalists and essayists.

fiction/non/fiction fiction/non/fiction

    • News
    • 4.9 • 74 Ratings

Hosted by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan, fiction/non/fiction interprets current events through the lens of literature, and features conversations with writers of all stripes, from novelists and poets to journalists and essayists.

    Lessons for Survival: Emily Raboteau on Mothering and Climate Change

    Lessons for Survival: Emily Raboteau on Mothering and Climate Change

    Writer Emily Raboteau joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about mothering in the face of climate change and systemic inequality. Raboteau discusses the difference between “resilience” and “trauma-informed growth,” and considers which one more realistically describes how people react to devastation. She also reflects on writing about Indigenous communities and histories, developing language to capture shifting environmental realities, and the intersections of climate and racial justice. Finally, she explains the influence of her late father, Albert Raboteau, a groundbreaking professor of African American religion, on her community-minded approach to these topics. She reads from Lessons for Survival, her new collection of essays about care and mothering in the climate crisis. 
    To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/
    This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

    Emily Raboteau

    Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “the Apocalypse”

    Searching for Zion: The Quest for Home in the African Diaspora

    The Professor’s Daughter

    “Climate Signs”|The New York Review of Books, February 1, 2019

    “Lessons in Survival”|The New York Review of Books, November 21, 2019

    “The Unequal Racial Burdens of Rising Seas”|The New York Times, April 10, 2023

    “Gutbucket”|Orion Magazine


    Others:

    Fiction/Non/Fiction: Season 2, Episode 15: “Emily Raboteau and Omar El Akkad Tell a Different Kind of Climate Change Story”

    “Special Report: Global Warming of 1.5 ºC”|Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, October 2018

    “UN Says Climate Genocide Is Coming. It’s Actually Worse Than That” by David Wallace-Wells|New York Magazine, October 10, 2018

    The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells

    “Young Readers Ask: The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells” by Geronimo Lavalle|Orion Magazine, April 9, 2019

    “In Pictures: New York Under a Haze of Wildfire Smoke|Le Monde, June 7, 2023

    Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore by Elizabeth Rush

    “Why Indonesia Is Shifting Its Capital From Jakarta”|Bloomberg, August 24, 2019

    “Sea Level Rise and Implications for Low-Lying Islands, Coasts and Communities”|Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, September 2019

    “Managed Retreat through Voluntary Buyouts of Flood-Prone Properties” by Katherine J. Mach et. al.|Science Advances, October 9, 2019

    “Climate Change Isn’t the First Existential Threat” by Mary Annaïse Heglar|ZORA, February 18, 2019

    Anya Kamenetz

    “‘Culture Will Be Eroded’: Climate Crisis Threatens to Flood Harriet Tubman Park”|The Guardian, November 23, 2019

    Charleston: Race, Water, and the Coming Storm by Susan Crawford and Annette Gordon-Reed

    Justin Brice Guariglia

    Albert Raboteau

    Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South by Albert Raboteau


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    • 49 min
    Alabama’s Embryos: Briallen Hopper on the Personal and Political Consequences of the New IVF Court Decision

    Alabama’s Embryos: Briallen Hopper on the Personal and Political Consequences of the New IVF Court Decision

    Writer Briallen Hopper joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about in vitro fertilization and the recent Alabama State Supreme Court ruling declaring that frozen embryos have the same rights as children. Hopper speaks about the science and thought behind freezing embryos versus eggs, as well as the religious language embedded in the court’s decision. She reads an excerpt from a 2019 Washington Post essay about her choice to freeze embryos as a single person and reflects on repeating the process later, with a partner.
    To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/
    This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.
    Briallen Hopper

    Hard to Love: Essays and Confessions


    Gilead Reread (forthcoming, Columbia University Press)

    “Single Women Looking to Extend their Fertility Usually Freeze Eggs. I Froze Embryos.”|Washington Post, May 10th, 2019


    Others:


    James LePage, et al. v. The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Mobile Infirmary Association | Supreme Court of Alabama 


    The Human Life Protection Act | Alabama - May 15, 2019


    Tammy Duckworth | Access to Family Building Act  


    Dobbs | The Supreme Court - June 24, 2022


    The Radical Freedom Of IVF by Krys Malcolm Belc, Romper



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    • 44 min
    Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: Rachel Bitecofer on Democratic Strategies to Counter Republicans in the 2024 Election

    Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: Rachel Bitecofer on Democratic Strategies to Counter Republicans in the 2024 Election

    Rachel Bitecofer, author of the new book Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game, joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk shop about the election strategies Democrats should implement to combat Republicans and prevent fascism. Bitecofer discusses how Republicans use “negative partisanship” to win elections by slamming Democrats as a whole, and argues that Democrats must turn the tables and attack the GOP’s now-extremist brand, which poses an urgent threat to Americans. Bitecofer reads from a section of Hit ’Em Where it Hurts that describes what it means to “wedge” an issue, and talks about how Democrats can do this. 
    To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/
    This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.
    Rachel Bitecofer

    Hit ’Em Where It Hurts: How to Save Democracy by Beating Republicans at Their Own Game, with Aaron Murphy

    Others:

    Dobbs | The Supreme Court


    State of the Union Address 2023 

    Project 2025: Presidential Transition Project


    Stephen Miller (Southern Poverty Law Center)


    "At CPAC, Stephen Miller Describes His Plan to Round Up Migrants into Camps and Deport Them" | MediaMatters for America


    "The Benghazi Timeline, Clinton Edition” by Eugene Kiely, June 30, 2016 | factcheck.org


    Hur Report | The Justice Department


    "Trump vows to end birthright citizenship for children of immigrants in US illegally" by Ted Hesson | Reuters


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    • 49 min
    The Road From Belhaven: Margot Livesey and What Literature Can Tell Us About The Future

    The Road From Belhaven: Margot Livesey and What Literature Can Tell Us About The Future

    As the 2024 Presidential race heats up, award-winning fiction writer Margot Livesey joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the value of seeing the future in politics and in family life. Are the polls right? Will Donald Trump beat President Joe Biden in the November election? Livesey talks about the role predictions play in our political landscape and in her new novel, The Road from Belhaven, in which a young woman named Lizzie Craig, raised by her grandparents in 19th century Scotland, has the gift of second sight. Livesey discusses the ways that literature has handled the concept of “seeing the future” over time, including the role second sight plays in Macbeth. She reads from her novel. 
    To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/
    This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.
    Margot Livesey

    The Road From Belhaven

    The Boy in the Field

    Homework

    Eva Moves The Furniture

    The Flight of Gemma Hardy


    Others


    Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

    Fiction/Non/Fiction: Season 3, Episode 24: “Summer Books Extravaganza: Margot Livesey and Jaswinder Bolina on Beach Reading When the Beach is Closed”


    Fiction/Non/Fiction: Season 5, Episode 35: "Boris Johnson: Margot Livesey on British Politics, the Brexit Blunder, and the Prime Minister’s Lies" 



    No Great Mischief  by Alistair MacLeod 



    The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan


    Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis 


    Macbeth by William Shakespeare


    Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling


    Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

    L.M. Montgomery


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    • 36 min
    ‘They Want What We Have’: Matt Gallagher on Supporting Ukrainians' Struggle for Liberation

    ‘They Want What We Have’: Matt Gallagher on Supporting Ukrainians' Struggle for Liberation

    Two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, novelist, journalist, and veteran Matt Gallagher joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the current state of the Russo-Ukrainian war and why the country desperately needs the emergency aid in a bill currently under consideration in Congress. Gallagher, whose new novel Daybreak is set in Ukraine, weighs in on where the U.S. stands on the war by comparing it to military conflicts of the past, from World War II to more recent involvements in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. He also reflects on how reporting and training civilians in Ukraine influenced Daybreak, in which an Army veteran explores his own motivations for aiding the country’s fight for freedom as well as the flawed, messy realities of war. He reads from the novel. 
    To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/
    This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.
    Matt Gallagher

    Daybreak

    Empire City

    Youngblood

    “This is no time to give up on Ukraine” by Matt Gallagher | Boston Globe

    “There Are Only Two Options Left in Ukraine” by Matt Gallagher | Esquire, Nov. 20, 2023

