Episode 144: Gerardo Sámano Córdova

Episode 149: José Pablo Iriarte

Writer and friend José Pablo Iriarte returns to the show to discuss their debut middle-grade novel, Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed. In our conversation, we talked about building stories without antagonists, writing for young readers, and what makes coming-of-age stories such an enduring phenomenon. Then for the second segment, we talked about the importance of storytelling in creating empathy and connection in our incredibly divided society.

(Recorded April 6, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• José Pablo Iriarte
• Purchase Benny Ramírez and the Nearly Departed: White Rose Books (Kissimmee, FL) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 23: José Iriarte
• José Pablo Iriarte - “Proof by Induction”
• José Pablo Iriarte - “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births”
• José Pablo Iriarte - “Secrets and Things We Don’t Say Out Loud”
• José Pablo Iriarte - “Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic”
• José Pablo Iriarte - “Spirit of Home”
• Becky Chambers - A Psalm for the Wild-Built
• A. S. King’s Instagram post
• Celeste Ng - Everything I Never Told You
• Ryka Aoki - Light From Uncommon Stars
• A. S. King - Attack of the Black Rectangles

Transcript

Episode credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 148: Sarah Rose Etter

Sarah Rose Etter is a writer based in Los Angeles, CA. In Sarah’s latest novel, Ripe, a young woman is trapped in a dream-job-turned-corporate-nightmare at a cutthroat Silicon Valley tech startup. Her bosses are capricious and cruel, the city she lives in is crumbling under late capitalism, and everywhere she goes she is followed by her own personal black hole. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the relationship between her surrealist fiction and poetry, why visual art is important to her, and what it means for a character to have agency. Then for the second segment we discussed dead authors, reading in translation, and creative insecurity.

(Recorded March 2, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• Sarah Rose Etter
• Purchase Ripe: Skylight Books (Los Angeles, CA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Sarah Rose Etter - The Book of X
• Keep the Channel Open - Episode 89: Julia Dixon Evans
• Tommy Pico
• Lilliam Rivera
• Kristen Arnett
• Sarah Rose Etter - “Unpublishable: Censored Emails from Noam Chomsky”
• Alina Szapocznikow
• Vija Celmins
• Nylon - “Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe and the Rotted Underbelly of Capitalism”
• Sarah Rose Etter - “Inside the Cardboard Box of My Heart”
• Mark Rothko
• Louise Bourgeois
• Donald Judd
• Sarah Rose Etter - “Girl, What Is Wrong With You?”
• Parasite
• Uncut Gems
• Sarah Rose Etter - “Subglacial Rivers, A Love Poem, Because… & Either/Or”
• Crane Brinton - The Anatomy of Revolution
• Brandon Taylor - “living shadows: aesthetics of moral worldbuilding”
• Tove Ditlevsen - The Copenhagen Trilogy
• Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine

Transcript

Episode Credits:

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 147: KTCO "Book" Club - Baldur's Gate 3 (with Maggie Tokuda-Hall)

For this KTCO “Book” Club conversation, writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall returns to the show to talk about the game Baldur’s Gate 3. In our conversation, Maggie and I talked about what it’s like to experience a story with so many branching paths, how player choices reflect the player’s personality, as well as some standout storytelling moments from the game.

(Recorded February 9, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• Maggie Tokuda-Hall
• Purchase Baldur’s Gate 3
• Purchase The Siren, the Song, and the Spy
• Preorder The Worst Ronin
• Pools of Darkness
• Unlimited Adventures
• Icewind Dale
• Baldur’s Gate 2
• Octopath Traveler
• The Last of Us
• The Adventure Zone
• Dungeons & Daddies
• Neil Newbon
• Roger Ebert - “Video games can never be art”
• The Brothers Sun
• Sarah Lotz - The Impossible Us

Transcript

Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 146: Olatunde Osinaike

Olatunde Osinaike is a poet based in Atlanta, GA. In his debut full-length poetry collection, Tender Headed, Olatunde explores Black masculinity, both celebrating and interrogating it in his sonically virtuosic poems. We talked about his approach to poetry, what poetic lineage means to him, and the silences inherent in patriarchy. Then for the second segment, we talked about departure albums and André 3000’s New Blue Sun.

(Recorded January 20, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• Olatunde Osinaike
• Purchase Tender Headed: 44th and 3rd Booksellers (Atlanta, GA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Akashic Books (publisher)
• Olatunde Osinaike - Upcoming Events
• Bonus Reading for Patreon Subscribers: Olatunde Osinaike reads “Being Human Takes a Lot of Nerve”
• Etheridge Knight - “The Sun Came”
• Gwendolyn Brooks - “truth”
• Paul M. Angle - “We Asked Gwendolyn Brooks about the Creative Environment in Illinois”
• André 3000 - New Blue Sun
• American Fiction
• They Cloned Tyrone
• Tristan Harris
• Knives Out

Transcript

Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Episode 145: KTCO Book Club - Bianca (with Rachel Zucker)

For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet and podcaster Rachel Zucker returns to the show to discuss Eugenia Leigh’s poetry collection Bianca. In our conversation, we talked about our approaches to talking about books with their authors, how form shapes how we take in intense subject matter in a poem, and how a book can be a means of connection.

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Support our Patreon| Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser

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Show Notes:

• Rachel Zucker
• Purchase Bianca: Print (Portland, ME) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Eugenia Leigh
• James Schuyler - “This Dark Apartment”
• Jack Kornfield - “Transform Your Life Through Jack Kornfield’s Most Powerful Stories: A 10 Hour Journey”

Transcript

Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo