Shows
ThresholdsAyana Elizabeth JohnsonJordan sits down with marine biologist, writer, and climate advocate Ayana Johnson to talk about her mission to fight climate fatalism, her love of Rachel Carson, and her skepticism of the impulse to look for "hope" in the face of climate change -- as opposed to possibility, or joy.Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and teacher working to help create the best possible climate future. She is co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and is the Roux Distinguished Scholar at Bowdoin College. S...
2025-10-0837 minThresholdsClaire Vaye WatkinsJordan sits down with Claire Vaye Watkins to talk about how the grief over her mother's death diffused into a homesickness for the landscape of the Mojave Desert, where she grew up, and the way that that singular landscape then formed her own writing style, which the New Yorker dubbed "Nevada Gothic." They also talk about postpartum depression, Watkins' autofiction novel I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, and hauntings.Claire Vaye Watkins was one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” and one of Granta's "Best Young American Novelists." She is the author...
2025-10-0157 minThresholdsMariana EnriquezThis week, Jordan sits down with the "queen of Latin American gothic horror," Mariana Enriquez, to talk about the manuscript she burned and how it led her to search for a mode of horror writing that was drawn from her own lived experiences of terror. Mentioned: Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina's military dictatorship of 1976 to 1983, gravestones as monuments, Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave.Mariana Enriquez is a writer based in Buenos Aires. She has published in English the novel Our Share of Night and three story collections, A Sunny Place for Shady People, Things We Lost in t...
2025-09-2444 minThresholdsMiriam ToewsJordan sits down to talk with Miriam Toews about her new book, A Truce That Is Not Peace, her first nonfiction book, and the events that inspired it: the death by suicide of her father and then, later, her sister. They talk about the long periods of silence her father and sister both went through when they were alive, and how Toews' own persistent need to "arrange sentences" pushes back against their silences. Also discussed: grandkids, the whipsaw between horror and hilarity in her work, and the Mennonite community in which she was raised. Ho...
2025-09-1748 minThresholdsRenee GladmanJordan sits down with Renee Gladman to talk about prose architecture, Henry James, walking in cities, and mushrooms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2025-06-2542 minThresholdsNicholson BakerNicholson Baker sits down with Jordan to discuss writing about the unsung pleasures and details of the world-- things like the way your mother cuts up a banana, or the advertisements in your favorite magazine. Things that "live in this between area of noticing, they're part of the background of life." Mentioned in the episode:Nicholson's book about WWII, Human Smoke"Sock (Object Lessons)" by Kim Adrian"The Lab Leak Hypothesis," New York MagazineNicholson Baker has written seventeen books, including The Mezzanine, Vox, Human Smoke, The Anthologist, and Baseless—also an art...
2025-06-1840 minThresholdsSarah AzizaSarah Aziza sits down with Jordan to talk about the eating disorder that almost took her life in 2019, and the search into her family's history in Palestine that she undertook in a bid for her own survival.Mentioned in the episode:the Nakbatransgenerational traumaJosé Muñoz, Cruising UtopiaghurbaSarah Aziza is a Palestinian American writer, translator, and artist with roots in ‘Ibdis and Deir al-Balah, Gaza. She is the author of The Hollow Half, a genre-bending work of memoir, lyricism, and oral history exploring the intertwined legacies of diaspora, colonialism, and the...
2025-06-1151 minThresholdsLisa KoLisa Ko sits down with Jordan to talk about the daily journaling practice that she started at age five, and the period of creative crisis between her first and second novels when she began methodically destroying every journal she'd ever kept. Mentioned in the episode:Tehching Hsiehsoft gazeMoleskin daily journalsLisa Ko is the author of the new novel Memory Piece and the nationally bestselling novel The Leavers, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and the PEN/Hemingway Award, and winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for S...
2025-06-0441 minThresholdsSabrina ImblerJordan sits down to talk with Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches, about writing the non-human world, leaving the world of legacy media, and how they've learned from the deep sea --and from their colleagues-- about the power of collectivity.Mentioned in the episode:how to write a book on top of a full-time jobuncharismatic microfaunaSabrina's essay on salps and queer collectivity, from How Far the Light ReachesWho Is Steven Hotdog?Sabrina Imbler is a staff writer at Defector, a worker-owned site, where they cover creatures and the na...
2025-03-2639 minThresholdsMaya BinyamThis week, Jordan sits down to talk with Maya Binyam, author of the novel Hangman,about a near-drowning that changed her life.Maya Binyam is the author of Hangman, which was named a 2024 National Book Foundation “5 under 35” honoree, received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and the Dublin Literary Award. She is the recipient of the 2025 Bard Fiction Prize. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, theNew Yorker,Best American Short Stories, and elsew...
2025-03-1952 minThresholdsCarvell WallaceThis week, we're sharing a live conversation between Jordan and Carvell Wallace, recorded last year at P&T Knitwear in New York. They talk about his new memoir, Another Word for Love, a moment of real peril from his childhood, and the long process that followed for him of learning to embrace vulnerability, connection, and his own writing voice.Carvell Wallace is a writer and podcaster who has contributed to The New Yorker, GQ, New York Times Magazine, Pitchfork, MTV News, and Al Jazeera. His debut memoir, Another Word For Love (MCD, 2024), explores his life, identity...
2025-03-1243 minThresholdsLidia YuknavitchThis week, Jordan sits down to talk with Lidia Yuknavitch about menopause, where stories lodge in our bodies, having a creative process that takes the shape of an ocean wave, and more. Lidia Yuknavitch is the National Bestselling author of four novels: Thrust, The Book of Joan, Dora: A Headcase, and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Awards Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the OBA Reader's Choice Award. She has also published a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based...
2025-03-0542 minThresholdsRemix! Jericho BrownWe're revisiting our 2021 interview with the poet Jericho Brown, who this week was named a MacArthur Fellow-- one of the highest honors in the arts and humanities. He and Jordan talk about the great mystery of why we desire the things we desire; about oration and the poets he read and memorized as part of his own becoming; mitigating our impulses toward violence with tenderness, and more.Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Insti...
2024-10-0449 minThresholdsSigrid NunezThis week, Jordan talks to the novelist Sigrid Nunez about her youthful preoccupation with mimicking the prose of Virginia Woolf, the step-by-step intuitive way she writes prose now, and the best way to make overnight oats.Sigrid Nunez has published nine novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and, most recently, The Vulnerables. Nunez is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. The Friend, a New York Times bestseller, won the 2018 National Book Award and was a finalist for the 20...
