Mason Out Loud

Kim Magowan and Michelle Ross talk about their co-authored collection Don’t Take This the Wrong Way. The twenty-five stories delight in characters who love to burn bridges, study language – both spoken and physical, and get lost in the moments in life full of affection, pettiness, humor, and self-discovery. Reading list from the discussion: Tenth of December, George Saunders; Reasons to Live, Amy Hemple; Alice Munroe; Lorrie Moore; Bliss Montage, Ling Ma; and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

Sebastian Matthews and Tom McAllister discuss their experimental memoir structures in this episode of the Fall for the Book Podcast. In The Patient Body: A Personal Narrative in Pieces, Sebastian questions what it means to lead a balanced life as a husband, father, friend, and more through a mosaic of ‘flash’ pieces. McAllister’s It All Felt Impossible: 42 Years in 42 Essays delivers on the ambitious promise of the title. The essays, which all are 1,500 words or less, explores the profound and mundane moments that build a life.

Love gets a second chance after fifteen long years in Jenn Bouchard’s Considering Us, set in Boston and along the New Hampshire coast. When private chef Devon Paige is embroiled in a scandal partly of her own making, she gets a job at an elite boarding school where she’s shocked to see an old flame. In this episode of the Fall for the Book podcast, Bouchard talks beloved romance tropes and Rom Coms, delicious food and bookish drinks, and the power of place. Get her recipes from her YouTube appearance, Serving Up Some Love here: https://youtu.be/dKdM7s7vikA?si=nqHJ-Ln7SMe3Qlj6

Ashlee Cowles and Danielle Stinson, known collectively as A.D. Rhine, break down their epic duology about of the Trojan War: Horses of Fire, and the newest book, Daughters of Bronze. From the women working behind the scenes of the famous war depicted in The Illiad, to the modern research and retellings, Cowles and Stinson demonstrate their passion and knowledge for the subject, as well as the secrets behind their co-authorship success.

Poet Majda Gama reads from and discusses her new collection In the House of Modern Upbringing for Girls. The collection spans growing up in the Saudi Arabia, her life-changing time in the DC Punk scene, and the power and influence of music in Gama's work.

Caine Prize-winning author Olufemi Terry talks about his debut novel, Wilderness of Mirrors set in Stadmutter, a multiracial city at the southern tip of Africa modeled after Cape Town. Terry talks about the changing political landscape of Cape Town and his novel, his journalism, and the inspirations for the book. Author Lola Shoneyin calls it: “An unsentimental portrait of young adulthood in a city both beguiling and perilous, and which reflects Africans as they are too rarely depicted: hybrid, modern, and shaped by their own profound contradictions. Terry’s pared but illuminating prose captures the weight of its protagonists’ search for their place in the world.”

What happens when even your memories aren't safe from Big Tech and Big Government? Yiming Ma discusses these questions, and his debut speculative novel These Memories Do Not Belong To Us.

Natalia Theodoridou discusses his fever dream of a Bluebeard retelling - about the choice and non-choice of those stuck in cycles of abuse, the power of fairytales, and the toxicity of the patriarchy. He also examines choice and character arcs in interactive fiction, and how his landscape has informed his writing.

In the final episode of the season, Bernardine (Dine) Watson sits down to discuss her journey with kidney disease and her two transplants. A nonfiction writer and poet, Watson talks about healthcare disparities, finding community, and accepting her diagnosis of FSGS in this conversation about Transplant: A Memoir, which won the inaugural Washington Writers' Publishing House Creative Nonfiction Award.

Comedian Sally Chaffin Brooks talks about her through hike on the Appalachian Trail. From the funky trail names, to the memorable characters along the way, to the lessons the AT served up for her career in comedy, Chaffin Brooks shares the funny, difficult, and thoughtful stories from her life-changing hike.

Jen Soriano, author of Nervous: Essays on Heritage and Healing talks about chronic pain, ancestral trauma, and finding joy and support through community. Soriano is a Filipinx-American writer, independent scholar, and performer who has long worked at the intersection of grassroots organizing, narrative strategy, and art-driven social change.

Jennifer Brice talks about Another North, her essay collection about growing up in Fairbanks, Alaska and moving through the world, understanding herself as a woman, mother, daughter and granddaughter. In the essays, she looks for answers in family lore, personal experience, and conversations with friends, and beloved books in this wide-ranging and poignant collection.

Greg Wrenn discusses his book Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, a story of personal and global healing. He touches on the importance of coral reefs to the journey to heal from complex PTSD through the administration of a psychedelic tea called ayahuasca, and so much more in this book that blends memoir with cutting-edge science.

Edwin B. Henderson II discusses his book, The Grandfather of Black Basketball, about his grandfather and namesake, Dr. E. B. Henderson. A local Civil Rights leader, athletics game changer, and prolific writer, E. B.'s legacy is both a local and national story.

Praveen Herat joins Fall for the Book to talk about his debut novel, Between This World and the Next, a gripping exploration of power, identity, and how far one must go to uncover the truth. Herat was born in London to Sri Lankan parents and educated at Oxford and the University of East Anglia. He lived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for several years, a period that marked him profoundly and prompted his research for what would become Between This World and the Next.

Shirley M. Marshall talks about the suffragist movement and the 19th Amendment in this episode of the Fall for the Book Podcast. Her book, A Radical Suffragist in Washington, D.C.: An Inside Story of the National Woman’s Party is local, national, and international look at the strategy and politics of the suffragist movement.

Mythology, identity, motherhood, and more discussed in this episode of the Fall for the Book Podcast with poet K. Avvirin Berlin, author of the collection Leda's Daughters. the collection is full of salt-of-the-earth poems that traverse and transgress the temporal, re-envisioning African American and Native American women’s history as a history of poetics.

Eliza Knight talks fantastic flappers, star studded dancers, and incredible female stars in this episode of the Fall for the Book Podcast. From the underappreciated legacy of Adele Astaire, sister to Fred Astaire, to Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe's unlikely friendship. She is the author of Starring Adele Astaire, Why Can't We Be Friends, and many other titles.

Edward Cahill discusses his novel Disorderly Men, which follows three gay men in pre-Stonewall NYC, who find their fates thrown together during the police raid of a Village bar. Cahill talks identity, shame, 'disorderly conduct, and James Baldwin, in this episode of the Fall for the Book podcast.

Vandana Khanna sits down to talk about her poetry collection Burning Like Her Own Planet, the ancient Hindu text The Ramayana, women's rage and power, and of course, Beyonce.