fiction/non/fiction
Hosted by Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan, fiction/non/fiction interprets current events through the lens of literature, and features conversations with writers of all stripes, from novelists and poets to journalists and essayists.
Episodes
July 17, 2025 • 53 mins
Pulitzer Prize finalist Ed Park joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his debut short story collection, An Oral History of Atlantis. Park talks about writing the stories in the book over a period of about 25 years, during which he was frequently asked to read in New York and crafted work for specific venues, audiences, and events. He explains how this led to a wide-ranging and ultimately linked set of pi...
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July 10, 2025 • 48 mins
Writer Raina Lipsitz joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss Zohran Mamdani’s surprise win in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. Lipsitz explains how Mamdani, a 33-year-old Muslim politician supported by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), appealed to a wide swath of voters to upset three-term governor Andrew Cuomo. She talks about volunteering for Mamdani’s campaign, the racist and Is...
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July 3, 2025 • 53 mins
Prize-winning Iranian American author Dina Nayeri joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss the complicated reality of survival on the ground during Israel’s recent bombing of Iran. Nayeri talks about the destruction leveled on Ardestoon, where her father’s family lives; her memories of running for bomb shelters during the Iran-Iraq war; and the current situation for her family in Iran. Nayeri explains how d...
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June 26, 2025 • 50 mins
New York Times reporter Ernesto Londoño joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the recent murder of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman, which has made headlines as local politicians in the U.S. are rarely targeted for assassination. Londoño describes how a gunman posing as law enforcement went to the homes of several state politicians, killing Hortman and her husband Mark and gravely injuring ...
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June 20, 2025 • 51 mins
Writer Geoff Dyer joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new memoir Homework, which covers Dyer’s working-class youth in England during the 1960s and ’70s. He recollects his early passion for reading and film and reflects on writing about his parents, as well as the intensity of childhood play and collecting in the wake of the Second World War. He also explains what it meant for him to pass the 11-plu...
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June 12, 2025 • 46 mins
Fiction writer Jess Walter joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new novel So Far Gone, in which a former environmental reporter living off the grid is jolted back onto it by the surprise arrival of his two grandchildren and news of his missing daughter. Walter talks about developing the character of his protagonist’s son-in-law, whose right-wing politics are one of the causes of the family’s fissure...
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June 5, 2025 • 46 mins
Acclaimed fiction writer Susan Choi joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss her new novel, Flashlight. Choi talks about the opening incident, in which a girl goes for a walk on the beach in Japan with her father only for him to disappear, presumably drowned. Choi explains the novel’s relationship to a short story she published in The New Yorker in 2020 and how the father’s past emerged as she worked on the...
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May 29, 2025 • 49 mins
Nonfiction writer Paul Elie joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to discuss his new book The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s and Pope Leo XIV. Elie compares the new pope to John Paul II, whose conservative views shaped the 1980s. He explains how and why ’80s artists like Andy Warhol, U2, and Bob Dylan produced art he considers “crypto-religious,” a term coined by poet Czesław Miłosz. He ...
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May 22, 2025 • 64 mins
Fiction writer Julia Elliott joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about why President Trump’s tariff policy appeals to voters in small towns in the Midwest and South, which have been economically devastated for the past couple of decades following the North American Free Trade Agreement. Elliott considers Democrats’ failure to articulate their own successes using tariffs to bring jobs back to the U.S. Ellio...
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May 15, 2025 • 60 mins
Novelist and journalist Mirza Waheed joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about brewing tensions between two nuclear powers: India and Pakistan. Waheed, who was born in Kashmir and previously worked as a journalist, explains how the recent massacre of Indian tourists there at the hands of militants connects to a broader context that includes Partition, the 1947 event that separated the two countries. He ref...
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May 8, 2025 • 49 mins
Writer Hamilton Nolan joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about opinion journalism. Nolan, who writes frequently about labor and politics, discusses how and why he entered journalism, the myth of objectivity, and how he views the relationship between activism and journalism. He explains how long it took for him to make money on Substack, reflects on what it means to share an opinion in the current politica...
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May 1, 2025 • 54 mins
South African writer Rešoketšwe Manenzhe joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the influence that wealthy South African immigrants like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are having on the Trump administration and conservative U.S. politics in general. Manenzhe talks about how growing up under apartheid may have shaped these men’s views, how South Africans view Musk now, and what the country’s history can tell...
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April 24, 2025 • 39 mins
Following Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s widely publicized and false claims about autism, writer Jodie Hare joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to talk about the politics of neurodiversity and the importance of autistic communities. Hare, who was diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, explains how the pathologization of the autistic population is historically connected to industrializa...
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April 17, 2025 • 57 mins
Acclaimed novelist and journalist Vauhini Vara joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V Ganeshananthan to discuss her new essay collection, Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age. Vara talks about the rise of the loser tech bro, internet privacy, Google search logs, the power and limits of turning one’s collected personal data into art, and whether a recently publicized AI-authored short story is actually good.
To hear the full epis...
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April 10, 2025 • 48 mins
Following ICE’s detention of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil and the sudden revocation of hundreds of student visas across the country, professor and novelist Sheila Sundar joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the targeting of international university students, especially those involved in pro-Palestine speech or protests, by the Trump administration. Sundar reflects on a childhoo...
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April 3, 2025 • 58 mins
Essayist, poet, and Yale Review editor Meghan O’Rourke joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her recent New York Times piece, “The End of the University as We Know It.” O’Rourke discusses the situation at Columbia University; the Trump administration’s attacks on other universities, including the threats to deport international students for participation in pro-Palestine protests; the false notion of ...
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March 27, 2025 • 46 mins
Novelist Alex Higley joins host V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his new novel, True Failure, in which a man fired from his job decides not to tell his wife what happened and attempts to change his fortunes by applying to join the cast of a Shark Tank-like show. Higley discusses how he experiences the news in Trump 2.0; lying as avoidance and as emotional refuge; and two big American lies (that an individual can succeed on his own...
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March 20, 2025 • 43 mins
Novelist, memoirist and biographer Edmund White joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about his recent book, The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir. White talks about the changes he has witnessed the LGBTQ+ community go through over the years and the hostility the transgender population faces under the Trump-Vance regime. He discusses a general concern older members of the community have about losing Social Sec...
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March 13, 2025 • 49 mins
Bestselling fiction writer Curtis Sittenfeld joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about her new collection of stories, Show Don’t Tell. Sittenfeld discusses the title story, which depicts graduate students in creative writing competing for funding, and its connections to her time at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, when that practice was common. She also considers how President Trump’s attacks on DEI reveal som...
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March 6, 2025 • 48 mins
Professor Karen Weingarten joins co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about a new anthology she has edited, Abortion Stories: American Literature Before Roe v. Wade. Weingarten reflects on the complicated history of abortion, the varied use of abortifacients, abortion’s ties to eugenics and state control of bodies, and the rise of the anti-abortion movement. She discusses how access to abortion facilitates other...
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