Apostrophe Cast

James Belflower

2009-06-24T23:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode James Belflower reads from his forthcoming book of poetry, Commuter, out this year from Instance Press. Commuter takes us around the world and through time, juxtaposing massacres and majestic archtecture, collapsing history into news and merging tourism with the flight of refugees. Please enjoy James Belflower.

Brian Evenson

2009-06-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

This episode we bring you Brian Evenson, reading his short story "Younger" from his collection Fugue State, out in July from Coffee House Press. Brian Evenson's writing might be compared to Gordon Lish, for its elegant simplicity and lush psychology, or Raymond Carver in his desolation. But the fact is that Brian Evenson's work is only familiar because it sounds exactly like life, and it is frightening because, like life, it points beyond us to what we know is true, but cannot understand. Please enjoy "Younger" by Brian Evenson.

Clane Hayward

2009-05-27T19:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you the life aquatic of Clane Hayward. In her first book, the brilliant memoir, The Hypocrisy of Disco, Clane creates an elegantly melancholy portrait of an early life shaped only by the twin forces of freedom and neglect as the child of 60's radicals. In her second memoir, Nothing Is Fixed, she invites the reader with poetic diction and brutal honesty into her adult life, in which she exchanged the directionless freedom of an unstructured youth for the structure and adventure of life in the United States Navy. Listen for the thunder. Please enjoy Clane Hayward.

William Walsh

2009-05-13T21:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you the quizzical interrogatory of William Walsh. In this excerpt from his new book Questionstruck, a text composed entirely of questions extracted from the writings of Calvin Trillin, Walsh impresses upon us the incredible ability of questions to suggest a world through their hunger for answers. Even as the questions speak to each other, we despair of answering them. But the pleasure of inhabiting a beautifully unfinished and unfinishable world is a delight well worth the frustration. Please enjoy William Walsh.

Mark Ehling

2009-04-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

This episode we bring you Mark Ehling’s searchlight to advertising, cola and anxiety. The essay “An Introduction to Slamz,” creates a surreally timed conversation that follows the expected patterns of advertising speak, finding the pangs available in the capsule of a “business narrative.” He takes on the form without abusing its excess of greed or tinheart stereotypes. Instead, he finds a cold portrait of the whimsy of consumption, and the fog of its navigation. It also explores why people smash cans on their heads. Please enjoy Mark Ehling.

Shane Jones

2009-04-15T20:59:00.000-07:00

In this episode of Apostrophe Cast, Shane Jones brings us excerpts from his debut novel Light Boxes. These mystifying tableaux of Hummel-like not-so-innocents tearing at the edges of a mad ginger-bread world evoke Henry Darger, Edward Gorey, even Lewis Caroll. But in these excerpts where it is always February, in which hordes of maniacal priests curse flight, and children hope to repair the sky, an originality as unique as the winter light of childhood suffuses an unforgettable space Shane Jones has fashioned out of pure imagination. Please enjoy Shane Jones.

Shanthi Sekaran

2009-04-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

This episode we bring you Shanthi Sekaran reading from her debut novel, The Prayer Room. Spanning decades, continents, cultures, sexes, generations, classes, and races, The Prayer Room pairs an unlikely English student with a young woman from a traditional Indian family and plops them in Northern California. How they got there and what ensues is storytelling at its best. Please enjoy Shanthi Sekaran.

Andrew Lundwall

2009-03-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we are happy to bring you the dreamy, luxurious poetry of Andrew Lundwall. Lundwall's poetry evokes the dizzy, word-drunk hijinks of city sidewalk culture when Imagism was cafe entertainment and absinthe was no joke. Please accept this invitation into the world of Andrew Lundwall.

Matthew Kirkpatrick

2009-03-04T22:34:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we go underground with Matthew Kirkpatrick. In "Crystal Castles" a little girl who falls into a well and becomes a media-sensation meets her neighbor the mole, who eats dirt in variety of familiar ways and plays Atari. In "Nevada," Kirkpatrick takes us deep below the surface of the Silver State to the site of an underground nuclear test. What happens from there you have to hear to understand. A transcript of "Crystal Castles" is published at Action Yes, but only Apostrophe Cast can capture Kirkpatrick's voice, which is as stony as the Utah landscape he calls home. Please enjoy Matthew Kirkpatrick.

James Warner

2009-02-18T22:45:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode, we are proud to bring you James Warner, a writer whose brilliant wit delivers bitter truths. Warner's story about a comedian whose routine is simply telling the truth about his disastrous life, starkly illustrates that humor is akin to madness, that laughter is never far from tears, and that the funniest things in life are the saddest seen from a surprising angle. Please enjoy "Hecklers," by James Warner.

Blake Butler

2009-02-05T00:58:00.000-08:00

This episode we bring you Blake Butler reading from his new novella, Ever. Performing with a haunting modulation of his voice, Butler takes us spelunking into the depths of an irrational world dislocated from the comforting constrictions of cause and effect. But this is not a fantasy world of pleasure and irresponsibility, this is a world in which the disaster of another inexplicable moment is always occurring, and the high adventure of surviving is a matter of observing with as much sensitivity as possible. Please enter the labyrinthine realm of Blake Butler.

Sheri Reynolds

2009-01-22T01:21:00.000-08:00

The new political age has begun, and Sheri Reynolds graces us with a challenging tale of gender and class identity that requires us to think in new ways. This excerpt from her new novel, The Sweet In-Between explores the existence of real people between the ocean and the land, between childhood and adulthood, between genders, between the right and wrong of the law, and between joy and despair. As difficult sometimes as it is to believe, Ms. Reynolds might convince you that even in these difficult interstices, simply existing can be sweet. Please enjoy Sheri Reynolds.

Sam Lipsyte

2009-01-07T21:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the first Apostrophe Cast of 2009. We are proud to welcome the new year with Sam Lipsyte. Lipsyte is not the first writer to see comedic potential in the human desire to search for wisdom in the behavior of apes, but these letters from chimps to a researcher certainly makes him among the most successful. But more than simply hitting home runs off primatology humor, Lipsyte actually does find wisdom by analyzing the behavior of apes, accusing us all of being chimp-like in the process. We might be reminded that when we choose our closest friends from the animal world, we choose dwarf tigers and miniature wolves. Please enjoy Sam Lipsyte reading his story “Dear Miss Primatologist Lady in the Bushes Sometimes."

Michael Kimball

2008-12-04T20:42:00.000-08:00

This episode features Michael Kimball reading from his latest book, Dear Everybody. In this intimate epistolary novel, a mentally ill weather man radiates crystalline awareness and luminous delusion while his family and others who knew him try to make sense of his tragic life. Both gloomy and amusing, Kimball's flurry of short short stories remind us of the necessity of communicating and the daunting difficulty of truly connecting. Please enjoy Michael Kimball.

Jane Sandor

2008-11-19T23:47:00.000-08:00

Since Thanksgiving and leftovers are only days away, for this installment, we bring you a short, salty bite of malls, celebrity, and music that will cheer you up if the economy, or all the pie, is getting you down. Jane Sandor is haunted by ghosts. Very well dressed ghosts with lots of money, syndications, and entourages. If we were to connect the dots in Sandor's version of LA, the famous (and the legion of the once-famous) are persistent specters that insist on behaving as if their world is normal. She explores what it means to be from a city where shine and any-minute-now success are common enough that instead of staring, one constantly curses for having to squint from the glare. Where childhood friends marry Tom Arnold. Where Rachel Hunter dances and dances and dances. And where everything is true in some form of perfection, imperfection, and the blur of the rewarded and the special. And, also, Ice-T is at the mall. Please enjoy this excerpt by Jane Sandor, with music by Jesse Toussaint & Dent Sweat.

Ben Tanzer

2008-11-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

Welcome to This Apostrophe Cast. The theme of this week's show is Disappointment. For our reader, Ben Tanzer, specifically: what do you do when you really really like someone, and even maybe idolize them a little bit, and then you meet them, and they don't seem to like you? What do you do if that person could really help your career? Well, Ben Tanzer found out. So please enjoy "Ira Glass Wants To Hit Me," on This Apostrophe Cast.

