I'll Find Myself When I'm Dead

In this week’s episode, we discuss a new(ish) collection of Joan Didion’s previously uncollected essays, including a few about writing, two of which we picked to focus on. Also: Elena’s cat mishap, l…

In our first episode of Season 3, we discuss Zoom dance parties, Arlo's new theme song, our forays into magazine writing, the essays and essayistic things we've been reading/watching/etc. in 2021, an…

In our episode previewing the March Plaidness final, we discuss the two remaining essays/songs, the outcomes of recent games, some favorite fallen essays, and our post-Plaidness playlist. Also: Justi…

in our penultimate March Plaidness episode, we start with a confession before moving onto a discussion of G.K. Chesterton's problematicness; our plans for building a multimedia shitpost empire; our f…

We ran into our first recording snafu and lost the entire episode, so we enlisted the help of robot actors to help us reconstruct it from memory. In this episode, we cover the Round 2 matchups for Ma…

In Episode 2 of our special March Plaidness mini-season, we recap most of the first-round games (including David’s win with “Pepper”). Also: lots of Better Than Ezra imitations, Arlo gives a Gen Z ta…

To kick off Season 3, we discuss March Plaidness, this year’s grunge-focused version of the annual March Xness essay competition: past years, this year’s matchups, and David’s entry this year on the …

In our season finale (really this time), we debrief about season 2, discuss our essayistic Christmas plans--including what books we’re going to buy as gifts--reflect on how much we enjoy interacting …

In our Season 2 finale (probably--we haven't figured it out for sure), we welcome our friend Tracy Daugherty, the author of many books of nonfiction and fiction, to discuss his recent books in both g…

In what is probably our penultimate episode of Season 2, we Zoom about the brand-new edition of Best American Essays, edited by our old friend from Season 1, André Aciman. We cover Robert Atwan’s int…

In Grab Bag Part 2: Grab Harder, we discuss DIAGRAM’s new tarot deck anthology to commemorate its 20th Anniversary, and Elena uses it to give us all a tarot reading. Also: an album Elena wants to nom…

In Part 1 of our first grab-bag episode, we answer a reader question about memoirs and, in honor of MFA application season, offer unsolicited advice about MFA programs. Also: more regional-accent con…

In this episode, we discuss selections from the 2019 anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction, co-edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton. Also: Elena does Pennsylvania accents, we issue a warni…

In this episode, we welcome our friend, colleague, and local Victorian expert Megan Ward to discuss Old Ass Essays: what that means, how old we’re talking, and a few examples from the 1830s by none o…

In this episode, we continue the flash conversation from last week, along with our resident barkeep (not “mixologist”) David. He makes us an essayistic shot, and we all discuss Sex and the City, our …

In Episode 6, we discuss very short essays, AKA “Flash,” a term and genre we have mixed feelings about. First we try to figure out what flash means, and then we discuss two (possibly) examples: Jamai…

In Episode 5, we welcome Jess Kibler to the show to discuss the Krause Essay Prize, a $10K award given to the best essay of the year, chosen by students in Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program. Jess is…

In Episode 4, we welcome our spouses, David and Bonnie, back to the podcast to talk about movies that might be essays. Also: a very delayed mailbag, a story about three-thousand-dollar Pennsylvania w…

In Episode 3, we talk with our friend and colleague, George Estreich--an essayist, memoirist, poet, and Renaissance man--about how essays turn into books. We discuss our own respective experiences wi…

In Episode 2, we talk about a thorny issue in nonfiction: the fact check. We discuss a recent essay on the subject by Emma Copley Eisenberg in Esquire, among other things relevant and not: our fact-c…