The Passage

Lydia Millet reads from Fair Ones: A Double Novel, her experimentally-structured story of two women navigating the sudden and unexpected death of their best friend. During our conversation, the Pulitzer- and National Book Award-nominated author reflects on her evolution as a writer and chats with Jon and Cory about: How she and her publisher decided on "A Double Novel" (and the many alternatives they considered) Her love of dialogue (and how much she hates reading it outloud) The increasing influence of pop culture on her writing Her obsession with fonts Writing exclusively outdoors Lydia's passage, from Fair Ones: “Let yourself go,” said Jen. “It’s your turn to be a leaf. Or, like, the plastic bag in that egregiously overrated movie from the nineties. The pedophile fantasy dressed up as cinematic art? With the rose motif? You can just float there, like the bag. Swirling in an updraft. In a super-obvious yet oh-so-gritty metaphor.” We headed to the men’s room with Jase and Patrice, where, as always, there…

Isaac Fitzgerald reads from American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed, his memoir about following in the footsteps of one of America’s great folk heroes. In this episode, we discuss the book’s opening passage, learning how to write, and how walking became a way to write about family, loneliness, and home. Isaac also talks to Jon and Cory about: Putting “tension" in the bank to keep readers turning pages Polishing first lines to a high shine The benefits of writing an entire manuscript longhand Using voice memos and photos as notes Storytelling and the art of stand-up comedy Cutting the “throat clearing” from early drafts Isaac’s passage, from American Rambler: I’ve been drinking a bit less and praying a lot more than I used to. Now, that’s not to say I’m drinking less than most people—I’m not—nor that a doctor would sign off on my lifestyle as a healthy one—they wouldn’t—but self-betterment has to start somewhere, and for me that means choosing sobriety occasionally. More often than I’m used…

Scott Hawkins reads from Blacktail, a dark fantasy in which a wolf seeks revenge on humanity for the death of his house dog mate. In this episode, we unpack a passage from the opening chapter, told from the perspective of a lynx, that sets up our introduction to the book’s titular character. Scott chats with Jon and Cory about: Writing from the perspective of animals The multiple scrapped projects he wrote between his debut novel, The Library at Mount Char, and Blacktail His wife as his trusted first reader The checklist he created and reviews drafts against The 80,000 words he spent trying to crack the first chapter of Mount Char that ended up on the cutting room floor The storyline Mount Char borrows from The Godfather (as well as King Lear) His time at the Taos Toolbox writing workshop with Nancy Kress and Walter Jon Williams Scott's passage, from Blacktail (sorry, the whole passage wouldn't fit so it was edited slightly for length): The snow stopped shortly after dawn. The sky remained gray, though. A…

Bathsheba Demuth reads from Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait, billed as the first comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic lands and waters that stretch from Russia to Canada. In this episode, we discuss a passage about walruses and the challenges of writing about nontraditional history subjects. Bathsheba talks to Jon and Cory about: Turning an academic dissertation paper into a trade history book Researching the history of commercial whaling in the 1840s Taking inspiration from poets The luxury of writing as a graduate student Creative nonfiction writing exercises Writing while running Bathsheba’s passage, from Floating Coast: Walruses are coastline embodied. They cannot eat without the sea, feeding a hundred or more feet underwater, where they root beds of clams and benthic worms from the mud. But they must breed and birth in the air. So the herds slide and wallow between, riding the edge of the sea ice south in autumn, then north through the Bering Strait in summer,…

Joshua Kendall reads from Trudeau & Doonesbury, his new biography of Garry Trudeau, the famously press-shy Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. In this episode, we discuss a passage outlining the sexism found in strips Trudeau created during his undergraduate years as well as his evolution into more progressive, feminist politics as he reached the national stage. Josh talks to Jon and Cory about: Mining the two hundred boxes of papers that Trudeau had donated to Yale Finding Trudeau's crude early strips on his first day in the archives, and the doubts it raised about taking on the project The value of a good paper trail, and how phones, email, and texting have made biographers' jobs harder His first biography of a living person, and why dead subjects are easier to write about Approaching his biography as if he were writing a nineteenth century novel, with his subject’s story as a bildungsroman His membership in the Biographers International Organization and why biography is a relational problem before it's a…

