Episode 10: Spooky Season with Kyle Winkler and Faust
We’re feeling spooky with horror author Kyle Winkler, back to discuss his latest novel, the creepy and horrifying Enter the Peerless, which starts with a private investigator trying to figure out what happened to a bunch of people who went into an abandoned trailer and never came out. Always a thoughtful and fun guest, Kyle gives us some insight into his process for this novel while establishing a mind-meld with Nathan over possible Halloween costumes.
Plus, Mason overreacts to an upcoming novel being based on the Faust myth, and demands a moratorium on Faust retellings. Will the literary establishment take note?
We’re feeling spooky with horror author Kyle Winkler, back to discuss his latest novel, the creepy and horrifying Enter the Peerless, which starts with a private investigator trying to figure out what happened to a bunch of people who went into an abandoned trailer and never came out. Always a thoughtful and fun guest, Kyle gives us some insight into his process for this novel while establishing a mind-meld with Nathan over possible Halloween costumes.
Plus, Mason overreacts to an upcoming novel being based on the Faust myth, and demands a moratorium on Faust retellings. Will the literary establishment take note?
Enter the Peerless by Kyle Winkler is out now.
Works Cited this episode:
Moby-Dick, Herman Melville
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Women in Love, D.H. Lawrence
Middlemarch, George Eliot
“The Raven,” Edgar Allan Poe
The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Jack Reacher books, Lee Child
Being John Malkovich, dir. Spike Jonze
Suttree, Cormac McCarthy
The Road, Cormac McCarthy
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
The Game, dir. David Fincher
The School of Night, Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe
Faust, Charles Gounod
The Devil’s Advocate, dir. Taylor Hackford
Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain, Ed Simon
The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Kyd
Dark Renaissance, Stephen Greenblatt
The Winter of our Discontent, John Steinbeck
Ulysses, James Joyce
The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
Paradise Lost, John Milton
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
Warm Bodies, dir. Jonathan Levine
Coriolanus, William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, William Shakespeare
Titanic, dir. James Cameron
Clueless, dir. Amy Heckerling
Hamlet 2, Andrew Fleming
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Odyssey, Homer
Spawn, Todd McFarland
Episode 09: Short Stories We Love
The first in an occasional series focusing on short stories we found in various journals, and interviews with those authors. Short stories don't get much love outside of The New Yorker or MFA workshops, but they should! Many of them are incredible. Our guests include writers Billy Irving, Kelly Magee, and Kit McGuire.
The first in an occasional series focusing on short stories we found in various journals, and interviews with those authors. Short stories don't get much love outside of The New Yorker or MFA workshops, but they should. Many of them are incredible. Try one today!
Our guests include writers Billy Irving, Kelly Magee, and Kit McGuire.
“Little Arlo” by Billy Irving is in XRAY Literary Magazine
“Caring for your Local Woman” by Kelly Magee is in Waxwing Literary Journal
“Pink in the Morning” by Kit McGuire is in Olit
Works Cited this episode:
Alyoshenka legend
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
“The Sound of Thunder,” Ray Bradbury
“The Lady or the Tiger,” Frank R. Stockton
There is no Antimemetics Division, qntm
“The Neighborhood,” Kelly Magee
“There Must be Good Honest Sins,” Kit McGuire
Episode 08: Meta Stole Our Writing to Feed its AI
We knew Zuck was a fan of the podcast, but we didn’t know he would go so far as to dig up our old articles and use them, along with a million other books, to train Meta’s AI. Oh, you say he didn’t do it himself, and maybe it’s not stealing (legal opinions pending)? This may be true, or it may just be a topic we debate on this episode.
We knew Zuck was a fan of the podcast. We didn’t know he would go so far as to dig up our old articles and use them, along with a million other books, to train Meta’s AI. Oh, you say he didn’t do it himself, and maybe it’s not stealing (legal opinions pending)? This may be true, or it may just be a topic we debate on this episode. Plus: We review the novel Luminous, by Silvia Park, a touching story of humans seeking connection in a world where robots walk among us.
Luminous by Silvia Park is out now.
Works Cited this episode:
“The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated Books problem,” Alex Reisner, The Atlantic
Jurassic Park, dir. Steven Spielberg
“Everyone is Cheating Their way Through College,” James D. Walsh, New York Magazine
The Confessions, Paul Bradley Carr
Wall-E, dir. Andrew Stanton
The McSweeney’s Book of Politics and Musicals, ed. Christopher Monks
The Early Republic and Antebellum America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, ed. Christopher G. Bates
The Jetsons, Hanna-Barbera
Blade Runner, dir. Ridley Scott
The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells
A.I. Artificial Intelligence, dir. Steven Spielberg
Blob, Maggie Su
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory, David Chalmers
You are Not a Gadget, Jaron Lanier
The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
Star Wars, dir. George Lucas
Episode 07: Erin Lyndal Martin
Writer Erin Lyndal Martin joins the show to inform us that Saddam Hussein wrote a romance novel, but only after we wondered if Joe Rogan could do it. Other topics include whether men should read more literature (spoiler: yes) and whether doing so would make the world a better place (debatable). Also, what to do about books that are capital-I Important but maybe not so great?
Writer Erin Lyndal Martin joins the show to inform us that Saddam Hussein wrote a romance novel, but only after we wondered if Joe Rogan could do it. Other topics include whether men should read more literature, which we think Yes! They should, and whether men doing so would make the world a better place, which we think is debatable. Also, what to do about books that are capital-I Important but maybe not so great?
Some of Erin’s recent work includes “If Sylvia Plath wrote ‘Wild Geese’ ” in Electric Literature and “Carillon” in Maudlin House. Visit her at erinlyndalmartin.com.
Works Cited this episode:
“After the Election,” Sarah Messer
Angels in America, Tony Kushner
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair
Molly, Blake Butler
Ulysses, James Joyce
Boring Girls, Sara Taylor
Don Quixote, Kathy Acker
Great Expectations, Kathy Acker
“The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone,” David J. Morris
“The Promise of American Poetry” by Bob Hicok
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
James Joyce’s letters to his wife
Joe Rogan Experience #887: James Hetfield
Joe Rogan Experience #1788: Mr. Beast
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination That Changed America Forever by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
Confronting the Presidents: No Spin [sic] Assessments from Washington to Biden by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
Zabibah and the King by Anonymous (attributed to Saddam Hussein)
A Message to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Episode 06: Paul Bradley Carr, Part 2
Bestselling author and bookstore owner Paul Bradley Carr returns for Part 2 of our conversation about artificial intelligence, the power of narratives, drinking blood, and whether vaping is cool (spoiler: no). The AI chatbots kept trying to disrupt our Zoom session with Paul, but for now, humans remain dominant. We also discuss Tom Comitta’s Patchwork, a novella constructed entirely out of snippets of text taken from other, previously published works.
Bestselling author and bookstore owner Paul Bradley Carr returns for Part 2 of our conversation about artificial intelligence, the power of narratives, drinking blood, and whether vaping is cool (spoiler: no). The AI chatbots kept trying to disrupt our Zoom session with Paul, but for now, humans remain dominant. We also discuss Tom Comitta’s Patchwork, a novella constructed entirely out of snippets of text taken from other, previously published works. One of our hosts was turned off by this experimental approach. Try to guess which one! We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The New York Times called Paul’s most recent novel The Confessions “a terrifying window into the future.”
Patchwork by Tom Comitta is published by Coffee House Press.
Works Cited this episode:
Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton
“Billionaires Convince Themselves AI Chatbots Are Close to Making New Scientific Discoveries,” Matt Novak, Gizmodo
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien
Untitled metafictional literary short story about AI and grief, ChatGPT and/or Sam Altman
A Void, George Perec
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Only Revolutions, Mark Z. Danielewski
The Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
Guernica, Pablo Picasso
The Clock, dir. Christian Marclay
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
The Matrix, dir. the Wachowski siblings
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov
Ep. 05: Kyle Winkler and BLOB
Author Kyle Winkler joins this episode to talk about horror fiction. What's scarier: There's a Wocket in my Pocket or Goodnight Moon? We also give a close read to Kyle’s novel Tone Bone (spoiler: we like it). Plus, we review the novel BLOB by Maggie Su, and, in the process, enjoy saying “blob” over and over again. Try it!
Author Kyle Winkler joins this episode to talk about horror fiction. What's scarier: There's a Wocket in my Pocket or Goodnight Moon? We also give a close read to Kyle’s novel Tone Bone (spoiler: we like it).
Plus, we review the novel BLOB by Maggie Su, and, in the process, enjoy saying “blob” over and over again. Try it!
Kyle Winkler is the author of the novels Enter the Peerless, Tone Bone, The Nothing That Is, and the story collection Oh Pain.
BLOB by Maggie Su is out now.
Works Cited this episode:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson, illustrations by Ralph Steadman
Christine, Stephen King; cover art by Craig DeCamps
Big Trouble in Little China, dir. John Carpenter
Starman, dir. John Carpenter
Beetlejuice, dir. Tim Burton
Pumpkinhead, dir. Stan Winston
“The Ceiling,” Kevin Brockmeier
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Darkening Garden, John Clute
Scream, dir. Wes Craven
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, dir. Tobe Hooper
There’s a Wocket in my Pocket, Dr. Seuss
Runaway, dir. Michael Crichton
Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown
Frog and Toad All Year, Arnold Lobel
The Monster at the End of This Book, Jon Stone
“Necropotence,” Magic the Gathering, artist Dave Kendall
“Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Three Musketeers, Alexander Dumas
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
“The Metamorphosis,” Franz Kafka
Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby, Jr.
The Blob, dir. Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.
