Year in Review 2025 (and mother of all catch-ups)
So it turns out, we missed talking to each other about books, and we missed you! And thanks to some vital sponsorship from our friends at Fa...
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Literary Friction
Literary Friction is a monthly conversation about books and ideas. Hosts Carrie and Octavia interview up-and-coming and established authors, and each show is built around a theme - anything...
Episodes
20 of 158 episodes
Literary Friction - Year (and Decade) in Review 2023
It's time for our usual Year in Review show, but seeing as this is also our last EVER episode (sob!), we're shaking things up a little to br...
Literary Friction - A Life of One's Own with Xialou Guo
What does it mean, to pursue a life of your own? And what is art and literature's role in figuring out what that might look like? This month...
Minisode Forty-Five: Friendship
Our theme this month was suggested by our patron Maral, who asked us to do an episode about our friendship, because she’s interested in how...
Literary Friction - Desire with K Patrick
How do the people and things we desire shape our identities? And how do you render the physical intensity of desire on the page? Author K Pa...
Minisode Forty-four: Parenthood
Last year we made a minisode about mothers, and one about fathers, both of which began an ongoing conversation about parenthood and literatu...
Literary Friction - Doppelgangers with Naomi Klein
What is it about doppelgangers that's so endlessly compelling? Who better to answer this question than the one and only Naomi Klein, who joi...
Minisode Forty-Three: Sad Girl Novels
Our theme this month was suggested by our patron Mary, who asked us to talk about so-called 'sad girl novels', and it turns out we have some...
Literary Friction - Short Stories with Arinze Ifeakandu
What makes a brilliant short story? Are they better read as part of a collection or as a sharp shot on their own? How do you render fully fo...
RE-RUN: Author Special with Ocean Vuong
We first aired this episode back in July 2019, and it was recorded in the studio when Ocean was on the international tour for his novel On E...
Minisode Forty-Two: Artificial Intelligence
Are you a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist? Or even a total Luddite? Does Chat GPT excite you or completely freak you out? Our theme th...
Literary Friction - Dark Comedy with Lorrie Moore
Dark humour - do you love it or hate it? Do you find it cathartic or macho? Can humour ever be too dark, and is it a useful political tool?...
RE-RUN - Minisode Three: Red Flags
Octavia has been away on her book tour, so today we’re bringing you a re-run of one of our earliest minisodes from April 2019. It was a fun...
Literary Friction - Romantic Comedy with Curtis Sittenfeld
From Pride and Prejudice to Detransition, Baby, the romcom can be an enduring source of great pleasure, fun and comfort. This month we’re th...
Minisode Forty: Author Special with Octavia Bright
Today’s show is an author special, and in the hot seat is our very own Octavia Bright. You probably know by now that Octavia’s first book Th...
Literary Friction - Writing about Writers with Tan Twan Eng
Do you like reading about writers? What does good writing about the act of writing do? And what happens when you write a real writer into a...
Minisode Thirty-nine: Cities
How do you feel about cities? Do you love the thrust and thrum of them, or are you more interested in escaping it? Do you like to read urban...
Literary Friction - Feminism with Sara Ahmed
What's the relationship between feminist writing and feminist activism? What does it mean to be a feminist killjoy, and what can we learn fr...
Minisode Thirty-Eight: Book covers
Today our theme is… kinda judgy! Everyone says you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but we all know everyone does. So, this month we tho...
Literary Friction - Dancing Time with Jacqueline Crooks
Dancing can be about escape, about pleasure, but it can also be about protest. It can be a powerful means of expression, but how does writin...