Keep the Channel Open

Writer, editor, and podcaster Jennifer Baker’s debut YA novel, Forgive Me Not, imagines a near-future America in which the juvenile criminal justice system has been “reformed” to allow young people to undergo grueling Trials instead of incarceration. It’s an incisive and powerful story about carceral justice, as well as a moving coming-of-age and family story. In our conversation we talked about writing about serious topics for younger readers, how she approached writing her characters, and why it was important for her to focus on systems rather than individual innocence or guilt. Then for the second segment we talked about finding inspiration in other art forms.

(Recorded April 3, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• Jennifer Baker
• Purchase Forgive Me Not: Kew & Willow Books (Kew Gardens, NY) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Minorities in Publishing podcast
• Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Chain-Gang All-Stars
• Kalief Browder
• Lionel Tate
• Squid Game
• Annie Proulx - “Brokeback Mountain” (short story)
• Brokeback Mountain (film)
• Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Nicholas Nichols
• Titus Kaphar
• Kelsey Norris - House Gone Quiet

Transcript Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

For this KTCO “Book” Club conversation, writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall returns to the show to talk about the game Baldur’s Gate 3. In our conversation, Maggie and I talked about what it’s like to experience a story with so many branching paths, how player choices reflect the player’s personality, as well as some standout storytelling moments from the game.

(Recorded February 9, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• Maggie Tokuda-Hall
• Purchase Baldur’s Gate 3
• Purchase The Siren, the Song, and the Spy
• Preorder The Worst Ronin
• Pools of Darkness
• Unlimited Adventures
• Icewind Dale
• Baldur’s Gate 2
• Octopath Traveler
• The Last of Us
• The Adventure Zone
• Dungeons & Daddies
• Neil Newbon
• Roger Ebert - “Video games can never be art”
• The Brothers Sun
• Sarah Lotz - The Impossible Us

Transcript Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Olatunde Osinaike is a poet based in Atlanta, GA. In his debut full-length poetry collection, Tender Headed, Olatunde explores Black masculinity, both celebrating and interrogating it in his sonically virtuosic poems. We talked about his approach to poetry, what poetic lineage means to him, and the silences inherent in patriarchy. Then for the second segment, we talked about departure albums and André 3000’s New Blue Sun.

(Recorded January 20, 2024.)

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Show Notes:

• Olatunde Osinaike
• Purchase Tender Headed: 44th and 3rd Booksellers (Atlanta, GA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Akashic Books (publisher)
• Olatunde Osinaike - Upcoming Events
• Bonus Reading for Patreon Subscribers: Olatunde Osinaike reads “Being Human Takes a Lot of Nerve”
• Etheridge Knight - “The Sun Came”
• Gwendolyn Brooks - “truth”
• Paul M. Angle - “We Asked Gwendolyn Brooks about the Creative Environment in Illinois”
• André 3000 - New Blue Sun
• American Fiction
• They Cloned Tyrone
• Tristan Harris
• Knives Out

Transcript Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

In the opening poem of Rachel Edelman’s debut collection, Dear Memphis, the speaker returns to their home city after a long time away, traversing a landscape that is both familiar and foreign, a place to which she belongs but also doesn’t. Over the course of the collection, Edelman asks questions about heritage and inheritance; about exile, diaspora, and migration; about home; about marginalization and privilege, oppression and complicity. In our conversation, we talked about acts of care, the importance of self-criticality, what poems do, and the necessary and the possible. Then for the second segment, we talked about corresponding via hand-written letters.

(Recorded June 28, 2024)

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Show Notes:

• Rachel Edelman
• Purchase Dear Memphis: Open Books (Seattle, WA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Jacob Lawrence - The Migration Series
• Morgan Parker - Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night
• Alan Kurdi (The boy on the beach)
• emet ezell
• Rachel Edelman & emet ezell - “The Correspondent’s Cheeks Are as a Bed of Spices”
• James Merrill - “Lost in Translation”
• AGNI 99

Transcript Episode Credits

• Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
• Music: Podington Bear
• Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

For this installment of the KTCO Book Club, writer and podcaster Maggie Tokuda-Hall joins us to discuss Susanna Clark’s 2020 novel Piranesi. A relatively slim volume, Piranesi is surprisingly difficult to summarize but, like its labyrinthine setting, with patience and attention the book will reveal its profound beauty and kindness. (Conversation recorded February 24, 2022.) Subscribe:

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Show Notes:

• Maggie Tokuda-Hall
• Failure to Adapt
• Purchase Piranesi: Mrs. Dalloway’s (Berkeley, CA) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Purchase Also an Octopus: Mrs. Dalloway’s (Berkeley, CA) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Purchase The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea: Mrs. Dalloway’s (Berkeley, CA) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Purchase Squad: Mrs. Dalloway’s (Berkeley, CA) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org
• Purchase Love in the Library: Mrs. Dalloway’s (Berkeley, CA) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) |
  

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