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An Interview with David Naimon

In the last few years, podcasts have exploded in popularity. Perhaps it’s something about hearing the human voice and feeling that connection with another person. Like many people, I have podcasts that I regularly listen to. One of my favorites is David Naimon’s Between the Covers. On his radio show, Naimon interviews a wide range of writers, from those who are household names to those who are just starting out. He engages deeply with each writer’s work and always gives his listeners a new way of thinking about complex issues related to literature, life, and society. Between the Covers is essential listening for anyone who loves books and thought-provoking, even life-changing, conversations. Just as his show is illuminating, so too was this interview. We talked about writing across difference, what role writers play in these difficult times, and much more.

–Caitlin, Nonfiction Editor for Burning House Press

 

Burning House Press: Thanks so much for agreeing to this interview! How did Between the Covers get started? Were you already in radio or was this new to you?

 

David Naimon: I was already hosting a non-literary show at the radio station (KBOO 90.7FM in Portland, Oregon) before hosting Between the Covers. At some point the programmers of all the shows started receiving emails with inquiries like “Rick Moody is coming to town, anybody available to interview him?” It made me wonder if that show was all of a sudden in need of hosts. It turned out that one of the main hosts of the show had left and that my interest in filling that void was a welcome one. My first interview was with Anthony Doerr. At the time he was a writer’s writer, not the household name he is today, but he was so warm and responsive and enthusiastic that it was infectious. I never looked back.

Continue reading “An Interview with David Naimon” →

An Interview with Physicist and Poet Florence Lenaers

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

Hello Florence! Thanks so much for agreeing to speak with me here on Burning House Press. I’m fascinated by your bio: you’re a PhD student in physics who also writes poetry. I’ve got to ask, why? What draws you to both physics and poetry?  

Hi Amee! Thanks a lot for this opportunity. Oddly enough, the driving force was, & still is, the same in both cases: a thirst for equilibrium, the urge to build an extension upon my collage-like experience of the world; to challenge myself out of my comfort zone, towards areas left uncharted on my maps; to counterbalance an excess of centripetence; to overwrite certainties; to ride a Trojan horse within my own fortress, then to open the gates to cross-pollination.

“my favourite places to roam are borderlands”

Continue reading “An Interview with Physicist and Poet Florence Lenaers” →

‘Relax’ by A.G. Kayman

Relax

‘Ye’re so fuckin tense,’ he says. An in ma heid Ah’m like, whit the fuck, if ye want tae make somebdy less tense then the worst thing ye kin say is ‘Ye’re so fuckin tense’. Ah mean, whit guid is that gonnae dae?

Ah actually feel like sayin that tae him, bit Ah dinnae want tae end up back oan the rock ‘n’ roll, so fuck that fur a game o soadjurz. Jist huv tae grin an bear it Ah suppose – minus the grin obviously.

‘Seriously, man, jist relax,’ he says. ‘Ivryhin’s easier when ye relax, take it fae me.’

Ah take a deep breath an look at the flair. ‘Yes, chef,’ Ah say.

‘Look at me when ye’re talkin tae me,’ he says. Continue reading “‘Relax’ by A.G. Kayman” →

What trumps love

by Fredric Nord

You complete me, he says. In the movie. Manufacturing swoon and meme for the masses. Romance aside: I stare at art. I’m stunned by some lines of charcoal on paper. I’m liberated. It completes me. A moment of Eureka soft as morning. An Oh Snap gentle as the night. Our habit is of completeness: each irregularity will eventually be found by a being that seems born to complete it. Our habit is of individuality, and then overcoming it. Continue reading “What trumps love” →

‘1st Weekend’ by Terence Corless

1st Weekend

 

Billy and Ian are walking along opposite sides of the high street in Cambridge, pretending to throw an imaginary ball across the cars that glide by in the darkness. It’s really windy so if there was a ball, it would have flown off in the wrong direction by now, but these boys don’t seem that concerned by the laws of reality at the moment – the party in their fuzzed up heads is much better than what’s going on out here. Continue reading “‘1st Weekend’ by Terence Corless” →

3 Poems by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

//The exorcist leaves our solar system

 

Called by their kindness, some, and

cursed to serve, others, but

I am just hungry, from room

to room nick-nacking

 

He sets the oven doors ajar

and moves the pictures all awry:

the house is breathing on the shore,

the house is angled at the sky. Continue reading “3 Poems by Edwin Evans-Thirlwell” →

a conversation in poetry with stephanie roberts

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

I invited poet and artist stephanie roberts — who has poems on Burning House Press and in The Arsonist Magazine — to trade lines of poetry with me. I’d never collaborated with another poet before, so the experience was something of a leap into the unknown. We began emailing poem shreds back and forth. The days flowed by, as did the weeks; the lines formed and shifted. Soon, a poem emerged —

 

(α)  ANB:

Lacewings quake in the crepitation of thistles

& reeds. Crickets creak wintled heartbeats dry.

 

(β)  stephanie roberts:

It would have been perfect, the river remapped boundary;

the embryonic recreates in its image.

Continue reading “a conversation in poetry with stephanie roberts” →

‘The Good Ghost Bill Moran’ by Miggy Angel

Bill Moran (Good Ghost Bill) is a poet, performer and writer from Austin, Texas – and Bill was in Nottingham to perform for us at Speech Therapy whilst on his recent European tour back in May. Continue reading “‘The Good Ghost Bill Moran’ by Miggy Angel” →

‘Walking Towards Death’ – 5 Essays on Mortality by Arathi Devandran

Part 5: ‘Dear Younger Me’

Dear Younger Me,

The first, and most important thing I want to tell you is this – growing up is hard, but things will always work out in the end.