Rich Larson reads the opening passage of “In the Hours Preceding the Fall of Tau-Sants,” a cyberpunk-flavored short story published by the online magazine Reactor and available to read for free at reactormag.com. “In the Hours…” follows two operatives that arrive in a rain-drenched city to commission a mysterious weapon. Rich talks to Jon and Cory about: Dropping readers into a scene “as late as possible” Coining a phrase like “quantic canal” first for how it sounds, then reverse-engineering its meaning for the story A bus ride in France that inspired the story's mood, before any plot existed Working on five to seven short stories simultaneously and sometimes using a rolled die to decide which project to work on Publishing prolifically (nearly 200 stories in the last 15 years) rather than polishing rare, perfect stories, and the peace he’s made with that tradeoff How this story became the “test palette” for a science fiction novel set in the same universe that Rich is currently writing

Bestselling spy novelist Dan Fesperman joins Cory and Jon to discuss Pariah, a satirical thriller about a disgraced comedian recruited by the CIA to spy on an authoritarian Eastern European regime. The passage he reads is a masterclass in building suspense through, let's say... unconventional narrative choices, balancing tension with humor, and crafting dialogue that feels anything but crafted. We also discuss journalism as preparation for fiction, the beauty of the spy novel, the tradeoffs between creating fictional worlds and deeply researched real ones, and the disciplined writing routine that has produced more than a dozen novels over the past two decades. Dan’s passage, from Pariah: The Passage: Pavel excused himself into the hallway, where he ducked into the door for the washroom. He was halfway to the urinals when he heard the door open behind him, followed by footsteps. A sidelong glance showed that it was Sarić, who stooped to pick up one of those rubber wedges that janitors use to hold open the…

Oana Aristide reads the opening pages of Astronaut!, her recently-released novel set in late-80s communist Romania. Astronaut! follows two main characters: an eight-year-old girl caught up in a rigged school contest and a detective ordered to pin a string of murders on a man-eating bear. Oana talks to Jon and Cory about: Why the opening was the last chapter she wrote, and also the most difficult Deliberating over the pros and cons of opening the book with humor The challenges of writing from the perspective of a child The trickiest aspects of writing in a fourth language Thinking and drafting in scenes rather than pages or word counts Her love of Chekov’s short stories Getting feedback from her two long-running writing groups Oana's passage: Sighișoara, March Lia is being walked home by Comrade Blaga, the shopkeeper, who is holding her hand. A couple of times she tries to get out of this embarrassing situation, makes her hand go limp, or folds it together in the shape of a small bird wriggling out of a nest.…

Author M Lin joins us to discuss her fantastic debut collection, The Memory Museum, a series of stories that move between contemporary China and imagined futures to explore memory, family, censorship, loss, and—perhaps unexpectedly—joy. The passage M reads for us, from the collection’s title story, comes from a scene she added only after nearly a year of revisions—a late breakthrough that ended up recontextualizing the emotional core of the story itself. It's a fascinating conversation about the unreliability of memory, and the satisfaction of “uncovering” elements of a story you didn’t realize were there. M also talks to Cory and Jon about why writing is sometimes less an act of creation than one of patient discovery, how the process of writing itself gradually narrows a blank page’s infinite possibilities, the challenge of writing a hopeful story using the conventions of dystopian fiction, the influence of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and classical music, why she abandoned the rigid outlining habits she’d…

Award-winning author and actor Sonya Walger (Lost, For All Mankind) joins us to discuss her latest novel, Wifehouse—the story of a woman who has always defined herself as a wife and mother, and who, in trying to put her own happiness first, pursues an affair with a much younger French tutor. As Sonya puts it, it's ultimately a novel about "a mother who leaves,” and the questions such a story raises: Why would a woman make that decision? And what happens after? The passage Sonya reads centers on a real-life story that inspired one of the book's most pivotal scenes—and one of the hardest for her to get right. It’s a great conversation about concision, pacing, metaphor, and how an ordinary podcast anecdote can find it’s way to unlocking the emotional heart of a novel. Sonya also talks to Cory and Jon about her process of “writing into a question,” how the experience of interrogating a script as an actor lends itself to novel-writing, why more actors should write novels, the art of turning life’s observations…

