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Writing in the Hour of Genocide with Lena Khalaf Tuffaha & Omar El Akkad
Today’s episode, recorded live at the 2nd annual Portland Poetry Confluence, is a conversation between two National Book Award winners, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha in poetry and Omar El Akkad in prose. We use the essay “Notes on Craft: Writing in t
Milkweed Live: Ursula K. Le Guin Conversations on Writing with David Naimon & Lidia Yuknavitch
Ursula K. Le Guin titled her introduction to Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing “Fear and Loathing in the Interview,” and in it she said: “The good interview is like a good badminton rally: you know right away that the two of you c
Layli Long Soldier : We
Layli Long Soldier returns to the show to discuss her latest remarkable poetry collection We (and/or Wé). We talk about these two connotations of we/wé, the questions of address, audience, identity and kinship implicit in them both. We expl
From the Archives : Elvia Wilk : Oval
Today’s unforgettable archival conversation with Elvia Wilk was recorded in-person in 2019 on the occasion of the release of her debut novel Oval. Wilk takes questions of self and other, nature and culture, human and non-human into the dyst
From the Archives : Marlon James : Black Leopard, Red Wolf
Today’s archival episode with Marlon James was recorded in 2019 at the studios of KBOO community radio. Marlon’s latest book The Disappearers has garnered the most talked about book review of this year, from the New York Times book critic D
China Miéville : The Rouse
China Miéville’s much-anticipated new book The Rouse is twenty-one years in the making. He was writing it when he wrote The City & The City and Embassytown. He was writing it when he wrote October: The Story of the Russian Revolution and A
Milkweed Live : Creature Needs with Thalia Field, David Naimon & Anne de Marcken
Today’s conversation between Thalia Field and David Naimon, moderated by Anne de Marcken, was recorded in February as part of the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s Visual Arts low residency MFA program. Thalia and David discuss and explore
Hajjar Baban : Low Flying Planes
Today’s guest, poet Hajjar Baban, discusses her truly remarkable debut collection of poetry Low Flying Planes. Together we explore Kurdish poetics, the role of silence, refusal and isolation in her work, the Kurdish Poets Collective, writin
From the Archives : Morgan Parker : Magical Negro
Today’s conversation with poet Morgan Parker was recorded in-person in 2019 and was Morgan’s second appearance on the show. Both conversations with Morgan are unforgettable, so don’t miss her first appearance in 2017 (https://milkweed.org/b
Claudia Rankine : Triage
Claudia Rankine first appeared on Between the Covers in 2014 to discuss Citizen: An American Lyric. Our first encounter back then was before January 6th or October 7th, before Trump 1.0 or Trump 2.0, before the public murder of George Floyd
Valeria Luiselli : Beginning Middle End
We welcome back Valeria Luiselli—who first appeared on the show eleven years ago—to discuss her new and truly marvelous novel Beginning Middle End. Much like the shapeshifting god Proteus, who figures prominently in this story, Beginning Mi
From the Archives : Cristina Rivera Garza : The Taiga Syndrome & The Iliac Crest
Today’s archival conversation, recorded in 2019, is Cristina Rivera Garza’s first unforgettable appearance on the show. We discuss two works of fiction by her, The Taiga Syndrome and The Iliac Crest. Poet Daniel Borzutsky says of the first,
Eleni Sikelianos : Memory Rehearsal
Today’s guest is writer, poet and translator Eleni Sikelianos. We discuss her hybrid-genre, ancestral memoir Memory Rehearsal, a work that moves between poetry and prose, image and text, human and animal, history and mythology, and perhaps
Lisa Robertson : Riverwork
Lisa Robertson’s Riverwork twins the mysterious disappearance of the great aunt of our protagonist, Lucy Frost, and that same aunt’s interest in a long-disappeared river, buried under the streets of Paris. As Lucy searches for traces of her
From the Archives : Richard Powers : The Overstory
Today’s archival episode with Richard Powers, about The Overstory, was recorded in 2019 in the studios of KBOO community radio in Portland, Oregon. Unusually, that same night I appeared with Richard at a live ticketed event at Revolution Ha