Josh Maday

2008-10-22T22:38:00.000-07:00

This episode we are pleased to present a short story by Josh Maday. In Josh Maday's work, something is not quite right. It keeps you mesemerized and guessing, sometimes frustrating, sometimes funny, but constantly creeping up on you with the sense that this skewed reality is heading somewhere you have always been afraid to go. When we finally understand his design, we realize that it is not Maday's work that is off, rather that he has discovered something wrong with the world. Please enjoy "Work Release" by Josh Maday.

Celeste Ng

2008-10-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

This week we are most pleased to bring you a gorgeous and melancholy tale from Celeste Ng. Mining the platinum veins of the unspoken and unspeakable in family affairs, Ng gives us both the richness of childhood imagination, and the frigid non-negotiable truths of adulthood. Please enjoy this short story by Celeste NG. Click here for an interview with Celeste Ng.

Randall Brown

2008-09-25T01:34:00.000-07:00

This episode we are very pleased to present the Flash Fiction of Randall Brown. Like the trout Mr. Brown is so adept at snaring, these strange and muscular tales are fast, sleek, and seem to appear out of nowhere -- bright and striving at end of his taut lines. Please enjoy the odd flash fiction of Randall Brown.

Caki Wilkinson

2008-09-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

Caki Wilkinson's acrobatic brilliance--her nimble rhythms, double-jointed tropes, and gravity-defying rhymes--performs its signature moves in poems of such quick-wit and virtually effortless skill the rapt, delighting observer can only marvel at how, in just the moment it takes to catch one's breath, they break the heart. Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of all Ages, Please enjoy Caki Wilkinson.

Sheila Heti

2008-08-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

This episode we are very pleased to bring you Sheila Heti. Both intense and delightful, Heti's work lures us in with brilliant reimaginings of powerful archetypes, then stings us with endings both surprising and inevitable. The result is a literature of the twilight world between reality and fantasy that instructs as it amazes. In "Autobiography of a Clown" Ms. Heti performs a kind of literary origami to fold and twist the story of a clown into a powerful extended meditation on a beautiful world we have lost, and the painful truths that remain the same. Please enjoy "Autobiography of a Clown."

Richard Siken

2008-08-13T21:07:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the one year anniversary of Apostrophe Cast. This episode we are proud to bring you the poetry of Richard Siken. Siken's work is fun and cool and frightening like a boyhood friend who sees no reason to stop wrestling just because one of you has lost a tooth. Please enjoy the poetry of Richard Siken.

Alissa Nutting

2008-07-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast, and this episode, to the exquisite hideousness of Alissa Nutting. Nutting's suburban feminist gothic prances over manicured lawns through palaces of neglect and dementia in which tracheotomies, self-produced teen porn and routine abortions are rites of passage from a childhood without innocence to an adulthood without maturity. Ms. Nutting's story, "I Feel Nothing 4U," is witty, charming and incredibly disturbing. Please enjoy Alissa Nutting.

Danielle Pafunda

2008-07-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

We are proud to present Danielle Pafunda reading a creative lecture. With dizzying erudition, she delights us at the intersection of poetry and scholarship, biology and criticism. The effect is something like a psychedelic sermon. Please enjoy Danielle Pafunda.

Sabrina Orah Mark

2008-07-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

Sabrina Orah Mark is a poet-fabulist whose work is part ghost story, part myth, and part sacred text. Each poem is like an artifact from a sealed and secret vault; each poem is itself a sealed and secret vault, beckoning, glistening, and exhorting any would-be opener to enter carefully and to remember what wonder feels like. There is eeriness, and levity, and eerie levity; there is exultant familiarity set against ominous inscrutability. Listen as Sabrina reads from her forthcoming book Tsim Tsum, and introduces us to Walter B., Beatrice, and The Oldest Animal—characters who, like the world they inhabit, are perpetually on the brink of disappearance.