John Keene reads from "Gloss on a History of Roman Catholics in the Early American Republic, 1790–1825; or The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows," a novella at the heart of his 2015 collection Counternarratives. It’s an experimental piece of fiction imagined as a footnote to an obscure history text, centered on an enslaved woman named Carmel and expanding across the early 19th century Americas, starting from the Haitian Revolution and evolving into a gothic, possibly supernatural tale in a Kentucky convent. John talks to Jon and Cory about: How the novella's structural framework, a historical footnote that “swallows” the text it annotates, came out of his early graduate work with E.L. Doctorow linking experimental fiction with history His initial worry that the asterisk/footnote idea for the story was nothing but "postmodern hijinks" Losing an early version of this story and several others from Counternarratives to a computer crash and spending years away from it, then returning to discover the…

Sam Shelstad reads three short chapters from his (very funny) novel, The Cobra and the Key, a fictional creative writing guide penned by an aspiring literary genius who isn’t going to let little things like talent, self-awareness, or a recent break-up hold him back. Sam talks to Jon and Cory about: Why he resisted packaging the book as a straight satire of writing guides and found the characterization and story needed for a novel instead Starting the book as a collection of one-off comedic writing tips, and how a “silly” riff on Lord of the Rings unlocked what a joke within the book could be Taking inspiration for the book's structure from James Wood's How Fiction Works (and then writing the dumbest version of it) The challenge of writing a narrator who is stupid enough to be funny, but believable at the same time, and the readings where audiences weren't sure he was joking How he writes by building on incidental details and throwaway lines Following Hemingway's advice to always leave something unfinished at…

Nigerian short story writer and novelist ’Pemi Aguda reads a passage from her latest work, One Leg on Earth, and discusses the challenges–and rewards–of short vs. longform writing, the writers who keep her inspired, and how liberating it can be to scrap your book and start from scratch. 'Pemi’s critically acclaimed work mixes elements of supernatural, speculative fiction, folk horror, and contemporary literature to haunting and mesmeric effect. It was fantastic to talk to her about her process and her debut novel, “a richly patterned work of tangled mysteries” (The Guardian). ’Pemi’s passage, from One Leg On Earth: "When a man eventually approached her, two-thirds into the green bottle, the night was already set on its path. Of course, he sat without waiting for an answer to “Fine girl, may I join you?” Of course, he said it should be a crime for a pretty girl like her to be sitting all alone at an hour like this in a city like this, and maybe it was destined, yes, destined, that Yosoye would tilt her head…

Musician, writer, and biographer Jan Swafford reads not one but two passages! The first from the opening of his biography of the American composer Charles Ives and the second from his massive book on the life of Beethoven, Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph–9n his words the hardest thing he’s ever written. He also talks to Jon and Cory about: Why a musical biography has to reflect the subject–an Ives book should be Ivesian, a Beethoven book should be Beethovenian. His start as a “hack writer” writing Civil War history books for hire and learning how to do research. His research process and the value of a solid chronology. What you can learn about how people think and talk–from reading–and retyping–letters. The temptation to interpret a subject and the risks in doing so. Why writing about Beethoven’s process of composing his monumental Eroica symphony was the hardest passage he’s ever worked on. The importance of instinct–and of having a good early reader to give you honest feedback. Jan’s first passage, from…

Horror and dark fantasy writer Nathan Ballingrud reads a passage from his novella, The Butcher’s Table, originally published in the short fiction collection Wounds (The Atlas of Hell). He talks to Jon and Cory about: The story’s origins as a blog serial His initial struggles to commit to the significant tonal departure from the stories in his first collection, North American Lake Monsters The fear of being taken less seriously by writing pulpy, fantastical fiction How Mike Mignola's Hellboy inspired him to commit to something as over-the-top as an angel-possessed squid Switching between laptop and pen and paper to unlock looser, more reckless drafting Learning to write by mimicking Stephen King and Clive Barker Attending Clarion Workshop Why he tries to avoid reading reviews (including those on Reddit, Goodreads, and social media) His love of Mervyn Peake and the Gormenghast books Nathan’s passage, from The Butcher’s Table: It spoke a word that fractured the jaw of its host, registering the pain as a…