2024-09-1951 minThresholdsSofia SamatarJordan chats with Sofia Samatar (The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain and Opacities) about having two books out this year, doing everything twice (once in non-fiction, once in fiction), and her growing sense of an ongoing overarching project to her work.MENTIONED:A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia SamatarMonster Portraits by Sofia Samatar and Del SamatarThe White Mosque by Sofia SamatarTender: Stories by Sofia SamatarTone by Sofia Samatar and Kate ZambrenoQuicksand by Nella LarsenSeasonal Associate by Heike Geissler, tr. by Katy DerbyshireSofia Samatar is a writer of fiction and...
2024-08-2342 minThresholdsEmma Copley EisenbergJordan chats with Emma Copley Eisenberg (Housemates) about a ghostly encounter that led to her new novel, the opposing worldviews of Grace Paley and Ottessa Moshfegh, and the choice to make art in difficult times.MENTIONED:Jazz by Toni MorrisonFleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-AknerAmerican Pastoral by Philip RothTerrace Story by Hilary Leichter"Why I Write" by George OrwellEmma Copley Eisenberg is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Housemates and the narrative nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, which wa...
2024-08-0241 minThresholdsAmy LinShades on, sleeves up—it's summertime and we're back! This week, Jordan talks with Amy Lin, author of Here After, about grief, the sudden loss of her husband, miracles, and her family's history with thin places. Amy Lin lives in Calgary, Canada where there are two seasons: winter and road construction. She completed her MFA at Warren Wilson College and holds BAs in English Literature and Education. Her work has been published in places such as Ploughshares and she has been awarded residencies from Yaddo and Casa Comala. She writes the Substack At Th...
2024-07-1948 minThresholdsDorothea LaskyJordan chats with Dorothea Lasky (The Shining) about interpreting a horror classic in her latest poetry collection, her love for horror, and why playfulness and horror aren't incompatible—and might in fact be inextricably connected. MENTIONED:The Shining by Stephen KingThe Shining (1980)Bernadette Mayer's "Memory" projectDorothea Lasky is the author, most recently, of The Shining (October 2023), and Animal, published in 2019 in the Bagley Wright Lecture Series. She is also the author of Milk (Wave Books, 2018), Rome (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2014), Thunderbird (Wave Books, 2012), Black Life (Wave Books, 2010), and AWE (Wave Books, 2...
2024-04-1242 minThresholdsVinson CunninghamJordan talks with Vinson Cunningham (Great Expectations) about finding himself in the midst of history, discovering ways to hang onto moments, and why he turned to his real life for his debut novel.MENTIONED: The Vanity Fair Diaries by Tina BrownAnswered Prayers by Truman Capote"How Auto is Auto-fiction" by Christian Lorentzen"American Boy" by EstelleThe Idiot by Elif BatumanShadow and Act by Ralph EllisonVinson Cunningham is a staff writer and a theatre critic at The New Yorker. His essays, reviews, and profiles have appeared in The New York Times...
2024-03-2244 minThresholdsMeghan O'RourkeJordan chats with Meghan O'Rourke (The Invisible Kingdom) about hiding from herself, the death of her father, and the challenges of writing a book without knowing where it will go. MENTIONED:The Riddles of the Sphinx by Anna ShechtmanWalking and Talking (1996, written & directed by Nicole Holofcener)"The Teens Have Made Nirvana Preppy" by Sarah StankorbMeghan O’Rourke is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness and The Long Goodbye, as well as the poetry collections Sun In Days, Once, and Halflife. Her writing has a...
2024-03-0848 minThresholdsRumaan AlamJordan talks with Rumaan Alam (Leave the World Behind) about money, freedom, his recent period of creative fecundity, and the enduring power of art.MENTIONED:The Golden Bowl by Henry JamesAppropriate by Branden Jacobs-JenkinsFamily Meal by Bryan WashingtonZero K by Don DeLilloAgnes MartinRumaan Alam is the author of three novels: Rich and Pretty, That Kind of Mother, and Leave the World Behind. Other writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Bookforum, The New York Times, New York Magazine, and the New Republic. He studied...
2024-02-2344 minThresholdsMaira KalmanJordan talks with artist and writer Maira Kalman about the death of her husband Tibor Kalman, the process of grief, and her irrepressible creative spirit.MENTIONED:Pippi Longstocking by Astrid LindgrenSarah Berman's ClosetThe Diaries of Franz Kakfa by Franz Kafka, tr. by Ross Benjamin"Cheek to Cheek" by Irving Berlin, sung by Fred AstaireMaira Kalman was born in Tel Aviv and moved to New York City with her family at the age of four. She has written/illustrated over 30 books for adults and children, been a frequent contributor to Th...
2024-02-0939 minThresholdsMcKenzie WarkThresholds is back! To open a new season, Jordan sits down with McKenzie Wark live at PioneerWorks in Red Hook, Brooklyn, for a conversation about raving, gender transition, and the radical work of "playing" with form.MENTIONED:Leonora CarringtonKenneth GoldsmithAudre Lorde’s ZamiZoo, Or Letters Not About LoveMcKenzie Wark is the author of Love & Money, Sex & Death; Raving; Capital Is Dead; Reverse Cowgirl, and The Beach Beneath the Street, among other books. She is a Professor of Culture and Media and Program Director of Gender Studies at the New School....
2024-01-2641 min
ThresholdsIntroducing Guest Host Mira JacobBig News: novelist/memoirist/wonderful human Mira Jacob will be stepping into the host chair this spring! This week, she and Jordan sit down for a pass-the-baton chat -- kicking off with a flashback to the very first Thresholds episode (and interview) from February 2020.MENTIONED:Mira's Thresholds interview"What You Might Not Know About 'Getting Roofied'" by Jordan KisnerMira in conversation with Saeed Jones and Kiese Laymon for BookableMira Jacob is a novelist, memoirist, illustrator, and cultural critic. Her graphic memoir Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations was shortlisted for the Nat...
