In Grab Bag Part 2: Grab Harder, we discuss DIAGRAM’s new tarot deck anthology to commemorate its 20th Anniversary, and Elena uses it to give us all a tarot reading. Also: an album Elena wants to nominate for the Essay Prize, we tackle the question of who’s weirder: poets or playwrights, Bonnie mentions her mother’s famous McDonald’s career, we learn the future for ourselves and our podcast, and more!

Episode links:
DIAGRAM’s 20th anniversary tarot deck: http://www.thediagram.com/nmp/anthologies.html

In Part 1 of our first grab-bag episode, we answer a reader question about memoirs and, in honor of MFA application season, offer unsolicited advice about MFA programs. Also: more regional-accent conversation, an appropriate cocktail, Arlo’s inappropriate song, and more.

Episode links:

Sound Tribe Sector 9, the jam band from Elena’s high school: https://sts9.com/ 

The grab bag version of a Long Island Iced Tea:

½ oz Triple Sec (we used Bols)

½ oz gin (we used New Amsterdam)

½ oz light rum (we used Bacardi)

½ oz vodka (we used a pint of Prazska Justin’s brother brought back from Poland in like 2003)

Sweet & sour (we made our own: 1 cup mixed lime & lemon juice, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar dissolved)

Coke Zero

Add the liquors to a shaker over ice, shake–spilling a lot of it on your countertop–pour into highball glasses with ice, then top off with sweet & sour and a splash of Coke Zero. Drink too fast while you talk shit about memoirs, then record a double episode by accident.

Our questioner Harrison’s essay: https://gay.medium.com/the-blood-essay-9ef2310efb74 

Eileen Pollack’s essay on MFA applications: https://forge.medium.com/an-mfa-admissions-officer-on-making-your-writing-stand-out-2af00d71dd06

Matt Bell’s Twitter thread about what he looks for in MFA personal statements: https://twitter.com/mdbell79/status/1189271370498297858

In this episode, we discuss selections from the 2019 anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction, co-edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton. Also: Elena does Pennsylvania accents, we issue a warning about robots taking over college campuses, we honor Pennsylvania’s contribution to saving democracy with a Philly cocktail, a Philly-themed lightning round, and more!

Episode links:

Shapes of Native Nonfiction: https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295745756/shapes-of-native-nonfiction/ 

Sasha LaPointe’s craft essay, “Fairy Tales, Trauma, Writing into Dissociation”:

https://therumpus.net/2016/10/the-saturday-rumpus-essay-fairy-tales-trauma-writing-into-dissociation/

Toni Jensen’s essay “Women in the Fracklands”:

https://catapult.co/stories/women-in-the-fracklands-on-water-land-bodies-and-standing-rock

Elissa Washuta’s list of recent Native lit on Bookshop.org:

https://bookshop.org/lists/books-by-native-indigenous-writers-forthcoming

The new issue of Territory:

http://themapisnot.com/issue-12-alaska

The Citywide Special, or at least the way we drank it:

1. Open a can of shitty beer.  
2. Pour a shot of cheap bourbon. 
3. Drink them both.
4. (Optional) Repeat 4 times, then start a fight with a Mets fan

(Note: we’re posting this week’s episode on Monday because of the election. We’ll return to Wednesdays next week.)

In this episode, we welcome our friend, colleague, and local Victorian expert Megan Ward to discuss Old Ass Essays: what that means, how old we’re talking, and a few examples from the 1830s by none other than Charlie Dickens himself. Also: our spelling bee failures, a special lightning round, a dog in a unicorn costume, and an authentic (sorta) Victorian cocktail that we light on fire!

Episode links:

Megan’s faculty profile: https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/megan-ward 

Megan’s book, Seeming Human: https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814213759.html 

Dickens’ Sketches by Boz (free online edition): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/882/882-h/882-h.htm 

The Dickens Punch recipe, as much as we can remember:

1. Peel a lemon and a raggedy-ass orange and put the peels in a basin (we used a dutch oven with some leftover Indian food in the bottom).
2. Dump a shitload of light & dark rum into the basin, along with a lot of sugar.
3. Float a few bar spoons of Everclear on top and light on fire.
4. Let it burn for a minute, then cover to extinguish.
5. Squeeze the lemon and citrus into the mixture, add some hot tea, and ladle into whatever mugs you peasants have laying around.

In this episode, we continue the flash conversation from last week, along with our resident barkeep (not “mixologist”) David. He makes us an essayistic shot, and we all discuss Sex and the City, our shared Italian heritage, the flash equivalents of the drama world, David’s Instagram animal searches, where we’re all absconding for the rest of the pandemic, and, eventually, even more flash essays: Bernard Cooper’s “Live Wire,” and a bunch that Elena put together for a lightning round.

Episode links:

Bernard Cooper’s “Live Wire”: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Maps_to_Anywhere/SN53b7BqmUkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=bernard+cooper+live+wire&pg=PA67&printsec=frontcover

Sei Shonagon’s “Pillow Book” (the whole thing, because I couldn’t find the essay Elena picked): http://faculty.sgc.edu/rkelley/the%20pillow.pdf

Ann Carson’s “On Homo Sapiens,” from Short Talks: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnx5d3djcmVhdGl2ZW5vbmZpY3Rpb258Z3g6NjliMjQ3ZDA4YzkxMTc3Yg

In Episode 6, we discuss very short essays, AKA “Flash,” a term and genre we have mixed feelings about. First we try to figure out what flash means, and then we discuss two (possible) examples: Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” and Scott Latta’s “On Sequencing.” Also: near-death experiences, we continue to demonstrate our ignorance of Canadian geography, Glenn Gould’s appearance in two different versions of Joy Williams’ essay “Hawk,” Squirrel burgers, chicken grease coffee, which Muppets we’d be, and more.

