Guests: Dan Wickett and Kellie Wells (LBC Nominee, Summer 2006)

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Absent, avoiding his family lineage.

Subjects Discussed: Interdependent stories, the perception of a “novel in stories,” “Compression Scars” as the launching pad for the novel, building community consciousness within fiction, setting down distinct vernacular, preserving Midwestern cultural details, Sherwood Anderson, the publishing industry’s prejudice against the Midwest, cap guns, finding the right brand name referential balance, Spirographs, novelists as chroniclers, the adaptive nature of human behavior as expressed through fiction, The Pickwick Papers, writing about abuse, the origins of What Cheer, punk culture in Kansas, and the propinquity of magical realism to personal experience.