Otherppl is a books and culture podcast hosted by author Brad Listi. Featuring candid, in-depth conversations with acclaimed and emerging authors, the show explores literature, writing, publishing, the creative process, screenwriting and pop culture. More than 1,000 interviews since 2011. New episodes weekly.
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REPLAY: Elif Batuman on Immigration, Humiliation, and Reading the Russians
Sunday, November 8, 2026 • Duration 01:12:18
Today on the program, a trip into the archive and a return to Episode 506, my conversation with Elif Batuman, author of the novel The Idiot (Penguin), a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in 2018.
Air date: February 28, 2018.
Elif Batuman’s other books include the novel Either/Or and The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010 and holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University.
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Excerpt from 'Passengers,' by Alexander Maksik
Saturday, November 7, 2026 • Duration 24:41
Alexander Maksik reads from his new novel Passengers, available from Europa Editions. It was longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award for Fiction.
Maksik is the author of You Deserve Nothing, a New York Times and IndieBound bestseller; A Marker to Measure Drift, which was a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a finalist for the William Saroyan Prize and Le Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, and the basis of the 2023 motion picture Drift; Shelter in Place, named one of the best books of the year by the Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle; and The Long Corner, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, and named one of the best books of the year by The Australian. Maksik is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and The Sewanee Review's Andrew Lytle Prize. His books have been translated into a dozen languages.
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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
Merch
Instagram
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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
Michael Mann Down
Thursday, November 5, 2026 • Duration 01:31:31
Volume 110 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Brad takes a red eye to Tampa...Mira gets Covid at a drone metal show in Joshua Tree...recording on Election Day, smoking the hopium...the Brewers win the World Series...Brad's inner child rejoices...The Roo Review debuts...Martha Stewart goes homeless for Halloween...the Timberlake docuseries absolutely nobody asked for...Britney, join our family...Will Smith is a wife guy...goes leading man to deeply strange...Jada issues death threats...Michael Jackson or Willy Wonka?...Mira would have sex with an Oompa Loompa?...Michael Mann shoots himself in the leg...& 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
1061. Alexander Maksik
Tuesday, November 3, 2026 • Duration 01:12:24
Alexander Maksik is the author of the novel Passengers, now available from Europa Editions. It has been longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award for Fiction.
Maksik is the author of You Deserve Nothing, a New York Times and IndieBound bestseller; A Marker to Measure Drift, which was a New York Times Notable Book, as well as a finalist for the William Saroyan Prize and Le Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, and the basis of the 2023 motion picture Drift; Shelter in Place, named one of the best books of the year by the Guardian and the San Francisco Chronicle; and The Long Corner, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, and named one of the best books of the year by The Australian. Maksik is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and The Sewanee Review's Andrew Lytle Prize. His books have been translated into a dozen languages.
***
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
REPLAY: Tao Lin on Psychedelics, Attention, and Change
Sunday, November 1, 2026 • Duration 01:28:00
Today on the program, a trip into the archive and a return to Episode 521, my conversation with Tao Lin, author of Trip: Psychedelics, Attention, and Change (Vintage).
Air date: May 20, 2018.
Tao Lin is the author of the novels Leave Society and Taipei, the novella Shoplifting from American Apparel, and other books. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Harper's Magazine, Granta, The Paris Review, NOON, and elsewhere. He was born in Virginia, has taught in Sarah Lawrence College’s MFA program, and is the founder and editor of Muumuu House.
***
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
REPLAY: Frederick Barthelme on Family, Fiction, and American Decline
Saturday, October 31, 2026 • Duration 01:14:16
Today on the program, a trip into the archive and a return to Episode 327, my conversation with Frederick Barthelme, author of the novel There Must Be Some Mistake (Little, Brown).
Air date: November 5, 2014.
Barthelme studied fiction with John Barth at the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, from which he received his Master of Arts degree. From 1977 to 2010 he taught fiction writing and directed the Center for Writers at the University of Southern Mississippi. He won numerous awards including individual grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and diverse grants and awards as editor of Mississippi Review and Mississippi Review Online, which he founded and edited. He is the author of sixteen books of fiction and nonfiction and has been published in GQ, Fiction, Kansas Quarterly, Epoch, Ploughshares, Playboy, Esquire, TriQuarterly, NorthAmerican Review, The New York Times, Frank Magazine, The Southern Review, the Boston Globe Magazine, and elsewhere. His work has been translated into nine languages. His memoir, Double Down: Reflections onGambling and Loss, co-authored with his brother Steven, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. The same honor was awarded to his collection, The Law of Averages. His novel Elroy Nights was also a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a 2004 PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. In 2010 he won the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction and is presently editor and publisher of the online literary publication New World Writing (previously Blip Magazine).
***
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
1060. Emily Ogden
Tuesday, October 27, 2026 • Duration 01:12:54
Emily Ogden is the author of Darkness Becomes Bright: On the Brief Life and Immortal Art of Edgar Allan Poe (Viking). It is the official October pick of the Otherppl Book Club.
Ogden's other books include On Not Knowing: How to Love and Other Essays and Credulity: A Cultural History of US Mesmerism. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, and a Mellon Fellowship in the Columbia Society of Fellows, she is a professor of English at the University of Virginia.
***
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
REPLAY: Michael Schumacher on Allen Ginsberg, Poetry, and the Beat Generation
Sunday, October 25, 2026 • Duration 01:56:34
Today on the program, a trip into the archive and a return to Episode 684, my conversation with the late Michael Schumacher, author of Dharma Lion (University of Minnesota Press), a biography of the 20th century American poet Allen Ginsberg. Michael Schumacher died on December 29, 2025 at age 75.
Air date: December 9, 2020.
Schumacher (1950–2025) wrote extensively about Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation. His articles, reviews, and essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines across the country. He was editor of Family Business,a collection of letters between Allen and Louis Ginsberg, and The Essential Ginsberg, a volume of the best of Ginsberg’s poems, essays, songs, letters, journal entries, interviews, and photographs.
***
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
Are Too Many Books Being Published?
Saturday, October 24, 2026 • Duration 19:22
A brief reflection on the overwhelming number of books being published, the difficulty authors face finding readers, and whether traditional publishers should simply publish fewer books. Plus: a plea for better pitching etiquette, the problem with turning fan mail into a transaction, and why I no longer wants to publish anything unless it feels urgent, deeply personal, and worth the risk.
***
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
You Can See Everything Except Bigfoot
Thursday, October 22, 2026 • Duration 01:30:25
Volume 109 of Brad & Mira For the Culture...Mira sees You Can See Everything and The Devils...Happy Birthday, Tyler!....Siri and Kaya send gifts...Brad witnesses the Brewers win the pennant...experiences childlike joy for the first time in decades...did O.J. have a murder buddy?...Trump lusts after man's ass...Katie Zacharia, we hardly knew ya....Dudus gives Diddy a beatdown...new Bigfoot film casts aspersions upon old Bigfoot film...Jenny McCarthy remembers her time at Tom and Katie's wedding...& 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
