R. Clifton Spargo, author of Beautiful Fools: The Last Affair of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, explains how Hollywood’s conservatism flummoxed a great writer. 

Full interview: http://www.litshow.com/086/r-clifton-spargo

(Source: litshow.com / thelitshow)

Only Skin artist Sean Ford made us up a poster for Daily Rituals. 

More info about the event here. 

iamkyna:

Roxane Gay tells us what it means to be a “bad feminist.”

“I fall short as a feminist. I feel like I am not as committed as I need to be, that I am not living up to feminist ideals because of who and how I choose to be. I feel this tension constantly.”

Listen to the full interview here: http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-07/roxane-gay

Mary Jo Bang reads the classic first lines of Dante’s Inferno in her translation. 

Full interview here: http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-07/mary-jo-bang

Poet and Strange Cage founder Russell Jaffe on teaching poetry, and the serious badness of some high school literature courses. 

Full interview here: http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-07/russell-jaffe-interview

Our the first event in our reading series, The Lit Show Live, is finally on its way. Featuring some great folks. If you’re in NYC, you should definitely make it out. 

More info here, but in brief: 

The Lit Show + powerHouse Arena present Daily Rituals
Friday, April 26th at 6 PM
Readings by Ben Greenman, Heidi Julavits, Sam Lipsyte, and Mason Currey
Conversation moderated by Joe Fassler and Mason Currey
37 Main Street, Brooklyn NY

19841979:

chart (1600px) re The Contemporary Short Story, a craft class by Tao Lin in Sarah Lawrence’s MFA program

Our interview with longtime New Yorker staff writer, Lawrence Weschler, is now up. Go ahead, have a listen. 

Michael Palmer thinks back to the dark days of the second Bush administration, and discusses how poetic artifice differs from politically-motivated semantic manipulation. 

Benjamin Nugent reveals how he almost ditched his memoir—but saved it by turning it into a novel instead. 

Full interview here. 

melvillehouse:

booksbyheart:

When I talked to Jim Shepard for The Atlantic’s “By Heart,” he offered to scan a page from his teaching copy of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Here it is—and wow. It’s visually stunning, but if you squint at the notes there’s some great pearls of wisdom about the story.

For a closer look, see Jim Shepard’s copy of “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” on Flickr.

We’re pretty thrilled about the Atlantic’s new “By Heart” series.

In our interview, Charles Baxter discusses plot, narrative urgency, and “Captain Happen”: why action matters in fiction. 

From our interview on December 6, 2012.

Full interview here: http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-06/charles-baxter-interview/

(Source: litshow.com / thelitshow)

Ben Mauk asks Bret Anthony Johnston about his dictum “write what scares you,” a principle he advocated in an article in The Atlantic, and in his new book of writing excercises, NAMING THE WORLD.

Full interview: http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-06/bret-anthony-johnston-interview/

Dylan Nice on Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains: the surreal and remote beauty of the place, the region’s influence on his work, and what it’s like when Google Maps kills your hometown.

Full interview: http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-06/dylan-nice-interview