Reading Around the Margins Transistor (https://transistor.fm) https://feeds.transistor.fm/reading-around-the-margins In each episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi Washer talks with writers, readers, translators, publishers, and booksellers about how they interact with their books as objects; how their own marginalia consciously or unconsciously informs the books they come to write; and how the experience of reading brings a book into existence. © 2026 Paratext Publicity 9b154730-634a-53ba-99fa-3d2d42a4f621 yes 04cf7730-956b-11f0-bbfc-bdabea0eedac en Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:25:57 -0400 Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:26:30 -0400 https://naomiwasher.substack.com/ https://img.transistorcdn.com/nNlKNd8PFU973q1keC-eJ4l19DYATJap5213a5DSq3I/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kY2I1/OTNkOTQzYTc2NDEx/ZjRlY2Q3ZjJlZWNj/MjdmYi5wbmc.jpg Reading Around the Margins https://naomiwasher.substack.com/ episodic Paratext Publicity In each episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi Washer talks with writers, readers, translators, publishers, and booksellers about how they interact with their books as objects; how their own marginalia consciously or unconsciously informs the books they come to write; and how the experience of reading brings a book into existence. In each episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi Washer talks with writers, readers, translators, publishers, and booksellers about how they interact with their books as objects; how their own marginalia consciously or unconsciously informs the books they come to write; and how the experience of reading brings a book into existence.. Naomi Washer No No Episode 14: "The Thinking is the Plot with Jeannie Vanasco" 14 14 Episode 14: "The Thinking is the Plot with Jeannie Vanasco" full 2b837acc-a9c2-4fd8-aecb-bda4d1c006a4 https://share.transistor.fm/s/b3a4afeb For our final episode of our first season, Naomi is joined by fellow Annie Ernaux enthusiast Jeannie Vanasco for an in-depth discussion on immersion in the reading process, the un-self-consciousness of writing memoir, the question of whether there is a divide between the craft and the personal, and how we make choices about what to leave out when and why. For the Annie Ernaux fans out there, Naomi and Jeannie look closely at Jeannie's marginalia in her copies of Shame and The Other Girl and their influence on Jeannie's work, particularly The Glass Eye. Shout-out to Seven Stories Press, Ernaux's American publisher -- we're repping your Annie Ernaux hats and shirts and hope you'll make more of them ;)


Author Bio: Jeannie Vanasco is the author of A Silent Treatment, which was named a best book of 2025 by NPR and a best nonfiction book of 2025 by Electric Literature. Her other memoirs include Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University. Her fourth book is under contract with Tin House, publisher of her other memoirs.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, Interabang Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> For our final episode of our first season, Naomi is joined by fellow Annie Ernaux enthusiast Jeannie Vanasco for an in-depth discussion on immersion in the reading process, the un-self-consciousness of writing memoir, the question of whether there is a divide between the craft and the personal, and how we make choices about what to leave out when and why. For the Annie Ernaux fans out there, Naomi and Jeannie look closely at Jeannie's marginalia in her copies of Shame and The Other Girl and their influence on Jeannie's work, particularly The Glass Eye. Shout-out to Seven Stories Press, Ernaux's American publisher -- we're repping your Annie Ernaux hats and shirts and hope you'll make more of them ;)


Author Bio: Jeannie Vanasco is the author of A Silent Treatment, which was named a best book of 2025 by NPR and a best nonfiction book of 2025 by Electric Literature. Her other memoirs include Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University. Her fourth book is under contract with Tin House, publisher of her other memoirs.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, Interabang Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:00:00 -0500 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1736 For our final episode of our first season, Naomi is joined by fellow Annie Ernaux enthusiast Jeannie Vanasco for an in-depth discussion on immersion in the reading process, the un-self-consciousness of writing memoir, the question of whether there is a divide between the craft and the personal, and how we make choices about what to leave out when and why. For the Annie Ernaux fans out there, Naomi and Jeannie look closely at Jeannie's marginalia in her copies of Shame and The Other Girl and their influence on Jeannie's work, particularly The Glass Eye. Shout-out to Seven Stories Press, Ernaux's American publisher -- we're repping your Annie Ernaux hats and shirts and hope you'll make more of them ;)


