Episode 367 — Maggie Shipstead

Otherppl with Brad Listi

Brad Listi

Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2015

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Maggie Shipstead is the guest. She is the author of the novels Astonish Me and Seating Arrangements, both of which are available from Vintage Contemporaries. Maggie is one of those people who seems to be doing everything right. Harvard. Iowa Writers Workshop. Stegner Fellow. Her first novel was a critically acclaimed national bestseller. Her second novel, many say, is even better. We talk about all of this. I try to get answers out of her. How did she do it? How was she raised? Is it nature? Is it nurture? How does a person turn out to be so accomplished, and at such a young age? In the monologue, I talk about an episode from last night at around 2 a.m. I woke up and my wife was doing some Lamaze breathing. She had some sort of abdominal contraction, some sort of cramping, and the pain was so bad it woke her up from a dead sleep. And so then there I am, in the dark, trying to process this, trying to decide whether or not I should call the gynecologist (or 911). Fun stuff. Late stage pregnancy. We're getting down to the wire over here. (All is well, by the way. The cramping went away. No home births...yet...) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey folks, today's episode is brought to you by Litbreaker. Litbreaker is an online advertising network. It's a way to reach the culture web. Do you want to advertise on sites like The Nervous Breakdown, the Rumpus, the Paris Review, large-hearted boy, full stop. The list goes on. Go to Litbreaker.com and you can advertise on the full network, all of those sites in the network, or you can pick the sites that you want and advertise piecemeal.
0:23.1	It's very user-friendly.
0:24.7	Litbreaker.com. Check it out. This is an advertising network for the culture web.
0:29.6	Go and advertise on it. Oh, my God.
0:33.9	You are not alone. You have found other people.
0:39.7	You and I have a friend in common.
0:42.2	Every stupid thing that a writer could do I've done.
0:45.0	I think it's really beautiful.
0:46.7	Gee, I stated what I struggle, you know?
0:49.0	It was incredible.
0:50.2	You know, it was like your head exploded, seeing what was really there.
0:53.4	And now here's your host, Brad Listy. Just one person at just one time. Hey, here we go again. This is it. This is other people. This is something we're undergoing together. This might not be safe for work. How you doing? I'm Brad Listy. I'm in Los Angeles. It's good to be with you. I appreciate you tuning in. I have a great show for you today Maggie Shipstead is the
1:12.0	guest she is the author of the novels Astonish Me and seating arrangements both of
1:20.3	which were critically acclaimed very pleased to have Maggie here she's a very
1:23.6	accomplished young author whose pedigree intimidates me.
1:31.3	But she was nice enough to come over. We sat down. We talked. I confess to her. My insecurities.
1:42.3	Speaking of insecurities, we're getting down to the wire here on the pregnancy.
1:47.7	And my wife woke me up last night, experiencing some sort of abdominal contraction, cramping, woke her up from a dead sleep.
1:56.1	It was very painful, very scary.
1:58.2	I didn't know what was going on.
1:59.4	It's like 2.30 in the morning.
2:06.4	I'm like, what should we do? Do we call the doctor is this it did your water break no my water didn't break she was doing some breathing it was you know so i just texted the uh
	...

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