Ep. 04: Paul Bradley Carr, Part 1
We invited former tech journalist and bestselling author Paul Bradley Carr for a rollicking discussion about his new novel, The Confessions. It features an all-knowing Artificial Intelligence that doesn’t want to destroy the world—because it was trained by reading fiction. He also shared his polite and laudatory thoughts about several leading tech industry personalities. Plus, our discussion of Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano’s latest novel, Ballerina, inspired Nathan to invent the cool new subgenre Proustian Noir.
We invited former tech journalist and bestselling author Paul Bradley Carr for a rollicking discussion about his new novel, The Confessions. It features an all-knowing Artificial Intelligence that doesn’t want to destroy the world—because it was trained by reading fiction. He also shared his polite and laudatory thoughts about several leading tech industry personalities. Plus, our discussion of Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano’s latest novel, Ballerina, inspired Nathan to invent the cool new subgenre Proustian Noir.
Works Cited this episode:
The Confessions, Paul Bradley Carr
The Immortal King Rao, Vauhini Vara
The Candy House, Jennifer Egan
Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone, Benjamin Stevenson
“We Will All go Together When We Go,” Tom Lehrer
1984, George Orwell
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
Hercule Poirot continuation novels, Sophie Hannah
The Bulgari Connection, Fay Weldon
State of Terror, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny
The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Polostan, Neal Stephenson
In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust
Paris Nocturne, Patrick Modiano
Breathless, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq
Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto, Mark Polizotti
Ep. 03: Dan Eastman
We were joined by author and poet Dan Eastman for a discussion about confessional poetry, second-person POV, and the best memes. I ask you: should poems mention Facebook? Still waiting on our podcast name during this episode. Nice of Dan to not make fun of us for this.
We were joined by author and poet Dan Eastman for a discussion about confessional poetry, second-person POV, and the best memes. I ask you: should poems mention Facebook? Still waiting on our podcast name during this episode. Nice of Dan to not make fun of us for this.
Dan Eastman is the author of Watertown and the second-person POV story “Parris Enflames.”
Works Cited this episode:
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
“Winesburg, Ohio,” Sherwood Anderson
A Nightmare on Elm Street, dir. Wes Craven
Human Acts, Han Kang
Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney
“Orientation,” Daniel Orozco
Slacker, dir. Richard Linklater
The Choose Your Own Adventure series
“Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century,” Vanity Fair, by Vincenzo Barney
Dutch, Edmund Morris
“A Debate Recap with Song, Dance, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt,” The New York Times, video by The Gregory Brothers
Natural Born Killers, dir. Quentin Tarantino
The People vs. Larry Flynt, dir. Miloš Forman
Episode 02: MFA Authors
Or: Can Nate and Mason guess whether an author has an MFA simply by reading the first page of their novel?
Nate and Mason both have MFAs, but do they go around telling everyone and demanding book deals because of it? Well, yes, if you’re offering. But anyway, a social media firestorm about a take about Sally Rooney not having an MFA got us thinking: Are They Good and Should Anyone Care? Then Nate and Mason make each other guess if authors have an MFA based on excerpts of their work. (Still no name for the podcast when we recorded this one.)
Works Cited this episode:
“A Roon with a View,” Bookforum, Brandon Taylor
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino
Colored Television, Danzy Senna
“How has the MFA Changed the Contemporary Novel?,” The Atlantic, Richard Jean So and Andrew Piper
The Killer is Dying, James Sallis
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
“Flings,” Justin Taylor
In Five Years, Rebecca Serle
Blade, dir. Stephen Norrington
“Liking, Wanting, and the Incentive-Sensitization Theory of Addiction,” American Psychologist, Kent C. Berridge and Terry E. Robinson
The Zone of Interest, dir. Jonathan Glazer
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), created by Joss Whedon
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Shawshank Redemption, dir. Frank Darabont
Pulp Fiction, dir. Quentin Tarantino
Billy Madison, dir. Tamra Davis
A Strangeness in my Mind, Orhan Pamuk
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
Memento, dir. Christopher Nolan
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Henry Danger, created by Dan Schneider
Ninjago, The Lego Group
Episode 01: Is Reading Good?
We hit the big topic in our first episode. And: why are there so many orphans in YA novels?
Specifically, is reading fiction inherently good, as well as instrumentally good (meaning, it’s good for some other reason, like making you smarter)? We grapple with this, mostly by talking. The podcast was called “Untitled Podcast” when we recorded this one. Also: Why do so many YA novels use orphans as protagonists?
Works Cited in this episode:
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Impossible Creatures, Katherine Rundell
“Can 35 Million Book Buyers be Wrong? Yes,” Harold Bloom, The Wall Street Journal
“I said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let me Explain,” Martin Scorsese, The New York Times
The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Pricksongs and Descants, Robert Coover
Moonrise Kingdom, dir. Wes Anderson
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
“The Pleasures of Tragedy,” Susan Feagin, American Philosophical Quarterly
Prisoners, dir. Denis Villeneuve
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
“Lemon of Troy,” The Simpsons
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain
Finding Nemo, dir. Andrew Stanton
Bambi, Walt Disney
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
The Hooded Hawk Mystery, Franklin W. Dixon