Author Bio: Jeannie Vanasco is the author of A Silent Treatment, which was named a best book of 2025 by NPR and a best nonfiction book of 2025 by Electric Literature. Her other memoirs include Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2019 by TIME, Esquire, Kirkus, among others—and The Glass Eye, which Poets & Writers called one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University. Her fourth book is under contract with Tin House, publisher of her other memoirs.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, Interabang Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> jeannie vanasco, marginalia, annie ernaux, naomi washer No Episode 13: "Lori Feathers on the hypnotic style of abundant books" 13 13 Episode 13: "Lori Feathers on the hypnotic style of abundant books" full 7f0b6557-bcce-41d4-a31d-75948f1ad54c https://share.transistor.fm/s/b1a42961 Naomi is joined by bookseller and podcaster Lori Feathers to discuss her reading of The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi, translated by Jamie Richards (And Other Stories, 2023). They explore the impact of this rhythmic, hypnotic prose, the embedded references to books from other cultures, and the lineage of ‘abundant’ books that drives so much of Lori’s reading.

Reading List:

Miss Mackintosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young

Palinuro of Mexico by Fernando del Paso

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Lori Feathers is a writer and podcaster in Dallas, Texas, and a co-owner/founder of Interabang Books where she is the store’s book buyer. She is creator of “The Big Book Project” on Substack, and co-hosts the critically acclaimed books podcast, “Across the Pond.” Lori is founding Chair of the Republic of Consciousness Prize, US and Canada, a prize honoring the work of small publishers, and co-founder of the Inside Literary Prize for incarcerated persons. For six years she served on the elected board of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing can be found at Literary Hub, Words Without Borders, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Southwest Review.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, Interabang Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Naomi is joined by bookseller and podcaster Lori Feathers to discuss her reading of The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi, translated by Jamie Richards (And Other Stories, 2023). They explore the impact of this rhythmic, hypnotic prose, the embedded references to books from other cultures, and the lineage of ‘abundant’ books that drives so much of Lori’s reading.

Reading List:

Miss Mackintosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young

Palinuro of Mexico by Fernando del Paso

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Lori Feathers is a writer and podcaster in Dallas, Texas, and a co-owner/founder of Interabang Books where she is the store’s book buyer. She is creator of “The Big Book Project” on Substack, and co-hosts the critically acclaimed books podcast, “Across the Pond.” Lori is founding Chair of the Republic of Consciousness Prize, US and Canada, a prize honoring the work of small publishers, and co-founder of the Inside Literary Prize for incarcerated persons. For six years she served on the elected board of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing can be found at Literary Hub, Words Without Borders, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Southwest Review.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, Interabang Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 25 Nov 2025 03:00:00 -0500 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 994 Naomi is joined by bookseller and podcaster Lori Feathers to discuss her reading of The Hunger of Women by Marosia Castaldi, translated by Jamie Richards (And Other Stories, 2023). They explore the impact of this rhythmic, hypnotic prose, the embedded references to books from other cultures, and the lineage of ‘abundant’ books that drives so much of Lori’s reading.

Reading List:

Miss Mackintosh, My Darling by Marguerite Young

Palinuro of Mexico by Fernando del Paso

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Lori Feathers is a writer and podcaster in Dallas, Texas, and a co-owner/founder of Interabang Books where she is the store’s book buyer. She is creator of “The Big Book Project” on Substack, and co-hosts the critically acclaimed books podcast, “Across the Pond.” Lori is founding Chair of the Republic of Consciousness Prize, US and Canada, a prize honoring the work of small publishers, and co-founder of the Inside Literary Prize for incarcerated persons. For six years she served on the elected board of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing can be found at Literary Hub, Words Without Borders, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Southwest Review.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, Interabang Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> No Episode 12: "Lauren Elkin on reading the world afresh with Georges Perec" 12 12 Episode 12: "Lauren Elkin on reading the world afresh with Georges Perec" full 39462d47-f119-4496-b4d7-6b1fc83d5c8b https://share.transistor.fm/s/e13819cf Naomi is joined by Lauren Elkin for a conversation on the permission-giving qualities of Georges Perec's Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, how reading Perec made her into a writer, and what it's like to re-see the world in the way he encourages us to do. Weaving through Elkin's own experiments in seeing with her book No. 91/92: diary of a year on the bus and the ways we live in and through our homes with her novel Scaffolding, we land in her current home in London where her accumulated stacks of books are grouped by subject, and we get a taste of how a new stack is building toward a particular new project.


