Jonathan Escoffery, Yiyun Li and Ling Ma on The Art of Fiction

"I start with the emotion. I don't know what the story is. I don't know who the characters are necessarily. I'm working on very little like, I'm thinking, 'oh, well, the way this light looks through a window', or something — very few details here and there. But I don't know what happens in this story." Join three amazing authors talking about their three fabulous fall reads: If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery, The Book of Goose byYiyun Li and Bliss Montage by Ling Ma. The authors speak with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer, about the balance between humor and dread, how they start a project, some of their favorite writers & more.

Featured Books (Episode)

If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery

The Book of Goose byYiyun Li

Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

Severance by Ling Ma

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Moshin Hamid

Passing by Nella Larsen

Quicksand by Nella Larsen

The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty

Moby Dick by Herman Mellville

Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara by Frank O'Hara

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

Artist in the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised By Wolves by Karen Russell

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.

A full transcript of this episode is available here.