1storypod

JERSEY CITY / NYC — Bud Smith is the author of Teenager, out now from Vintage. He is also the author of Double Bird (2018), Work (2017), Calm Face (2016), F250 (2014), and Tollbooth (2013), among other books. He is also a good friend. This convo is from 9 May 2022, 2 nights ago, the night before his novel Teenager dropped. Bless. TEENAGER: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/679124/teenager-by-bud-smith/ 1 min - pod start 5 min - “the New Jersey devil” 9 min - Don Quixote / picaresque 24 min - should novels be educational 28 min - “reading as prayer/meditation” 30 min - on working on Teenager w Gian 57 min - on how Teenager ended up where it did 1 hr 1 min - on Bud’s day job 1hr 15 min - on Salinger 1 hr 33 min - on Gordon Lish / carver / ford Sean Thor Conroe is the author of Fuccboi: A Novel: https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/sean-thor-conroe/fuccboi/9780316394819/

COLLEGE PARK MD — Jordan Castro is the editor of New York Tyrant Magazine and the author of The Novelist, forthcoming from Soft Skull in 2022. We spoke this past Sunday, 13 June 2021, at his spot in Maryland after I drove down from NYC to hang with him a couple days. Jordan and I got especially close over the past couple months after losing our friend, the editor and publisher Gian DiTrapano. Jordan also helped me a lot in the aftermath of the passing my girlfriend, the writer Kyra Baldwin, not long before the passing of Gian this past March.

OXFORD, MS / NYC — Nico Walker is the author of the novel Cherry (Knopf, 2018). He was born in Georgia and grew up in Las Vegas and Cleveland. He served as a medic in the Iraq war. And worked with the late Gian DiTrapano on Cherry while in prison in the mid 2010s. Here is a recent piece he wrote on Gian: https://www.bookforum.com/culture/giancarlo-ditrapano-1974-2021-24463 Recent collection on Gian in Muumuu House I contributed to: http://muumuuhouse.com/gian.11may2021.html Lit hub article I mentioned on Cherry’s covers: https://lithub.com/the-trouble-with-designing-a-book-when-its-author-is-in-jail/ POD CONTENTS 7 min - pod start 10 min - Gian’s biggest grievance w the game 17 min - expert talk / literary pedantry 21 min - stuff people read in prison to entertain themselves 24 min - the elitism of Literature and linguistic classism 27 min - books were initially about the democratization of thought 29 min - Lazarillo de Tormez 30 min - Canterbury tales 33 min - Don Quixote / Battle of Lepanto (1571) 38

TORONTO / NYC — Brad Phillips is a writer and artist from Toronto. He is the author of Essays and Fictions (Tyrant, 2018). I enjoyed this book a lot. I felt it was courageous, funny, intimate, deceptively sweet, and formally inventive. Here is a link to the book: https://www.nytyrant.com/products/essays-and-fictions-by-brad-phillips . Here is a link to the recent story he published on Muumuu House that we reference: http://muumuuhouse.com/bp.03feb2021.html . Here is a link to a NYT thing shouting out his instagram (https://www.instagram.com/brad___phillips/?hl=en ): https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/arts/design/artists-instagram-coronavirus.html POD CONTENTS: 2 min - pod start / how Brad prepped for this pod 7 min - how Brad started painting / doing the art 10 min - how Brad feels about Essays and Fictions now 13 min - “Death is the sanction of everything that the storyteller can tell.” - Benjamin 15 min - “Write from the end of the world” 16 min - desperation vs self sabotage 19 min - whether or not “doi

NYC — Shy Watson is a poet and novel-writer. Her new book Horror Vacui (2021) dropped last month from House of Vlad. She is also the author of Cheap Yellow (CCM, 2018). She lives in NYC. Her book: https://houseofvlad.bigcartel.com/product/horror-vacui-poems-and-other-writings-by-shy-watson # CONTENTS CONTENTS 3 min - pelvic health issues 7 min - Philly connections 10 min - where shy grew up 13 min - why shy moved so much in 20s 16 min - how / when HV written / pubbed 19 min - Eileen Myles 21 min - the novel shy workin on 23 min - Convenience store woman by sayaka murata / work by Bud smith 24 min - Sam pink book cover 26 min - ‘autofiction ethicality’ rant / justification 27 min - on writing intimately about Life 30:30 - on religion 34 min - reading god into shy’s books 37 min - on spirituality 39 min - diy sigil 45 min - writing as seduction 47 min - sometimes you gotta turn on the reader 51 min - important for writing and life to get out about 54 min - becoming your own boy 58 min - sillyboys 5

TORONTO / NYC — Sheila Heti is the author of the short story collection the Middle Stories (2001), the short novel Ticknor (2005), the philosophy book the Chairs Are Where The People Go (2011), co-written by Misha Glouberman, How Should A Person Be? (2012), and Motherhood (2018). She also co-edited the collection Women in Clothes (2014). And wrote the intro to the new release of this Virginia Woolf essay, How Should One Read A Book? (2020). Her next book, Pure Colour, is coming out in January 2022. I first encountered Sheila’s writing in late 2014, when I tore through How Should A Person Be? in a night. I’ve since done a handful of pods on her books, so this is really exciting for me, it’s been a long time coming. We recorded this late last week. Sheila Heti lives in Toronto. Here is a link to her website, with links to all her books: http://www.sheilaheti.com Sheila's podcast "Podcast With Raisins": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-with-raisins/id1193833547 CONTENTS 8 min - pod start 12 min

NAPLES — Giancarlo DiTrapano is the founder, editor, and publisher of New York Tyrant. The magazine initially, starting in 2005. And then of Tyrant Books, starting in 2010. I spoke with him in his apartment in Naples two days ago, before flying back to the states yesterday. After flying out there 11 days ago. He wrote for Vice for a minute during the early tens and has ran the workshop Mors Tua Vita Mea, with the writer Chelsea Hodson, in Sezze, Italy since 2015. He grew up in Charleston, West Virginia and spent many years in New York City before moving out to Italy five years ago. We talk about how he came into the game with the magazine and the imprint, what he’s psyched about writing-wise now, a whole bunch of stuff. Thoroughly enjoyed ripping this convo and running it back. NY Tyrant: https://nytyrant.com # POD CONTENTS 6 min - pod start: G dissing and me tryna defend Ferrante lmaoo 8 min - Of Love and Other Demons by Garcia Marquez 9 min - Autoportrait by Edouard Leve / story versus bars/syntax 11 mi

HARLEM — I met the homie Vern a minute ago. I see him around all the time. I seem to see him once every couple weeks, like clockwork. Usually when the weather gets nicer suddenly, or nice enough to sit courtside or hoop at this lil park I be hooping at. Whenever we link we always torch one and really go in. Like every time it’s like a pod-length powwow. Today (12.11.20) we were goin in, mildly spleed, when he just started going off and I felt moved to set it down. But what we talking about is, all this past week, I seen a wake going on across the street, mad people out, like 50-60 people gathered, lighting candles, pouring up, playing music for a homie who passed. I hadn’t know what had happened, but then in this convo it came up. 5 min - real life consequences of rappers talking crazy on the track / RIP Fluff 7 min - on staying ready / long johns riff 10 min - walking to the store / on beats / how he tryna go in on the track 12 min - “fuck getting inside your head w the bars I’m tryna get inside you BODY

DMV / NYC — Nicolette Polek is a writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Imaginary Museums (Soft Skull, 2020) is her first book. I saw Nicolette read from this collection a couple times early this year, and reread it a couple times this past fortnight. Buy Imaginary Museums: https://softskull.com/dd-product/imaginary-museums/ POD CONTENTS 3 min - pod start 4 min - small rooms big rooms card rooms basements 11 min - on “Winners” - https://magazine.nytyrant.com/winners/ 14 min - on how life in Slovakia vs. US 19 min - “Field Notes” / Man in the Holocene by Max Frisch 21 min - Krasznahorkai 24 min - on the traditions Nicolette partaking in 25 min - The Middle Stories by Sheila Heti 27 min - Intimate Lighting, dir. Ivan Passer 28 min - on making art in communism 31 min - experience working with Soft Skull 33 min - on how these stories written 36 min - me repeatedly belaboring “the Nature” 37 min - Thomas Tallis / Abba 39 min - on what Nicolette working on now / Marta Becket 41 min - solitude vs. sharing. Kierkegaard def

SILVER LAKE / HARLEM — Allie Rowbottom is the author of Jell-O Girls (Little Brown, 2018). She recently wrote this story in Hobart: https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/auralift She teaches writing classes for Catapult and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the writer Jon Lindsey. Buy her book: http://www.allierowbottom.com POD CONTENTS: 3 min - pod start 6 min - how jell-o girls written thru reading her mom’s writing 10 min - on the blend of her / her mom’s pov .. influences 11 min - Jane (2005) by Maggie Nelson 15 min - speaking oneself into selfhood / marketing of the book 20 min - on sharing / generosity , exhibitionism 22 min - the survival instinct as energizing 25 min - on myopia/linearity vs empathy/panopticality 29 min - on radical superficiality / Botox 30 min - taking theory outta the classroom 32 min - articulating the unsayable 34 min - whether one can objectify oneself for power or nah 35 min - Marguerite Duras 41 min - botched Lil B the BasedGod riff 42 min - hysteria = ‘wandering wo

NYC / MONTREAL — Steve Anwyll is the author of Welfare (2018). He lives in Montreal, where he works at a screen printing shop. Welfare is his first novel. What a guy. Hell yeah. Cop that shit here if ya haven’t: https://www.nytyrant.com/products/welfare-by-steve-anwyll Anwyll on Twitter: https://twitter.com/oneloveasshole CONTENTS 1SP053: Steve Anwyll 2 min - pod start 11 min - family / work 22 min - 9-to-5s 24 min - kindness vs. cruelty 28 min - syntax / Celine 32 min - writing for mfs who don’t be reading a lot 36 min - misanthropic French writers 44 min - self-worth / work 49 min - political implications 53 min - publishing vulnerability / handling praise 59 hr - city vs. rural 1 hr 3 min - women as motivation 1 hr 6 min - caseworkers / nurses as angels when you fucked up 1 hr 12 min - real life ramifications of the book 1 hr 15 min - who we write for

NYC — Chelsea Hodson is the author of the essay collection Tonight I'm Someone Else (2018) and the chapbook Pity the Animal (2014). She teaches at the Bennington MFA program and at the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Italy and also does private writing consultations. We met at a reading back in December in Bushwick. I read her book a couple times over the past couple months. Her book: https://www.amazon.com/Tonight-Im-Someone-Else-Essays/dp/1250170192 Pod Contents: 3 min - pod start 5 min - Work 7 min - never defining oneself as a single thing / multiplicity 10 min - presentation / performance / moon stuff 14 min - rewriting over years 15 min - the moon looks different depending on how the light hits it 17 min - Jo Ann Beard “sometimes you gotta just live longer” 20 min - “writing is gross” 22 min - narcissism / self-concern / autonomy 29 min - Longing / By Grand Central Station I Laid Down And Wept (1945) by Elizabeth Smart 33 min - planetary / animal stuff 35 min - on embarrassment 36 min - when Pity the

NYC / WV — Scott McClanahan (b. 1978) is the author of eight book: Stories (2008), Stories II (2009), Stories V! (2011), The Collected Works of Scott McClanahan Vol. 1 (2012), Crapalachia (2013, Two Dollar Radio), Hill William (2013, Tyrant Books), The Incantations of Daniel Johnston (2016, Two Dollar Radio), and The Sarah Book (2017, Tyrant Books), which NPR called "brave, triumphant and beautiful." It is. They also said "it reads like a fever dream, and it feels like a miracle." It fkn does. https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pre-order-the-sarah-book-by-scott-mcclanahan Sarah Book excerpt (2017): http://magazine.nytyrant.com/excerpt-sarah-book/ Scott also co-founded the press Holler Presents. Very grateful to Scott for a taking a sec to riff one time. Intro song 'broders' by yamz from Filadelphia Yamz. http://1storyhaus.com/index.html - STC

UPSTATE NY/HARLEM — Nicola Maye Goldberg is the author of the novella Other Women (Sad Spell, 2016), the chapbook The Doll Factory (Dancing Girl Press, 2017), and, most recently, the novel Nothing Can Hurt You (Bloomsbury, 2020). Cop here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/nothing-can-hurt-you-9781635574890/ Or here: https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Hurt-Nicola-Maye-Goldberg/dp/1635574889 Nicola: https://www.nicolamaye.com/ # POD CONTENTS: 3 min - pod start 6 min - Nicola mighta started the rona 9 min - ‘all novelists are failed poets’ 13 min - NCHY’s structure 18 min - on how related to 2666 21 min - on Tracy 25 min - on the Girl Boss trope / the commodification of Me Too 33 min - on Fatherhood 38 min - on courage 42 min - Nicola’s initial connection to the crime 46 min - why men kill women 51 min - the solution to sexual violence is all straight dudes buy Nicola’s book 57 min - on mens rea 1 hr 2 min - on Nicola’s new stuff / Santa Cruz # Sean Thor Conroe lives in Harlem. https://1storyhaus.com

COLLEGE PARK–HARLEM — Summer solstice sit down with Jordan Castro, editor of New York Tyrant Magazine and Pets: An Anthology, recently out from Tyrant Books. He is the author of Young Americans (CCM 2013) and if I really wanted to feel happy I’d feel happy already (CCM 2014). Recorded today, reflecting on our convo recorded one week ago on Pets (2020) and The Present [Reflective] Age (1843, Tr. Walter Kaufmann) by Kierkegaard. Last week's stab was solid but had to run it back one time, really rip it. Do yourself a solid a cop PETS, it's a banger. https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets Really enjoyed listening to this one back. Posting the original ep also, since we reference it, but I recommend listening to this one first. PETS !! – https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets Read 'Seven Stories' by Jordan Castro: http://muumuuhouse.com/jc.06jan2020.html Read referenced dad poem (~1 hr 50 min) from from Young Americans: http://muumuuhouse.com/jc.poetry3.html Read the opening 1K-word hitter from my novel

COLLEGE PARK–HARLEM — Jordan Castro is the editor of New York Tyrant Magazine and PETS: An Anthology, recently out from Tyrant Books https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets . I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Writers included are Patty Yumi Cottrell, Tao Lin, Ann Beattie, Sarah Manguso, Scott McClanahan, Kathryn Scanlan, Nicolette Polek, Chelsea Hodson, Blake Butler, Precious Okoyomon, Mark Leidner, Sam Pink, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, David Nutt, Reagan Bird, Michael W. Clune, Christine Schutt and Mallory Whitten. I recommend it for anyone who has or had or wants pets. Cop PETS now !! – https://store.nytyrant.com/products/pets http://1storyhaus.com

NYC — Andrew Weatherhead was born in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of $50,000 (2020), Todd (2018) and Cats & Dogs (2014). He began writing $50,000 in 2015. I read $50,000 probably four times, each time in a single sitting, over the past fortnight since its release. Purchase $50,000 from Publishing Genius: https://www.publishinggenius.com/product/50000/ # POD CONTENTS 3 min - pod start 6 min - comin in hot w wittgenstein tractatus bars/the inadequacy/importance/absurdity of language 11 min - on Facts/‘fake news’ 17 min - on the title, $50,000 21 min - on working a 9-to-5 24 min - “wait until you see me dance” by Deb Olin Unferth and writing about office life 27 min - things only mean in context / a setting 30 min - “the things that no one knows about you are how you know yourself” but also “you can only know yourself thru ppl” 31 min - money only works when we agree on its value 35 min - mfa gripes 38 min - redacted mfa quote htmlgiant story 44 min - on humor/laughter 45 min - “Winners” by Nicolette

NYC — Al Jacobs, 30, is an NYC-based writer from Toledo, Ohio. He read the copy of Jesus' Son (1992) I lent him over the past few months. I reread the Picador Modern Classics pocket version i copped after lending him my old version over the same period. Jesus' Son (1992) is a series of interconnected short stories narrated by a guy, "Fuckhead," and follows several recurring characters, all addicts, who engage in drug use, petty crime, and murder. Denis Johnson (1949–2017) published Jesus' Son at the age of 43. CONTENTS 5m pod start 8m the infantilized artist boi dream / baby stuff 10m my sus “The Other Man” take 13m you gotta be OUT HERE 15m when they do that lowkey B & E 16m on “autofiction” 21m writing about work/survival/out-here-ness 24m Edmund Wilson v. Nabokov beef as Meek v. Drake beef I’m on Wilson-Meek’s side bro On male isolation/coal miners 26m having empathy for mfkrs more important than everything 31m mommy stuff 33m Jesus God’s son who Jesus’s son tho?? 34m idc abt ur art unless self-snitc

MANHATTAN — Harold, 22, is a writer, standup, and boxer. He grew up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Steubenville, Ohio. He read Absalom, Absalom! in the fortnight following the death of his paternal grandfather, about a month ago. I read it around the same time, six months after the death of my paternal grandfather. A lotta dad stuff in this ep. Apologies for this extended Faulky bender I'm on. This the last one for now. If you haven't read the book, the 20 min intro could be a good overview to maybe coax you into cracking it. If you have, I mean, shit, fuckwittit. Outro song: "untitled 02 | 06.23.2014." by kendrick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GghFQ8ryEU Sean Thor Conroe is a writer and carpenter living in Harlem. Bars in X-R-A-Y, Soft Cartel, Back Patio, Expat Lit; forthcoming in Philosophical Idiot, BULL Lit. http://twitter.com/stconroe http://instagram.com/seanthorconroe http://1storyhaus.com

JERSEY CITY — In the second part of 2666 (2004) by Bolaño, Amalfitano, a philosophy professor losing his mind, tries to understand the secrets of the universe through an esoteric geometry book. But instead of reading it, he hangs it on a clothesline, outside, and watches it get rained on—blasted by the elements. Bud Smith’s writing embodies this idea: he out here, in the world, working at his oil refinery job, making art around his life rather than the other way around. I linked with him at his spot last weekend in Jersey City to talk about Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (1930), which I happened to be reading when I saw, via Twitter, that he too was reading it. Faulkner also worked manual labor for a time—as an operator as a chemical plant, while writing this book. Bud Smith is the author of Teenager (Tyrant Books, 2019), Double Bird (Maudlin House, 2018), WORK (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2017), Dust Bunny City (Disorder Press, 2017), Calm Face (House of Vlad, 2016), among others. He works heavy construction buil