Deborah Lott and Paul Lisicky will discuss their new books, writing life in quarantine, and what they've been reading. 

Don’t Go Crazy Without Me by Deborah Lott

Don’t Go Crazy Without Me tells the tragicomic coming of age story of a girl who grew up under the seductive sway of her outrageously eccentric father. He taught her how to have fun; he also taught her to fear food poisoning, other children’s infectious diseases, and the contaminating propensities of the world at large. Alienated from her emotionally distant mother, the girl bonded closely with her father and his worldview. When he plunged from neurotic to full-blown psychotic, she nearly followed him. Sanity is not always a choice, but for the sixteen-year-old, decisions had to be made and lines drawn between reality and what her mother called her “overactive imagination.” She would have to give up beliefs carried by the infectious agent of her father’s love.

Later: My Life At The Edge Of The World by Paul Lisicky

When Paul Lisicky arrived in Provincetown in the early 1990s, he was leaving behind a history of family trauma to live in a place outside of time, known for its values of inclusion, acceptance, and art. In this idyllic haven Lisicky searches for love and connection. At the same time, the center of this community is consumed by the AIDS crisis and the very structure of town life is being rewired out of necessity. What might this utopia look like during a time of dystopia?

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

This week I sit down with novelist and memoirist Paul Lisicky to discuss his new memoir, Later: My Life at The Edge of The World. We dive into the process of memory in writing memoir, the ways of poetically complicating how time works in narrative, and the influences that let him know what was possible to be at home in memoir. We also discuss his formative experiences living in Provincetown in the 1990s, and discovering queer identity during the times of the AIDS epidemic.

Paul Lisicky. Photo by Beowulf Sheehan.[/caption]

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Paul Lisicky, author of Later: My Life at the Edge of the World (Graywolf Press, 2020), talks about his latest book.

Big thanks to Bay Path University's MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing and to HippoCamp 2020 for the support. 

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Episode 16! Our podcast is officially old enough to drive! We read "Lawnboy" by Paul Lisicky, a novel about finding yourself that we walk into a bunch of gay sex scenes during. Topics include Florida, D.A.R.E., and our new recording set up! A great and cozy episode! Tell your friends.  

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Paul Lisicky is the author of five books: The Narrow Door, Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, Ecotone, Fence, The Offing, Ploughshares, Tin House, Unstuck, and in many other magazines and anthologies. His awards include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Corporation of Yaddo, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a Fellow. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Rutgers-Newark, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and elsewhere. He currently teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden, the low residency program at Sierra Nevada College, and at the Juniper Summer Writing Institute. He is the editor of StoryQuarterly and serves on the Writing Committee of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.

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After some discussion of reading that can change your life, two readings about life in huge moments of change: marriage, death, love. Cara Parks reads an essay and Paul Lisicky reads the opening of his new book, The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship (on sale January 19).

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Paul Lisicky is the author of a novel, Lawnboy, and Famous Builder, a collection of essays. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Short Takes, Open House, Boulevard, Flash Fiction, and many other anthologies and magazines. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s the recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Henfield Foundation, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where he was twice a fellow. He lives in New York City, and has taught at Cornell University, NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, Antioch University-Los Angeles, The University of Houston, and The Bread Loaf Writers Conference. A new novel, Lumina Harbor, is forthcoming.

Paul Lisicky read from his work on February 15th, 2008, at the Schwartz Auditorium of Cornell’s Rockefeller Hall.  This interview took place two weeks later.