Skylight Books Podcast Series

Susan Straight, "IN THE COUNTRY OF WOMEN" w/ Patt Morrison

In inland Southern California, near the desert and the Mexican border, Susan Straight, a self-proclaimed book nerd, and Dwayne Sims, an African American basketball player, started dating in high school. After college, they married and drove to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Straight met her teacher and mentor, James Baldwin, who encouraged her to write. Once back in Riverside, at driveway barbecues and fish fries with the large, close-knit Sims family, Straight—and eventually her three daughters—heard for decades the stories of Dwayne’s female ancestors. Some women escaped violence in post-slavery Tennessee, some escaped murder in Jim Crow Mississippi, and some fled abusive men. Straight’s mother-in-law, Alberta Sims, is the descendant at the heart of this memoir. Susan’s family, too, reflects the hardship and resilience of women pushing onward—from Switzerland, Canada, and the Colorado Rockies to California.

A Pakistani word, biraderi, is one Straight uses to define a complex system of kinship and clan—those who become your family. An entire community helped raise her daughters. Of her three girls, now grown and working in museums and the entertainment industry, Straight writes, “The daughters of our ancestors carry in their blood at least three continents. We are not about borders. We are about love and survival.” In the Country of Women is a valuable social history and a personal narrative that reads like a love song to America and indomitable women.

Straight is in conversation with Patt Morrison, a Los Angeles Times writer and columnist with a share of two Pulitzer Prizes.

Alan Sepinwall, "THE SOPRANOS SESSIONS" w/ Justin Halpern

On January 10, 1999, a mobster walked into a psychiatrist’s office and changed TV history. By shattering preconceptions about the kinds of stories the medium should tell, The Sopranos launched our current age of prestige television, paving the way for such giants as Mad Men, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Game of Thrones. As TV critics for Tony Soprano’s hometown paper, New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger, Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz were among the first to write about the series before it became a cultural phenomenon.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the show’s debut, Sepinwall and Seitz have reunited to produce The Sopranos Sessions, a collection of recaps, conversations, and critical essays covering every episode. Featuring a series of new long-form interviews with series creator David Chase, as well as selections from the authors’ archival writing on the series, The Sopranos Sessions explores the show’s artistry, themes, and legacy, examining its portrayal of Italian Americans, its graphic depictions of violence, and its deep connections to other cinematic and television classics.

Sepinwall is joined in conversation by Justin Halpern, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Sh*t My Dad Says, inspired by his massively popular Twitter feed.

Simon Hanselmann, "BAD GATEWAY"

Perpetually drunk and high, lovable degenerates Megg and Mogg have drifted through a life full of raucous antics and free of consequences. But their heavy drug use, once a gateway to adventure, has begun to take a grim psychological toll. As her unstable lifestyle finally catches up to her, Megg must turn to her past to uncover the roots of her self-destructive habits that have led her down this dark path.

Simon Hanselmann was born in 1981 in Launceston, Tasmania. His New York Times best-selling Megg & Mogg series has been translated into thirteen languages, nominated for multiple Ignatz and Eisner awards, and won “Best Series” at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2018. He currently lives in Seattle, WA, with his wife and a rotating cast of small animals.

J. Ryan Stradal, "THE LAGER QUEEN OF MINNESOTA"

Edith Magnusson's rhubarb pies are famous in the Twin Cities--they were named the third-best in the state of Minnesota and St. Anthony-Waterside Nursing Home has quickly becomes the hottest dinner ticket in town. Still, she lays awake wondering how her life might have been different if her father hadn't left their family farm to her sister Helen, a decision that split their family in two. With the proceeds from the farm, her sister, Helen Blotz, built her husband Orval's family soda business into the top selling brewery in Minnesota. She singlehandedly created the light beer revolution and made their corporate motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots, it's Blotz." But Helen dismisses IPAs as a fad, and the Blotz fortune begins its inevitable decline. Soon, though, she finds a potential savior that's surprisingly close to home. . .

Diana Winter earns a shot at learning the beer business from the ground up just as the IPA revolution begins. The stakes couldn't be higher: just as she's launching her own brewpub, she's due to deliver a baby girl. When the unthinkable happens, it's up to Grandma Edith--and a delightfully surprising cadre of grandmother friends--to secure the next generation's chances for a better future. Can Grandma Edith's Rhubarb Pie In A Bottle Ale save Diana's fledgling brewery, and change their hearts and fortunes forever? 

The Lager Queen of Minnesota serves up a cast of lovable, quintessentially Midwestern characters eager to make their mark in a world that's often stacked against them. In this deeply affecting, humorous, emotional family saga, resolution can take generations, but when it finally comes, we're surprised, moved, and delighted.

Ed Brubaker, "BAD WEEKEND" w/ Paul Scheer and Nicholas Winding Refn

Comics won't just break your heart. Comics will just kill you.

