Best Madeline Song Podcasts (2024)

1
Marguerite Young, "Miss MacIntosh, My Darling" (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2024) 57:42

2h ago57:42

57:42

In this episode I'm joined by Dalkey Archive's editorial director, Chad W. Post. We discuss the republication of the late Marguerite Young's cult-classic work of fiction, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling (Dalkey Archive Press, 2024). A colossal novel of over 1,000 pages, a kaleidoscopic cast of characters, permanent opium-induced hallucinations, a sprawl…

1
Before and After the Book Deal 1:02:50

1d ago1:02:50

1:02:50

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about publishing but were too afraid to ask. Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book (Catapult, 2020) by Courtney Maum is a funny, candid guide about breaking into the marketplace. Cutting through the noise, dispelling rumors and remain…

1
Peter Rose, "The Good War of Consul Reeves" (Blacksmith Books, 2024) 50:15

1d ago50:15

50:15

Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, in June 1941, his wife and daughter left behind in China. Seven months later, Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, invaded Hong Kong, and made Reeves the last remaining British diplomat for hundreds of miles, …

1
Ayelet Tsabari, "Songs for the Brokenhearted: A Novel" (Random House, 2024) 26:34

3d ago26:34

26:34

Zohara flies from New York to Israel for her mother’s funeral. She’d already been through a tough year; a divorce from her American husband and trouble getting started on her doctoral dissertation at NYU. As she clears out the house where she grew up, Zohara finds tapes of her mother singing Yemenite songs in Arabic, and evidence of a secret romanc…

1
Mary Jones, "The Goodbye Process" (Zibby Books, 2024) 28:51

3d ago28:51

28:51

In her stunning debut short story collection, The Goodbye Process (Zibby Books, 2024), Mary Jones uses her distinctive voice to examine the painful and sometimes surreal ways we say goodbye. The stories--which range from tender and heartbreaking to unsettling and darkly funny--will push you out of your comfort zone and ignite intense emotions surro…

1
Madeline Martin, "The Booklover's Library" (Hanover Square Press, 2024) 35:28

3d ago35:28

35:28

The Booklover's Library (Hanover Square Press, 2024) has one of the most dramatic openings I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot of novels. It’s 1931 in Nottingham, England, and seventeen-year-old Emma, ensconced in her father’s bookshop, is engrossed in her favorite novel, Jane Austen’s Emma, when she realizes the building around her has caught fire…

1
Kaliane Bradley, "The Ministry of Time" (Avid Reader Press, 2024) 52:25

7d ago52:25

52:25

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible--for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working …

1
Chelsea Bieker, "Madwoman" (Little, Brown, 2024) 35:21

10d ago35:21

35:21

Today I talked to Chelsea Biker about her novel Madwoman (Little, Brown, 2024). Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she's landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to …

1
Maria de Caldas Antão, "My Freedom," The Common Magazine 38:20

14d ago38:20

38:20

Maria de Caldas Antão speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her poem “ My Freedom,” which appears in The Common’s most recent issue. Maria talks about how a casual comment inspired this poem, which explores the idea of freedom, and what it might mean to be free: personally, politically, physically, philosophically. Maria also discusses how…

1
Jake Lamar, "Viper's Dream" (Crooked Lane Books, 2023) 50:18

14d ago50:18

50:18

Jake Lamar's novel Viper's Dream (Crooked Lane Books, 2023) is a gritty, daring look at the vibrant jazz scene of mid-century Harlem, and one man’s dreams of making it big and finding love in a world that wants to keep him down. Harlem, 1936. Clyde “The Viper” Morton boards a train from Alabama to Harlem to chase his dreams of being a jazz musician…

1
C. Michelle Lindley, "The Nude" (Atria Books, 2024) 39:46

14d ago39:46

39:46

1999: An island off the southern coast of Greece. Art historian Elizabeth Clarke arrives with the intent to acquire a rare female sculpture. But what begins as a quest for a highly valued cultural artifact evolves into a trip that will force Elizabeth to contend with her career, her ambition, and her troubling history. Disoriented by jet lag, debil…

1
Marga Ortigas, "God's Ashes: Apocrypha" (Penguin, 2024) 37:10

15d ago37:10

37:10

Climate change. The refugee crisis. The rise of social media. These big social questions—and others—inspired journalist Marga Ortigas in the creation of her new novel God’s Ashes (Penguin Southeast Asia, 2024) , a piece of speculative fiction set in a very different 2023. A transnational crime unites the book’s characters, rich and poor, on a journ…

1
Terena Elizabeth Bell, "Tell Me What You See" (Whiskey Tit, 2022) 49:13

16d ago49:13

49:13

Terena Elizabeth Bell's Tell Me What You See (Whisk(e)y Tit, 2022), is a collection of ten experimental short stories about coronavirus quarantines, climate change, the January 6th invasion on the US Capitol, and other events from 2020-2021. Written in both word and image, pieces from the collection have been called "inventive and topical and fre…