Reading List

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec

An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, Georges Perec

The House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen

The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis, Jane Gallop


Lauren Elkin is the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including Scaffolding, Art Monsters, and Flâneuse. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. An award-winning translator, she lives between Paris and London.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Naomi is joined by Lauren Elkin for a conversation on the permission-giving qualities of Georges Perec's Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, how reading Perec made her into a writer, and what it's like to re-see the world in the way he encourages us to do. Weaving through Elkin's own experiments in seeing with her book No. 91/92: diary of a year on the bus and the ways we live in and through our homes with her novel Scaffolding, we land in her current home in London where her accumulated stacks of books are grouped by subject, and we get a taste of how a new stack is building toward a particular new project.


Reading List

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec

An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, Georges Perec

The House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen

The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis, Jane Gallop


Lauren Elkin is the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including Scaffolding, Art Monsters, and Flâneuse. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. An award-winning translator, she lives between Paris and London.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 11 Nov 2025 02:00:00 -0500 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1352 Naomi is joined by Lauren Elkin for a conversation on the permission-giving qualities of Georges Perec's Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, how reading Perec made her into a writer, and what it's like to re-see the world in the way he encourages us to do. Weaving through Elkin's own experiments in seeing with her book No. 91/92: diary of a year on the bus and the ways we live in and through our homes with her novel Scaffolding, we land in her current home in London where her accumulated stacks of books are grouped by subject, and we get a taste of how a new stack is building toward a particular new project.


Reading List

Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Georges Perec

An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, Georges Perec

The House in Paris, Elizabeth Bowen

The Daughter's Seduction: Feminism and Psychoanalysis, Jane Gallop


Lauren Elkin is the author of several critically-acclaimed books, including Scaffolding, Art Monsters, and Flâneuse. Her essays on art, literature, and culture have appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper's, Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, among others. An award-winning translator, she lives between Paris and London.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> lauren elkin, marginalia, naomi washer, georges perec No Episode 11: "Miranda Mellis on character study as an act of love" 11 11 Episode 11: "Miranda Mellis on character study as an act of love" full f782b95b-8e3d-4fcb-9678-016e0479cbb9 https://share.transistor.fm/s/0cd4a3c8 Miranda Mellis joins Naomi for a discussion that indexes Michael Eigen’s book The Psychoanalytic Mystic. They discuss the resonance between annotation and free association; the experience of narrating oneself in analysis, losing the thread, doubling back, and having one’s speech be received by the other; the index as a branching form, a poem of the subjective reader; writing as social practice through collective annotation; and how sometimes a text pours salt in the wound while sometimes it serves as a balm.

Miranda Mellis is the author of the novel Crocosmia (Nightboat Books); three novellas, The Revisionist, The Spokes, and The Quarry; and a short-story collection, None of This Is Real. Her poetry and nonfiction books and chapbooks include The Revolutionary, Demystifications, Unconsciousness Raising, and Materialisms. She is the co-author of two book-length dialogues: The Instead with Emily Abendroth and Passing Through with Rick Moody (forthcoming, Solid Objects 2026). With Tisa Bryant and Kate Schatz, she was a founding co-editor at The Encyclopedia Project. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest where she is a professor at The Evergreen State College. Read her intermittencies at: You Are in Love with the Impossible.


She is on tour in support of Crocosmia through November, with upcoming readings this week: 

For more tour dates, click here.


Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Miranda Mellis joins Naomi for a discussion that indexes Michael Eigen’s book The Psychoanalytic Mystic. They discuss the resonance between annotation and free association; the experience of narrating oneself in analysis, losing the thread, doubling back, and having one’s speech be received by the other; the index as a branching form, a poem of the subjective reader; writing as social practice through collective annotation; and how sometimes a text pours salt in the wound while sometimes it serves as a balm.

Miranda Mellis is the author of the novel Crocosmia (Nightboat Books); three novellas, The Revisionist, The Spokes, and The Quarry; and a short-story collection, None of This Is Real. Her poetry and nonfiction books and chapbooks include The Revolutionary, Demystifications, Unconsciousness Raising, and Materialisms. She is the co-author of two book-length dialogues: The Instead with Emily Abendroth and Passing Through with Rick Moody (forthcoming, Solid Objects 2026). With Tisa Bryant and Kate Schatz, she was a founding co-editor at The Encyclopedia Project. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest where she is a professor at The Evergreen State College. Read her intermittencies at: You Are in Love with the Impossible.


She is on tour in support of Crocosmia through November, with upcoming readings this week: 

For more tour dates, click here.


Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 28 Oct 2025 05:17:51 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1455 Miranda Mellis joins Naomi for a discussion that indexes Michael Eigen’s book The Psychoanalytic Mystic. They discuss the resonance between annotation and free association; the experience of narrating oneself in analysis, losing the thread, doubling back, and having one’s speech be received by the other; the index as a branching form, a poem of the subjective reader; writing as social practice through collective annotation; and how sometimes a text pours salt in the wound while sometimes it serves as a balm.

Miranda Mellis is the author of the novel Crocosmia (Nightboat Books); three novellas, The Revisionist, The Spokes, and The Quarry; and a short-story collection, None of This Is Real. Her poetry and nonfiction books and chapbooks include The Revolutionary, Demystifications, Unconsciousness Raising, and Materialisms. She is the co-author of two book-length dialogues: The Instead with Emily Abendroth and Passing Through with Rick Moody (forthcoming, Solid Objects 2026). With Tisa Bryant and Kate Schatz, she was a founding co-editor at The Encyclopedia Project. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in the woods of the Pacific Northwest where she is a professor at The Evergreen State College. Read her intermittencies at: You Are in Love with the Impossible.


She is on tour in support of Crocosmia through November, with upcoming readings this week: 

For more tour dates, click here.


Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> marginalia, naomi washer, miranda mellis, psychoanalysis, evergreen state No Out on tour Out on tour full 7cc415c6-151e-4366-ab5c-7ae8c34af60c https://share.transistor.fm/s/0928eb6c Naomi is out on tour, so she will be back in two weeks with a new, full episode in conversation with Miranda Mellis, author of Crocosmia from Nightboat Books. And, as it happens, Miranda is on tour, too. Click here for a full list of her upcoming stops.

Naomi's next stops are Clio's Books in Oakland, CA on Friday, October 17th with the poet and psychoanalyst Alice Jones and Third Place Books - Ravenna in Seattle, WA on Friday, October 24th with the poet and multimedia essayist/artist Cori A. Winrock.

Looking forward to seeing you out on the tour!

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Lofty Pigeon, Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Naomi is out on tour, so she will be back in two weeks with a new, full episode in conversation with Miranda Mellis, author of Crocosmia from Nightboat Books. And, as it happens, Miranda is on tour, too. Click here for a full list of her upcoming stops.

Naomi's next stops are Clio's Books in Oakland, CA on Friday, October 17th with the poet and psychoanalyst Alice Jones and Third Place Books - Ravenna in Seattle, WA on Friday, October 24th with the poet and multimedia essayist/artist Cori A. Winrock.

Looking forward to seeing you out on the tour!

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Lofty Pigeon, Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 14 Oct 2025 04:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 61 Naomi is out on tour, so she will be back in two weeks with a new, full episode in conversation with Miranda Mellis, author of Crocosmia from Nightboat Books. And, as it happens, Miranda is on tour, too. Click here for a full list of her upcoming stops.

Naomi's next stops are Clio's Books in Oakland, CA on Friday, October 17th with the poet and psychoanalyst Alice Jones and Third Place Books - Ravenna in Seattle, WA on Friday, October 24th with the poet and multimedia essayist/artist Cori A. Winrock.

Looking forward to seeing you out on the tour!

