Reckon True Stories is a celebration of new and classic nonfiction – the essays, journalism, and memoirs that inspire us, that change the world, and help us connect with each other.
Join hosts and acclaimed authors Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) and Kiese Laymon (Heavy, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, Long Division) for in-depth discussions about the stories we tell and how they impact our culture.
Produced by Ursa Story Company, in partnership with Reckon.
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More from Deesha: Ursa Short Fiction, with Dawnie Walton & Deesha Philyaw
Season 2 · Episode 1
Thursday, October 24, 2024 • Duration 10:46
While we're on season break with Reckon True Stories, here's a sneak preview from Season Three of Ursa Short Fiction, Deesha's other podcast with author (and True Stories producer!) Dawnie Walton.
Show notes:
Follow Season Three in your favorite podcast app.
Support the show with a membership or one-time contribution, and get access to bonus episodes: ursastory.com/join
Read more about Dawnie Walton's next novel!
Contact us via email: hello@ursastory.com
Produced by: Dawnie Walton, Deesha Philyaw, and Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Season One Finale: Samantha Irby on the Art of Comedy Writing
Season 1 · Episode 10
Tuesday, September 10, 2024 • Duration 01:06:44
Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon chat with the hilarious and multitalented Samantha Irby, author of multiple wickedly funny essay collections, as well as writer for multiple television series.
Samantha talks about her own confidence and how she’s able to write guiltless memoir pieces. She distinguishes between the experiences of watching what she’s written versus reading what she’s written. Has she bougie-ed out of her past? And, of course, what are the ins and outs of comedy-writing? Can it be taught? What are the industry-wide issues with gatekeeping? And who do you write to?
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
bitches gotta eat! (Samantha Irby blog)
“My Mother, My Daughter” (Samantha Irby, The Rumpus 2012)
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life (Samantha Irby)
Meaty (Samantha Irby)
New Year, Same Trash (Samantha Irby)\
Wow, No Thank You (Samantha Irby)
Quietly Hostile (Samantha Irby)
Watch List:
Shrill
And Just Like That: Sex and the City
Tuca and Bertie
Atlanta
Mea Culpa
Paul Mooney
Mike Epps
Mo’Nique
Shirley Hemphill
Nell Carter
Listening List:
“Upgrade U” (Beyoncé)
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
‘The Work You Do, The Person You Are,’ by Toni Morrison
Season 1 · Episode 9
Tuesday, September 3, 2024 • Duration 35:09
Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon dig into a classic essay by Toni Morrison, “The Work You Do, the Person You Are,” published in The New Yorker in May 2017. They talk about labor and self-identity — how our feelings of worth can become so closely tied to the work we do, in ways that can become unhealthy, both in the corporate world and in the art we create.
Kiese Laymon: “Without labor and work, I don’t know who I am. And I think that’s terrifying.”
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
“The Work You Do, the Person You Are” Toni Morrison (The New Yorker, 2017)
Daddy Was a Number Runner (Louise Meriwether, 1970)
“On Writing and the Business of Writing” (Carmen Maria Machado, 2022)
Playing in the Dark (Toni Morrison, 1992)
"The Cask of Amontillado" (Edgar Allan Poe, 1846)
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
City Summer, Country Summer (Kiese Laymon & Alexis Franklin)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Imani Perry: What Do We Owe of Ourselves as Black Writers?
Season 1 · Episode 8
Tuesday, August 27, 2024 • Duration 54:19
On the latest episode of Reckon True Stories, Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon are joined by MacArthur Genius and National Book Award Winner Dr. Imani Perry to discuss genre, personal stories and the ethical commitment to those we write about, the utilization of craft to bring the reader close to the experience and the body, the body as political, Black women and silence, mobility, music, and mothering.
