Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

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Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry is a arts podcast hosted by David Naimon, Milkweed Editions, with 350 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

David Naimon, Milkweed Editions hosts Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry, a arts show with 350 episodes published.

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  Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

  From the Archives : Morgan Parker : Magical Negro

  Aug 13, 20262 hour

  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 after you enjoy today’s episode about Magical Negro . Later that same year Magical Negro won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. Danez Smith, another past guest of this show, said this about it: “2019 justly belongs to Morgan Parker. Her poems shred me with their intelligence, dark humor and black-hearted vision. Parker is one of this generation’s best minds, able to hold herself and her world, which includes all of us, up to impossible lights, revealing every last bit of our hopes, failings, possibilities and raptures.” For the bonus audio archive Morgan contributed a reading from her YA novel Who Put this Song on? which joins contributions from Kaveh Akbar, Tommy Pico, Dionne Brand, Nikky Finney, Natalie Diaz and more. To find out about how to subscribe to the bonus audio archive and all the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener supporter, head over to the show’s Patreon page . And don’t miss Milkweed Editions bookstore BookShop for even more books to explore.

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  Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

  Claudia Rankine : Triage

  Aug 3, 20262h 14m

  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 or the live-streamed genocide, before the fall of Roe v Wade or the massive worldwide fires felling our forests each summer. Not only do we account for the time since we last talked, Claudia’s powerful new book Triage does this very thing as well. Triage follows the lifelong contentious friendship between The Narrator and The Theorist, a Black woman and nonbinary Palestinian, who have invented a ritual of collapse, falling to the ground each time they see each other. “Col l a p s e was an antidote to an unbearable but borne disturbance we glimpsed in the face of each other, ” the narrator says. And “ maybe col l a p s ing simply was the easiest way to keep from breaking apart .” Join us as we explore Triage together, and the possibilities of becoming someone else in the face of catastrophic change. If you enjoyed today’s program consider joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. Find out about all the potential benefits and rewards of doing so—from the Milkweed Early Reader Subscription to access to bonus contributions from everyone from Dionne Brand to Nikky Finney, Isabella Hammad to Omar El Akkad— at the show’s Patreon page . Finally, to explore the books discussed and referenced in today’s conversation check out the Between the Covers BookShop specific for today’s episode. And don’t miss Milkweed BookShop bookstore as well.

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  Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

  Valeria Luiselli : Beginning Middle End

  Jul 27, 20262h 45m

  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 Middle End is many things at once: a road novel, a family drama, a work of climate fiction, a feminist retelling of classical mythology, a novel about writing, about borders and migration, and perhaps even a field guide for the apocalypse, enacting a way to live and love in a time of rupture and unimaginable change. Join Valeria, Proteus, and a host of pre-Socratic philosophers as we follow the novel’s make-shift family, broken apart and now coming back together anew, in a Sicily beset by metamorphic forces, mythic, geologic, and more. If you enjoy today’s conversation, consider shapeshifting from a listener to a listener-supporter by joining the Between the Covers community. You can find out about all the benefits and rewards of doing so at the show’s Patreon page. Finally, to explore the many books discussed and referenced in today’s conversation check out the Between the Covers BookShop specific for today’s episode. In addition, don’t miss Milkweed Editions BookShop bookstore as well.

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  Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

  From the Archives : Cristina Rivera Garza : The Taiga Syndrome & The Iliac Crest

  Jul 8, 20261h 51m

  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, “If The Taiga Syndrome is a book of illness, it’s also about exile, disappearance, borders, love, language and translation, desire, capitalism and its discontents, fairy tales, and what it means to be possessed by the madness of others and the madness of ourselves…There is no one writing novels as phantasmagorically exquisite as Cristina Rivera Garza’s. The Taiga Syndrome, which is both quietly poetic and narratively unhinged, is a crucial addition to her distinguished oeuvre.” And Yuri Herrera says of the second, “An intelligent, beautiful story about bodies disguised as a story about language disguised as a story about night terrors. Cristina Rivera Garza does not respect what is expected of a writer, of a novel, of language. She is an agitator.” For the bonus audio archive we have an extended conversation with acclaimed translator Suzanne Jill Levine. We explore the pleasures and challenges of translating Cristina’s work; what the collaboration between Suzanne, Cristina and Suzanne’s doctoral student in translating The Taiga Syndrome together looked like; what to expect when pursuing a degree in translation, and more. To learn how to subscribe to the bonus audio, and about the many other potential benefits of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over to the show’s Patreon page .    

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  Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

  Eleni Sikelianos : Memory Rehearsal

  Jun 29, 20262h 6m

  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 most of all tells the story of a poet’s self-discovery, finding her voice within a dual poetic lineage, within a chorus of remarkable voices, past and present. As Anne Waldman says: “Sikelianos’s voyage is a spiritual quest to untangle a history that only she and only poetry can accomplish. It is a meditation on gender, place, and reclamation, a struggle for a whole vision and version for the writer of her own self and purpose. The genius of this pursuit is staggering. . . .The intricate weaving and array of image and language to get there leaves me breathless. There is nothing like it that I have seen.” For the bonus audio archive Eleni contributes an electrifying reading from book one of H.D.’s Trilogy, called “The Walls Do Not Fall.” This joins many unforgettable contributions, whether Lisa Robertson reading her translation of the long Baudelaire poem “Hags,” Jorie Graham reading Robert Creeley, Jen Bervin reading Paul Celan, a late night whispered reading by Bhanu Kapil from her writing journal, and much more. To find out how to subscribe to the bonus audio, and about all the other potential benefits and rewards of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter, head over to the show’s Patreon page . Finally here is the BookShop for today’s conversation. [Author photo by Laird Hunt]

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