Episode 408: A Discussion of Paul Fussell’s Class, with Vanessa Blakeslee!

29 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode

Tags

Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, Miami Book Fair International, Paul Fussell, Vanessa Blakeslee

Episode 408 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing.)

This week, my occasional co-host, Vanessa Blakeslee, and I discuss Paul Fussell’s entertaining treatise, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System. While this is clearly not a craft book, a sociological understanding of the American class system can add layers to your characterization, or so John found when he discovered this gem back in the early 1990s. Paul Fussell (1924-2012) possessed a gorgeously sardonic wit when not hiding in academia.

Someday John will own a sailboat, and become truly, deeply, fatally lost, and happy.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Paul Fussell Class Paul Fussell BAD Image result for the official preppy handbook Fussell Thank God

NOTES

This episode is sponsored by the excellent people at Scribophile.

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Episode 294: Ben Blum!

30 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Creative Nonfiction, Episode, Journalism, Military Literature

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Tags

A Story of Soldiers Family and an Inexplicable Crime, Army Rangers, Ben Blum, Miami Book Fair International, NYU MFA, Ranger Games

Episode 294 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Ben Blum with John King.png

In this week’s episode, I catch up with Ben Blum, who was my colleague in a Jonathan Lethem workshop circa 2009, and talk about finding room for earnestness in a postmodern outlook, finding room for pleasure in a world sick with stimulation, and writing a challenging project that changes who you are as a writer.

TEXT DISCUSSED

Ranger Games

NOTES

The music used in this episode was “Sweet Spot,” “Chase,” “Chaotica,” and “As the Dark Wave Swells” by The Bambi Molesters.

All hail Mistie Watkins, content editor of The Drunken Odyssey.

Photo by Shawn McKee.

Have you reviewed us on iTunes yet?

What is some of your favorite literature dealing with the military? Leave comments below.

Episode 203: Campbell McGrath!

30 Saturday Apr 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Campbell McGrath, Elvis, Florida Poems, In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys, Mao, Miami Book Fair International, Pablo Picasso, Seven Notebooks, XX: Poems for the Twentieth Century

Episode 203 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview poet Campbell McGrath about XX, his tenth book of poetry.

Campbell McGrath (left) and John King (right). Photo by Shawn McKee.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

All 7 panels from Litlando 2016 are now available on youtube here.

Read Amy Watkins’s review of XX here.

My creative nonfiction piece, “Just Barely,” recently appeared in the Fantastic Floridas section of Burrow Press Review.

My flash fiction, “Gentle Spirit,” appeared in THAT Literary Review #1.

On May 10th, I’ll be reading with Jared Silvia, Tom Lucas, and Karen Price in The Best of There Will Be Words.

Check out “The Battle Over the Sea Monkey Fortune” at The New York Times Magazine.

The Picasso film I reference is The Mystery of Picasso, from 1956, which is not actually in the 1970s at all.

Check out the music of The Bambi Molesters. Their songs “Rising East” (from As the Dark Wave Swells) and “Chaotica” (from Sonic Bullets: 13 from the Hip) are heard on this episode.

Episode 203 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 191: Erin Belieu!

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry

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Carl Phillips, Erin Belieu, Kevin Young, Miami Book Fair International, Poetry, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Slant Six

Episode 191 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview poet Erin Belieu,

Erin Belieu

plus I share the Miami Book Fair International reading she participated in with Carl Phillips, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, and Kevin Young.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Check out my first interview with Erin Belieu back on episode 44, when we talked about VIDA and the count.
On Superbowl Sunday, February 7, 7 P.M., The Drunken Odyssey will be Super Balling at Writer’s Atelier. More info is here.

Litlando-Poster

Get tickets for Litlando here.

Episode 191 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing, literature, and drinking, is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 187: Kelly Link!

09 Saturday Jan 2016

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Fantasy, Science Fiction

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adam Johnson, Fantasy, Get in Trouble, Kelly Link, Miami Book Fair International, Padgett Powell, Science Fiction

Episode 187 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview fiction writer Kelly Link,

Kelly Link

Plus I share the reading she participated in, “Short Stories, Tall Tales,” also featuring Adam Johnson and Padgett Powell.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

A Quaker high school in Philadelphia has removed Huckleberry Finn from its curriculum.
Mein Kampf will be published in Germany for the first time in 70 years.
Neil Gaiman straightened out an impatient George R. R. Martin fan back in 2009, which is perhaps why fans are being nicer to Martin right now, after he missed a deadline for the latest installment of A Song of Ice and Fire.

