Skylight Books Podcast Series

Leslie Schwartz, "THE LOST CHAPTERS" w/ Bernadette Murphy

In 2014, Leslie Schwartz was sentenced to 90 days in Los Angeles County Jail for a DUI and battery of an officer. She served her time at the tail end of a 414-day relapse into alcohol addiction after more than a decade of sobriety. During that year and seven weeks, she was in what she describes as a “chronic state of blackout”--The Lost Chapters.

Incarceration might have ruined her, if not for the stories that comforted her while she was locked up-- both the artful tales in the books she read while there, and, more immediately, the stories of her fellow inmates. With classics like Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings to contemporary accounts like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, Schwartz's reading list is woven together with visceral recollections of her daily humiliations faced in the county jail system. Through the stories of others—whether rendered on the page or whispered in a jail cell—she learned powerful lessons about how to banish shame, use guilt for good, level her grief, and find the lost joy and magic of her astonishing life.

Schwartz is joined in conversation by Bernadette Murphy, author of Harley and Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Authentic Life.

Amber Tamblyn, "ANY MAN" w/ Janet Fitch

Ambler Tamblyn's Any Man follows six men: an English teacher, an unsuccessful standup comedian, a bi-racial web designer; a high school student, an alt-right media personality, and a transgender man. While one man’s experience launches him into the spotlight as an unlikely activist and voice for justice, another’s trauma is told through every voice but his own, a damning commentary on how we abuse and erase the stories and experiences of survivors.

In Any Man, the serial rapes act as a mirror, reflecting prejudices from the media and society back towards each victim as they grapple with guilt, shame, fear, PTSD, anger, and confusion about their attack. Journalists and people on social media hound and harass the victims, some going so far as to question whether it is even physically possible for a woman to rape a man.

Soon the culture feels equally as complicit and violent as the actual predator herself. The power of this novel comes from the victims’ resistance of the narrative thrust upon them, refusing to be plot devices, but actual agents of action, central, and ever-present as they summon the strength and courage to speak out.

Tamblyn is joined in conversation by Janet Fitch, author of  the novels White Oleander, an Oprah Book Club selection, Paint It Black, and most recently The Revolution of Marina M.

Zoé Samudzi, "BLACK AS RESISTANCE"

Over the course of United States history, resistance against oppression and the gains made from various struggles for everyone's equality have often been Black led. However, liberal politics and the lack of strong leftist political power are two problems impeding the continued progress of Black America. Expanding on their original essay "The Anarchism Of Blackness," Zoé Samudzi and William C. Anderson make the case for a new program of transformative politics for Black Americans, one rooted in an anarchistic framework likened to the Black experience itself. This is not a compromising book that negotiates with intolerance. As Black as Resistance is a declaration for everyone who is ready to continue progressing towards liberation for all people.

Ottessa Moshfegh, "MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION"

To say Ottessa Moshfegh's star is on the rise is an understatement—and not quite accurate. She is most definitely already in the constellation. My Year of Rest and Relaxation, is the story of a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on a pharmaceutical-fueled extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists.

It’s the year 2000 in New York City, our narrator is a model-beautiful Columbia graduate living off her inheritance in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? In Moshfegh’s universe, plenty. My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful year-long trip spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, the novel is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.

Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold, "COTTONS" w/ Cecil Castellucci

To her neighbors in the Vale of Industry, Bridgebelle is an ordinary rabbit. All day long, she toils at the carrot factory. After a hard day, she returns home to care for her ailing auntie. And whenever she's out, she's watchful of the murderous foxes who prey on her kind.

But Bridgebelle is not ordinary—she's a rabbit with talents beyond her own understanding. Using cha, the mysterious fuel that powers her world, she can change everyday objects into thokchas—magical, transforming works of art. Bridgebelle makes thokchas because they're beautiful. But there are those in her world who want to harness her powers and turn her art into a weapon. 

Cottons authors Jim Pascoe and Heidi Arnhold are joined in conversation by Cecil Castellucci, author of Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, and the Eisner nominated Odd Duck.

Paddy Hirsch, "THE DEVIL'S HALF MILE"

Paddy Hirsch began researching the history of the stock market and beginnings of its regulation—but ended up swept into the fascinating time period he discovered. Hirsch turned his research into a page-turning and atmospheric new novel of suspense. The Devil's Half Mile brings together the actual historic settings and people of 1799 New York, including Alexander Hamilton, William Duer, and more—along with a twisty murder mystery.

Nick Dybek, "THE VERDUN AFFAIR" w/ Julia Fierro

A sweeping, romantic, and profoundly moving novel, set in Europe in the aftermath of World War I and Los Angeles in the 1950s, about a lonely young man, a beautiful widow, and the amnesiac soldier whose puzzling case binds them together even as it tears them apart.

