Keep the Channel Open Mike Sakasegawa

Writer Rachel Lyon returns to the show to discuss her latest novel, Fruit of the Dead, a contemporary retelling of the Persephone myth in which a young woman is seduced by wealth and privilege in a story about addiction, class, sexual assault, and power. In our conversation, we talked about how malleable identity can be during adolescence and how that informed how she wrote the character of Cory, how family members do and don’t see each other, and why it was important for the characters in this story to have agency. Then for the second segment we talked about stages of life.
(Recorded June 28, 2024.)
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Show Notes: Rachel Lyon Purchase Fruit of the Dead: Broadside Bookshop (Northampton, MA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Rachel Lyon - Self-Portrait with Boy Keep the Channel Open - Episode 79: Rachel Lyon (January 2019) The Holdovers Charles Baxter - First Light Elizabeth Jane Howard - The Long View Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Introducing Hey, It's Me!
I'm happy to announce a new podcast from me and my friend Rachel Zucker, Hey, It's Me! Here's the first episode as a bonus for KTCO listeners. Enjoy!
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For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet Amorak Huey joins me to discuss Layli Long Soldier’s 2017 poetry collection, Whereas. In our conversation, we talked about the way the poems confront language, what language means in the context of forced assimilation, and how the poems engage with both history and contemporary reality.
(Recorded March 26, 2024)
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Show Notes: Amorak Huey Purchase Whereas: Gathering Volumes (Parisburg, OH) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Purchase Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans Between the Covers - Layli Long Soldier : Whereas R. F. Kuang - Babel Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

For this KTCO Book Club conversation, I’m joined by writer and group facilitator Martha Crawford for a discussion about Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s 2023 memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds. In our conversation, Martha and I talked about different ways of knowing, how to read across cultures without being extractive, storytelling as healing, and what identity means in the context of forgetting.
(Recorded March 9, 2024)
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Show Notes: Martha Crawford Purchase The Man Who Could Move Clouds, by Ingrid Rojas Contreras: The Collected Works Bookstore (Santa Fe, NM) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Vine Deloria, Jr. Hildegard of Bingen Thomas Merton - “The Door That Ends All Doors” Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Writer and friend José Pablo Iriarte returns to the show to discuss their debut middle-grade novel, Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed. In our conversation, we talked about building stories without antagonists, writing for young readers, and what makes coming-of-age stories such an enduring phenomenon. Then for the second segment, we talked about the importance of storytelling in creating empathy and connection in our incredibly divided society.
(Recorded April 6, 2024.)
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Show Notes: José Pablo Iriarte Purchase Benny Ramírez and the Nearly Departed: White Rose Books (Kissimmee, FL) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Keep the Channel Open - Episode 23: José Iriarte José Pablo Iriarte - “Proof by Induction” José Pablo Iriarte - “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births” José Pablo Iriarte - “Secrets and Things We Don’t Say Out Loud” José Pablo Iriarte - “Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic” José Pablo Iriarte - “Spirit of Home” Becky Chambers - A Psalm for the Wild-Built A. S. King’s Instagram post Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You Ryka Aoki - Light From Uncommon Stars A. S. King - Attack of the Black Rectangles Transcript Episode credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Sarah Rose Etter is a writer based in Los Angeles, CA. In Sarah’s latest novel, Ripe, a young woman is trapped in a dream-job-turned-corporate-nightmare at a cutthroat Silicon Valley tech startup. Her bosses are capricious and cruel, the city she lives in is crumbling under late capitalism, and everywhere she goes she is followed by her own personal black hole. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the relationship between her surrealist fiction and poetry, why visual art is important to her, and what it means for a character to have agency. Then for the second segment we discussed dead authors, reading in translation, and creative insecurity.
(Recorded March 2, 2024.)
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Show Notes: Sarah Rose Etter Purchase Ripe: Skylight Books (Los Angeles, CA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Sarah Rose Etter - The Book of X Keep the Channel Open - Episode 89: Julia Dixon Evans Tommy Pico Lilliam Rivera Kristen Arnett Sarah Rose Etter - “Unpublishable: Censored Emails from Noam Chomsky” Alina Szapocznikow Vija Celmins Nylon - “Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe and the Rotted Underbelly of Capitalism” Sarah Rose Etter - “Inside the Cardboard Box of My Heart” Mark Rothko Louise Bourgeois Donald Judd Sarah Rose Etter - “Girl, What Is Wrong With You?” Parasite Uncut Gems Sarah Rose Etter - “Subglacial Rivers, A Love Poem, Because… & Either/Or” Crane Brinton - The Anatomy of Revolution Brandon Taylor - “living shadows: aesthetics of moral worldbuilding” Tove Ditlevsen - The Copenhagen Trilogy Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine Transcript Episode Credits: Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo