Author: Aimee Bender

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Still missing. A conspiracy theorist has been enlisted to account for his disappearance.

Subjects Discussed: Attention to precision, Flann O’Brien, strange logic, Monty Python, first-person voice, Steve Erickson and The Black Clock, Jeffrey Eugenides, multiple personality disorder, grading papers, publishing short stories with dirty titles in literary journals, Prince, George Carlin’s seven words, sexual perversion, Mary Gaitskill, storming the gates of GQ, quotation marks, the visual quality of words, SAT words, the thematic components of three parts, literary Darwinism, evolutionary biology, playing God, setting limits, genetically based aesthetics, imagination vs. “hysterical realism,” verisimilitude, Robert Coover, mathematics, permission, fonts, and the short story vs. the novel.

[SPECIAL NOTE: Because of one particular story in Willful Creatures, this podcast proved so unexpectedly raunchy that a swivel chair was actually damaged during the course of mixing this podcast. We fully understand the sentimental value that some people have for their swivel chairs. So, if you are playing this podcast in a work environment, you have been warned.]

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Authors: Lizzie Skurnick and Wendy Lesser

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Slightly hoarse but nostalgic for trains.

Subjects Discussed: The mania of poets, poetic meters, the prejudice against Spenserian stanza, the difficulties of getting a poetry collection published, writing while driving, husband poems, masturbation, clandestine encounters, educating a native Californian about Tyringham, Mass., Horace, the use of first-person voice (both singular and royal), Aimee Bender, the personality of numbers and letters, the dubiously romantic appeal of rocks (from Marlowe on), names, pronunciation, online identities, blogs oriented around eavesdropping, Paul Auster’s film adaptations, the ethics of writing about people, the title of The Pagoda in the Garden, Coim Toibin’s The Master, novella collections as novels, Michael Cunningham, the importance of fiction, anonymous protagonists, basing fiction on real experience, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Harry Thomas as editor, U.S. Presidents as reference points, historical cycles in fiction, Philip Klass’s 1975 statement on freedoms, women’s freedoms, profanity, Samizdat, love, an unexpected answering machine message, playing with perspective, Gilbert Sorrentino, the influence of literary criticism on writing fiction, postmodernism vs. traditionalism, mysteries, and plotting.

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Author: Laura Joplin

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Fresh from an unexpected vacation, feeling unloved.

Subjects Discussed: Remembering Janis Joplin years later, unexpected letters from Janis, Laura Joplin’s bio vs. Myra Friedman’s bio, growing up in the Joplin household, Janis’ literary interests, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Dick Cavett, clarifying the heroin overdose, the qualifications of biography writing, Janis cinematic biopics, Seth Morgan, whether today’s world needs a Janis figure, the use of “Mercedes Benz” in a Benz commercial.

[NOTE: The majority of this interview was conducted as a coffee grinder whirred in the background. The barista operating the grinder, despite seeing our microphones and our distinguished interview subject, would not turn it off and was inflexible to charisma. He would not even accept a substantial bribe. (Some baristas, it seems, are inexorable.) We have done our best to preserve the audio and have eliminated most of it. But the audio, as a result, is slightly distorted.]

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