In our ninth adventure, Aimee Bender and Steve Almond—both the offspring of therapists—discuss how and why less experienced writers manage to sabotage their own fiction. Among the topics covered are: simplicity phobias, the artistic unconscious, OMD (obsessive metaphor disorder), fear of emotional exposure, prose envy, and obfuscation in the service of the id. Yeah!

All this, plus Aimee Bender reads Cormac McCarthy.

The Tin House House Podcast: Cheaper than a shrink & less likely to make you hate your mother.

Float like a butterfly, sting like bee. Cassius was talking about his boxing method when he said this but here at Tin House, the phrase could be used to describe what we like to read. Stories that display a sweet smile while holding a knife behind their back. Poems that start off with a light touch but end up leaving a bruise.

The work of both of our featured authors on Episode #8 might seem breezy on the surface. Poems about celebrities. An essay on summer camp. But their lightness begets something darker. Something more recognizable and moving than we initially suspected. Like the best of all writing, they leave a mark.

Join us as (here) as Dorianne Laux gives a reading from our Writer’s Workshop & Peyton Marshall performs her essay “The Feast”, which first appeared in our Beauty Issue.

We kick the new year off in style with one of our all time favorite talks from the workshop, Anthony Doerr’s lecture on Defamiliarization. As those of you who have read Doerr’s work know (and if you haven’t read him, what gives?), he has the unique ability to make the known world seem strange, swatting aside clichés as if they were a fourth quarter LeBron James jump shot (inside joke, sorry).

So shake off those winter blues with a little shop talk from Mr. Doerr, who will once again be joining us this July at the Summer Writer’s Workshop.

You can listen here.

]]> http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/12714/the-tin-house-podcast-episode-7.html/feed 3 http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/11028/the-tin-house-podcast-episode-6.html http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/11028/the-tin-house-podcast-episode-6.html#comments Wed, 30 Nov 2011 19:42:13 +0000 Lance Cleland http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/?p=11028

Tuesday saw the release of Queen of America, Luis Alberto Urrea’s anticipated follow up to The Hummingbird’s Daughter. Those of us lucky enough to be in attendance at the 2011 Writer’s Workshop were treated to the first public performance from Queen, which we are happy to be able to share with you here. As an added bonus, we have also included Luis’s thoughtful and hypnotic lecture “The Theory and Practice of Trust: Writing as a Ghost Story.”

You can never get enough Urrea in your life, so turn on, tune in, and drop some knowledge on yourself!

]]> http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/11028/the-tin-house-podcast-episode-6.html/feed 1 http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/9838/the-tin-house-podcast-episode-5.html http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/9838/the-tin-house-podcast-episode-5.html#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:53:49 +0000 Lance Cleland http://www.tinhouse.com/blog/?p=9838

Episode # 5, which you can listen to here, brings you the smooth sounds of Mary Szybist and Benjamin Percy into your living room. Culled from one of our nightly readings at last year’s Writer’s Workshop, the pair took to the stage and performed their very own Nancy and Lee act (Sadly, due to budget constraints, Ben did not arrive on horseback). Enjoy!

After a lengthy summer absence (we had a lot on our plate), the infamous Tin House Podcast returns with a fantastic lecture on dialogue from our good friend (and literary crush) Dorothy Allison.

Gifted with a voice that could command an audience in any era, Dorothy treated the participants of this past summer’s Tin House Writer’s Workshop to a spirited discussion (you can listen here) on how characters should speak on the page.  Not only ‘he said, she said, none of them said a thing’, but a whole range of language issues–what is said and not said, dialect and rhythm, pacing, patterns in speech, and most importantly, the language of gesture and avoidance.

Yes, there was a bit of cursing involved in the lecture, but to be cursed at by Dorothy Allison is an experience to be treasured. Trust us, we have firsthand experience.

A journey back through halcyon days with two authors who have spent their fair share of time crashing at Tin House. And then some. Steve Almond opens up our third podcast (which you can listen to here) with a lecture given at last year’s Writers Workshop. Ever the trickster, Steve called it: “Everything They told You In MFA School is Wrong. Except The Part About The Debt.” Like the best of his writing, Steve’s lecture offended, told some truths, and was tied together with humor and grace. Next we’re treated to some verbal magic from D.A. Powell, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow. His reading last year, at sunset, before a rapt audience, reminded us why poetry is meant to be read aloud. Preferably with a summer cocktail in hand.

March Madness is not just confined to the basketball courts this year, as Episode #2 of the Tin House Podcast (click here to listen) is up and ready for your bracket busting (and downloading) pleasure. In this installment, host Lance Cleland (forever a #12 seed) brings you inside 2010′s Tin House Writers Workshop, with a wondrous lecture from author Karen Russell. In “The Cartography of Imaginary Places,” Karen holds forth on the ways magic and reality can coexist in fiction, as well as her fascination with the dust bowl and talking scarecrows. Her debut novel, Swamplandia, is in bookstores now, and you’ll be wise to check out her story “The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach,” in our forthcoming Fantastic Women anthology (August, 2011).

A big shout out to Daniel Grazzini (of the Portland band Reporter) for helping us out with the recording and mastering, as well as for providing us with a sweet intro/closing beat.

Episode 1 of our brand new podcast is up now. I’m waiting for Mr. Jobs to return my call, but we should be up on iTunes very soon. We’ll keep you posted. For now, head over to the podcast page (which you can also get to by clicking on the little icon over in the “Stay Connected” box).

In our debut episode, your host Lance Cleland brings you Joy Williams’s brilliant reading of “Why I Write” from the 2010 Summer Writers Workshop. If you don’t have it already, run out and buy her essay collection, Ill Nature, and every other one of her books that they carry. I think we were universally blown away by Williams’s reading, and couldn’t be more pleased to have her back this summer.

Stay tuned for a variety of audio features from our magazine, book division, and workshop–readings, interviews, craft seminars, panels, and pretty much anything else we think is worth your while.

Big thanks to our pal Daniel Grazzini (of the Portland band Reporter) for helping us out with the recording and mastering, as well as The Bananas for allowing us to use Pink Tuxedo as the theme music.

UPDATE: The TIn House Podcast is now available in the iTunes Store. Subscribe now for free!