Between the Covers

  Grieving and guilt-ridden, Phoebe is increasingly drawn into a religious group—a secretive extremist cult—founded by a charismatic former student, John Leal. He has an enigmatic past that involves North Korea and Phoebe’s Korean American family. Meanwhile, Will struggles... Read more

  Tommy Pico's “Junk is a true American odyssey, complete with a reluctant hero who defies all odds to survive. Repulsed by the trashiness of empire, the violence of occupation, this book nonetheless searches in earnest for real tenderness, a romance that isn’t corny. . . ... Read more

On this special hour-long edition of Between the Covers, we welcome Stephen O’Donnell and Gigi Little, creators and editors of the new book The Untold Gaze, which features selected paintings by Stephen, with short fiction and poetry inspired by those paintings. The texts we... Read more

  Dubravka Ugresic, a novelist and essayist Susan Sontag called a "writer to follow and cherish," has been living in exile in Amsterdam since the Yugoslav wars of the early 90s.  Labeled a traitor and a witch when she vocally critiqued the rising ethno-nationalism of both ... Read more

Host Ken Jones talks with Tod Davies, author of the new novel Report to Megalopolis: or The Post-modern Prometheus, published by Exterminating Angel Press. Tod is the author of Snotty Saves the Day, Lily the Silent, and The Lizard Princess, the first three books in The His... Read more

  Essays to inspire animal-themed creative writing... Despite all we know about the sentience of animals, society tends to view and treat nonhuman animals as lesser creatures. And for society to change its views, writers must change their views. We must look closely at how... Read more

  “Moschovakis is in search of a way of presenting a woman’s life that is not expressed solely through family and bonds with others—that rebuffs inherited conventions while acknowledging that women are still labouring their way through the mare’s nest chaotically erected b... Read more

  The western novel is an American literary tradition, and our guest today, John Larison, has written one of the best ones in recent memory. Whiskey When We’re Dry tells the story of teenaged Jessilyn Harney, who when her father dies in the spring of 1885, dresses up like ... Read more

  "I feel like I can't tell one story about a giant mustard penis because it's not about a mustard penis only, but about all of these incidents together, in context, and through time." So begins the title story in Renee Simms's debut short story collection, Meet Behind Mar... Read more