2023-02-0825 min
ThresholdsHafizah GeterHafizah Geter (The Black Period) joins Jordan to discuss her family's influence on her work, the power of memory, being in conversation with the writers you love, and how all of us live in a mix of genres.MENTIONED:Goya's Black Paintings"Fighting Erasure" by Parul SehgalToni Morrison's concept of rememoryFela Kuti, Yussef Lateef, Otis ReddingHafizah Augustus Geter is a Nigerian American writer, poet, and literary agent born in Zaria, Nigeria, and raised in Akron, Ohio, and Columbia, South Carolina. She is the author of the poetry collection Un-American, an NAACP...
2023-02-0141 min
ThresholdsSam LipsyteSam Lipsyte (No One Left to Come Looking For You) joins Jordan to talk about giving up on punk rock, rediscovering a passion for writing, and the revelation that if you realize nobody cares, then you can do the thing that makes you happy.MENTIONED:DungbeetleRiverbank State ParkJohn CheeverGalaxie 500Sam Lipsyte's latest novel is No One Left to Come Looking For You. He is the author of the story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and four novels: Hark, The Ask (a New York Times Notable Book), The Subject Steve, and Home Land, w...
2023-01-2539 min
ThresholdsHeather RadkeHeather Radke joins Jordan to talk about Butts: A Backstory, the playful invitation of the book's title, the general unruliness of bodies, and the joys of a JSTOR deep-dive.MENTIONED:Jodie Foster's Coppertone ad"Baby Got Back," Sir Mix-a-lotElizabeth Alexander's "The Venus Hottentot"The Normman & Norma StatuesHeather Radke is an essayist, journalist, and contributing editor and reporter at Radiolab, the Peabody Award–winning program from WNYC. She has written for publications including The Believer, Longreads, and The Paris Review, and she teaches at Columbia University’s creative writing MFA Program. Before bec...
2023-01-1849 minThresholdsA 100th Episode CelebrationThresholds reaches its centenary episode with equal parts celebration and consideration. We reached out to old friends to leave us some voicemails, Jordan wrote a musing on this particular milestone, and we're doing a little giveaway to celebrate all of you who've helped bring us this far along the path.Mentioned: "Notebook, 1981," by Eileen MylesThe Isolation Journals by Suleika JaouadThanks to all of our guests, to our team, and to you listeners! Here's to many more, in 2023 and beyond! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
2022-12-2823 minThresholdsEndnotes: Saeed Jones, Chloé Cooper Jones, and pre-ordersIt's the end of our last full capsule for 2022 -- and what a joyful, life-affirming batch of conversations it was! First up, we've got Saeed Jones offering some writing advice (and an exercise, of sorts) -- then some alumni news and a call to pre-order several 2023 releases -- and finally, Chloé Cooper Jones and Jordan get into talking about revision and the life-affirming process of writing.MENTIONED:The Best American Essays 2022, edited by Alexander CheeBiography of X by Catherine LaceyTerrace Story by Hilary LeichterThe Last Catastrophe by Allegra HydeStay tuned for s...
2022-12-0711 minThresholdsAlyssa SongsiridejAlyssa Songsiridej (Little Rabbit) chats with Jordan about moving to a new city, the scary-freeing experience of being away from one's community, and how letting a book out into the world is a process of letting go.MENTIONED:Days of Distraction by Alexandra ChangHow Should a Person Be? by Sheila HetiMating in Captivity by Esther Perelhow cold winters get in BostonAlyssa Songsiridej is an editor at Electric Literature. Her fiction has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Indiana Review, The Offing, and Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and has been supported...
2022-11-3035 min
ThresholdsAsali SolomonJordan talks with Asali Solomon about The Days of Afrekete, the unexpected discovery that she’s a funny writer, and trying to impart wisdom to students while she’s still learning too. MENTIONED:Get a Life (1990-1992)The Simple Stories by Langston HughesThe Book of Night Women by Marlon JamesAn Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCrackenAsali Solomon’s first novel, Disgruntled, was named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle and The Denver Post. H...
2022-11-2336 min
ThresholdsSaeed JonesPoet Saeed Jones joins Jordan to talk about the long-term experience of grief, the intensity of writing from the point of view of another person, and the unexpected trilogy of his first three books.MENTIONED:Paul MooneyDiahann CarrollWhitney HoustonToni MorrisonSaeed Jones is the author of the memoir HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES, winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the poetry collection PRELUDE TO BRUISE, winner for the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry. His poetry and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, New York Times, Oxford American...
2022-11-1645 min
ThresholdsAlex Marzano-LesnevichAlex Marzano-Lesnevich (The Fact of a Body) joins Jordan to talk about a particularly life-altering haircut, the power of a sequined tuxedo, and what it means for a culture to put a narrative onto a person.MENTIONED:South PacificGhostly Matters by Avery GordonMy Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn ShaplandJoseph LobdellAlex Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of THE FACT OF A BODY: A Murder and a Memoir, which received a Lambda Literary Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the Grand Prix des Lectrices ELLE, the Prix des libraires du Quebec, and the Prix France I...
2022-11-0945 min
ThresholdsChloé Cooper JonesChloé Cooper Jones (Easy Beauty) joins Jordan to talk about avoiding mandates, about writing through pain and trauma, and about finding the neutral room in one's own mind.MENTIONED:"Everything is copy" -- Nora Ephronsacral agenesisRichard SerraChloé Cooper Jones is a writer based in New York City. In 2020, Chloé was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing for “Fearing for His Life,” a profile of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the killing of Eric Garner. She was the recipient of the 2020 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and the 2021 Howard Foundation Grant f...
2022-11-0249 min
ThresholdsKay Ulanday BarrettJordan talks with poet/performer/advocate Kay Ulanday Barrett about their decision to get top surgery, the intersection of family and food, and writing through health crises.MENTIONED:Grey’s AnatomySwypeThe Asian American Writers WorkshopFrankenstein by Mary ShelleyKay Ulanday Barrett aka @Brownroundboi is a poet, performer, and cultural strategist. Their second book, More Than Organs (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2020) received a 2021 Stonewall Honor Book Award by the American Library Association and is a 2021 Lambda Literary Award Finalist. They have received residencies from Tin House as a 2022 Next Book Winner as well as MacD...
2022-10-2642 minThresholdsSamantha HuntSamantha Hunt joins Jordan to talk about The Unwritten Book, what it means to believe in ghosts, grieving the death of her father, and confronting the darkness out there in the woods.MENTIONED:geodesic domesslasher moviesFlash Count Diary by Darcy SteinkeIf Not, Winter by Sappho, translated by Anne CarsonOne DirectionSamantha Hunt is the author of the non-fiction book The Unwritten Book, the story collection The Dark Dark and the novels Mr. Splitfoot, The Invention of Everything Else, and The Seas. Hunt is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Bard Fiction...
2022-10-0542 min
ThresholdsIngrid Rojas ContrerasJordan talks with Ingrid Rojas Contreras (The Man Who Could Move Clouds) about the accident that left her with amnesia, grappling with the decision to write about her family, and the importance of offering healing.MENTIONED:A black Vera Wang gownCuranderos Topographical disorientationINGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her latest book, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, was longlisted for the National Book Award in Non-Fiction. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, a...
2022-09-2849 minThresholdsAmy FusselmanJordan talks to Amy Fusselman about writers who perform, getting out of your own head, and the agonies and ecstasies of comedy. It's a laugh-out-loud kind of episode.MENTIONED:McSweeney's Internet Concern"Hawk" by Joy WilliamsSecond PositionAmy Fusselman is the author of five books. Her latest, The Mean$, is her first novel.Fusselman’s previous four books, all nonfiction, have been translated into several languages. Her work has been nominated for The Believer Book Award and the University of Iowa's Krause Essay Prize. Her articles and essays have appeared in...
2022-09-2136 min
ThresholdsCeleste NgCeleste Ng joins Jordan to talk about her new book Our Missing Hearts, motherhood and parenting while writing, and the big questions of what kind of place art can have in the fight against fascism.MENTIONED:The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan#DontLookAway / #NoKidsInCages Hamlet by William ShakespeareCeleste Ng is the number one New York Times bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere. Her third novel, Our Missing Hearts, will be published in October 2022. Ng is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment f...
2022-09-1450 minThresholdsEndnotes: Crystal Hana Kim, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, and summer readingIt's the end of a 'Family' capsule of episodes and the last before our summer break, so we really pulled out all the stops this time.FEATURED:an outtake of Crystal Hana Kim talking about her next novela voicemail from Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore about how she does AugustThreshold alum highlights (like a bunch of them)summer reading recommendations from Jordan & DrewSee you in September, with fresh pencils and notebooks and interviews!For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/subscribe!
2022-08-1027 min
ThresholdsMichelle TeaJordan talks with Michelle Tea about her new memoir (Knocking Myself Up), making the decision to get pregnant, her tarot practice, and creating a queer family.MENTIONED:The Rider-Waite TarotValencia by Michelle TeaXOJane.comBuddhismMichelle Tea is the author of over a dozen books, including the cult-classic Valencia, the essay collection Against Memoir, and the speculative memoir Black Wave. She is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim, Lambda Literary, and Rona Jaffe Foundations, PEN/America, and other institutions. Knocking Myself Up is her latest memoir.Tea's cultural interventions include...
2022-08-0345 min
ThresholdsKeith GessenJordan talks with Keith Gessen about his new memoir of fatherhood, Raising Raffi: The First Five Years, and the challenges -- and wonders -- of being a parent and a writer, and what he thinks Raffi will think of the book when he's older.MENTIONED: Raising America by Ann Hulbert"Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City" by Nikole Hannah-JonesEmily Oster, economics professor and parenting advisorThe Kazdin MethodKeith Gessen is a founding editor of n+1 and a contributor to The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the London...
2022-07-2747 min
ThresholdsCrystal Hana KimJordan talks with Crystal Hana Kim (If You Leave Me) about the ultimate unknowability of another person's story, about motherhood as a writer, and about how a friend's validation and encouragement helped her get serious about her craft.MENTIONED:The Korean WarPost-partum depressionReproductive justiceCeramics classCrystal Hana Kim is the author of If You Leave Me, which was a Booklist Editor’s Choice title and named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen publications. Kim is the recipient of the 2022 National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award and is a 2017 PEN/Robert J. D...
2022-07-2039 minThresholdsLydia ConklinJordan talks with Lydia Conklin about bucking the conventions of queer storytelling, how a childhood Oregon Trail reenactment led to one of the most memorable stories in Rainbow Rainbow, and the excitement of making big moves in life and art.MENTIONED:* The Oregon Trail (play here)* Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates* Intimacies by Katie KitamuraLydia Conklin is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Previously they were the Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Fiction at the University of Michigan. They’ve received a Stegner Fellowship in...
2022-07-1339 min
ThresholdsAshley C. FordJordan talks with Ashley C. Ford (author of the memoir Somebody's Daughter) about how writing made her into more of herself, about the systems that we live under, and about finding joy in new community.MENTIONED:Dr. Jill Christman, professor at Ball Statepaying off lunch debts (check out All for Lunch!)Onsite Workshops in TennesseeAshley C. Ford is a writer, host, and educator who lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband, poet and fiction writer Kelly Stacy, and their chocolate lab Astro Renegade Ford-Stacy. Ford is the former host of The...
2022-07-0650 minThresholdsEndnotes: Marie-Helene Bertino, Ocean Vuong, and listening to your own voiceIt’s the end of our ‘Inheritance' capsule of episodes!MENTIONED:Marie-Helene Bertino shares her summer reading plans (hint: they involve Ursula K. Le Guin)Jordan and Drew answer some more listener questions, and Jordan describes the horror of hearing her own voice over and over againupdates about cool Thresholds alums like Ryka Aoki, Ed Yong, Fernanda Melchor, Sarah Manguso, and Fariha Roisina flashback to Jordan's conversation with Ocean VuongWe'll be back with our next capsule starting in July!For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe...
2022-06-2215 min
ThresholdsJhumpa LahiriJordan talks with Jhumpa Lahiri about her new collection of essays (Translating Myself and Others), how Ovid helped her navigate her mother’s death, and how translating her own new story collection is an exciting way to edit.MENTIONED:the Roman god Janusthe novels of Domenico Starnone (translated by Jhumpa Lahiri)Ovid's Metamorphoses "je est un autre" -- Arthur RimbaudJhumpa Lahiri is the author of Translating Myself and Others as well as four works of fiction including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; and another work o...
2022-06-1547 min
ThresholdsElissa WashutaJordan talks with Elissa Washuta (White Magic) about the transformative nature of narrative, avoiding vs. thinking about painful things, why she takes more notes, and the power of a good video game.MENTIONED:Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The ReturnDorrie the Little Witch by Patricia CoombsThe CraftRed Dead Redemption 2Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a nonfiction writer. She is the author of White Magic, My Body Is a Book of Rules, and Starvation Mode. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthology Shapes of Native...
2022-06-0847 min
ThresholdsJessamine ChanJordan talks with Jessamine Chan about the ways having a kid changed her writing, about the difficulties mothers face in America, and about the one very good day of writing that led to The School for Good Mothers.MENTIONED:"Where is Your Mother?" by Rachel Aviv (The New Yorker)Cost of Living by Emily MaloneySCOTUS draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health OrganizationThe Ragdale FoundationJessamine Chan's debut novel is The School for Good Mothers, an instant New York Times bestseller. Her short stories have appeared in Tin House and Epoch...
2022-06-0141 min
ThresholdsMorgan TaltyJordan talks with Morgan Talty in advance of his debut story collection about moms, storytelling, writing from a teen point of view, and the villain of colonialism.MENTIONED:The Lowering Days by Gregory Brown"The Blessing Tobacco"The Penobscot Indian NationSuperstoreMorgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. He received his BA in Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and his MFA in fiction from Stonecoast’s low-residency program. His story collection Night of the Living Rez is forthcoming from Tin House Books (2022), and hi...
2022-05-2546 min
ThresholdsStephanie FooJordan talks to Stephanie Foo about Complex PTSD, what it takes to accept and understand a diagnosis, and the transformative power of Google Doc Therapy.MENTIONED:* Brooklyn Botanic Garden* Dr. Jacob Ham* Hershey's Cookies'n'Cream* Google DocsStephanie Foo is a writer and radio producer, most recently for This American Life. Her debut memoir is What My Bones Know and her work has aired on Snap Judgment, Reply All, 99% Invisible, and Radiolab. A noted speaker and instructor, she has taught at Columbia University and has spoken...
2022-05-1844 minThresholdsEndnotes: Ross Gay, adrienne maree brown, and a special songIt’s the end of our ‘The World Around Us' capsule of episodes!MENTIONED:Jordan calls up Ross Gay to talk about his garden and something called a goumian outtake from our convo with adrienne maree brown, on the power of expressing the thing that needed to be expressedupdates about cool Thresholds alums like Alex Kleeman, Melissa Febos, Margo Jefferson, and Susan Orleansome book recommendations from Typo's dad, Ed Yongour audio engineer/composer Lora-Faye Åshuvud whips up a sonic treat just for youWe'll be back with our next capsule starting 5/18!For...
2022-05-0422 minThresholdsJeff VanderMeerJordan talks with Jeff VanderMeer about the process of re-wilding his backyard, his initial obsession with uprooting air potatoes, learning to see more of the natural world, and where his fiction is headed next.MENTIONED:Air potatoesThe Atlanta Botanical GardenFlorida House Representative Anna Eskamani"How to Rewild Your Balcony" from EsquireJeff VanderMeer is the author of Hummingbird Salamander, Dead Astronauts, Borne, The Ambergris Trilogy, and The Southern Reach Trilogy, the first volume of which, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson...
2022-04-2742 minThresholdsN. Scott MomadayJordan talks with N. Scott Momaday about the Stanford fellowship that changed his life, the importance of taking the natural world into your heart, and the genius of Emily Dickinson.MENTIONED:The Stanford Creative Writing Fellowship (now the Stegner Fellowship)"My Cricket" by Emily DickinsonThe Pueblo of JemezN. Scott Momaday is an internationally renowned poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller whose works celebrate and preserve Native American heritage. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel House Made of Dawn and he is the recipient of...
2022-04-2023 minThresholdsLulu MillerLulu Miller joins Jordan to talk about heartbreak and building back from it, about making writing the healthy choice, about relating to David Starr Jordan -- and a little bit about fish.MENTIONED:RadiolabThe 1906 San Francisco earthquakeLisa FrankLulu Miller is the cohost of Radiolab, cofounder of NPR’s Invisibilia, and a Peabody Award–winning science journalist. Her first book is Why Fish Don't Exist and her writing has been published in The New Yorker, VQR, Orion, Electric Literature, Catapult, and beyond. Her favorite spot on earth is Humpback...
2022-04-1347 minThresholdsadrienne maree brownadrienne maree brown joins Jordan to talk about the moment she learned what her style of leadership looked like, about the power of saying things aloud, and about her love of Octavia Butler and finding her way to writing fiction.MENTIONED:The League of Young Voters (or The League of Pissed-Off Voters)AK PressLeft Turn Magazine's 2010 issue "Other Worlds are Possible: Visionary Fiction, Culture, and Organizing" edited by Walidah ImarishaOctavia E. Butler's archive at the Huntington Library in Pasadenaadrienne maree brown is the...
2022-04-0649 minThresholdsAllegra HydeAllegra Hyde talks to Jordan about the peripatetic experience she had trying to find herself in utopian communities after college -- and a transformative near-miss with a mushroom that led her to where she is now.MENTIONED:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrollthe Rainbow Valley Community in New ZealandBrook FarmImportant Saftey Tip: never eat a raw mushroom or one you haven't safely identified as non-poisonous. We recommend this handy NYT guide on "How to Forage Mushrooms" as a place to start for the aspiring forager.Allegra Hyde is the author of...
2022-03-3043 minThresholdsEd YongEd Yong joins Jordan to tell the story of his pandemic puppy, Typo, and how introducing a new animal to his household deepened his understanding of the book he was working on. Plus, what it's like to take a break from covering the pandemic to write an entire book.MENTIONED:Our Dogs, Ourselves by Alexandra HorowitzThe Best American Science and Nature Writing 2021OUR PLANET (Netflix)Ed Yong is a Pulitzer Prize–winning science writer on the staff of The Atlantic, where he also won the George Polk Aw...
2022-03-2351 minThresholdsEndnotes: Sheila Heti, Alexander Chee, and a New VoiceIt’s the end of our ‘experimentation’ capsule of episodes and Jordan is joined in the studio by Thresholds producer Drew Broussard for a grab-bag of outtakes, audience questions, and more.MENTIONED:Sheila Heti asks Jordan a question she’s never been asked beforeAlexander Chee recommends some books, music, and more to get a person through stressful timesJordan tells Drew about a poem by Jericho Brown that knocked her overAdvice for what to do when the writing gets hardWe'll be back March 23rd!For more Thresholds, visit us at www.this...