From the bone-strewn fields of Verdun to the bombed-out cafés of Paris, from the riot-torn streets of Bologna to the riotous parties of 1950s Hollywood, Nick Dybek's The Verdun Affair is a riveting tale of romance, grief, and the far-reaching consequences of a single lie.

Dybek is in conversation with Julia Fierro, author of the novels The Gypsy Moth Summer and Cutting Teeth.

Glen David Gold, "I WILL BE COMPLETE"

Glen David Gold was raised rich, briefly, in southern California at the end of the go-go 1960s. But his father's fortune disappears, his parents divorce, and Glen falls out of his well-curated life and into San Francisco at the epicenter of the Me Decade: the inimitable '70s. Gold grows up with his mother, among con men and get-rich schemes. Then, one afternoon when he's twelve, she moves to New York without telling him, leaving him to fend for himself. I Will Be Complete is the story of how Gold copes, honing a keen wit and learning how to fill in the emotional gap.

Recorded 6/28/18.

Lydia Millet, "FIGHT NO MORE" w/ Zandy Hartig

In her first story collection since Love in Infant Monkeys, which became a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Lydia Millet explores what it means to be home. Nina, a lonely real-estate broker estranged from her only relative, is at the center of a web of stories connecting fractured communities and families. She moves through the houses of L.A.’s wealthy elite and finds men and women both crass and tender, vicious and desperate. With wit and intellect, Millet offers profound insight into human behavior from the ordinary to the bizarre: strong-minded girls are beset by the helpless, myopic executives are tormented by their employees, and beastly men do beastly things.

Millet is in conversation with Zandy Hartig, an actress known for her roles in Children's Hospital, Wanderlust, Role Models, and The Ten.

Pat Morrison, "DON'T STOP THE PRESSES!"

Real News on real paper. Newspapers—a free press—were the cornerstone of the Founding Fathers’ working model of democracy. And they remain so. Whether read at the kitchen table, in the boardroom, or on a laptop on the subway, newspapers—as has been said of them for more than a half century—are “the first draft of history.” Veteran journalist Pat Morrison proves it, and then some, in the pages of Don’t Stop the Presses! Truth, Justice, and the American Newspaper​.

Bryan Lee O'Malley and Leslie Hung, "SNOTGIRL"

Fashion! Murder! Allergies?! Snotgirl, the acclaimed comic book and graphic novel series from co-creators Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim) and acclaimed artist Leslie Hung returns with Snotgirl Volume 2: California Screaming. Snotgirl features the adventures of an LA-based fashion blogger whose glamorous life unravels due to severe allergies (and, to be fair, a possible murder for which she may be responsible).

O'Malley and Hung are joined by Jen Wang, a cartoonist, author and illustrator living in Los Angeles.

Clarice Lispector's "THE CHANDELIER" w/ Magdalena Edwards

Fresh from the enormous success of her debut novel Near to the Wild Heart, Clarice Lispector let loose something stormier with The Chandelier. In a body of work renowned for its potent idiosyncratic genius, The Chandelier in many ways has pride of place. While on one level simply the story of a woman’s life, The Chandelier’s real drama lies in Lispector’s attempt “to find the nucleus made of a single instant … the tenuous triumph and the defeat, perhaps nothing more than breathing.” The Chandelier pushes Lispector’s lifelong quest for that nucleus into deeper territories than any of her other amazing works.

Translator Magdalena Edwards stopped by Skylight to discuss Lispector's seminal work.

Porochista Khakpour, "SICK"

Sick is Porochista Khakpour’s arduous, emotional journey—as a woman, a writer, and a lifelong sufferer of undiagnosed health problems—through the chronic illness that perpetually left her a victim of anxiety, living a life stymied by an unknown condition. With candor and grace, she examines her subsequent struggles with mental illness, her addiction to the benzodiazepines prescribed by her psychiatrists, and her ever-deteriorating physical health. A story about survival, pain, and transformation, Sick is a candid, illuminating narrative of hope and uncertainty, boldly examining the deep impact of illness on one woman’s life.

Khakpour is in conversation with Mira Gonzalez, a writer and illustrator from Los Angeles.

"SANTA CRUZ NOIR" Contributors

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.

Joining us are editor Susie Bright, Jon Bailiff, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Seana Graham, Naomi Hirahara, Lou Mathews, Liza Monroy, and Tommy Moore. 

PEN AMERICA MEET AND GREET

PEN America presents the 2018 Emerging Voices Fellows, alumni, and mentors in conversation for the 2019 application cycle at Skylight Books. 

The evening will include summer cocktails, short readings, a fellowship overview, and audience Q&A. Featuring Jubi Arriola-Headley, Ron Dowell, Natalie Mislang Mann, Angela M. Sanchez, Francisco Uribe, and more!