fiction/non/fiction

fiction/non/fiction
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fiction/non/fiction

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.

  1. 2D AGO

    S8, Ep. 38: Geoff Dyer on His New Memoir, Homework

    Writer Geoff Dyer joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new memoir Homework, which covers Dyer’s working-class youth in England during the 1960s and ’70s. He recollects his early passion for reading and film and reflects on writing about his parents, as well as the intensity of childhood play and collecting in the wake of the Second World War. He also explains what it meant for him to pass the 11-plus exam, a test given to British 11-year-olds to determine if they could go to grammar school—and the peculiar role that grammar schools played in the British educational system. Dyer talks about how this opportunity made his eventual admission at Oxford possible. He reads from Homework. This podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, Hunter Murray, and Janet Reed. Selected Readings: Geoff Dyer Homework: A Memoir The Last Days of Roger Federer  See/Saw: Looking at Photographs "The Secret of Who She Was" |Harper's Magazine "Best seat in the house: writer Geoff Dyer on why sitting in a corner is so satisfying” | The Guardian  Others Lord of the Flies by William Golding An American Childhood by Annie Dillard My Sky Blue Trades by Sven Birkerts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    52 min

  2. JUN 12

    S8, Ep. 37: Jess Walter on the American Family Unplugged

    Fiction writer Jess Walter joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new novel So Far Gone, in which a former environmental reporter living off the grid is jolted back onto it by the surprise arrival of his two grandchildren and news of his missing daughter. Walter talks about developing the character of his protagonist’s son-in-law, whose right-wing politics are one of the causes of the family’s fissure. He also reflects on what it means that conspiracy theorists, who were formerly at the fringes of American politics, are now at its center, and why it is important for writers to depict the interior lives of those with different political beliefs. Walter reads from So Far Gone. Selected Readings: Jess Walter So Far Gone Beautiful Ruins The Cold Millions We Live in Water The Angel of Rome and Other Stories The Financial Lives of the Poets Citizen Vince Ruby Ridge:  The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family Over Tumbled Graves Land of the Blind Others "America's 'Spot News' Novelist Takes on the Trump Era from Spokane" Washington Post Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1 Episode 6: "All the President's Shakespeare: Jess Walter and Kiki Petrosino"  Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 4 Episode 4: “Life After Trump: Jess Walter and Jerald Walker on the Aftermath of Election 2020” Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 8 Episode 5: Jess Walter on the Election ‹ Literary Hub Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    42 min

  3. JUN 5

    S8 Ep. 36: Susan Choi on Flashlight

    Acclaimed fiction writer Susan Choi joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss her new novel, Flashlight. Choi talks about the opening incident, in which a girl goes for a walk on the beach in Japan with her father only for him to disappear, presumably drowned. Choi explains the novel’s relationship to a short story she published in The New Yorker in 2020 and how the father’s past emerged as she worked on the book. She reflects on his childhood as an ethnic Korean raised in Japan in the 1940s, the difficult choices Koreans in Japan faced as Japanese occupation ended and Korea split into North and South after World War II, and the state of affairs today, as South Korea transitions to new leadership. She reads from Flashlight.  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 podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, and Hunter Murray. Selected Readings: Susan Choi Flashlight “Flashlight,” by Susan Choi | The New Yorker  Trust Exercise  My Education A Person of Interest American Woman The Foreign Student Others Susan Choi Is Still Outlandishly Talented | Vulture Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    47 min

  4. MAY 29

    S8 Ep. 35: Paul Elie on Art, Faith, and Sex in 1980s America–and the New Pope

    Nonfiction writer Paul Elie joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new book The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s and Pope Leo XIV. Elie compares the new pope to John Paul II, whose conservative views shaped the 1980s. He explains how and why ’80s artists like Andy Warhol, U2, and Bob Dylan produced art he considers “crypto-religious,” a term coined by poet Czesław Miłosz. He analyzes limbo and purgatory in the work of writers of the period, including Louise Erdrich and Toni Morrison, and recalls the culture wars, including iconic incidents like Sinéad O’Connor tearing up the pope’s picture on Saturday Night Live, as well as the controversy over Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ. He reads from The Last Supper. Selected Readings: Paul Elie The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s Reinventing Bach: The Search for Transcendence in Sound The Life You Save May Be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage The Down-to-Earth Pope: Pope Francis Has Died at Eighty-eight | The New Yorker  Others Madame Bovary Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose  Love Medicine The Handmaid’s Tale Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz U2 - Gloria  “The Controversial Saturday Night Live Performance That Made Sinéad O'Connor an Icon,” Time Magazine, July 26, 2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    49 min