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Episode 187 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 184: Cory Doctorow and Amy Hempel!

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

A.J. Rich, Amy Hempel, Cory Doctorow, IRL: In Real Life, Jill Ciment, Miami Book Fair International, Shawn McKee, The Hand That Feeds You

Episode 184 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

and Amy Hempel,

Amy Hempel

plus Shawn McKee reads his personal essay, “A Confession.”

Shawn McKee

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Episode 184 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 182: Elizabeth McCracken!

05 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode

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Dallas Woodburn, Don Royster, Elizabeth Berg, Elizabeth McCracken, Lisa Martens, Miami Book Fair International, Racquel Henry, Thunderstruck and Other Stories

Episode 182 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I interview fiction writer Elizabeth McCracken,

Elizabeth-McCracken

and share her reading at Miami Book Fair International 2015,

Elizabeth McCracken Reading

plus Dallas Woodburn reads her personal essay, “First, Please Yourself.”

Dallas Woodburn

NOTES

David Henry Hwang is apparently going to be okay after being seriously attacked with a knife in Brooklyn.

Special thanks to Lisa Martens, Don Royster, and Racquel Henry for sharing their impressions of NANOWRIMOing.

Dallas Woodburn’s essay first appeared on Passages North.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Episode 182 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 133: John Waters!

03 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Film

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Carsick, Crackpot, Creative Writing, John Waters, Miami Book Fair International, Mickey Mouse, Role Models, Shock Value, This Filthy World

Episode 133 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I share another Miami BookFair International interview, this one with writer and filmmaker John Waters.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Check out the voice of one of the dog show officials in this Mickey Mouse cartoon–two of my favorite things colliding here:

NOTES

In Orlando, come hear me, Kimberly Lojewski, Robert Metcalf, and Tiffany Razzano read prose at There Will Be Words on January 13th.

On Tuesday, January 20th, 7 P.M., Leslie Salas will lead a workshop on imagery at the Orlando Public Library, Herndon Branch

On Saturday, January 24th, 11 A.M., J. Bradley will host a love poem workshop at the Orlando Public Library.

On Saturday, January 24th, 7 P.M., come hear Boris Fishman read from his novel, A Replacement Life, and me read poetry at the Gallery at Avalon Island.

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Episode 133 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 78: Edwidge Danticat and Koren Zailckas!

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Miami Book Fair

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Claire of the Sea Light, Edwidge Danticat, Fury, Koren Zailckas, Miami Book Fair International, Mother Mother, Smashed

Episode 78 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I present my interview with Edwidge Danticat,

and my interview with Koren Zailckas,

Photo by Tammy Taylor.

plus Samantha Stemler writes about Neil McKenna’s The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

The Drunken Odyssey now has a youtube channel.

Here is my video of Edwidge Danticat’s event at Miami Book Fair International:

According to the Kids’ Right to Read Project, 2013 has been a record year for attempts to ban books in libraries in schools. The Diary of Anne Frank, you know, is too pornographic for American children to be exposed to. This was reported in The Guardian.

The Heaven of Animals, the forthcoming collection from friend-of-the-show David James Poissant, is available for pre-order. Please support the launch of his book, which is wonderful reading.

Episode 78 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 74: Nikki Giovanni!

28 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Poetry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Carlton Melton, Chasing Utopia, cormac mccarthy, Miami Book Fair International, Nikki Giovanni, Peter Biello, Poetry, The Road

Episode 74 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

On this week’s show, I interview the legend Nikki Giovanni,

Nikki Giovanni

plus Peter Biello writes about reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Peter Biello’s essay on The Road featured “Found Children” from Carlton Melton’s Pass it On.

The Heaven of Animals, the forthcoming collection from friend-of-the-show David James Poissant, is available for pre-order. Please support the launch of his book, which is wonderful reading.

Episode 74 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.