099: Steve Almond

This week we talk to Steve Almond about the mix of good and bad in all of us

Steve Almond spent seven years as a newspaper reporter in Texas and Florida before writing his first book, the story collection My Life in Heavy Metal. His books, Candyfreak, and Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life were New York Times Bestsellers. His short fiction has been included in The Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and his collection, God Bless America, won the Paterson Prize for Fiction. Almond writes commentary and journalism regularly for The New York Times Magazine and The Boston Globe. A former sports reporter and play-by-play man, his latest book is called Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto.

• The beginnings of the Dear Sugar column
• Being funny and poignant at the same time
• What makes good writing
• How to make an advice column good
• The culture of treating everything like a joke or with irony
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Language, storytelling and humor as a way to fight of despair
• The declining American culture
• The One You Feed parable
• The two stories that we are constantly telling the world
• How the two wolves keep fighting all our lives
• The flattening out of character in American discourse
• How we all contain great and terrible qualities
• How our culture makes a god out of convenience
• Living in the bubble where our beliefs are challenged
• Not seeing people we disagree with as less than human
• The dangers of seeing the world in black and white
• How fortunate we are
• The entitlement mentality
• Louie CK

Steve Almond Links