Interview - Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin

My full interview with Vanderbilt faculty members Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin about their book, Reasonable Atheism.

Karin Slaughter Interview

Listen to us dance around all the twists in Karin Slaughter's newest book, Fractured. One, two, three; turn, one, two, three...
KARIN SLAUGHTER - BOOK TALK WYPL.mp3

Delaune' Michel Interview

I spoke with Delaune' Michel this summer about her book The Safety of Secrets. We had a nice time.

David Wroblewski Interview

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is definitely the best-written book that I've read this year. And this is probably the best author interview I've ever done. David Wroblewski is articulate and thoughtful, and I thought we had a wonderful time talking about his book. I am damn proud of myself. No joke.

Howard Bahr Interview

Howard Bahr is known for his several excellent Civil War novels, but Pelican Road is about a train collision in Misssissppi in 1940. So very excellently written, Pelican Road is a novel for grown ups. People who know regret, loss, cruelty but manage to get up every day anyway. Our fates are all sealed, but dammit, you have to fight aganst it.

John Perkins Interview

John Perkins is the author of the best sellers Confessions of an Economic Hit Man and Secret History of the American Empire. The books have made a big splash, and I really wanted to like them, but I found Perkins's tone to be self-aggrandizing, and he really only got out of the biz when the checks stopped coming in. I really think he over eggs the pudding, much as Simon Winchester did in The Professor and the Madman.

In person, he was a very pleasant fellow. I was a bit combative, and for this I must apologize. I get a bit defensive when I run into what I presume to be knee-jerk anti-Americanism. Absolving Arab and Muslim empires for their bloody expansions in the past just gets under my skin. The "West" isn't the only expansionistic and imperialistic culture around. It isn't the first and it won't be the last. Our world has been a long history of peoples invading peoples, and to hold the West up to specific and, I believe, disingenuous scrutiny shows a lack of awareness of world history at best and willful cultural mendacity at its worst.

Enjoy, if I haven't scared you off.

MicroFiction - 4L3X4ND3R

He said, "Where is the romance in sustainability? It is the drive that makes us human. Burn through every resource, burn every field and bridge. Forward ever forward. Advance or perish. Death and oblivion are at your back. Innovate. Expand. If the universe has taught us anything, it is expansion. When expansion ends, contraction begins. Yes, indulge yourself in petty romances of bucolic splendours of times past, lost in nostalgic reveries. However, I, for one, intend to be the alien overlord who is welcomed."

I said, "Bold words from a six year old."