Becoming older will teach you a couple of big lessons about life.

There will be times where you will wonder if you will ever recover from some of these experiences – heartbreak, failure, bad habits, illnesses. The answer is, yes, you will. You may not be the same person at the end of the experience, but you will recover, and you will find that you will be better for it.

Often, even as you are growing older, you will feel like a child – lost and confused. You will wonder if you’ll ever stop feeling this way. You won’t, not really. But you will get better at dealing with it.

Continue reading “‘Walking Towards Death’ – 5 Essays on Mortality by Arathi Devandran” →

‘Walking Towards Death’ – 5 Essays on Mortality by Arathi Devandran

Part 4: ‘Fighting Ageing’

My father stopped taking his cholesterol tablets for two weeks. At his regular health check-up, his cholesterol levels were higher than usual; that was when he confessed that he had decided to abstain from his tablets, just to “see how it goes”. Needless to say, it did not go very well – he was promptly chastised by his doctor and his wife, and he’s been dutifully taking his tablets again.

Then there was the time when he thought it was a good idea to take virgin coconut oil everyday – a spoonful a day goes a long way, or so he was told. As most things in life go, too much of anything is never a good idea, and so he ended up with a hacking cough and cold that lasted for weeks.

My father does this often. He tests the boundaries of what he should and should not do, being purposefully stubborn and insistent in doing certain things his own way (be it right or wrong), and then suffering the consequences of his actions. There is a stubborn mule headedness to him that is usually absent in his demeanor.

My father’s not the only one.

Continue reading “‘Walking Towards Death’ – 5 Essays on Mortality by Arathi Devandran” →

2 Poems by Scott Thomas Outlar

Homeward Bound

 

I sang to my Father

on his deathbed.

He had not spoken a word

in days, cancer-ridden,

organs collapsing, high on morphine,

but I knew he could still hear me. Continue reading “2 Poems by Scott Thomas Outlar” →

“She Begins Again To Live in the Past”: On The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras

I don’t know how to write about Lol Stein. I’ll start there, with an admission of my own limitations, a confession that any review that I write will fail to encompass all that I felt while reading it and all that I feel all these months and years later. Anything I write about it will be mired in my own history and my own memories.

I hate writing reviews because words never touch the experience of reading a book. This review can’t make you feel what I felt, holding the book in my hands, discovering the words on the page, all the moments in which images and scenes have flashed in my mind. But I want to say something about this book. I have so much that I want to say.

Continue reading ““She Begins Again To Live in the Past”: On The Ravishing of Lol Stein by Marguerite Duras” →

2 Poems by Fin Sorrel

Radio Molar Signal

 

One moss harbor,

winding clocks in center’s orbit, wobbling

circus –

three camera’s, a candle vessel – paddling through power lines, black then white.

Sure – a noise dreamt cricket –

Weave these prayers into flux –

refine metals, resemble the limbo we sing in fisheries,

under long,

black silhouettes

shining onto one light, our mugwort song. Continue reading “2 Poems by Fin Sorrel” →

2 Poems by Steve Meagher

ANONYMOUS ROOMS

 

Five hundred miles off

On a night of no surrender

Amid the bedrock and the pine

 

In the anonymous rooms

Where we whisper salvations

To the prayer flags on the walls

 

For the sake of our sins

Now fixed upon the surface

Of the love we yield to the grave

 

At the gates of some heaven

When the message comes clear

This damn destiny is all we deserve

Continue reading “2 Poems by Steve Meagher” →

‘Short Stories’ – Gabriel Feld

 

 

 

 

ShortStories_I-II

 

ShortStories_III-IV

 

Continue reading “‘Short Stories’ – Gabriel Feld” →

A Conversation in Photographs with Narayan St. Jude

by Amee Nassrene Broumand

 

The city was Boise, Idaho. The year was 1995. I was 17 and taking photography classes at Boise State University. While hovering over trays of chemicals in the darkroom one afternoon, I wound up having a three-hour-long conversation with one of my classmates, a gifted artist named Ronny Joe Grooms. Flash forward to 2017. I message my friend Ronny Joe – who goes professionally by the name of Narayan St. Jude – and ask him to join me in photographic conversation for Burning House Press.

He agrees. Continue reading “A Conversation in Photographs with Narayan St. Jude” →

diisonance – experimental/collaborative poetry project/performance – Bank Street Arts, Sheffield, 23rd June 2017

Continue reading “diisonance – experimental/collaborative poetry project/performance – Bank Street Arts, Sheffield, 23rd June 2017” →

The Arsonist Magazine Launch Party Thursday 22nd June 2017 @ The Chameleon Arts Cafe Nottingham (- in pictures words and film)

arsonistlaunch22.6.1711arsonistlaunch22.6.1717arsonistlaunch22.6.1716arsonistlaunch22.6.1715arsonistlaunch22.6.1710 Continue reading “The Arsonist Magazine Launch Party Thursday 22nd June 2017 @ The Chameleon Arts Cafe Nottingham (- in pictures words and film)” →

Arsonist Magazine Contributor stephanie roberts Reads Her Poem ‘Catawampus’

With one of the poems that opens Edition 01 of The Arsonist Magazine here is the incredible Canadian poet and artist stephanie roberts reading ‘Catawampus’!

‘Gravity Falls, the Dusk is Claimed’ by Matthew Smart

Gravity Falls, the Dusk is Claimed

 

Return your tray to the window on the right.

Ignore the grasping hands within.

 

They jigger the lights as you walk to remind you,

never a footfall invests in the shadow lines

without a hesitation. Continue reading “‘Gravity Falls, the Dusk is Claimed’ by Matthew Smart” →

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