The Bat Segundo Show was a long-running cultural radio program devoted to quirky and very thorough long-form interviews with contemporary authors, idiosyncratic thinkers, and other assorted artists. Guests included David Lynch, Octavia Butler, John Waters, John Updike, Stephen Fry, Marilynne Robinson, Karen Russell, Weird Al Yankovic, Robert A. Caro, and more than 500 others. There was also a program called Follow Your Ears, which was a thematic investigative counterpart, in which I pursued a specific subject through several angles. The entire archive of what I did from 2005 to 2014 is included here.
The Bat Segundo Show has recently moved its headquarters from one coast to another. We are working to rectify the disarray on this page and will be providing capsules for previous shows and more podcasts very soon!
MoreScarlett Thomas is most recently the author of The End of Mr. Y. Author: Scarlett Thomas Condition of Mr. Segundo: Recovering from Scarlett fever. Subjects Discussed: Prodigious fiction authors, pursuing the novel of ideas, Neuromancer, moving away from families to loner characters, striving for authenticity in a middle-class literary culture, smart women characters and sex, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 57:51 — 53.0MB)
MoreAnother quick little offering: Torrent Packs #4 and #5 of The Bat Segundo Show have been released to The Pirate Bay. Pack #4 contains Shows #61-80, and features interviews with Alison Bechdel, Daniel Handler, Tommy Chong, Nora Ephron, Scott Smith, Richard Dawkins, and many others. You can download the torrent here. Pack #5 contains Shows […]
MoreAlan DeNiro is most recently the author of Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Procrastinating at the last minute. Guests: Carolyn Kellogg and Alan DeNiro Subjects Discussed: Small Beer Press, genres, Jim Monroe, on being a post-science fiction author, picking from years of fabulism, on being a genre agnostic, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 58:55 — 53.9MB)
MoreAM Homes is most recently the author of The Mistress’s Daughter. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Remarkably terse. Author: A.M. Homes Subjects Discussed: Expanding the New Yorker piece to book form, the rules of memoir, inventing deposition testimony, being “dished up” by the Roiphe sisters, the false connection between Homes’ novels and the memoir, Joan Didion, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 44:38 — 40.9MB)
MoreTorrent Packs #2 and #3 of The Bat Segundo Show have been released to The Pirate Bay. Pack #2 contains Shows #21-40, and features interviews with William T. Vollmann, Dana Spiotta, Erica Jong, Sarah Waters, Tom Tomorrow, Harvey Pekar, and many others. You can download the torrent here. Pack #3 contains Shows #41-60, and features […]
MoreMarshall Klimasewiski is most recently the author of The Cottagers. > Condition of Mr. Segundo: Vacating from vacations. Guests: C. Max Magee and Marshall Klimasewiski Subjects Discussed: Drawing upon compartmentalized personal experience, writing unpleasant characters, sabbaticals, maintaining an ever-shifting narrative, writing short stories vs. novels, characters stuck in environments, protracted scenes, human connection vs. work, […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 45:33 — 41.7MB)
MoreMark Binelli is most recently the author of Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding pie-throwing Bolsheviks. Guests: Jessica Stockton and Mark Binelli Subjects Discussed: What’s real and what’s not real in Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die, anarchism, 20th century film references, the Coen brothers, Upton Sinclair, extemporaneous speeches, on not writing […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 36:00 — 33.0MB)
MoreLionel Shriver is most recently the author of The Post-Birthday World. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Abdicating his duties for an advertising campaign. Author: Lionel Shriver Subjects Discussed: Devising a dual narrative, snooker, film references, the relationship between The Bad Seed and Sliding Doors and Shriver’s novels, dialect and transcribed speech, sports in Shriver’s books, contrasting […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 56:52 — 52.1MB)
MoreJohn Sheppard is most recently the author of Small Town Punk Condition of Mr. Segundo: Avoiding Sheppard tones. Author: John Sheppard Subjects Discussed: Responding to Dan Green’s post, on being rejected by publishers and self-publishing, writing without a plot, on doing things twice, the connection between the conscious and subconscious thematics, getting out of the […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 39:19 — 36.0MB)
MoreTao Lin is most recently the author of EEEEE EEE EEEE and Bed. Condition of Mr. Segundo: Rattled by interlopers. Author: Tao Lin Subjects Discussed: Murakami meets Less Than Zero, the violent impulses of animals, Elijah Wood, Gmail chat as muse, Instant Messenger, one-sentence poetry, figuring out things and calming down, Ann Beattie, Tao Lin’s […]
Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 51:01 — 46.7MB)
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