They ask the question of what we owe of ourselves as writers — and particularly Black writers— to our audience, and they explore what it looks like to maintain boundaries, to self-preserve, and to rest. In Kiese’s words, he calls it learning “the art of not just no, but not now.” Kiese praises Dr. Perry on how she has never written the same kind of book twice, and in this episode, she talks about her inspirations, how she chooses what to write towards, and what questions she is consistently leaning into in her work.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
South to America (Imani Perry)
Breathe: A Letter To My Sons (Imani Perry)
Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Imani Perry)
Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (Imani Perry)
May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem (Imani Perry)
Percival Everett
A Dangerously High Threshold for Pain (Imani Perry)
Alice Walker
Nikky Finney
“She Changed Black Literature Forever. Then She Disappeared.” (Imani Perry, New York Times 2021)
“‘Palmares’ Is An Example Of What Grows When Black Women Choose Silence” (Deesha Philyaw, Electric Literature 2021)
Palmares (Gayl Jones)
Robert Stepto
Hazel Carby
Zora Neale Hurston
Katherine Dunham
Moms Mabley
1000 Words (Jami Attenberg)
Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “The Apocalypse” (Emily Raboteau)
How To Live Free In A Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir (Shayla Lawson)
A Mercy (Toni Morrison)
Listening List:
Nina Simone
Miles Davis
“Nobody’s Supposed To Be Here” (Deborah Cox)
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
City Summer, Country Summer (Kiese Laymon & Alexis Franklin)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What's Happening with Men?
Season 1 · Episode 7
Tuesday, August 20, 2024 • Duration 37:57
Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon discuss the “manosphere,” — specifically how Black men show up in the space of it, and how Black women respond to it. Deesha talks about a “de-centering of romance” and recognition that women have come to see that their lives are full and beautiful without being partnered with a man who does not listen to or respect them.
They are interested in the deconstruction of the notions of masculinity, of repair and accountability, and of the homosociality/eroticism of the manosphere, as well as the pulling away of intimacy between cishet men. And they discuss what the work might look like. Therapy, radical change, deconstructing notions of masculinity, and possibly even retiring the terms “masculinity” and “femininity” altogether.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
“My Brush with the Black Manosphere” (Nicole Young, Elle 2022)
Warsan Shire
Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Man (Steve Harvey)
bell hooks
Audrey Lorde
“Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.” (Christine Emba, The Washington Post 2023)
“How To Be A Better Man Right Now” (Jeff Gordinier, Esquire 2024)
Listening List:
Jokes On You (podcast hosted by Mel Mitchell and Talle)
“The disappearance of men” (Christine Emba, YouTube 2024)
Instagram Reel by Ari Jai
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Minda Honey On Being ‘Shameless’ in Telling Your Story
Season 1 · Episode 6
Tuesday, August 13, 2024 • Duration 49:01
Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon sit down with Minda Honey to discuss her recently published memoir, The Heartbreak Years, and the role that Honey’s own experiences, and the stories told to her by family, have had on shaping her work.
With her debut, Honey — who also edits Black Joy at Reckon — was praised for her ability to linger in the body and the desires of a Black woman while also seamlessly moving through not just place, but time. As Kiese Laymon says, “I actually thought what Minda was doing was like a new kind of travel writing. And so I was just so excited when everybody got to read it.”
