I'll Find Myself When I'm Dead
A podcast about the literary essay: what it is, why we like it, and which ones are our favorites. Co-hosted by Elena Passarello and Justin St. Germain, who are both creative nonfiction professors and acclaimed writers in the genre.
Episodes
This week, we’re talking about revision. We discuss a chapter of Stephen Koch’s The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop that’s one of the better nuts-and-bolts revision guides, common drafting issues, the role of feedback and workshops, why revision is often taught poorly or not at all, and what our processes look like. Also: our recent appearance on a more professional podcast, some sports talk, Mary Karr, Ecco Homo, Van Halen, and m...
This week we’re checking in with March Faxness again, now that the field has narrowed to four songs/essays (including David’s!). We discuss the recent games, preview the semifinals, and make our picks for who’s going to win. Also: Elena takes up a new instrument, we’ve met a lot of Xness writers since our last episode—one of whom, Tim States, we include a mini-interview with—some AWP Philadelphia/Tucson Book Fest talk, a long tange...
This week we’re talking about possibly the best essay-related week of the year: March Faxness round 1, in which 64 essays about cover songs faced off in a tournament. We try to touch on our favorites—although we probably missed some—and discuss the bracket and upcoming games. Also: Elvis Costello gets spicy on Twitter, we all get spicy about the Mountain Goats, dork rodeos, community college bowl, Denry’s back(!), Drake’s reading l...
This week we’re talking about the real reason this podcast exists: the annual March Xness essay/song tournament, which is about cover songs this year.
Some things we mention:
March Faxness (and the previous tournaments): http://marchxness.com
Follow March Xness on Twitter: https://twitter.com/marchxness
March Faxness Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3rNwexRZ9dmA0nvssrPlDK
Joan Jett’s “Crimson & Clover”: ht...
This week we’re talking about essays that aren’t in the first person. Elena picked one example, Eliot Weinberger’s “The Rhinoceros,” and Justin picked another, an excerpt from Claudia Rankine’s Citizen. Also: the new Macbeth, the acting role Elena was recently offered, Elena recites some Lady Macbeth, some Arnold Palmer talk, and a mini-spelling bee.
Some things we mention:
Eliot Weinberger’s “The Rhinoceros”: http://www.rhinoresou...
This week we’re talking about this year’s edition of the Pushcart Prize anthology. We compare it to Best American, discuss the important differences, and focus on a few selections from the anthology. Also: Build-A-Bears, Paint & Wine, Burt Reynolds, male pattern baldness, egg donation, BoJack Horseman, some March Faxness warmup talk, and more!
Some things we mention:
The Pushcart Prize: http://www.pushcartprize.com
This week we’re talking about this year’s edition of Best American Essays. We compare it to previous years (spoiler: this one is a bummer), discuss the new subgenre of pandemic essays, and focus on a few selections from the anthology. Also: David makes us a pandemic cocktail, Justin’s dog makes a few barky cameos, we (well, one of us) question the entire Best American Essays enterprise, and we do a year-end lightning news/round. Se...
This week we discuss our first listener pick, Sophie Calle’s “The Address Book,” which was suggested by Will Howard. Also: lots of “Succession” talk (including a couple of potential spoilers), John McPhee’s inscrutable diagrams, more Chekhov, the kids’ music these days, whether we’d want to be address-booked, what we’d say about each other if it happened, Elena makes up a song about the 1985 Chicago Bears, and more! (Also, send us ...
This week we discuss our feelings, how to write about feelings, our feelings some more, and two essays about feelings: Jerald Walker’s “Breathe,” and Chris Offutt’s “Trash Food.” (Sorry about the audio quality—we had some tech issues this week.)
Jerald Walker’s “Breathe” in New England Review:
https://www.nereview.com/vol-40-no-3-2019/breathe/
Chris Offutt’s “Trash Food” in Oxford American:
This week we discuss the biggest news in the entire world since our last episode—Elena's appearance last week on Jeopardy!
