All Write Already!

For today’s show, we’re reaching into the archives to bring you an interview with David Stuart MacLean. When we talked to David, it was way back in 2012 and his book wasn’t coming out until January 2014. Now it’s March and the book is out. Time is so mysterious. In this update of the episode, […]

On today’s show, we’re talking all things AWP. Each year, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs holds its annual literary conference–the largest in North America–to celebrate authors, teachers, students, writing programs, literary centers, and publishers. This year’s conference took place in Seattle and had more than 600 events and over 750 different bookfair exhibitors. We […]

Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father’s House, You Can Make Him Like You, So Different Now, Orphans and Lost in Space, among others. Ben serves as Director of Publicity and Content Strategy at Curbside Splendor and can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life, the center of his growing lifestyle empire. He […]

Today’s guest, Gina Frangello is the author of three books of fiction: A Life in Men (Algonquin 2014), which has been a book club selection for NYLON magazine, The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown; Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010), which was a Foreword Magazine Best Book of the Year finalist, and My Sister’s Continent (Chiasmus 2006). She is the Sunday editor for The Rumpus and the fiction […]

We got carried away talking to today’s guest, Megan Stielstra. No, really. We could not stop asking questions. So we’ve decided to forgo our typical blabbing to bring you an extended interview. Stielstra’s personal essay collection, Once I Was Cool, is forthcoming in May 2014 from Curbside Splendor. Her work has been included in The Best American Essays 2013, The […]

Today’s guest, Gary Shteyngart, was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. He is the author of the novels Super Sad True Love Story, which won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was selected as one of the best books of the year by more than forty news journals and […]

Since the fourth Wednesday of December is Christmas Day – and since we know that having to listen to the sound of Willy’s voice would totally ruin Christmas for you and your loved ones – we thought we’d give you an early present, by bringing you three stories recorded at Essay Fiesta. If you’re a regular […]

Today we’re bringing you our conversation with Susan Orlean. We called up Susan to ask her about her pile of 800 index cards, why Twitter is her favorite unproductive distraction, and the dwindling access to editorial input in the world of new media. In Susan’s words: “It’s not hard to get your work published – it’s […]

Today’s guest, Daniel Handler, is the author of the novels The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth, Adverbs, and recently, Why We Broke Up, which was awarded a Printz Honor. Under the name Lemony Snicket he has penned all the novels in the internationally bestselling A Series Of Unfortunate Events, the books in the series, All The Wrong Questions, and last month released the picture […]

Today’s guest, Delia Ephron, is a bestselling author and screenwriter. Her movies include The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, You’ve Got Mail, Hanging Up (based on her novel), and Michael. She has written novels for adults and teenagers, including her most recent, The Lion Is In; books of humor, including How to Eat Like a Child; and essays. Her journalism has appeared regularly […]

The 24th Chicago Humanities Festival is now in full-swing! We sat down with CHF Artistic Director Matti Bunzl to talk about the never-ending quest to put on a great festival, the story behind this year’s theme, and which hidden gems you should seek out in the star-studded CHF lineup. (We also preview the events that […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Today’s guest, Junot Díaz, was born in the Dominican Republic, raised in New Jersey and is the author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Today’s guest, Arnie Bernstein, is a nonfiction writer based in Chicago. His latest work Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German American Bund (St. Martin’s Press), explores a pro-Nazi movement that swept the United States in the 1930s, and the disparate confederacy that brought this […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Today’s guest, Kathleen Rooney, is a founding editor of Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary work in hybrid genres, and a founding member of Poems While You Wait, a team of poets and their typewriters who compose commissioned poetry on demand. Her most recent book is the novel in poems Robinson Alone, winner […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS For Episode 23, we’ve decided to forgo our typical opening chit-chat (because no one actually wants to hear that much of Willy’s voice) to give you an extended interview with Ian Belknap, a Chicago writer/performer and the founder/curator/host of WRITE CLUB, the world’s greatest competitive readings series. He is author/performer of the […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Today’s guest, Wesley Chu, is the author of The Lives of Tao and the upcoming sequel, The Deaths of Tao (to be released on October 29). Chu was born in Taiwan and emigrated to Chicago when he was just a pup. It was there he became a Kung Fu master and gymnast. Wesley is […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Today’s guest Dana Norris is the founder and host of Story Club, a monthly open mic for stories. She once went on a lot of internet dates and she writes about those mistakes for the website Role Reboot. She has been published in McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, The Tampa Review, and her stories […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS M. Molly Backes is the author of the young adult novel The Princesses of Iowa (Candlewick Press, May 2012). She lives in Chicago with her retired racing greyhound, Zia, and teaches creative writing at StoryStudio Chicago. She has also lived in Wisconsin, Iowa, Massachusetts, and New Mexico. She’s not the kind […]

Subscribe: iTunes | Stitcher | RSS Did you miss out on last weekend’s Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago? Don’t despair! We’ve got you covered. What is Printers Row?  Well, it’s the largest free outdoor (and indoor) literary event in the Midwest, drawing more than 125,000 book lovers to the two-day showcase. The Lit Fest […]

Rebecca Makkai’s first novel, The Borrower, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an Indie Next pick, an O Magazine selection, and one of Chicago Magazine‘s choices for best fiction of 2011. Her short fiction was chosen for The Best American Short Stories in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011, and appears regularly in publications such as Harper’s, Ploughshares, Tin House, New England Review, and Ecotone, and on public radio’s Selected […]