Friday, March 14, 2025
Promotional support is brought to you by the Power of Narrative Conference, celebrating its 26th year on the last weekend of March 28 and 29. 300-400 journalists from around the world are coming. Keynote speakers Susan Orlean, Connie Schultz, Dan Zak and Connie Chung will deliver the knowledge. Listeners of this podcast can get 15% off your enrollment fee by using the code CNF15. To learn more visit combeyond.bu.edu … and use that CNF15 code.
Become a Patron!Jaydra Johnson‘s debut essay collection, Low: Notes on Art & Trash, isn’t what you’d expect. At least it wasn’t what I was expecting heading into it.
It was judged by Maggie Nelson and won the Fonograf essay collection contest. Here’s a tidbit of what Maggie had to say about it:
“Jaydra Johnson’s Low is part instruction manual, part genealogy, part art criticism, and part memoir–all of it pushing with urgency and necessity. It’s written in wry, straight-ahead prose that hits no false notes, and feels honest and earned at every juncture … I found myself rooting hard for its narrator – while also realizing that there is no need, as she has clearly found her way, and is now our teacher.”
Lots of good stuff in this episode. We talk about:
- Luck
- Growing up poor
- Dialing up the weirdness
- And binge-buying books on eBay
If you want a bit more sauce (a full, mostly accurate transcript and the parting shot), check out the podcast-specific Substack here. Subscribe to get this shipped to your right around the time these podcasts go live. Forever free.
Then, of course, there’s the monthly rager, see below.
