Elissa Washuta

06/08/22 • 47 min

Jordan talks with Elissa Washuta (White Magic) about the transformative nature of narrative, avoiding vs. thinking about painful things, why she takes more notes, and the power of a good video game.

MENTIONED:

Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return
Dorrie the Little Witch by Patricia Coombs
The Craft
Red Dead Redemption 2

Elissa Washuta is a member of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and a nonfiction writer. She is the author of White Magic, My Body Is a Book of Rules, and Starvation Mode. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, Artist Trust, 4Culture, and Potlatch Fund. Elissa is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University.

be sure to rate/review/subscribe!

for more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MENTIONED:

Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return
Dorrie the Little Witch by Patricia Coombs
The Craft
Red Dead Redemption 2

be sure to rate/review/subscribe!

for more Thresholds, visit us at www.thisisthresholds.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Jessamine Chan

Jordan talks with Jessamine Chan about the ways having a kid changed her writing, about the difficulties mothers face in America, and about the one very good day of writing that led to The School for Good Mothers.

MENTIONED:

"Where is Your Mother?" by Rachel Aviv (The New Yorker)
Cost of Living by Emily Maloney
SCOTUS draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
The Ragdale Foundation

Jessamine Chan's debut novel is The School for Good Mothers, an instant New York Times bestseller. Her short stories have appeared in Tin House and Epoch. A former reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, she holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from Brown University. Her work has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Jentel, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Anderson Center, VCCA, and Ragdale. She lives in Chicago with her husband and daughter.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Jhumpa Lahiri

Jordan talks with Jhumpa Lahiri about her new collection of essays (Translating Myself and Others), how Ovid helped her navigate her mother’s death, and how translating her own new story collection is an exciting way to edit.

MENTIONED:

the Roman god Janus
the novels of Domenico Starnone (translated by Jhumpa Lahiri)
Ovid's Metamorphoses
"je est un autre" -- Arthur Rimbaud

Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of Translating Myself and Others as well as four works of fiction including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies, The Namesake, Unaccustomed Earth, and The Lowland; and another work of nonfiction, In Other Words. She has received numerous awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award; the PEN/Malamud Award; the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; the Premio Gregor von Rezzori; the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature; a 2014 National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama; and the Premio Internazionale Viareggio-Versilia. She is the editor of The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories and has translated three novels by Domenico Starnone into English. She teaches creative writing and literary translation at Princeton University, where she is director of the Program in Creative Writing.