The great Russian translator Michael Katz reads a passage from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and discusses the painstaking process, many challenges, and hard limitations of translation, which he considers a “recreative” act vs. a purely creative one. He also talks to us about what keeps readers coming back to Dostoevsky’s strange, often difficult books, and why a good translation is only good for about 20 or 30 years. Michael’s passage, from his translation of The Brother’s Karamazov: He had a strange dream, utterly out of keeping with the time and place. He was somewhere out on the steppe, where he’d been stationed a long time ago, and a peasant was driving him through the slush in a cart with a pair of horses. Mitya felt cold; it was early November and snow was falling in large, wet flakes; it melted immediately, as soon as it hit the ground. The peasant drove along swiftly, boldly snapping his whip; he had a long fair beard. The driver wasn’t an old man, perhaps fifty, wearing a gray peasant’s…

Science fiction writer Tom Toner reads a passage from his latest novel, The Immeasurable Heaven, published under the pen name Caspar Geon. He talks to Jon and Cory about his many notebooks full of longhand worldbuilding ideas, finding inspiration for alien species in David Attenborough nature documentaries, writing under contract vs. writing on spec, and a unique drafting process built more around addition than subtraction. Tom’s Passage, from The Immeasurable Heaven (slightly abbreviated for space): In the silt-suspended gloom something huge uncoiled. It scratched itself with a few lazy sweeps of its fins, scraping a peel of dead skin into the depths, before extending a tongue shaped like a fabulously intricate key and latching into the receiver. The apparatus glowed into life, startling a flitting ecosystem into the shadows and revealing the full, serpentine bulk of its user in a ghostly wash of light. The interior of the water-filled space lit up with every flicker and flash to reveal a cavern of gnarled,…

Food writer and memoirist Anya Von Bremzen, author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking, reads from the epilogue of her latest bestseller, National Dish, and discusses what happens when world-historical events dictate last-minute rewrites—and a project becomes personal. Anya’s passage, excerpted from National Dish: On February 25, 2022, I woke up after a turbulent night checking news updates about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Amid the shock, bouts of crying, and adrenalized doomscrolling, a seemingly trivial yet intimately unsettling thought entered my mind. I realized that after years of investigating national cuisines and identities, I no longer knew how to think or talk about borsch—a beet soup that both Ukraine and Russia claimed as their own. I grew up in Soviet Moscow eating borsch—борщ in Cyrillic, no “t” at the end (that’s a Yiddish addition)—at least twice a week. For better or worse, it always signified for me the despotic, difficult home we had left. Here in Queens, a big pot my mother had just…

Author Gabby Squailia reads a passage from her debut fantasy novel Dead Boys, a macabre, rollicking story set in the afterlife. She takes us through the unconventional road from idea to published book, and explains how her writing process continues to evolve. Gabby’s passage, excerpted from Dead Boys: Just beyond the edge of the path, an upended water tower was half-buried in a mound of debris, and beyond its rusted curve lay a view of the River Lethe unparalleled in the city proper. Jacob, despite his unmoving lungs, gasped. Its purplish waters were wide and slow-moving. The motionless corpses that floated on its surface were surrounded by glittering shoals of refuse and roiling rainbows of oil. There, past the bobbing shape of a claw-footed bathtub, was the stretch of river-bend where he’d thrashed out of the mud and onto his newly lifeless feet nearly a decade ago. With this unexpected glimpse of his point of deathly origin, it all came rushing back: how, after days of toil, he’d propped his numb body up…

Writer Daniel Magariel reads a passage from his remarkable second novel, Walk the Darkness Down, and delves into how he creates his characters, his research methods, and the sustained meditation of the writing process. Daniel's passage, excerpted from Walk the Darkness Down. At the age of eighteen, when he first started scalloping full-time, Les suffered from sleep paralysis. The condition is not uncommon among fishermen. It lasted only a few years, fading away as the work–rest cycle on the trawler normalized. Back then he went down easy, but dreams would float up fast, mischievous and terrifying dreams from which he would attempt to will himself awake so urgently that his mind would come alert though his body still slept. At first, confused by this disharmony, he hallucinated a presence sitting on his chest, pinning him down as his mind screamed and flailed and wept until he bolted upright in the berth. But as the condition advanced, the dreams evolved. The presence disappeared and the time it took Les to…

Rolf Potts -- godfather of travel writing in the digital age and bestselling author of Vagabonding, Marco Polo Didn't Go There, and The Vagabond's Way -- reads from his breakout piece "Storming the Beach" and discusses how he came up with the idea of infiltrating the set of a Leonardo DiCaprio movie in Thailand, and then how he figured out how to write about it.