    “The Secret Weapons of Ukraine” by Matt Gallagher | Esquire, Feb. 23, 2023

    “My Advice for American Veterans Who Want to Get On a Plane to Ukraine” by Matt Gallagher | The New York Times, April 10, 2022

    “Notes from Lviv” by Matt Gallagher | Esquire, March 31, 2022


    Others:

    “Ukraine is resorting to attacking Russia with small drones because it's running out of artillery ammunition” by Tom Porter | Business Insider

    “Ukraine and Israel Aid Bill Inches Ahead as Divided G.O.P. Demands Changes” by Karoun Demirjian | The New York Times, 2024

    The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

    The Forever War by Dexter Wilkins

    “What Should a War Movie Do?” by Whitney Terrell | The New Republic, Nov. 21, 2016

    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 1: The Art of Taking a Knee: Colin Kaepernick Edition


    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 4, Episode 13: Cancellation or Consequences? Meredith Talusan and Matt Gallagher on Accountability in Literature


    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5, Episode 9: Anton Troianovski and Marci Shore on a Possible Russian Invasion of Ukraine 


    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 2: How Dostoevsky’s Classic Has Shaped Russia’s War in Ukraine, with Explaining Ukraine’s Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko


    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 51: Tetyana Ogarkova and Volodymyr Yermolenko on How Artists Are Responding to the War in Ukraine 




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    • 53 min
    American Fiction: Jacinda Townsend and James Bernard Short on the Joy, Pathos, and Complexity of Black Experience in the Oscar-Nominated Film

    American Fiction: Jacinda Townsend and James Bernard Short on the Joy, Pathos, and Complexity of Black Experience in the Oscar-Nominated Film

    Novelist Jacinda Townsend and writer James Bernard Short join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the movie American Fiction, which is based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. Townsend and Short discuss how the film addresses race in the publishing industry via its central character, Black author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, who tries to make an ironic point by writing a book exploiting Black stereotypes and finds, to his dismay, that it’s received in earnest and a bestseller. Townsend and Short analyze director Cord Jefferson’s approach and the film’s themes of family dysfunction, freedom in storytelling, and the importance of portraying the complexity of Black lives. 

    To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

    This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

    Jacinda Townsend

    Mother Country

    Saint Monkey


    James Bernard Short

    “Aqua Boogie” | Blood Orange Review

    “Rootwork” | Blood Orange Review

    “Flash, Back: Langston Hughes’ The Simple Shorts” | SmokeLong Quarterly


    Others:

    American Fiction (movie) | Official Trailer

    Erasure by Percival Everett

    An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

    Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

    Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

    Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward

    The Color Purple by Alice Walker

    Thelonious Monk

    Ralph Ellison

    Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

    “The Little Man at Chehaw Station” by Ralph Ellison | The American Scholar, 1978

    The Tuskegee Institute

    White Negroes by Lauren Michele Jackson

    “The White Negro” by Norman Mailer | Dissent, 1957

    “Dragon Slayers” by Jerald Walker | The Iowa Review, 2006

    “The Hidden Lesson of ‘American Fiction’” by John McWhorter | The New York Times

    Origin (movie) | Official Trailer

    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 11, “Annihilation, Adaptation: What's It Really Like to Have Your Book Made Into a Movie”

    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 11, “Brit Bennett and Emily Halpern on Screenwriting’s Tips for Fiction”

    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 33, “The Stakes of the Writers’ Strike: Benjamin Percy on the WGA Walkout, Streaming, and the Survival of Screenwriting”

    Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 6, Episode 38, “Jacinda Townsend on Why Democrats Are Skeptical of President Biden—and How He Can Win Them Back”


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    • 49 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
74 Ratings

74 Ratings

NadaTeTurbe ,

Wonderful bookish podcast

This is hands down my favorite podcast. The hosts deftly steer the conversation with such interesting guests, the discussion always gets my wheels turning and makes me want to read, and I always learn something.

Dawnshhdhbekenb ,

Love how relevant it is

Loved the one on the writers’ strike, the one on Cormac McCarthy… a really nice range of topics always, and smart analysis, good questions, prepared hosts.

Bohemian_Peasant ,

Relevant and informative

Your conversation with the hosts of Explaining Ukraine about “Crime Without Punishment” was timely and relevant. Don’t miss this episode!

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