Giada Scodellaro : Ruins, Child
Dionne Brand says of Giada Scodellaro debut novel, winner of the prestigious Novel Prize: “Ruins, Child takes us to the crumbling architecture of a future past; a future past that is possibly now. In this work of fractal seeing, we encounte
Saul Williams : Martyr Loser King
Martyr Loser King, the debut graphic novel of poet, musician, actor and director Saul Williams, with art by Morgan Sorne, not only exists in the same world as his feature film Neptune Frost, but also that of three of his albums, one of his
From the Archives : Zadie Smith : Grand Union
Today’s classic episode from the archives with Zadie Smith was recorded in 2019 at the studios of KBOO community radio to discuss her story collection Grand Union. The conversation ranges wildly—from the politics of representation, of being
Molly Crabapple : Here Where We Live Is Our Country : The Story of the Jewish Bund
One of the elements that makes Molly Crabapple’s latest book so remarkable is, not only the remarkable stories it unearths and retells, but more specifically how she tells these stories, these erased stories, these stories meant to be forgo
Lily Brooks-Dalton : Ruins
Lily Brooks-Dalton’s Ruins is both a cleverly plotted page-turner, and an emotionally engaging, character-driven novel with an unforgettable protagonist; it’s both erudite and a wild ride, inviting and yet mysterious, only slowly revealing
From the Archives : Ted Chiang : Exhalation
Excited to share this classic episode from the archives with one of the great short storytellers of our time, Ted Chiang. This conversation happened in 2019 at the studios of KBOO community radio in Portland, Oregon. Blake Crouch speaking o
Jordy Rosenberg : Night Night Fawn
Today’s conversation with Jordy Rosenberg is many things but at its heart it explores the question of what it means to write revolutionary literature (or as Trotsky would call it “October literature”). Whether we are talking about trans hor
Joan Naviyuk Kane : with snow pouring southward past the window
When Cynthia Cruz describes Joan Naviyuk Kane’s latest collection as a series of poems that “both shows and enacts how a self is brought to being through the abyss,” I think of Kane’s own words about poetry: as “a place of refuge and possib
From the Archives : Brandon Shimoda : The Grave on the Wall
Today’s episode is a classic from the archives, a conversation from 2019 with Brandon Shimoda about his book The Grave on the Wall. While the book centers on an exploration of Shimoda’s grandfather’s internment at Fort Missoula during World
Báyò Akómoláfé : Selah
What if we were to take seriously that we, as humans, aren’t the sole authors of our world, that there are other intelligences at play, that we are only one of many agents of change and transformation, and that “we” aren’t even entirely our
Milkweed Live : Canisia Lubrin : The World After Rain
Canisia Lubrin returns to Between the Covers for a live conversation in downtown Portland, at Powell’s Bookstore, about her latest poetry collection The World After Rain. A private book, that Canisia never intended to publish, we explore wh
From the Archives : Jake Skeets : Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers
Today’s episode is a classic from the archives, a conversation from 2019 with current Navajo Nation Poet Laureate Jake Skeets about his debut poetry collection Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers. Winner of the Whiting Award in poet
Sangamithra Iyer : Governing Bodies : A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed
“When I tell you a story about my body, I cannot separate it from a story about water. And a story about water is also a story about family. And a story about family is rooted in the earth…,” opens Sangamithra Iyer’s Governing Bodies. What
Lily Dunn : Into Being : The Radical Craft of Memoir and Its Power to Transform
In Into Being Lily Dunn explores the ways in which writing one’s life has the potential to transform it; how writing, if done well, can produce “symbolic repair.” We look at Virginia Woolf’s notion of “moments of being” as a means and metho
Randa Abdel-Fattah : Discipline
Randa Abdel-Fattah’s new novel Discipline is set in Sydney, Australia in 2021 during Ramadan. Discipline follows two Palestinians there, one in media and one in academia, where each has to confront questions of silence and complicity in the