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
The Heartbreak Years (Minda Honey)
“The Reality of Dating All Men When You’re Black” (Minda Honey, Gawker 2014)
“Woman of Color in Wide Open Spaces” (Minda Honey, Longreads 2017)
Black Joy at Reckon
Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar
Sari Botton
Sweet Valley High Series (Francine Pascal)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Mildred D. Taylor)
Milk Blood Heat (Dantiel Moniz)
“On Being Black in Kentucky and Charles Booker’s Historic Run for Senate” (Minda Honey, Salon 2020)
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghost (Crystal Wilkinson)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
“Writing for the Bad Faith Reader” (Susie Dumond, Melissa Febos, BookRiot 2023)
Danielle Buckingham
“A Farewell to Fuckboys in the Age of Consent Culture” (Minda Honey, Longreads 2018)
Listening List:
“Doo Wop (That Thing)” (Lauryn Hill)
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Alexander Chee on Storytelling, Motivation, and Money
Season 1 · Episode 5
Tuesday, August 6, 2024 • Duration 48:49
Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon chat with writer Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh, The Queen of the Night, and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. The three writers talk about their journeys in the publishing industry, and what success has meant to each of them, specifically in regards to money. They discuss Chee’s essay, “My Inheritance Was My Father’s Last Lesson To Me,” where he writes about his relationship to money, how it changes over time, and what the relationship between anxiety, money, and body looks like.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays (Alexander Chee)
“How to Unlearn Everything” (Alexander Chee, Vulture 2019)
Edinburgh (Alexander Chee)
The Queen of the Night (Alexander Chee)
Other Peoples’ Husbands (forthcoming by Alexander Chee)
“When Horror is the Truth-Teller” (Alexander Chee, Guernica 2023)
“My Inheritance Was My Father’s Last Lesson To Me, And I Am Still Learning It” (Alexander Chee, Buzzfeed 2018)
Damon Young
“Storycraft: Point of Telling” (Junot Diaz, StoryWorlds 2023)
Jesus’ Son (Denis Johnson)
The Children's Hospital (Chris Adrian)
The War: A Memoir (Marguerite Duras)
Sarah Schulman
The Book of Love (Kelly Link)
Enter Ghost (Isabella Hammad)
Notes from an Island (Tove Jansson)
The Moomins and the Great Flood (Tove Jansson)
Same Bed Different Dreams (Ed Park)
Listening List:
Luther Vandross
Favorite Albums of Each Year (Hanif Abdurraqib, Medium, 2016 - 2023)
CCFX
Lil Nas X
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Omar Apollo
Billie Eilish
Nicki Minaj
Japanese Breakfast
Angel Olsen
U.S. Girls
Wet Leg
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Deesha and Kiese on Writing About Parents, Forgiveness, and Grief
Season 1 · Episode 4
Tuesday, July 30, 2024 • Duration 55:11
Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon discuss the complicated process of writing about family — specifically parents. They talk about the ways parents fail, how they disappoint, but why it is important, and necessary when writing about family and those we love, to give them grace, and allow them the room to make mistakes. They ask the question, What do we owe to those we write about? And they call for writers to be guided, first and foremost, by love.
Deesha and Kiese talk about their own relationships with their parents, the processing and tending to those relationships, and how they moved through feelings of shame and anger while working through layers of grief.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
“Snap” (Deesha Philyaw, Pipe Wrench Magazine 2021)
“How Can You Be Mad At Someone Who’s Dying Of Cancer?” (Deesha Philyaw, Full Grown People 2015)
“Whiting” (Deesha Philyaw, Short Reads 2023)
“These Are Your Memories” (Kiese’s mother’s letter, 2018)
“If We Can Soar: What Birmingham Roller Pigeons Offer the Men of South Central” (Shanna B. Tiayon, Pipe Wrench Magazine 2021)
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hanif Abdurraqib on Basketball, Ohio, and the Art of the Playlist
Season 1 · Episode 3
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 • Duration 49:32
Deesha and Kiese welcome acclaimed writer, poet, and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension. They talk about music—the significance of music to their youth and their lives now, their listening practices, and Abdurraqib’s process of creating playlists. They also discuss basketball and what is so special, so singular, about Columbus in terms of high school basketball. Deesha admits how she’s had to challenge her own notions of Ohio in regards to sports and to politics, and Abdurraqib talks about the joys and the frustrations of place, of community, and of notions of home.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
Hanif Abdurraqib
Yona Harvey
Brian Broome
Hanif Abdurraqib Blog (Medium)
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (Hanif Abdurraqib)
“Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pink Friday’ Sequel is Pure Spectacle” (Hanif Abdurraqib, The New Yorker 2023)
Diane Seuss
Greg Tate
Wanda Coleman
Terrance Hayes
Listening List:
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)
“Funkytown” (Lipps Inc.)