Episode links:

The article about rigging Apple Podcast rankings: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/29/18097381/apple-podcast-charts-click-farm-advertiser-revenue

Listener Andrew Forbes’ real website: www.andrewgforbes.com 

Justin’s Hobart series from 2013, “A Phan’s Notes”: https://www.hobartpulp.com/categories/a-phan-s-notes 

Rose Metal Press’ Best of Brevity anthology, co-edited by our friend and former guest Zoë Bossiere: https://rosemetalpress.com/announcing-the-best-of-brevity-anthology/ 

Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1978/06/26/girl 

Scott Latta’s “On Sequencing”: https://tinhouse.com/on-sequencing/ 

In Episode 5, we welcome Jess Kibler to the show to discuss the Krause Essay Prize, a $10K award given to the best essay of the year, chosen by students in Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program.  Jess is currently getting her MFA at the NWP, and is a former student of Elena’s at OSU. We discuss the Krause Award winner for 2020, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s GRASS, as well as why and how the judges chose it, Jess’ path to becoming an essayist, other recent nominees (including Elena’s), and a lightning round about Jess’ home state of Oregon.

Episode links:

Follow Jess on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kiblerjess 

Some of Jess’ writing from when she worked at Bitch Media: https://www.bitchmedia.org/profile/jess-kibler 

The Krause Essay Prize, with info on current & past nominees: https://krauseessayprize.org/ 

The publisher’s page for this year’s winner, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim’s GRASS: https://drawnandquarterly.com/author/keum-suk-gendry-kim 
Gendry-Kim’s website: https://suksuksuksuk.blogspot.com/

In Episode 4, we welcome our spouses, David and Bonnie, back to the podcast to talk about movies that might be essays. Also: a very delayed mailbag, a story about three-thousand-dollar Pennsylvania whiskey, Arlo makes a cameo, we all do impromptu Werner Herzog impersonations, penguin suicide, essayistic film moves, and (much) more.

Links to some things we mention:

(In response to the question about queer & trans essayists): T Fleischmann’s books: Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through: https://coffeehousepress.org/products/time-is-the-thing-a-body-moves-through Syzygy, Beauty: http://www.sarabandebooks.org/all-titles/syzygy-beauty-an-essay-t-fleischmann Alex Marzano-Lesnevich’s website, with links to their essays/books: http://alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com/ Alex’s Harper’s essay, “Body Language”: https://harpers.org/archive/2019/12/body-language-genderqueerness/  Berry Grass’ website: https://berrygrass.com/ Sung Yim: https://sungliketheword.com/ Jaquira Diaz: http://www.jaquiradiaz.com/ Sandy Allen: https://www.hellosandyallen.com/ Stephanie Burt: https://twitter.com/accommodatingly Wayne Koestenbaum: https://www.waynekoestenbaum.com/bio Tommy Pico: http://tommy-pico.com/ Jennifer Boylan: http://jenniferboylan.net/ Eileen Myles: https://www.eileenmyles.com/ Michelle Tea: https://twitter.com/teamichelle

Denry’s latest episode art: https://twitter.com/denrywills/status/1311379250310574080?s=20

Commenter Andrew Forbes’ website, which Justin totally botched his plug for: https://andrewgforbes.com/

The 1993 Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107048/

Dawson City: Frozen Time, the documentary about lost films Justin almost suggested for this episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5215486/

The Act of Killing, the documentary about Indonesian death-squad leaders Elena almost picked for this episode: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375605/

Abstract, the Netflix documentary series about design & art: https://www.netflix.com/title/80057883

The Writer, a very short & odd 6-minute film/trailer we watched by accident while looking for The Rider: https://www.amazon.com/Writer-Xander-Bailey/dp/B08B7QGWDS

Grizzly Man, the Herzog documentary Justin picked: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427312/

The Rider, the Chloé Zhao film Elena picked: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6217608/

Justin looking like a serial killer on video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUL3Cp3w0xg

In Episode 3, we talk with our friend and colleague, George Estreich–an essayist, memoirist, poet, and Renaissance man–about how essays turn into books. We discuss our own respective experiences with our books’ origins, as well as examples from books we’ve recently read. Also: writing about children, llamas vs. alpacas vs. emus, Comrade Bunny, collectionists, which Beatles we would be, and the lightning round makes its return.

Links to some things we mention:

Check George’s website for more about him and his books: http://www.GeorgeEstreich.com 

George’s Salon essay is here: https://www.salon.com/2014/02/12/when_my_daughter_was_diagnosed/ 

And his NYT piece is here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/opinion/i-dont-speak-for-laura.html 

George’s band, Mule on Fire: http://muleonfire.com/music 

Esmé Weijun Wang’s The Collected Schizophrenias: https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/collected-schizophrenias 

Eula Biss’ essay “White Debt”: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/white-debt.html 

Eula Biss’ new book, Having and Being Had: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/580422/having-and-being-had-by-eula-biss/ 

James Baldwin’s book The Evidence of Things Not Seen: https://bookshop.org/books/the-evidence-of-things-not-seen-reissued-edition/9780805039399 

Roy Scranton’s Rolling Stone essay “Back to Baghdad”: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/back-to-baghdad-life-in-the-city-of-doom-99814/ Scranton’s book, We’re Doomed. Now What? https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/567505/were-doomed-now-what-by-roy-scranton/