Episode 38 — Vanessa Veselka

Summary: Vanessa Veselka is the guest. She's the author of the novel ZAZEN, now available from Red Lemonade. Says Publishers Weekly: "Veselka's prose is chiseled and laced with arsenic observations...[Zazen] makes a case for hope and meaning amid sheer madness." Endless things to talk about here. Topics of conversation include: mindless jobs, minimum wage, stripping, company loyalty, stock loyalty, the Atlantic, deadlines, query letters, Amazon, New Orleans, privilege, bartending, hitchhiking, Texas, Communism, Linda Ellerbee, Murphy Brown, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Greenwich Village, boarding school, Myers-Briggs, couch surfing, homelessness, hands, Thanksgiving, Europe, punk rock, Alaska, Seattle, flannel, Candlebox, songwriting, memoir, MFAs, and visceral life experience.