“Nothing from Nothing” (Billy Preston)
“Kung Fu Fighting” (Carl Douglas)
Parliament Funkadelic
Hot Buttered Soul (Isaac Hayes)
Celia Cruz
Miriam Makeba
Whitney Houston
“Basketball” (Kurtis Blow)
“Shoot Pass Slam” (Shaquille O’Neal)
“(I Know I Got) Skillz” (Shaquille O’Neal)
“Soul in the Hole” (3rd Bass)
(7L & Esoteric, The Handle ft. Sadat X)
“Hit ‘em High” (Busta Rhymes, Coolio, LL Cool J, Method Man)
“Let’s Go Crazy” (Prince & The Revolution)
“Human Made” (Kid Cudi)
“The Pink Seashell” (Fall Out Boy, Ethan Hawke)
African-American Sound Recordings
BLK ODYSSY
“Yellow Brick Road” (Lo Village)
Flood City Trax (Nondi)
Black Rainbows (Corinne Bailey Rae)
Beloved! Paradise! Jazz!? (McKinley Dixon)
Pink Friday 2 (Nicki Minaj)
Allison Russell
Read more from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw & Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Roxane Gay on Criticism, Social Media, and Being Heard
Season 1 · Episode 2
Tuesday, July 16, 2024 • Duration 50:49
Acclaimed author Roxane Gay joins Deesha and Kiese for a wide-ranging conversation about her writing journey, bringing your whole self to the page, the pressures of social media, and the value of criticism.
Gay talks about her forthcoming book on writing advice, How to Be Heard, and Deesha and Kiese ask about her current pop culture influences—what she’s watching and who she’s listening to—and Deesha gets another hint about Roxane Gay’s nemesis.
Reading List: Authors, Stories, and Books Mentioned
Ayiti (Roxane Gay)
An Untamed State (Roxane Gay)
Bad Feminist (Roxane Gay)
Difficult Women (Roxane Gay)
Hunger (Roxane Gay)
Black Panther: World of Wakanda (Ta-Nehisi Coates, Roxane Gay, et. al)
The Audacity
Opinions (Roxane Gay)
“Why People Are So Awful Online” (Roxane Gay, The New York Times 2021)
Donna Tartt
James Hadley Chase
Tayari Jones
“A Conversation with Kiese Laymon” (Roxane Gay, The Nation 2013)
Roxane Gay Reviews On Goodreads
“What Fullness Is” (Roxane Gay, Medium 2018)
How to be Heard (Roxane Gay)
Sonia Sanchez
“Work Friend” column (Roxane Gay, The New York Times)
Choire Sicha
“i cannot stop thinking about true detective: cold lesbians” (Samantha Irby, bitches gotta eat! 2024)
Watch List:
ReesaTeesa on TikTok
True Detective : Night Country
Expats
The Farewell
Listening List:
American Requiem (Beyoncé)
The Roxane Gay Agenda podcast
Brooks & Dunn
More from Deesha Philyaw and Kiese Laymon:
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies (Deesha Philyaw)
Heavy (Kiese Laymon)
Long Division (Kiese Laymon)
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America: Essays (Kiese Laymon)
Ursa Short Fiction podcast (Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton)
Produced by Ursa Story Company in partnership with Reckon.
Hosted by Deesha Philyaw & Kiese Laymon
Show Producers: Dawnie Walton & Mark Armstrong
Associate Producer: Marina Leigh
Episode Editor: Kelly Araja
Reckon Editor In Chief: R.L. Nave
Reckon Deputy Editor: Michelle Zenarosa
Audience Director: Katie Johnston
Creative Strategist: Abbey Crain
Sr. Social Producer: Sid Espinosa
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
