Keep the Channel Open Mike Sakasegawa

Sarah Rose Etter is a writer based in Los Angeles, CA. In Sarah’s latest novel, Ripe, a young woman is trapped in a dream-job-turned-corporate-nightmare at a cutthroat Silicon Valley tech startup. Her bosses are capricious and cruel, the city she lives in is crumbling under late capitalism, and everywhere she goes she is followed by her own personal black hole. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the relationship between her surrealist fiction and poetry, why visual art is important to her, and what it means for a character to have agency. Then for the second segment we discussed dead authors, reading in translation, and creative insecurity.
(Recorded March 2, 2024.)
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Show Notes: Sarah Rose Etter Purchase Ripe: Skylight Books (Los Angeles, CA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Sarah Rose Etter - The Book of X Keep the Channel Open - Episode 89: Julia Dixon Evans Tommy Pico Lilliam Rivera Kristen Arnett Sarah Rose Etter - “Unpublishable: Censored Emails from Noam Chomsky” Alina Szapocznikow Vija Celmins Nylon - “Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe and the Rotted Underbelly of Capitalism” Sarah Rose Etter - “Inside the Cardboard Box of My Heart” Mark Rothko Louise Bourgeois Donald Judd Sarah Rose Etter - “Girl, What Is Wrong With You?” Parasite Uncut Gems Sarah Rose Etter - “Subglacial Rivers, A Love Poem, Because… & Either/Or” Crane Brinton - The Anatomy of Revolution Brandon Taylor - “living shadows: aesthetics of moral worldbuilding” Tove Ditlevsen - The Copenhagen Trilogy Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine Transcript Episode Credits: Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

For this KTCO “Book” Club conversation, writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall returns to the show to talk about the game Baldur’s Gate 3. In our conversation, Maggie and I talked about what it’s like to experience a story with so many branching paths, how player choices reflect the player’s personality, as well as some standout storytelling moments from the game.
(Recorded February 9, 2024.)
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Show Notes: Maggie Tokuda-Hall Purchase Baldur’s Gate 3 Purchase The Siren, the Song, and the Spy Preorder The Worst Ronin Pools of Darkness Unlimited Adventures Icewind Dale Baldur’s Gate 2 Octopath Traveler The Last of Us The Adventure Zone Dungeons & Daddies Neil Newbon Roger Ebert - “Video games can never be art” The Brothers Sun Sarah Lotz - The Impossible Us Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Olatunde Osinaike is a poet based in Atlanta, GA. In his debut full-length poetry collection, Tender Headed, Olatunde explores Black masculinity, both celebrating and interrogating it in his sonically virtuosic poems. We talked about his approach to poetry, what poetic lineage means to him, and the silences inherent in patriarchy. Then for the second segment, we talked about departure albums and André 3000’s New Blue Sun.
(Recorded January 20, 2024.)
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Show Notes: Olatunde Osinaike Purchase Tender Headed: 44th and 3rd Booksellers (Atlanta, GA) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Akashic Books (publisher) Olatunde Osinaike - Upcoming Events Bonus Reading for Patreon Subscribers: Olatunde Osinaike reads “Being Human Takes a Lot of Nerve” Etheridge Knight - “The Sun Came” Gwendolyn Brooks - “truth” Paul M. Angle - “We Asked Gwendolyn Brooks about the Creative Environment in Illinois” André 3000 - New Blue Sun American Fiction They Cloned Tyrone Tristan Harris Knives Out Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet and podcaster Rachel Zucker returns to the show to discuss Eugenia Leigh’s poetry collection Bianca. In our conversation, we talked about our approaches to talking about books with their authors, how form shapes how we take in intense subject matter in a poem, and how a book can be a means of connection.
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Show Notes: Rachel Zucker Purchase Bianca: Print (Portland, ME) | The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Eugenia Leigh James Schuyler - “This Dark Apartment” Jack Kornfield - “Transform Your Life Through Jack Kornfield’s Most Powerful Stories: A 10 Hour Journey” Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a writer and artist from Mexico City. In his debut novel, Monstrilio, Gerardo draws from both horror and literary fiction traditions to tell a story about grief, family, and self-acceptance. In our conversation, Gerardo and I talked about genre expectations, genre fiction as a site of art, and what it means to be monstrous. For the second segment, we talked about the tension between fulfilling your own artistic vision and creating work that will sell.
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Show Notes: Gerardo Sámano Córdova Purchase Monstrilio: Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Paul Semel - “Exclusive Interview: ‘Monstrilio’ Author Gerardo Sámano Córdova” At Home with Literati: Gerardo Sámano Córdova & Kelly Link CrimeReads - “Horror Does a Body Good, or, the Story of My Teeth” Chuck Tingle Petite Maman Petite Maman - Official Trailer Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a writer based in the Bronx, NY. In his debut novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana presents us with a dystopian future America where convicted prisoners fight each other to the death in a televised bloodsport. The book is both a blistering critique of the US carceral system and an insistence on the inalienable humanity of every person. In our conversation, Nana and I talked about what satire and dystopia open up for him as a writer, why it’s important to him to implicate both the reader and himself in his work, and how he thinks about prison abolition. Then in the second segment, we talked about the seductive nature of success as an artist in a capitalist society.
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Show Notes: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Purchase Chain-Gang All-Stars: The Lit Bar (Bronx, NY) | Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA) | Bookshop.org Kendrick Lamar - “The Art of Peer Pressure” Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Friday Black Metroidvania (game genre) @america_is_the_bad_place Keep the Channel Open - Episode 128: Anahid Nersessian John Keats - “To Autumn” Starship Troopers (1997 film) John Gardner - The Art of Fiction Ta-Nehisi Coates - “Killing Dylan Roof” Kadhja Bonet - The Visitor Transcript Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Podington Bear Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo