The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life

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This week is a live show: Horror Movie Poetry Night III. The Drunken Odyssey All Stars were Glendaliz Camacho, Curtis X. Meyer, Stacy Barton, Jim Driggers, Shawn McKee, Jared Silvia, Whitney Hamrick, Teege Braune, & your host, John King.

Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_230.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 12:11am EDT

Episode 229 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I return to Jesse Bradley’s Halloween installment of his prose reading series, There Will Be Words.

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Jesse Bradley, Karen Best, Shawn McKee, Teege Braune, John King, & Jared Silvia.
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Erik Deckers

Plus a final performance from The Terrible Mr. Sundrop.

Mr Sundrop

 


 

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Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_229.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 10:49am EDT

On this week’s show, I present a quartet of readings from HP Lovecraft: "The Beast in the Cave," "The Tree," "Beyond the Wall of Sleep," and "From Beyond."

Our readers are Chris Booth,

Chris Booth

Elise McKenna, and Tom Lucas.

Elise & Tom Lovecraft Roundtable

THE TEXT

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NOTES

This episode is a companion to Episode 227, a roundtable discussion of Lovecraft.

If you like this show's readings, check out the previous literary reading episode, 123, on the year without a summer that spawned the ghost story contest between Lord Byron, the Shelleys, and Dr. Polidori.

If you are near Orlando on October 19th, come to Horror Movie Poetry Night 3.

Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_228.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 1:03pm EDT

In this week’s episode, I and my inestimable guests have a fine conversation about Lovecraft and his bizarre tales and his rather strange life and his exceptionally unfortunate opinions

The participants included Elise McKenna, Tom Lucas,

Elise & Tom Lovecraft RoundtableJulian Chambliss,

Julian Lovecraft Roundtableand Dianne Turgeon Richardson.

Diane Lovecraft Roundtable
TEXTS DISCUSSED

call-of-cthulu the-dream-questthe-new-annotated-h-p-lovecraftweird-tales-july-1933-the-dreams-in-the-witch-house-and-the-horror-in-the-museum

 

An author photo can look unintentionally scarier than the horror book cover sometimes.

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Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_227.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 4:02pm EDT

In this week’s episode, I talk to poet Vidhu Aggarwal,

vidhu-aggarwalplus Adelia Johnson writes about Ned Vizzini's It's Kind of a Funny Story changed her life.

adelia-johnsonTEXTS DISCUSSED

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NOTES

Check out my essay, "There, But," in the latest issue of Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine.

Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_226.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 11:37am EDT

In this week’s episode, I talk to the journalist and historian, Bob Kealing,

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plus Heather Whited reads her essay, "Onigiri, Shirasagi, and Me."

Heather Whited 2

 

TEXTS DISCUSSED

life-of-the-party-coverkerouac-in-floridacalling-me-home

NOTES

 The Daytona News-JournalThe Daytona News-Journal documented Edward Albee's involvement with the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

On September 30th, Richard Blanco is coming to Valencia College for the Winter Park Writers’ Festival. Richard Blanco’s reading is FREE, but you MUST reserve a seat via the Festival’s Eventbrite page.

EVENT DETAILS

  • Location: Winter Park Campus, Valencia College, 850 W Morse Blvd, Winter Park, FL 32789, Rooms 237/2424
  • 4 PM: Community Writing Class with Richard Blanco
  • 5:30 PM: Open Mic Reading (Emceed by John King)
  • 7:00 PM: Richard Blanco Reading

You can find my interview with Richard Blanco back on episode 76.

The deadline for submissions for Condoms and Hot Tubs Don't Mix is fast approaching.

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Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_225.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 2:44am EDT

In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about Virginia Woolf’s "Modern Fiction" and "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown,"

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plus Mingzhao Xu writes about Diana Gabaldon's Outlanders series changed her life.

mingzhao-xu

TEXTS DISCUSSED

mr-kimNOTES

Suki Kim's nuanced take on what happened in Brisbane can be read at The New Republic.

Lionel Shriver's "Identity Politics and Fiction" can be read at The Guardian.

On September 30th, Richard Blanco is coming to Valencia College for the Winter Park Writers’ Festival. Richard Blanco’s reading is FREE, but you MUST reserve a seat via the Festival’s Eventbrite page.

EVENT DETAILS

  • Location: Winter Park Campus, Valencia College, 850 W Morse Blvd, Winter Park, FL 32789, Rooms 237/2424
  • 4 PM: Community Writing Class with Richard Blanco
  • 5:30 PM: Open Mic Reading (Emceed by John King)
  • 7:00 PM: Richard Blanco Reading

 

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Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_224.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 3:17pm EDT

In this week’s episode, I talk to the novelist Vu Tran about the appeal of detective fiction, the importance of literary substance over style, the problem with femme fatale characters, the Iowa MFA experience, and many, many other things,

Vu Tran

plus Jared Silvia sings another Woody Guthrie number in honor of Labor Day, as part of his annual Labor Day musical project.

jared-silvia

TEXT DISCUSSED

Dragonfish

NOTES

On September 30th, Richard Blanco is coming to Valencia College for the Winter Park Writers' Festival.

Richard Blanco's reading is FREE, but you MUST reserve a seat via the Festival's Eventbrite page.

EVENT DETAILS

  • Location: Winter Park Campus, Valencia College, Rooms 237/2424
  • 4 PM: Community Writing Class with Richard Blanco
  • 5:30 PM: Open Mic Reading (Emceed by John King)
  • 7:00 PM: Richard Blanco Reading

Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_223.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 3:41pm EDT

In this week’s episode, I talk to the poet and novelist Ryler Dustin near the end of his residency at the Kerouac House in Orlando, after a weeklong tour of weddings.

Ryler Dustin

We speak about the horrors of what happens to poetry in educational environments, the dawning sense of contemporary poetry as a form of play and life, as opposed to some kind of stillborn puzzle. Ryler also talks about the poetic impulse overtaking him before he even knew what poetry was, and walks me through his experience in slam poetry and MFA life, and the creative writing PhD, and the drive to move beyond genres. For some reason, I bring up my favorite bit of dialogue from the movie Major League despite Bull Durham being a much better movie. The role of honesty and novelty in writing also brilliantly come up. (We were both sober.)

NOTES

  • On September 30th, Richard Blanco is headed to Valencia College for its 2016 Winter Park Writers Festival.
  • Rest in peace, Mr. Sundrop (Episode 213), or else let your caterwauls join the heavenly chorus.

Mr Sundrop


Episode 222 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

 

Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_222.mp3
Category:Arts/Culture/Writing -- posted at: 12:20am EDT

In this week’s episode, I share There Will Be Fan Fiction 2, a special edition of Jesse Bradley’s prose reading series, There Will Be Words.

 

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This installment features the fan fiction of Shauna Basques (Jason Todd-era Batman), J. Bradley himself (The Mighty Ducks/Fatal Attraction crossover, obviously), Brontë Bettencourt (Frozen), A. C. Warner (Star Trek: The Next Generation, as read by me), and me (Flash Gordon).

NOTES

Check out the first installment of There Will Be Fan Fiction, which featured Teege Braun writing Small Wonder, Jared Silvia writing King of the Hill, Stephanie Rizzo writing about a post-apocalyptic Lewis and Clarke, Genevieve Anna Tyrrell writing Dexter, and me, that is John King, writing a Benny Hill Show/Ace Frehley crossover that includes David Foster Wallace, Yoda, My Little Pony, and a hint of Cthulu.

Also check out J. Bradley's latest book, Jesus Christ, Boy Detective, and here us talk about it back on episode 216.

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Check out Brontë Bettencourt's blog, 21st Century Brontë.

Direct download: The_Drunken_Odyssey_Episode_221.mp3
Category:Writing -- posted at: 2:48pm EDT