2022-03-0920 minThresholdsSheila HetiSheila Heti joins Jordan to talk about grief, god, the shape of her novel, and what it means to be rooting for the snail.Mentioned:"The Unknown Masterpiece" by Honoré de BalzacThe Masterpiece by Émile ZolaSarah RuhlCrime and Punishment by Fyodor DostoyevskyThe Remains of the Day by Kazuo IshiguroSheila Heti is the author of several books of fiction and nonfiction, including Motherhood and How Should a Person Be?, which New York magazine deemed one of the “New Classics of the 21st century.” She was named one of “the New Vanguard” by the New Yo...
2022-03-0233 minThresholdsCarl Erik FisherJordan talks to Dr. Carl Erik Fisher (The Urge: Our History of Addiction) about perceiving addiction as a spectrum, the historical evolution of addiction as a concept, and the psychotic break that led to his own sobriety.Mentioned:Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England by Rebecca LemonThe Faust legendThe American temperance movementFranklin Evans; or, The Inebriate by Walt WhitmanCarl Erik Fisher is an addiction physician and bioethicist. He is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, where he works...
2022-02-2343 minThresholdsSarah MangusoSarah Manguso talks to Jordan about thinking she'd never write a novel, processing the place you come from, and the cold silence of whiteness.Mentioned:* the four-minute mile* Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, Wallace Stevens* Antoine Wilson's Mouth to Mouth* "A Boston Toast" by John Collins BossidySarah Manguso is the author of eight books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, most recently the novel Very Cold People. Her nonfiction books are 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, and The Two Kinds of Decay, and her poetry...
2022-02-1644 minThresholdsKiese LaymonJordan talks with Kiese Laymon about fear, loving an enemy, trying not to write wack-ass shit, and what it was like to buy back the rights to his first books in order to have them revised and republished.Mentioned:"How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others" at GawkerPlaying in the Dark by Toni Morrison"Come and Get Me" -- Jay-ZToni Morrison's Nobel Prize lectureJesmyn WardKiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the...
2022-02-0943 minThresholdsLeanne ShaptonJordan talks to writer and artist Leanne Shapton about her workspace, her desire to create something large, and being fascinated by the recurring image of Lady Diana getting out of cars.MENTIONED:When Diana Met…hosted by Aminatou SowSpencer (2021)Be Holding: A Poem by Ross GayDoubting ThomasLeanne Shapton is an author, artist and publisher based in New York City. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally-distributed not-for-profit imprint specializing in art and photography bo...
2022-02-0241 minThresholdsKatie KitamuraJordan talks to Katie Kitamura about the process of writing, the challenge of calling yourself a writer, and being a slow-moving creature in a world that wants to go fast.Katie Kitamura’s most recent novel is Intimacies. It was recently named one of the New York Times' Top 10 Books of 2021 and it was also longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a Barack Obama Summer Reading selection. Her third novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. She is also...
2021-12-0840 minThresholdsJames Han MattsonJordan talks to James Han Mattson, author of Reprieve, about a trip to Korea to find his birth family and about harnessing messiness to create fiction that feels real.James Han Mattson was born in Seoul, Korea and raised in North Dakota. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received grants from the Copernicus Society of America and Humanities North Dakota. He has been a featured storyteller on The Moth, and has taught at the University of Iowa, the University of Cape Town, the University of Maryland, the George Washington University, Murray State University, an...
2021-12-0145 minThresholdsAimee BenderIt's Infrastructure Week on Thresholds! Kind of! Jordan talks with Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade, about how developing a structure can change your writing life, about the paralysis of options, and creating the character of Francie in her latest book.Aimee Bender is the author of six books: The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (1998) which was a NY Times Notable Book, An Invisible Sign of My Own (2000) which was an L.A. Times pick of the year, Willful Creatures (2005) which was nominated by The Believer as one of the best books of the year, T...
2021-11-2439 minThresholdsRyka AokiJordan talks donuts, taking big leaps, and writing with/for/about pleasure with Ryka Aoki, author of Light from Uncommon Stars.Ryka Aoki is a poet, composer, and teacher and author of Seasonal Velocities, He Mele a Hilo (A Hilo Song), Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul and The Great Space Adventure. Her latest novel, Light from Uncommon Stars, is out now from Tor Books. Ryka is also a former national judo champion and the founder of the International Transgender Martial Arts Alliance. She is also a professor of English at Santa Monica College, a...
2021-11-1743 minThresholdsGregory PardloJordan is joined by Pulitzer-winning poet and memoirist Gregory Pardlo — currently teaching at NYU in Abu Dhabi — to talk about sobriety, understanding the stories of one’s life, and answering the self-imposed question “What god are you serving, Pardlo, when you write X?”Gregory Pardlo was born in Philadelphia in 1968. He is the author of Air Traffic (Knopf, 2018), a memoir in essays, and the poetry collections Digest (Four Way Books, 2014), which received the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and was shortlisted for the 2015 NAACP Image Award, and Totem (American Poetry Review), which was selected by Brenda Hillman for the America...
2021-11-1039 minThresholdsSusan OrleanJordan talks Susan Orlean (author of On Animals and The Library Book and The Orchid Thief and those hilarious tweets) about finding the right way to tell a story, taking risks in hopes an audience will come along, and starting out as a beat reporter writing about the drudgery of city government.Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of eight bestselling books, including The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, Saturday Night, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives wi...
2021-11-0346 minThresholdsSaïd SayrafiezadehJordan talks to memoirist and fiction writer Saïd Sayrafiezadeh about growing up in the Socialist Workers Party, deprogramming from childhood, and how even in fiction, the memoirist doesn't fall far from the memoir.Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is the author, most recently, of the story collection American Estrangement. His memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free, was called one of the 10 best books of the year by the New York Times and his story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Fiction Prize. His writing has appeared in The New York...
2021-10-2745 minThresholdsWarren EllisJordan sits down to a wild, funny, moving conversation with violinist, composer, Bad Seed, and author of Nina Simone's Gum Warren Ellis. It's an honest examination of where Warren's new book came from, how he learned how to write it, and why the potato is the miracle of the tuber world.Warren Ellis is an Australian multi-instrumentalist and composer, most famous for his work as collaborator and bandmate of Nick Cave, in both the Bad Seeds and Grinderman. Both solo and alongside Nick he is also a multi-award-winning film composer whose soundtracks include The Proposition, The R...
