Episode 79 — Elizabeth Crane

Summary: Elizabeth Crane is the guest. She's the author of three story collections—WHEN THE MESSENGER IS HOT, ALL THIS HEAVENLY GLORY, and YOU MUST BE THIS HAPPY TO ENTER. Her debut novel, WE ONLY KNOW SO MUCH, is now available from Harper Perennial. Deb Olin Unferth raves: "At last a novel from Elizabeth Crane! With her expert humorist’s eye for detail, she gives us a playful, passionate story of longing, heartbreak, and of the gargantuan human will. You won’t be able to stop reading." Topics of conversation include: radio, television, unimpressive degrees, ambition, depression, happiness, acting, singing, commercials, loss, time, perspective, immediacy, memoirs, murder, New York City, Upper West Side, childhood, opera, George Washington University, music, stage fright, teaching, Macaulay Culkin, Scarlett Johansson, enjoyment, writing, loneliness, being an only child, Little Brown, David Foster Wallace, Lorrie Moore, sales, promotion, The Art of Fielding, Vanity Fair, short stories, digression, Calvert Morgan, screenwriting, Harper Perennial, editing, Donal Lardner Ward, Chicago, Brooklyn, caffeine, and espresso machines. Monologue topics: screaming children, swimming pools, self-control, emotional equilibrium, being an asshole, and passive-aggressive window shutting. This episode of Other People is brought to you by the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, the largest open-enrollment creative writing and screenwriting program in the nation. For more info, please visit www.uclaextension.edu/writers.