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Lofty Pigeon, Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> marginalia, crocosmia, nightboat books, oakland, seattle, miranda mellis No Episode 10: "Briana Parker on the worlds that opened through James Joyce’s ULYSSES" 10 10 Episode 10: "Briana Parker on the worlds that opened through James Joyce’s ULYSSES" full dd84e623-01ce-4ecd-a714-ab38c8ab857d https://share.transistor.fm/s/83f771d2 Briana Parker, co-owner of Brooklyn’s Lofty Pigeon Books, joins Naomi for a discussion that begins in her thoroughly annotated copy of Ulysses from a high school English class (shouts out to Richard Roundy, Briana’s English teacher and now regular at Lofty Pigeon!) and meanders through the many worlds Briana has occupied and built in New York City — from growing up in Sheepshead Bay, to the Union Square Barnes & Noble, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the cozy kids’ corner at her own Lofty Pigeon Books.

Briana Parker is a third-generation Brooklynite. She spent ten years as an editor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before opening Lofty Pigeon Books in Kensington, Brooklyn with her partner Davi in 2023. 

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Lofty Pigeon, Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Briana Parker, co-owner of Brooklyn’s Lofty Pigeon Books, joins Naomi for a discussion that begins in her thoroughly annotated copy of Ulysses from a high school English class (shouts out to Richard Roundy, Briana’s English teacher and now regular at Lofty Pigeon!) and meanders through the many worlds Briana has occupied and built in New York City — from growing up in Sheepshead Bay, to the Union Square Barnes & Noble, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the cozy kids’ corner at her own Lofty Pigeon Books.

Briana Parker is a third-generation Brooklynite. She spent ten years as an editor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before opening Lofty Pigeon Books in Kensington, Brooklyn with her partner Davi in 2023. 

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Lofty Pigeon, Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 30 Sep 2025 03:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1252 Briana Parker, co-owner of Brooklyn’s Lofty Pigeon Books, joins Naomi for a discussion that begins in her thoroughly annotated copy of Ulysses from a high school English class (shouts out to Richard Roundy, Briana’s English teacher and now regular at Lofty Pigeon!) and meanders through the many worlds Briana has occupied and built in New York City — from growing up in Sheepshead Bay, to the Union Square Barnes & Noble, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the cozy kids’ corner at her own Lofty Pigeon Books.

Briana Parker is a third-generation Brooklynite. She spent ten years as an editor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art before opening Lofty Pigeon Books in Kensington, Brooklyn with her partner Davi in 2023. 

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Lofty Pigeon, Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> ulysses, james joyce, brooklyn, sheepshead bay, marginalia No Episode 9: "Michael Wheaton on MARGINALIA as 'a book that could get you writing'" 9 9 Episode 9: "Michael Wheaton on MARGINALIA as 'a book that could get you writing'" full 8445e42c-e3cc-4281-b7a1-e7cae8fc8275 https://share.transistor.fm/s/382fed4d To celebrate the release of Naomi's Marginalia: an autobiography, we have a bit of a role reversal in this episode. Michael Wheaton, publisher of Autofocus Books, joins us today and takes over the host chair as he chats with Naomi about Marginalia, the kind of book it turned out to be, “project” books, the idea of a book as container, and how the process of creating it altered her practice of marginalia today. This is a delightful, insightful episode on the unexpected paths a book takes to find its final form...

Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books. He is the author of the essay Home Movies (BUNNY, 2024). His writing has appeared previously in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, Burrow Press Review, HAD, Rejection Letters, and other online journals.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> To celebrate the release of Naomi's Marginalia: an autobiography, we have a bit of a role reversal in this episode. Michael Wheaton, publisher of Autofocus Books, joins us today and takes over the host chair as he chats with Naomi about Marginalia, the kind of book it turned out to be, “project” books, the idea of a book as container, and how the process of creating it altered her practice of marginalia today. This is a delightful, insightful episode on the unexpected paths a book takes to find its final form...

Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books. He is the author of the essay Home Movies (BUNNY, 2024). His writing has appeared previously in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, Burrow Press Review, HAD, Rejection Letters, and other online journals.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> Tue, 16 Sep 2025 03:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1780 To celebrate the release of Naomi's Marginalia: an autobiography, we have a bit of a role reversal in this episode. Michael Wheaton, publisher of Autofocus Books, joins us today and takes over the host chair as he chats with Naomi about Marginalia, the kind of book it turned out to be, “project” books, the idea of a book as container, and how the process of creating it altered her practice of marginalia today. This is a delightful, insightful episode on the unexpected paths a book takes to find its final form...

Michael Wheaton is the publisher of Autofocus Books. He is the author of the essay Home Movies (BUNNY, 2024). His writing has appeared previously in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, Burrow Press Review, HAD, Rejection Letters, and other online journals.

Marginalia: an autobiography is out now! Order it from Autofocus Books or your favorite, cool bookstore (like Unnameable Books, Book Club Bar, Exile in Bookville, Literati, Third Place Books, Skunk Cabbage Books, and more)! Check Naomi's website for her upcoming tour dates. And subscribe to her Substack, Process Notes, for further thoughts and reflections.

]]> marginalia, small press publishing, psychoanalysis, containers, nonfiction, autobiography No Episode 8: "Liz Freeman on how books can open a doorway for a reader" 8 8 Episode 8: "Liz Freeman on how books can open a doorway for a reader" full d8fb5c8e-fd61-4cb3-9f48-52f63dcf541c https://share.transistor.fm/s/fa37a73e Bookseller Liz Freeman joins Naomi for a conversation about Liz’s marginalia in books by David Wojnarowicz, William Gaddis, and Kathryn Scanlan; the soundtrack playing alongside this marginalia, from Joni Mitchell and the Melvins to Frank Sinatra’s “bipolar big band hits”; her approach to making thoughtful recommendations for readers visiting the store; and more.

Liz Freeman is a writer, artist and careerbookseller. She is from East County, San Diego and currently lives in Oakland where she is the co-owner and stationery buyer at East Bay Booksellers.

Liz and Naomi discussed Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz, JR by William Gaddis, and Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, please click here.

]]> Bookseller Liz Freeman joins Naomi for a conversation about Liz’s marginalia in books by David Wojnarowicz, William Gaddis, and Kathryn Scanlan; the soundtrack playing alongside this marginalia, from Joni Mitchell and the Melvins to Frank Sinatra’s “bipolar big band hits”; her approach to making thoughtful recommendations for readers visiting the store; and more.

Liz Freeman is a writer, artist and careerbookseller. She is from East County, San Diego and currently lives in Oakland where she is the co-owner and stationery buyer at East Bay Booksellers.

Liz and Naomi discussed Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz, JR by William Gaddis, and Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, please click here.

]]> Tue, 02 Sep 2025 05:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1404 Bookseller Liz Freeman joins Naomi for a conversation about Liz’s marginalia in books by David Wojnarowicz, William Gaddis, and Kathryn Scanlan; the soundtrack playing alongside this marginalia, from Joni Mitchell and the Melvins to Frank Sinatra’s “bipolar big band hits”; her approach to making thoughtful recommendations for readers visiting the store; and more.

Liz Freeman is a writer, artist and careerbookseller. She is from East County, San Diego and currently lives in Oakland where she is the co-owner and stationery buyer at East Bay Booksellers.

Liz and Naomi discussed Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz, JR by William Gaddis, and Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, please click here.

]]> marginalia, east bay, oakland, kathryn scanlan, jr, william gaddis, David Wojnarowicz, close to the knives, naomi washer No Episode 7: "Hilary Leichter on the reader’s culpability in Robert Coover’s 'The Babysitter'" 7 7 Episode 7: "Hilary Leichter on the reader’s culpability in Robert Coover’s 'The Babysitter'" full 97cdced9-ccca-4193-b590-8b24c5ead2d5 https://share.transistor.fm/s/59c235fa Writer and professor Hilary Leichter joins Naomi for a discussion about books that conjure many different realities; how the reader is made culpable to the events of a text by what they hold and create in their mind, in the gap between what’s stated and what’s implied; how teaching a book you have complex feelings about can enrich the teaching experience; inheriting large libraries; and what happened to that one box of books you shipped that never arrived at its destination? 


Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper's Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. Terrace Story was named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. Hilary teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York.

