New Books in Literature

About New Books in Literature

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Publisher

Marshall Poe

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

6 Jul 2011

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1,949 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Sutra Americana with Monona Wali (U Wisconsin Press, 2026)

   Sharma and Sushila were ahead of their time in marrying for love and across castes in early 1950s India. When their oldest daughter is nine, they leave their home and family for Sharma to take an academic position in astrophysics in America. Sushila takes care of their home, raises their girls, manages to complete a doctorate, and becomes a feminist philosopher. The three daughters grow into young women, each navigating school and community during the upheaval of the 1960s. While coming to terms with their parents’ flaws and building relationships and lives, they learn to count on each other through marriage and divorce, children and careers. Sutra Americana (U Wisconsin Press, 2026) is a sweeping and beautiful immigrant saga about identity, memory, forgiveness, and love. Monona Wali began her professional career with an M.F.A. in film production from UCLA Film School, where she was awarded the Lynn Weston Memorial Scholarship for an outstanding female graduate student. Her thesis film, “Grey Area,” is included in the LA Rebellion, curated by the UCLA Film and Television Archives to highlight groundbreaking work done by BIPOC filmmakers in the 70s and 80s. She co-directed and edited “Maria’s Story,” a first-person account of a guerrilla leader in the Salvadoran Civil War. “Maria’s Story” received national airing on P.O.V., the award-winning PBS documentary series. The film also received the Blue Ribbon Edward R. Murrow Award at the American Film Festival, among many other awards. In 1988, she began her second career as a fiction writer, taking classes at Santa Monica College with the legendary teacher Jim Krusoe. Sutra Americana is her second novel. Her debut novel, My Blue Skin Lover, the story of a woman who takes the god Shiva as her lover, won the 2015 Independent Book Publishers Gold Award for Multicultural Fiction. Many of her stories and essays were published in literary journals including Air/Light, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Folio Literary Journal, Juked, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and the Santa Monica Review. One received a Special Mention in the 2025 Pushcart Prize Anthology. She is deeply rooted in the Los Angeles literary community through several workshops, and is a former teacher of adult students, incarcerated juveniles, and veterans. She is an alum of Hedgebrook, Breadloaf, and the Community of Writers. Monona Wali was born in Benares, India, and lives in Los Angeles, CA. Her first home in America was in Madison, Wisconsin, and she is named after the lake there, Lake Monona. Her family moved often as her father advanced in his academic career. She has a particular fondness for Hyde Park, Chicago, and many of the chapters of “Sutra Americana” are set there. She divides her time between Santa Monica and Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert. She loves the desert and is working on a book of essays viewing themes of home and belonging through the lens of an immigrant. She is passionate about the outdoors but is also a homebody who loves knitting, macrame, and having a cup of tea with a good book!

2. 

   18 Oct 2026

   American Flash Fiction: Brilliant Brevities & Miniature Masterpieces

   Wednesday, Oct. 7—Over in the blink of an eye, the best flash fiction lingers long after we finish reading it. The incandescent works collected in Library of America’s American Flash Fiction: An Anthology showcase the vitality of this literary form with a rich history and dazzling present. Join celebrated flash authors Lynne Tillman, Venita Blackburn, and Ben Loory, along with volume editor David L. Ulin, for a dive into these miniature masterpieces of deceptive depth and power. Hosted by Max Rudin

3. 

   15 Oct 2026

   Radioland with Matt Cahill (Buckrider Books, 2022)

   In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Matt Cahill about Radioland, his mesmerizing 2022 literary thriller where music, fame and magic wind together in an eerie mystery. There are whispers about murders on the scene in Toronto, from bartenders, hairdressers and others who trade in rumours. When the bodies are found they are altered in disturbing ways. No one knows who the killer could be. Perhaps it is Kris, a troubled musician who has just reached a level of fame only to have his life collapse around him. Perhaps it is Jill, a sensitive with a dangerous magic that calls strangers to her. As Kris struggles to deal with a childhood experience of sexual abuse he finds a strange advertisement on a hydro pole. By answering it he begins texting Jill, another lost soul reaching out for connection. In bits and pieces, they share their stories, discovering truths about themselves and the people surrounding them, until they must face the danger that is stalking them both. Matt Cahill is the author of two published novels and several published short stories and essays. His debut novel, The Society of Experience, was picked as a must-read by Harper’s Bazaar magazine and was longlisted for the Sunburst Award. His short stories have appeared online and in print in Canada and the United Kingdom. His essay, On Madness Within Imagination, was selected for The Best Canadian Essays 2017. His second novel, Radioland, was released in 2022 and was a finalist for the Foreward INDIES. Hollay Ghadery is an award-winning Iranian-Canadian multi-genre writer living in Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. Fuse, her memoir of mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions in 2021 and won the 2023 Canadian Bookclub Award for Nonfiction/Memoir. Her collection of poetry, Rebellion Box was released by Radiant Press in 2023, and her collection of short fiction, Widow Fantasies, was released with Gordon Hill Press in fall 2024 and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Award. Her debut novel, The Unraveling of Ou, was released with Palimpsest Press in 2026, and her children’s book, Being with the Birds, with Guernica Editions in 2027. Hollay is a host on The New Books Network, as well as a co-host on HOWL on CIUT 89.5 FM. She is also a book publicist, the Founder of River Street, and the co-chair of the League of Canadian Poets BIPOC committee, as well as the Poet Laureate of Scugog Township. She is also a member of The National Book Critics Circle, The Creative Nonfiction Collective, and The Writers Union of Canada. Hollay was also featured on the cover of issue 10 of The Ampersand Review. Learn more about Hollay here.

Who has been a guest on New Books in Literature

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Fadi Zaghmout
• Alpha Nkuranga
• Dennard Dayle
• Tom Lutz
• Jesse Browner

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 66 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

93

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

96

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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