  5. MAY 22

    S8 Ep. 34: Julia Elliott on Small-Town Voters and Trump’s Tariff Trap

    Fiction writer Julia Elliott joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about why President Trump’s tariff policy appeals to voters in small towns in the Midwest and South, which have been economically devastated for the past couple of decades following the North American Free Trade Agreement. Elliott considers Democrats’ failure to articulate their own successes using tariffs to bring jobs back to the U.S. Elliott, who is from South Carolina, talks about conservatives who are hesitant to criticize Trump. She also reads from and discusses her new story collection, Hellions. 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 podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, and Hunter Murray. Selected Readings:   Julia Elliott ●  Hellions ●  The Wilds ● The New and Improved Romie Futch   Others ●  Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 5, Episode 2: Julia Elliott and DaMaris B. Hill on Writing Rural Americ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 4m

  6. MAY 15

    S8 Ep. 33: Mirza Waheed on India, Pakistan, and the Literature of Partition

    Novelist and journalist Mirza Waheed joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about brewing tensions between two nuclear powers: India and Pakistan. Waheed, who was born in Kashmir and previously worked as a journalist, explains how the recent massacre of Indian tourists there at the hands of militants connects to a broader context that includes Partition, the 1947 event that separated the two countries. He reflects on growing up in Kashmir, a place to which both Pakistan and India would like to lay claim. Waheed reads from his debut novel, The Collaborator. Selected Readings: Mirza Waheed Tell Her Everything The Book of Gold Leaves A massacre has reignited the forever war between India and Pakistan – once more, Kashmiri voices are missing | Mirza Waheed | The Guardian Others The Collaborator (2024) | MUBI  The Collaborator (2024) - IMDb An Urdu Epic Puts India’s Partition Into Historical Perspective - The New York Times | By Aditi Sriram, April 8, 2019 Kamila Shamsie Saadat Hasan Manto Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1h 1m

  7. MAY 8

    S8 Ep. 32: Hamilton Nolan on DIY Opinion Writing

    Writer Hamilton Nolan joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about opinion journalism. Nolan, who writes frequently about labor and politics, discusses how and why he entered journalism, the myth of objectivity, and how he views the relationship between activism and journalism. He explains how long it took for him to make money on Substack, reflects on what it means to share an opinion in the current political environment, and considers the importance of unions for writers. Nolan reads from his book, The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor. Hamilton Nolan The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor Your Opinions Can Be Bad But You Still Have to Tell the Truth Hamilton Nolan | The Guardian Here’s a New Year’s resolution for Trump’s America: no snitching  Hamilton Nolan - In These Times Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    49 min

  8. MAY 1

    S8 Ep. 31: Rešoketšwe Manenzhe on Trump’s South African Connection

    South African writer Rešoketšwe Manenzhe joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the influence that wealthy South African immigrants like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are having on the Trump administration and conservative U.S. politics in general. Manenzhe talks about how growing up under apartheid may have shaped these men’s views, how South Africans view Musk now, and what the country’s history can tell us about the current American political situation. She also discusses South Africa’s Immorality Act of 1927 and reads from her novel, Scatterlings.  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 podcast is produced by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Whitney Terrell, and Hunter Murray. Selected Readings: Rešoketšwe Manenzhe Scatterlings Others: “A Biracial Family Risks Persecution in 1920s Cape Town” by V.V. Ganeshananthan How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’ extend to apartheid South Africa | Elon Musk | The Guardian Gravity's Rainbow (Classics Deluxe Edition) by Thomas Pynchon US focuses on persecution claims as white South Africans seek resettlement | Reuters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    54 min
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    About

    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.

    Information

    • Creator
      fiction/non/fiction
    • Years Active
      2017 - 2025
    • Episodes
      296
    • Rating
      Explicit
    • Copyright
      © Whitney Terrell, V.V. Ganeshananthan, 980309
    • Show Website
      fiction/non/fiction

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