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The holidays are over, obligations are piling up, and the buffet of overthinking is open for business. In this episode, Josh and Dasha dive into the peculiar vertigo of early-year overstimulation—that state where thoughts loop like a broken record and writing about yourself only amplifies the chaos. Is this mania? Is this just being human? (Our one listener with a psychiatry degree better let us know.)
Jenny Offill's "Depression-era writer" approach to salvaging old work sparks a conversation about the folders we keep (whether you call it "failures" or "the well") and why nothing you write ever truly goes to waste. Sometimes the bucket comes up with exactly what you need.
Then, a caller frozen between memoir, autofiction, and essay collection gets unstuck. Genre, it turns out, is largely a marketing decision masquerading as an artistic one. The real question isn't what to call your book—it's whether labeling it is preventing you from finishing it. We explore the freedom of thinking "fiction" even when writing from life, the John D'Agata school of bending truth for emotional resonance, and the James Frey rehabilitation tour (now featuring AI-generated content, apparently).
Links:
John D'Agata’s "What Happens There" and his subsequent interview
“A Million Little Lies” at The Smoking Gun
Theme music: "1982" by See Jazz