1
Sara Farrington, "A Trojan Woman Adapted from Euripides" (Broadway Play Publishing, 2024) 26:27

17d ago26:27

26:27

In a flash of modern warfare (Ukraine? Afghanistan? Vietnam? Poland? Hiroshima? Israel? Gaza?), a mother loses her child. She becomes "A Trojan Woman," compelled to embody every iconic character in Euripides’ classic play. Sara Farrington (Playwright) NYC & NJ based playwright, screenwriter, co-founder of Foxy Films, her theater company w/ Reid Far…

1
"The Threepenny Review": A Discussion with Wendy Lesser 33:49

22d ago33:49

33:49

Today’s spotlight is on the literary magazine The Threepenny Review. I’m joined by the magazine’s founding and current Editor, Wendy Lesser. Wendy Lesser is the author of twelve nonfiction books and one novel; her latest book, entitled Scandinavian Noir: In Pursuit of a Mystery, came out from Farrar Straus & Giroux in May 2020. She has received awa…

1
Charles Holdefer, "Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic" (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2024) 46:54

23d ago46:54

46:54

Charles Holdefer's new short story collection, Ivan the Terrible Goes on a Family Picnic (Sagging Meniscus Press, 2024) weaves together ten stories that connect through America's pastime. Did the Russians invent baseball? Is there a connection between Babe Ruth’s cross-dressing and Gertrude Stein’s secret mission to New York? What does history tell…

1
Stephen Schottenfeld, "This Room Is Made of Noise" (U Wisconsin Press, 2023) 26:32

24d ago26:32

26:32

Today I talked to Stephen Schottenfeld about his new novel This Room Is Made of Noise (U Wisconsin Press, 2023). Don Lank is a newly divorced handyman who spots an imitation Tiffany lamp in the front window of a house and offers the elderly owner $800 for it. He’s shocked by the price he gets and returns to give 95-year-old Millie most of the money…

1
Heather Redmond, "Death and the Visitors" (Kensington, 2024) 46:04

25d ago46:04

46:04

Today I talked to Heather Redmond about her new novel Death and the Visitors (Kensington, 2024). In this second Regency-era mystery featuring Mary Godwin Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, the sixteen-year-old heroine (still Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin at this point in her life) and her stepsister and close lifetime companion, Jane Clairmont, are …

1
"New Letters" Magazine: A Discussion with Christie Hodgen 27:03

27d ago27:03

27:03

Christie Hodgen is the author of four books of fiction, most recently the novel Boy Meets Girl, which won the 2020 AWP Award for the Novel. Her short fiction and essays have been included in dozens of literary journals and have won two Pushcart Prizes. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and is the editor of New…

1
Jessica Anthony, "The Most" (Little, Brown, 2024) 37:33

28d ago37:33

37:33

It's November 3, 1957. As Sputnik 2 launches into space, carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, a couple begin their day. Virgil Beckett, an insurance salesman, isn't particularly happy in his job but he fulfills the role. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion with a key shot up her sleeve, is now a mother and homemaker. On this unseas…

1
Juli Min, "Shanghailanders" (Spiegel & Grau, 2024) 41:00

1M ago41:00

41:00

Shanghailanders (Spiegel & Grau: 2024), the debut novel from Juli Min, starts at the end: Leo, a wealthy Shanghai businessman, sees his wife and daughters off at the airport as they travel to Boston. Everyone, it seems, is unhappy. The novel then travels backwards through time, giving answers to questions revealed in later chapters, jumping from pe…

1
Zoë Bossiere, "Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir" (Abrams Press, 2024) 53:29

1M ago53:29

53:29

Today, I interview Zoë Bossiere about Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir (Abrams Press, 2024). Bossiere is writer from Tucson, Arizona. They are the managing editor of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction, as well as the coeditor of two anthologies: The Best of Brevity and The Lyric Essay as Resistance. Today, we talk about their debut m…

1
Casey Plett, "On Community" (Biblioasis, 2023) 53:53

1M ago53:53

53:53

Today I interview Casey Plett. Plett is the author of multiple works of fiction, including the story collection A Dream of a Woman, the novel Little Fish, which was a winner of a Lambda Literary Award and the Amazon First Novel Award in Canada, and and the story-collection A Safe Girl to Love, also a winner of a Lambda Literary Award. Today, we tal…

1
Cally Fiedorek, "Atta Boy" (U Iowa Press, 2024) 39:00

1M ago39:00

39:00

In December 2018, we meet Rudy Coyle, a bar owner's son from Flushing, Queens, in the throes of a major quarter-life crisis. Cut out of the family business, he gets a Hail Mary job as a night doorman in a storied Park Avenue apartment building, where he comes under the wing of the family in 4E, the Cohens. Jacob "Jake" Cohen, the fast-talking patri…

1
Na'ou Liu, "Urban Scenes" (Cambria Press, 2023) 1:01:08

1M ago1:01:08

1:01:08

"In this tango palace everything was swaying rhythmically to and fro, bodies of men and women, beams of colored light, brilliant wine glasses, red and green liquids, slender fingers, pomegranate-colored lips, and feverish eyes. Tables and chairs, together with the crowd of people, cast their reflections on the center of the shiny floor. Everyone wa…

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