This week we're joined by Isaac Butler (author, most recently, of The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act) to discuss a play by Annie Baker, The Aliens. Butler has worked as a theater director, as well as an author and podcaster and cultural critic, so we thought he'd be a perfect guest to help us wrap our heads around the world of contemporary theater. We talk about adapting plays for the screen, the Robert Altman version of Tony Kushner's Angels in America that almost existed, and how to figure out the right focus for a work of research-driven nonfiction like Butler's most recent book.

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This week we're joined by returning guest Asali Solomon (author of The Days of Afrekete) to discuss Kiese Laymon's award-winning memoir, Heavy. We talk about what people expect from memoir, and why readers are sometimes put off by complicated stories without easy resolutions.

We welcome Tyrese Coleman (How to Sit) to discuss the 1999 Sister Souljah novel The Coldest Winter Ever. We talk about the genre of street lit, and why some Black authors celebrate it while others bristle at being included in it. We also revisit Percival Everett's satirical novel Erasure, and wonder whether this Sister Souljah book inspired it. 

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