Elena’s episode (until it gets taken down): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExlEesN4Sl8
Elena’s J-Archive.com contestant page: https://www.j-archive.com/showplayer.php?player_id=14301
“The Jeopardy! Essay” by Mike Garabedian: https://www.academia.edu/44462679/The_Jeopardy_Essay
In our Season 4 premiere, we discuss what we've been up to since last season, a reader email, Big People Fashion, AI voice prints, and the recent Anthony Bourdain & Val Kilmer documentaries. Also: Elena does her best Christopher Walken impression, and we tackle the eternal question: is Val Kilmer a good actor?
Links:
Roadrunner: https://www.amazon.com/Roadrunner-Film-About-Anthony-Bourdain/dp/B09BB55XXX
In our season 3 finale, we discuss documentary/nonfiction theater. Elena explains the subgenre, and David joins us to discuss “The Laramie Project,” a nonfiction play. Also: a stapler anthology update, a stapler anthology cocktail, some true crime talk, a theater-themed lightning round, our worst performances, and more! Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next season.
“The Laramie Project,” full text: http://www.harringtonartsa...
This week, we’re re-recording the lost episode from two weeks ago, about Eula Biss’ 2020 book Having and Being Had. We discuss its main topics—capitalism and class—as well as whether it’s a book-length essay and why or why not. Also: other books we’re reading, a creaky chair, the hottest day in Oregon history, how much money we’d cut our thumbs off for, and more!
Links: The upcoming (7/5) Essay Daily Salon with Justin and Jana Lar...
This week, our special guest, longtime friend, and fellow nonfiction professor Dave Madden joins us to discuss two essays about fucking: Samuel Delaney’s “Ash Wednesday,” and Kristen Dombek’s “Letter from Williamsburg.” Also: Father’s Day presents, workshop models, a debate about sentences, Sizzler essays, and more!
Links:
Dave’s website: https://www.davemadden.org
Dave’s web designer, Beth Sullivan: https://bethsullivan.com
Our episode for this week failed to record (thanks, Zoom!), so we're going back to the archives. More than a year ago, back when the pandemic was still young, we recorded an episode about Val Kilmer's memoir I'm Your Huckleberry. It has the fewest downloads of any of our episodes, for some mysterious reason, so we decided to dig it out and re-post it to hold you over until we can get our shit together and finish Season 3. Also: oth...
This week, we discuss the 1993 Canadian/French Canadian film “Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould,” which we think is essayistic in many ways. Also: breath mints found in orifices, the thesis circle of life, writing too-long essays, apocalyptic media, Hamlet 2, “Canadian stakes,” lyric vs. narrative, accessibility, Graham Gano, and more!
Links: The full movie on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv7nPiZHKy4
In this week's episode, we discuss two "The Art of ..." interviews from the Paris Review: one on the essay with Hilton Als, and another with Geoff Dyer about nonfiction in general. Also: our mutual love of Mrs. Dalloway, Elena’s study abroad experience, our rocky resumption of vaccinated socializing, Val Kilmer has a documentary, a couple of weird bird stories, one sad cat story, a lightning round about celebrities, lots ...
In this week's episode, we're talking about our generations. After Justin's mini-generation was dubbed Geriatric Millennials, we decided to read two examples from Donald Hall's book Essays After Eighty. Also: a Uhaul story, teaching 9/11 essays to Gen Z, a little baseball talk about the "yips," times we biffed it in public, an old-themed lightning round, and lots & lots of old-person complaining about the kids these d...
This week, we discuss the Texas Review's All-Essay Issue from late 2020, including two specific essays by Wendy C. Ortiz and Vincent James. Also: a virgin fake-gin cocktail, Godzilla vs. Kong, terrible jobs we've had, times we've gotten fired, an alarming amount of Will Smith content, and more!
Links:
Texas Review All-Essay Issue: http://www.thetexasreview.org/issues/
Seedlip non-alcoholic gin: https://www.seedlipdrinks.com/en-us/s...
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