2021-10-2037 minThresholdsRita DoveJordan talks to the incomparable Rita Dove about discovery, about taking a break from creating and publishing, and about re-learning to hold a pen again after her MS diagnosis.Rita Dove, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, is the only poet honored with both the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. Her recent works include Playlist for the Apocalypse, Sonata Mulattica, and the National Book Award–shortlisted Collected Poems: 1974–2004. In 2021 she was awarded the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Charlottesville, where she...
2021-10-1345 minThresholdsSanaë LemoineSanaë Lemoine tells Jordan about the moment she learned her father had a second family and the ways that that reveal changed her life, her family, her relationship to secrets -- and helped inspire The Margot Affair.Sanaë Lemoine was born in Paris to a Japanese mother and French father, and raised in France and Australia. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and her MFA at Columbia University. She now lives in New York.For more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.comBe sure to rate/review/su...
2021-10-0642 minThresholdsAndrew MartinJordan talks to Andrew Martin about a trip to Montana in the midst of a tumultuous year, putting on a persona for writing, and how the two combined to change the way he tells stories.Andrew Martin's most recent book is a story collection entitled Cool for America. His first novel Early Work was a New York Times Notable Book of 2018 and a finalist for the Cabell First Novelist Award. His stories and essays have been published in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, and T: The New York Times...
2021-09-2941 minThresholdsRebecca CarrollJordan chats with writer and critic Rebecca Carroll about the tricky nature of writing memoir, being the mother of a Black son, and about the power of being the one to tell the story.Rebecca Carroll is a writer, creative consultant, editor-at-large, and host of the podcast Come Through with Rebecca Carroll: 15 Essential Conversations about Race in a Pivotal Year for America (WNYC Studios). Most recently, she was a cultural critic at WNYC, and a critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times. Her writing has been published widely, and she’s the author of several books about ra...
2021-09-2243 minThresholdsMaggie NelsonJordan talks to Maggie Nelson about hope, about hitting one's threshold, and about trying to respond to current events in On Freedom without dating the text.Maggie Nelson is the author of several books of poetry and prose, most recently On Freedom. She's also the author of the New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Argonauts. She teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.This episode is brought to you by the House of CHANEL, creator of the iconic J12 sports watch. Always in motion, t...
2021-09-1539 minThresholdsAlexandra KleemanJordan talks to author Alexandra Kleeman about the threshold of the natural and the man-made, about how we are and will continue to consistently cross that threshold back and forth, and about how cognitive science influenced her new book.Alexandra Kleeman is the author of Something New Under the Sun as well as Intimations: Stories and the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, which was awarded the 2016 Bard Fiction Prize and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2020, she was awarded the Rome Prize and the Berlin Prize. Her fiction has be...
2021-09-0848 minThresholdsLauren SandlerJordan talks to journalist Lauren Sandler about how close you can or should get to your subjects, about who gets to write what and why, and about the driving forces behind the stories that intrigue her.Lauren Sandler is an award-winning journalist and author based in Brooklyn. Her most recent book is the bestselling This Is All I Got: A New Mother’s Search for Home (named a Notable Book of 2020 by The New York Times) and she's the author of two previous books -- One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Jo...
2021-09-0138 minThresholdsEula BissJordan talks to writer Eula Biss about living in the moment of a threshold, about buying a house, about making a career, and about how too much fertile ground for thought can lead to overload.Eula Biss is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had. Her book On Immunity was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and Notes from No Man’s Land won the National Book Critics Circle award for criticism in 2009. Her work has recently appeared in the Guardian, the Paris Review, Fr...
2021-08-2550 minThresholdsDeesha PhilyawJordan talks to Deesha Philyaw about getting out of a bad marriage, learning to embrace life again, and doing it all while putting together a short story collection.Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church, and is being adapted for television by HB...
2021-08-1842 minThresholdsMary RuefleJordan visits with poet Mary Ruefle at her home in Vermont for a conversation about the passage of time, the both-sides-ness of thresholds, memory -- and the best way to cook an egg.Mary Ruefle is the author Dunce (Wave Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize and the 2019 LA Times Book Prize and was long-listed for the 2019 National Book Award and the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award. She's also written many other books including My Private Property (Wave Books, 2016), Trances of the Blast (Wave Books, 2013), Madness, Rack, and Honey: Collected Lectures (Wave Books, 2012), a fi...
2021-08-1137 minThresholdsNadia OwusuJordan talks to Nadia Owusu, author of Aftershocks: A Memoir, about the familial revelations that inspired the book, about her journey through (and reclamation of) madness, and about coming to embrace the forces that have shaped her life.Nadia Owusu is a Ghanaian and Armenian-American writer and urbanist. Her first book, Aftershocks: A Memoir was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and topped several best-of lists in 2020. She is the recipient of a 2019 Whiting Award. Her lyric essay, So Devilish a Fire won the Atlas Review chapbook contest. Her writing has appeared or is fo...
2021-08-0443 minThresholdsMichelle OrangeIn this episode, Jordan talks to Michelle Orange about her new book, Pure Flame, the archetypal relationship between mothers and daughters, and the politics and perils of being a woman.Michelle Orange is author of Pure Flame (2021) and the essay collection This Is Running for Your Life, which was named a best book of 2013 by The New Yorker. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times, Slate, Bookforum, The Nation, and many other outlets. A contributing editor and columnist for the Virginia Quarterly Review, she is a faculty mentor in th...
2021-07-2841 minThresholdsRivka GalchenIn this episode, Jordan talks to Rivka Galchen about the projects she never finishes, how hard it is for her to stay in love with an idea, and how often she throws projects away. They also talk about her most recent novel, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch, which Galchen says came out in a big “love-affair style rush.”Rivka Galchen is the author of Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch and is the recipient of a William Saroyan International Prize for Fiction and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, among other distinctions. She writes...
2021-07-2148 minThresholdsJordan KisnerTo celebrate the paperback release of Thin Places, this special episode features Jordan in the interview seat in a conversation with returning guest Lydia Millet!Jordan Kisner writes essays, features, and reviews for n+1, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Believer, and others. She also writes a column for The Paris Review. Her first book, Thin Places, was one of NPR’s “best books of 2020.” She is also the host of Thresholds.Lydia Millet has written more than a dozen novels and story collections, often about the ties between people and othe...
