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This is The Nocturnous Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman.

Today I'm speaking with writer Sarah Manguso.

I first encountered Sarah's work around 17 years ago when I read her book, Two Kinds of Decay,

a lyrical memoir of illness that has stayed with me ever since.

In crystalline poetic fragments, Sarah described her experience with CIDP, an autoimmune

neurologic disease, and the strange world of hospitals, treatments, and survival.

Since then, Sarah has written widely across memoir, aphorism, and survival. Since then, Sarah has written widely across memoir,

aphorism, and essay. Her most recent book, Questions Without Answers, began as a Twitter

experiment and grew into a collection of children's philosophical questions, illustrated by the cartoonist

Leanna Fink.

In my conversation with Sarah, we explore her formative memoir, two kinds of decay, and what it

feels like to revisit that book 17 years later. Parenting and how toddlers are art machines

whose logic and poetry can astonish adults and the surprising themes that children

return to birth death chins and necks and what they reveal about how kids see the world

i was so excited to speak with sarah after being a fan of hers for so long, and I hope you

enjoy this conversation as much as I did. But first, here's Sarah, reading from her new book,

Questions Without Answers.

In 2021, I opened a Twitter account and posted a single tweet.

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