751. Lou Mathews

Otherppl with Brad Listi

Brad Listi

Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2022

⏱️ 117 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lou Mathews is the author of the novel Shaky Town, available from Tiger Van Books. Mathews has written seven books and published two of them, Just Like James and L.A. Breakdown, an LA Times Best Book. He has taught in UCLA Extension’s acclaimed creative writing program since 1989. His stories have been published in ZYZZYVA, New England Review, Short Story, Black Clock , Paperback L.A. , and many fiction anthologies. Mathews is also a journalist, playwright, and passionate cook, as well as a former mechanic, street racer, and restaurant critic. He has received a Pushcart Prize and a Katherine Anne Porter Prize, as well as California Arts Commission and NEA Fiction fellowships, and is a recipient of the UCLA Extension Teacher of the Year and Outstanding Instructor awards. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi’s email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram YouTube Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everybody. How are you? Welcome to The Other People Show. I'm Brad Listy. I'm in Los Angeles. Happy New Year. Welcome back. This is the first episode of the new year. Happy 2022. I'm delighted to have Lou Matthews as my guest.
0:22.5	He's got a new novel out called Shaky Town.
0:25.7	Available now from Tiger Van Books.
0:29.2	Great time meeting Lou.
0:30.4	Great time talking with Lou.
0:32.2	That's coming up in just a minute.
0:34.9	I also have some news to share, a bit of good news, and I'll get to that in a moment.
0:41.2	I hope you had a nice holiday season. Mine was fine. It went okay. It was good. I'm not complaining.
0:49.1	It was chaotic. I knew that it would be. I've talked about this. I feel like I predicted it. And it was chaotic and draining. The kids had fun. My sisters were supposed to come out. But then COVID intervened. One of my nieces got COVID. My sister got influenza A. Everything got canceled at the last minute, flights, hotels, 24 hours before everybody was supposed to convene. It was crazy. I was on the phone with customer service canceling my hotel at like 11 o'clock at night on Christmas Eve. I had to eat $600. You know what I mean? It was that kind of thing.
1:31.0	And my son, too, he had a virus over the holidays.
1:35.0	Not COVID, not influenza, but a cold.
1:36.5	He was coughing.
1:41.1	So, you know, we had to cancel.
1:42.8	It was a big disappointment for the kids.
2:01.9	My daughter was crying. Cousins were all upset. You know what I mean? But I think we made the right call. It was the only call we could have made. And all I can think about is what would have happened had my sisters gotten on those planes. Because, you know, my one sister had COVID and her family. My other sister had to cancel because she had close exposure to somebody who had COVID. And all I can think about is what would have happened,
2:06.8	had they gotten on those planes and flown out here. It was rainy that whole week in Southern
2:12.4	California. So we would have been huddled together, largely indoors. There would have been
2:17.4	multiple communicable diseases floating around in the air.
2:21.2	And everybody would have been overtired and coughing on each other.
2:24.6	And people would have been shedding virus everywhere.
2:28.1	Can you imagine?
2:30.3	And then on top of it all, it was the holidays.
	...

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