2021-04-1453 min
ThresholdsMychal Denzel SmithMychal Denzel Smith is the author of the just-released Stakes is High: Life After the American Dream as well as the 2016 New York Times bestseller Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching. His work has appeared, online and print, in the New York Times, Washington Post, Harper’s, Artforum, Oxford American, New Republic, GQ, Complex, Esquire, Playboy, Bleacher Report, The Nation, The Atlantic, Pitchfork, Bookforum, and a number of other publications. He has appeared on The Daily Show, PBS Newshour, Democracy NOW!, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and more national and local radio/television programs. He is...
2020-09-0955 min
ThresholdsLaura KolbeLaura Kolbe is a writer as well as a physician and assistant professor of internal medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She studied English and American literature at Harvard and at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, before studying medicine at the University of Virginia and completing her medical residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.This spring, her clinical work and views on patient care during COVID-19 were highlighted in The New Yorker and The New York TImes and she co-created Weill Cornell Medical Center’s COVID Palliative Care and Hospice Unit, and its COVI...
2020-09-0252 min
ThresholdsRachel Eliza GriffithsRachel Eliza Griffiths is the author of five poetry collections, including Seeing the Body (W. W. Norton, 2020) and Mule & Pear (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2011), which was selected for the 2012 Inaugural Poetry Award by the Black Caucus American Library Association. She is also a visual artist and photographer, and the creator of Poets on Poetry (P.O.P). Her honors include fellowships from Cave Canem, The Millay Residency, the New York State Summer Writers Institute, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Soul Mountain, and Vermont Studio Center. Griffiths teaches creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New York City...
2020-08-2658 min
ThresholdsKate ZambrenoKate Zambreno is the author of several acclaimed books including Screen Tests, Heroines, and Green Girl. Her latest novel, Drifts, was released in May 2020. Her writing has appeared in The Paris Review, VQR, and elsewhere. She teaches in the writing programs at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College.This episode is brought to you by: Betterhelp. Get 10% off your first month by visiting betterhelp.com/thresholds; What Happens at Night by Peter Cameron, now available wherever you get books from Catapult; and, Luster by Raven Leilani, now available from FSG. Learn more about your...
2020-08-1943 min
ThresholdsOcean VuongOcean Vuong is a Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist. He is a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant, the 2014 Ruth Lilly/Sargent Rosenberg fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a 2016 Whiting Award, and the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize for his poetry. His New York Times-bestselling novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous was published in 2019 and his debut poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds was an NYT Top Ten Book of 2016. He serves as an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at UMass-Amherst.This episode is brought to you by: Betterhelp. Get 10% off...
2020-08-1251 minThresholdsSeason 2 -- Coming August 12thEight new conversations, one new season. Thresholds is a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down, disoriented them in their lives, changed them, and changed how and why they wanted to write. Hosted by Jordan Kisner, author of the new essay collection, Thin Places, and presented by Lit Hub Radio. Season 2 will begin publishing next Wednesday, August 12th. Learn more at www.thisisthresholds.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2020-08-0501 min
ThresholdsLeslie JamisonLeslie Jamison is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Recovering and The Empathy Exams, and the novel The Gin Closet. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, and her work has appeared in publications including The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Times Book Review, the Oxford American, and the Virginia Quarterly Review. She directs the graduate nonfiction program at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat
2020-05-2245 min
ThresholdsCarmen Maria MachadoCarmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. Her latest work includes the memoir In the Dream House and the comic In the Low Low Woods. She lives in Philadelphia with her wife. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2020-04-1534 min
ThresholdsSuleika JaouadSuleika Jaouad is an Emmy Award-winning writer, speaker, cancer survivor, and activist. She served on Barack Obama's President's Cancer Panel, and her advocacy work, reporting, and speaking has been featured at the United Nations, on Capitol Hill, and on the TED Talk main stage. When she's not on the road with her 1972 Volkswagen camper van and her rescue dog Oscar, she lives in Brooklyn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2020-04-0836 min
ThresholdsTara WestoverTara Westover was born in Idaho in 1986. She received her BA from Brigham Young University in 2008 and was subsequently awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. She earned an MPhil from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 2009, and in 2010 was a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She returned to Cambridge, where she was awarded a PhD in history in 2014. Educated is her first book.Hosted by Jordan Kisner. Produced by Justin Alvarez and Drew Broussard. Music by Lora-Faye Åshuvud. Art by Kirstin Huber. Presented by Lit Hub Radio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a...
2020-04-0141 min
ThresholdsWendy S. WaltersWendy S. Walters' current projects address class and racial disquietude in the industrial Midwest; intersections between writing and design, and organic forms in the essay. She is the author of a book of prose, Multiply/Divide: On the American Real and Surreal (Sarabande Books, 2015), named a best book of the year by Buzzfeed, Flavorwire, Literary Hub, The Root, Huffington Post, and others. She is also the author of two books of poems, Troy, Michigan (Futurepoem, 2014) and Longer I Wait, More You Love Me. Walters is a 2020 Creative Capital Awardee in literary nonfiction. In 2018-19 she was artist-in-residence at BRIClab in Brooklyn, wh...
2020-03-2624 min
ThresholdsAlexander CheeAlexander Chee is the author of the novels Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel, all from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic, and an editor at large at VQR. His essays and stories have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, T Magazine, Tin House, Slate, and Guernica, among others. He is winner of a 2003 Whiting Award, a 2004 NEA Fellowship in prose and a 2010 MCCA Fellowship, and residency fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the VCCA, Civitella Ranieri and Amtrak. He is an assoc...
2020-03-1823 min
ThresholdsMira JacobMira Jacob is a novelist, memoirist, illustrator, and cultural critic. Her graphic memoir Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award, longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award, named a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a best book of the year by Time, Esquire, Publisher’s Weekly, and Library Journal. It is currently in development as a television series with Film 44.Hosted by Jordan Kisner. Produced by Justin Alvarez and Drew Broussard. Music by Lora-Faye Åshuvud. Art by Kirstin Huber. Presented by Lit Hub Radio. Learn...
2020-03-1137 min
ThresholdsIntroducing ThresholdsThis is Thresholds, a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down, disoriented them in their lives, changed them, and changed how and why they wanted to write. Hosted by Jordan Kisner, author of the new essay collection, Thin Places, and brought to you by Lit Hub Radio. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/shows/storybound Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2020-03-0701 min