logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2024
51m 57s

Sigrid Nunez

Jordan Kisner
About this episode

This week, Jordan talks to the novelist Sigrid Nunez about her youthful preoccupation with mimicking the prose of Virginia Woolf, the step-by-step intuitive way she writes prose now, and the best way to make overnight oats.


Sigrid Nunez has published nine novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and, most recently, The Vulnerables. Nunez is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. The Friend, a New York Times bestseller, won the 2018 National Book Award and was a finalist for the 2019 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize. In 2024, The New York Times listed The Friend among the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. The Friend has been adapted for film by directors David Siegel and Scott McGehee (2024). What Are You Going Through has been adapted for a film directed by Pedro Almodóvar, The Room Next Door (2024). Nunez’s other honors and awards include a Whiting Award, a Berlin Prize Fellowship, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, the Rome Prize in Literature, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Mar 2026
Valeria Luiselli
Jordan sits down with Valeria Luiselli to talk about the U.S.-Mexico border, and in particular its origin point (or terminus) in the Pacific Ocean. They discuss Luiselli's forays into sound art with her new project "Echos from the Borderlands", her choice to set her next novel in ... Show More
38m 25s
Mar 2026
Aracelis Girmay (& an announcement)
In the penultimate episode of the series, Jordan sits down to talk with poet Aracelis Girmay about the way that reading --especially discovering the works of Toni Morrison as a teenager-- changed her life. Aracelis Girmay is a poet who makes works across genres. She is the author ... Show More
43m 2s
Mar 2026
Jayson Greene (Live!)
Jordan sits down with author Jayson Greene during a live taping of Thresholds at the Beverly Theater in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two talk about Jayson's new novel, UnWorld, the uncanniness of grief, the instability of memory, and how presciently his novel anticipated the way AI is ... Show More
46m 29s
Recommended Episodes
Sep 2024
Sigrid Nunez Reads “Greensleeves”
Sigrid Nunez reads her story “Greensleeves,” from the September 9, 2024, issue of the magazine. Nunez is the author of a memoir and nine novels, including “The Friend,” which won the National Book Award in 2018, and “The Vulnerables,” which was published last year. Learn more abo ... Show More
38m 15s
Mar 2022
Say What You’re Going To Say
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by the writer and critic Mary Norris to discuss the phenomenon that is Margaret Atwood – surely her kind of success requires a method? A new collection of essays and talks sheds some light; Sujit Sivasundaram, the author of ‘W ... Show More
52m 53s
Apr 2021
Kirstin Valdez Quade
Novelist Kirstin Valdez Quade discusses ‘The Five Wounds’ (Norton, April 6), an intimate, finely wrought family saga set in New Mexico. In a sponsored interview, host Megan Labrise talks with Elliott Young, author of ‘Forever Prisoners: How the United States Made the World’s Larg ... Show More
56m 52s
Mar 2024
Between The Sheets
This week, Miranda France contemplates the final novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and Nicola Shulman on what women write in their diaries.'Until August', by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Anne McLean'Secret Voices: A Year of Women's Diaries', by Sarah GristwoodProduced by ... Show More
47m 20s
May 2022
Anna Quindlen: You're Never Alone When You Read Great Novels
In this episode of Just the Right Book with Roxanne Coady, Anna Quindlen joins Roxanne Coady to discuss her latest book, Write For Your Life, out now from Random House. Anna Quindlen is a novelist and journalist whose work has appeared on fiction, nonfiction, and self-help bests ... Show More
59m 12s
Oct 2023
Adriana Trigiani
This week on JOY, Craig's dear friend Adriana Trigiani. Adriana is The New York Times best selling author of 20 books in fiction and nonfiction, award-winning filmmaker, and host of the blockbuster Facebook Live show, "Adriana Ink". She now hosts the "You Are What You Read" podca ... Show More
58m 26s
Oct 2023
What Big Books Have Yet to Come Out in 2023?
<p>On this week’s episode, a look at the rest of the year in books — new fiction from Alice McDermott and this year’s Nobel laureate, Jon Fosse, a journalist’s investigation of state-sanctioned killings in the Philippines, and a trio of celebrity memoirs. </p><p>Discussed in this ... Show More
24m 41s