Jonathan Lethem is the author of A Different Kind of Tension: New and Selected Stories, available from Ecco. It was the official October 2025 pick of the Otherppl Book Club.
Lethem is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including Brooklyn Crime Novel, The Feral Detective, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His five story collections include Men and Cartoons and Lucky Alan, and his short fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the Paris Review, among other publications, garnering a Pushcart Prize, a World Fantasy Award, and inclusion in The Best American Short Stories. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lives in Los Angeles and Maine.
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Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
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Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:09:33
1001. Donika Kelly
Donika Kelly is the author of the poetry collection The Natural Order of Things, available from Graywolf Press.
Kelly is also the author of Bestiary, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and The Renunciations, winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:17:57
Space Mountain Death Trip
Volume 66 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Brad airs his 1000th author interview...Mira shares her favorite Otherppl memories...Mira hasn't slept in days...Luigi Mangione is a Swiftie...Mira's friend Alex has successfully bottomed...Angry Adam returns....Disney World has become America's hottest suicide destination...Kristen Bell refuses to apologize....Mossimo Giannulli's Skin addiction...Katy and Justin make it official...& more...
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:38:14
1000. Susan Orlean
Susan Orlean is the author of the memoir Joyride, available from Avid Reader Press, and she joins me for my 1,000th author interview.
Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the New York Times bestselling author of seven books, including The Library Book, Rin Tin Tin, Saturday Night, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in Los Angeles and may be reached at SusanOrlean.com and on Substack at SusanOrlean.Substack.com.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:27:25
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1:27:25
999. Francesca Wade
Francesca Wade is the author of the biography Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife, available from Scribner.
Francesca Wade is the author of Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars (2020). She has received fellowships from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, the Leon Levy Center for Biography and the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere.
***
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.
Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Get How to Write a Novel, the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors.
Subscribe to Brad's email newsletter.
Support the show on Patreon
Merch
Instagram
TikTok
Bluesky
Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com
The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly books and culture podcast featuring in-depth conversations with today's leading authors. Literature, screenwriting, the creative process, pop culture, and more. Available wherever you get your podcasts. Follow the show on Bluesky and Instagram.