Hal Crane should know, he's been around since practically the beginning. Stuck at an out-of-town convention, waiting to receive a lifetime achievement award, Hal's weekend takes us on a dark ride through the secret history of a medium that's always been haunted by crooks, swindlers, and desperate dreamers. BAD WEEKEND-the story some are already calling the comic of the year from its serialization in CRIMINAL #2 and #3-has been expanded, with several new scenes added and remastered into a hardcover graphic novel, in the same format as ED BRUBAKER and PHILLIPS' ( KILL OR BE KILLED, FATALE, CRIMINAL) bestselling MY HEROES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN JUNKIES. This gorgeous package is a must-have, an evergreen graphic novel every true comics fan will want to own.

Brubaker is in conversation with actor/comedian Paul Scheer and film director Nicholas Winding Refn.

Ruchika Tomar, "A PRAYER FOR TRAVELERS" w/ Xuan Juliana Wang

In her debut novel, A Prayer for Travelers, Ruchika Tomar melds artful prose with a haunting narrative creating an arresting and electric portrait of the dangers of girlhood in the American desert west and how small towns try–– and often fail–– to protect their own. Already hailed by Lit Hub as “an indelible portrait of love, grief, and trauma” and one of the Most Anticipated Books of 2019, A Prayer for Travelers illuminates the heat and fury of girlhood and one’s own memory.

The Nevada landscape––a sun-steamed, desert West that you can practically feel blistering off the page––serves as a harsh yet glittery, gritty yet stunning backdrop for this coming-of-age saga. Cale is our guide: a young bookish loner with a voice as markedly determined as it is vulnerable. Set adrift for the first time in her life, Cale begins waitressing at the local diner, where she reconnects with Penelope Reyes, a charismatic former classmate and all-around hustler. Penny exposes Cale to the reality that exists beyond their small town and the girls become inseparable until one terrifying act of violence shatters their world. When Penny vanishes without a trace, Cale sets off on a dangerous quest across the desert to find her friend.

Told in short, deftly interwoven chapters, the novel eases the story into a disorienting, devastating unraveling and seamlessly blends together a portrait of a memory under siege and a girl, unflinchingly, reclaiming herself. On the structure of the novel Tomar says, “I began thinking about the way I or my friends tell stories—elliptically, episodically. When you’re telling a story out loud it’s very hard to remember every detail in order. In particular, if you’ve ever had to tell a story of trauma, or hold one for one of your friends, you know just how ragged and disjointed that experience is. The nature of trauma and grief is fracturing.”

Tomar is in conversation with Xuan Juliana Wang, author of the debut short story collection, Home Remedies.

Sarah Rose Etter, "THE BOOK OF X" w/ Tommy Pico

THE BOOK OF X tells the tale of Cassie, a girl born with her stomach twisted in the shape of a knot. From childhood with her parents on the family meat farm, to a desk job in the city, to finally experiencing love, she grapples with her body, men, and society, all the while imagining a softer world than the one she is in. Twining the drama of the everyday--school-age crushes, paying bills, the sickness of parents--with the surreal--rivers of thighs, men for slae, and fields of throats--Cassie's realities alternate to create a blurred, fantastic world of haunting beauty.

Author Sarah Rose Etter is in conversation with Tommy Pico, author of the books IRL (Birds LLC), Nature Poem (Tin House Books), and Junk (Tin House Books). 

INTERSECTIONALLIES

In poetic stanzas, IntersectionAllies introduces the stories of nine kids from diverse backgrounds. Authors Carolyn Choi, LaToya Council, and Chelsea Johnson use each character’s story to explain how children’s safety concerns are shaped by their intersecting identities, such as class, sexuality, dis/ability, race, religion, and citizenship—what is known in academic and activist circles as “intersectionality."

 

IntersectionAllies features introductions by law professor Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality, and Dr. Ange-Marie Hancock Alfaro, author of Intersectionality: An Intellectual History, and artwork by illustrator Ashley Seil Smith. The stories in IntersectionAllies also suggest ways in which friends can support one another, or be an “ally,” despite different positions in life. The authors believe that forward-looking feminism must start with children, and IntersectionAllies shows that children’s literaturecan be the gateway to educating entire households.

Clark Allen, "MY MOVIE IDEAS"

A handful of years ago Clark Allen had an idea for a movie. Shortly after the first idea he had a second idea. The second was followed by a third, and then fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and so on. Having little interest in the silver screen himself, he never bothered to write any scripts or take any steps toward the actual filmmaking process. He did, however, continue to add to his catalog thinking that perhaps one day a hopeful screenwriter or director in need may cross his path, that he might pass along a few of his concepts, and then maybe in time he'd be able to trot down to the local cinematheque and check one out. His new book, My Movie Ideas, collects six hundred and ninety-one top notch, copyright free, suggestions prime for development at any time. 

