Novel Dialogue

Novel Dialogue

episodes

Novel Dialogue: where unlikely conversation partners come together to discuss the making of novels and what to make of them. What makes us special? Critics and novelists in conversation. Breaking down the boundaries between critical, creative, and just plain quirky, Novel Dialogue’s approach is wide-ranging and unconventional. Ever wondered what Jennifer Egan thinks of TikTok, how Ruth Ozeki honed her craft working on the movie Mutant Hunt, or if Colm Tóibín will ever write a novel about an openly gay novelist? Join us for lively conversations hosted by scholars who admire and write about the novelists that help shape our literary culture.

All of Our Stories Were War Stories: Jamil Jan Kochai and Kalyan Nadiminti (AV)

November 21, 2024

All of Our Stories Were War Stories

Jamil Jan Kochai
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Imagine growing up between Sacramento, California and Logar, Afghanistan; you hear stories about war, watch coverage of the United States’ War on Terr…

Aspire to Magic but End Up With Madness: Adam Ehrlich Sachs speaks with Sunny Yudkoff (JP)

November 7, 2024

Aspire to Magic but End Up With Madness

Adam Ehrlich Sachs
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

What happens when a novelist wants “nonsense and joy” but his characters are destined for a Central European sanatorium? How does the abecedarian form…

To Gallop Again and Again into Failure: Kaveh Akbar and Pardis Dabashi (SW)

October 25, 2024

To Gallop Again and Again into Failure: Kaveh Akbar and Pardis Dabashi

Kaveh Akbar and Pardis Dabashi
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

An unforgettable horse gallops through the pages of Kaveh Akbar’s best-selling novel Martyr! (2024), but it is a figurative hastening toward failure a…

Dirt Bag Novels: Lydia Kiesling in Conversation with Megan Ward (CH)

October 10, 2024

Dirt Bag Novels

Lydia Kiesling and Megan Ward
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

What does it mean for a novel to think globally? And can a global novel concerned with the macro movements of capital and labor still exist in the for…

Escape Velocity: Sarah Manguso in Conversation with Tess McNulty (EH)

June 20, 2024

Escape Velocity

Sarah Manguso and Tess McNulty
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

What’s the truth and what’s a lie? What’s a memoir, what’s a novel, and what if both are just a series of “prose blocks”? This conversation between Sa…

Machine, System, Code: Masande Ntshanga and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (EH)

June 6, 2024

Machine, System, Code: Masande Ntshanga and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (EH)

Masande Ntshanga and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Building parallels between technology and the human imagination, Masande Ntshanga’s conversation with Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra explains how cities are …

Not Prophecy but Inversion: Omar El Akkad and Min Hyoung Song

May 24, 2024

Not Prophecy but Inversion

Omar El Akkad and Min Hyoung Song
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Omar El Akkad joins critic Min Hyoung Song for a gripping conversation that interrogates fiction’s relationship to the real. Before he became a noveli…

What do the PDFs say about this?: Brandon Taylor and Stephanie Insley Hershinow (CH)

May 9, 2024

What do the PDFs say about this?

Brandon Taylor
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Brandon Taylor practices moral worldbuilding in his fiction—that means an essential piece of these worlds is the “real possibility that someone could …

You Write Because You Want to Feel Free: Katie Kitamura and Alexander Manshel (SW)

April 25, 2024

You Write Because You Want to Feel Free

Katie Kitamura
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Although Katie Kitamura feels free when she writes—free from the “soup of everyday life,” from the political realities that weigh upon her, and even a…

Etherized: Anne Enright in Conversation with Paige Reynolds (JP)

April 11, 2024

Etherized

Anne Enright and Paige Reynolds
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Anne Enright, writer, critic, Booker winner, kindly makes time for Irish literature maven Paige Reynolds and ND host John Plotz. She reads from The Wr…

Overtaken by Awe: Sheila Heti speaks with Sunny Yudkoff

December 14, 2023

Overtaken by Awe

Sheila Heti and Sunny Yudkoff
Hosted by Novel Dialogue

Sheila Heti sits down with Sunny Yudkoff and ND host John Plotz to discuss her incredibly varied oeuvre. She does it all: stories, novels, alphabetize…

Attention is Love: A Discussion with Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath (SW)

November 30, 2023

Attention is Love

Lauren Groff and Laura McGrath
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

Just days before the release of her latest novel, The Vaster Wilds (Riverhead Books, 2023), three-time National Book Award Finalist and The New York T…

“We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”

November 16, 2023

“We All Relate to Each Other’s Dystopias”

Shehan Karunatilaka and Sangeeta Ray
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

Shehan Karunatilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Norton, 2022), which won the Booker Prize in 2022, is a thriller that begins in the afterlife,…

Narrative, Database, Archive: Tom Comitta and Deidre Lynch (AV)

November 2, 2023

Narrative, Database, Archive

Tom Comitta and Deidre Lynch
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

12 tables; 300 novels, 1500 pages of nature description: This is how Tom Comitta created The Nature Book, a one-of-a-kind novel cut from 300 years of…

What Would Undo the Maxim Gun? Magic: P. Djèlí Clark and andré carrington

October 19, 2023

What Would Undo the Maxim Gun? Magic

P. Djèlí Clark and andré carrington
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

Locus- and Nebula- award-winning author P. Djèlí Clark joins critic andré carrington (UC Riverside) and host Rebecca Ballard for a conversation about …

Desolation Tries to Colonize You: Jeff VanderMeer and Alison Sperling (CH)

October 5, 2023

Desolation Tries to Colonize You

Jeff VanderMeer and Alison Sperling
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

Our season of the weird starts off with a conversation between the writer The New Yorker called “the weird Thoreau”, Jeff VanderMeer, and a scholar of…

Weirding Out with Kate Marshall: Novel Dialogue Season 6 Preview

September 21, 2023

Weirding Out with Kate Marshall

Kate Marshall
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

We kick off Season 6 with Kate Marshall, friend of the show and author of the forthcoming book Novels by Aliens: Weird Tales and the Twenty-First Cent…

A Forensic Level of Honesty: Aminatta Forna and Nicole Rizzuto (AV)

June 15, 2023

A Forensic Level of Honesty

Aminatta Forna and Nicole Rizzuto
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

Aminatta Forna, author of Ancestor Stones (2006), Happiness (2018), and most recently The Window Seat (2021) joins Georgetown prof. Nicole Rizzuto and…

They’re Not Metaphorical Demons: Mariana Enriquez and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra

June 1, 2023

They’re Not Metaphorical Demons

Mariana Enriquez and Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra
Hosted by Chris Holmes
Listen:

Booker Prize shortlister Mariana Enriquez, author of Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, joins Penn State professor Magalí A…

The Meat and Bones of Life

May 18, 2023

The Meat and Bones of Life

Erika T. Wurth, Leif Sorensen, and Rebecca Evans
Hosted by Novel Dialogue
Listen:

With the publication of her most recent novel, White Horse (Flatiron Books, 2022), Erika T. Wurth breaks from the realism that characterized her earli…