59 min listen
David Ulin, author of THIRTEEN QUESTION METHOD
FromWriters on Writing: A Weekly Podcast for Writers, Readers, & Book Lovers
David Ulin, author of THIRTEEN QUESTION METHOD
FromWriters on Writing: A Weekly Podcast for Writers, Readers, & Book Lovers
ratings:
Length:
56 minutes
Released:
Oct 3, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
David L. Ulin is the author, most recently, of the novel, Thirteen Question Method. His other books include Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles, The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time; and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. For Library of America, he has edited Didion: The 1960s and 70s and Didion: The 1980s and 90s.
David Ulin is the books editor of Alta and the former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper's, The Paris Review, and The Best American Essays 2020. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Ucross Foundation, as well as a COLA Individual Master Artist Grant from the City of Los Angeles. He is a Professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the journal Air/Light.
David Ulin joined Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about cinematic writing, Chekhov’s gun, embodying a protagonist, the “literature of disintegration” and why he’s a fan, tulpas, noir, and much more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. We’re also excited to announce the opening of our new bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our own personal favorites. By purchasing through the store, you’ll support both independent bookstores and our show. New titles will be added all the time (it’s a work in progress). Finally, on Spotify you can listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We like to hear from our listeners.
(Recorded on September 22, 2023) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Co-Host: Marrie Stone Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett
David Ulin is the books editor of Alta and the former book editor and book critic of the Los Angeles Times. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Harper's, The Paris Review, and The Best American Essays 2020. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, and Ucross Foundation, as well as a COLA Individual Master Artist Grant from the City of Los Angeles. He is a Professor of English at the University of Southern California, where he edits the journal Air/Light.
David Ulin joined Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about cinematic writing, Chekhov’s gun, embodying a protagonist, the “literature of disintegration” and why he’s a fan, tulpas, noir, and much more.
For more information on Writers on Writing and additional writing tips, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. We’re also excited to announce the opening of our new bookstore on bookshop.org. We’ve stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our own personal favorites. By purchasing through the store, you’ll support both independent bookstores and our show. New titles will be added all the time (it’s a work in progress). Finally, on Spotify you can listen to an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at [email protected]. We like to hear from our listeners.
(Recorded on September 22, 2023) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Co-Host: Marrie Stone Music and sound editing: Travis Barrett
Released:
Oct 3, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of “Brotherless Night”: Writers use language with intention. So when V.V. (Sugi) Ganeshananthan’s Brotherless Night uses the word “terrorist” six times on the first page of a novel about the Sri Lankan civil war, and incorporates the second person, the reader understands they’re as much active participant as passive observer in the book. Sugi joins Marrie Stone to talk about the novel’s origin and why she initially didn’t have the “chops” to write it. She talks about her own relationship with Sri Lanka and the research that went into rendering this period of history to life. Writers may find interest in Sugi’s decision to write in the first (and second) person; the power of writing in the subjunctive; how to describe a foreign time and place (with its particular dishes and unfamiliar names) without being overly explanatory; how Sugi deals with difficult writing challenges the same way she deals with going to the dentist; finding trusted readers; and more. Su by Writers on Writing: A Weekly Podcast for Writers, Readers, & Book Lovers