Kristen Arnett, "MOSTLY DEAD THINGS" w/ Tommy Pico

One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo’s wife— the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with—walks out without a word. As Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother’s art escalates—picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose—and the Mortons reach a tipping point. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them.

Kristen Arnett’s debut novel is a darkly funny, heart- wrenching, and eccentric look at loss and art and love.

Arnett is in conversation with Tommy Pico, author of the books IRL (Birds LLC), Nature Poem (Tin House Books), and Junk (Tin House Books).

Max Felker-Kantor, "POLICING LOS ANGELES" w/ David Stein

In Policing Los Angeles, Max Felker-Kantor narrates the dynamic history of policing, anti-police abuse movements, race, and politics in Los Angeles from the 1965 Watts uprising to the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion. Using the explosions of two large-scale uprisings in Los Angeles as bookends, Felker-Kantor highlights the racism at the heart of the city's expansive police power through a range of previously unused and rare archival sources. His book is a gripping and timely account of the transformation in police power, the convergence of interests in support of law and order policies, and African American and Mexican American resistance to police violence after the Watts uprising.

Felker-Kantor is in conversation with David Stein, a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African American Studies at University of California, Los Angeles.

Mickey Rapkin, "IT'S NOT A BED, IT'S A TIME MACHINE" w/ Sara Rue

In this clever picture book,  a young boy anxious for bedtime discovers his bed is a time machine!

Bedtime means lights out, with dark corners and spooky sounds. But it also means...

Adventure! Because it's not a bed, it's a time machine. Our hero rides it to the coolest time of all--the age of the dinosaurs. He makes a tyrannosaurus-sized friend, who helps him become the Boss of Bedtime.

While tonight's sleep will span millions of years, it'll feel like it's over in the blink of an eye.

Author Mickey Rapkin reads aloud with Sara Rue, an actor, writer and producer known for A Series of Unfortunate Events, Rules of Engagement, and Less Than Perfect.

Made in L.A., Vol. 2: Chasing the Elusive Dream

The Made in L.A. indie author co-op presents contributors to the latest installment of their annual fiction anthology series, Made in L.A. Vol. 2: Chasing the Elusive Dream. Join a publication party with local authors who have a passion for writing about their home.

While the first volume was rooted in Los Angeles, this second volume focuses on goals, dreams, and the distant horizon. It explores the fantasies people carry with them to L.A., as well as the dreams Angelenos dream while surrounded by this vast and evolving city.

This anthology series showcases a diverse range of voices and genres. Like the City of Angels where these stories were born, nothing is off-limits. Literary or contemporary, fantasy or science fiction, each story in this volume invites you to view this urban landscape through a different lens. The evening will include discussions about what we find inspiring about Los Angeles, how our stories came about, and a behind-the-scenes peek at indie publishing and the DIY production of hyper-local literary culture. 

Lisa Taddeo, "THREE WOMEN" w/ Clarissa Cruz

Lina, a homemaker in suburban Indiana, is a decade into a passionless marriage when she embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming and transforms her life. Sloane, a glamorous entrepreneur in the northeast, is married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. Maggie, a high school student in North Dakota, begins a relationship with her English teacher that will have extraordinary consequences for them both—as well as the community in which they live.

For nearly a decade, Lisa Taddeo, an award-winning journalist and longtime contributor to New York magazine and Esquire, embedded herself with Three Women to write this deeply immersive account of their erotic lives and longings. The result—shocking, powerful, and timely—reads like George Packer’s The Unwinding, but for the state of female desire. Three Women is a major work from an exhilarating new voice.

Taddeo is in conversation with Clarissa Cruz, Features Editor at Entertainment Weekly.

Janet Fitch, "CHIMES OF A LOST CATHEDRAL"

The story of The Revolution of Marina M. continues in bestselling author Janet Fitch's sweeping epic about a young woman's coming into her own against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution. 

After the events of The Revolution of Marina M., the young Marina Makarova finds herself on her own amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War---pregnant and adrift in the Russian countryside, forced onto her own resourcefulness to find a place to wait out the birth of her child. She finds new strength and self-reliance to fortify her in her sojourn, and to prepare her for the hardships and dilemmas still to come.

When she finally returns to Petrograd, the city almost unrecognizable after two years of revolution, the haunted, half-emptied, starving Capital of Once Had Been, she finds the streets teeming with homeless children, victims of war. Now fully a woman, she takes on the challenge of caring for these civil war orphans, until they become the tool of tragedy from an unexpected direction.

But despite the ordeal of war and revolution, betrayal and privation and unimaginable loss, Marina at last emerges as the poet she was always meant to be.

Chimes of a Lost Cathedral finishes the epic story of Marina's journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century---as a woman and an artist, entering her full power, passion, and creativity just as her revolution reveals its true direction for the future.