To pre-order Naomis's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

]]> Writer and professor Hilary Leichter joins Naomi for a discussion about books that conjure many different realities; how the reader is made culpable to the events of a text by what they hold and create in their mind, in the gap between what’s stated and what’s implied; how teaching a book you have complex feelings about can enrich the teaching experience; inheriting large libraries; and what happened to that one box of books you shipped that never arrived at its destination? 


Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper's Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. Terrace Story was named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. Hilary teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York.

To pre-order Naomis's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

]]> Tue, 19 Aug 2025 03:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1484 Writer and professor Hilary Leichter joins Naomi for a discussion about books that conjure many different realities; how the reader is made culpable to the events of a text by what they hold and create in their mind, in the gap between what’s stated and what’s implied; how teaching a book you have complex feelings about can enrich the teaching experience; inheriting large libraries; and what happened to that one box of books you shipped that never arrived at its destination? 


Hilary Leichter is the author of the novels Temporary and Terrace Story. She has been a finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Prize, and her work in Harper's Magazine won the 2021 National Magazine Award in Fiction. Terrace Story was named a best book of 2023 by Time Magazine, The New Yorker, The LA Times, Publishers Weekly, and other publications. Hilary teaches at Columbia University and lives in New York.

To pre-order Naomis's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

]]> hilary leichter, robert coover, first editions, marginalia No Episode 6: "Claire Donato on on breaking, not making language in Sheldon Bach's 'On Being Forgotten and Forgetting Oneself'" 6 6 Episode 6: "Claire Donato on on breaking, not making language in Sheldon Bach's 'On Being Forgotten and Forgetting Oneself'" full fe8073c7-9c6f-4a3d-91c6-378524d551e9 https://share.transistor.fm/s/925262e7 Writer, teacher, and psychoanalytic candidate Claire Donato joins Naomi for a discussion on the convergences between psychoanalytic process and writing, reading, editing, and teaching. They discuss the capacious rigors of a reading practice, the remixing and revising of our writing and the stories we tell about our lives, and the shock of a book project emerging from one's analysis.

Claire Donato is the author of three full-length books, most recently Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts (Archway Editions). Her poetry chapbook, Woebegone (Theaphora), was released this year with an accompanying adventure-puzzle video game Donato co-wrote. Other recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Parapraxis, Soft Union, The Brooklyn Rail, The Chicago Review, The Car Crash Collective Anthology, and Forever, and she has contributed essays to anthologies included The One on Earth: Selected Works of Mark Baumer and The Mystery of Perception: A Conversation with Lynne Tillman. She lives in Brooklyn and currently serves as Assistant Chairperson of Writing at Pratt Institute, where she independently supervises MFA and BFA candidates and also teaches group courses including Autofiction, Poetry and Psychoanalysis, and The Oceanic Feeling. She is a first-year candidate in psychoanalysis at the Contemporary Freudian Society.

Bach's essay "On Being Forgotten and Forgetting Oneself" can be found in his book Chimeras and Other Writings: Selected Papers of Sheldon Bach. Claire and Naomi also discuss Jamieson Webster's book Conversion Disorder.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

]]> Writer, teacher, and psychoanalytic candidate Claire Donato joins Naomi for a discussion on the convergences between psychoanalytic process and writing, reading, editing, and teaching. They discuss the capacious rigors of a reading practice, the remixing and revising of our writing and the stories we tell about our lives, and the shock of a book project emerging from one's analysis.

Claire Donato is the author of three full-length books, most recently Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts (Archway Editions). Her poetry chapbook, Woebegone (Theaphora), was released this year with an accompanying adventure-puzzle video game Donato co-wrote. Other recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Parapraxis, Soft Union, The Brooklyn Rail, The Chicago Review, The Car Crash Collective Anthology, and Forever, and she has contributed essays to anthologies included The One on Earth: Selected Works of Mark Baumer and The Mystery of Perception: A Conversation with Lynne Tillman. She lives in Brooklyn and currently serves as Assistant Chairperson of Writing at Pratt Institute, where she independently supervises MFA and BFA candidates and also teaches group courses including Autofiction, Poetry and Psychoanalysis, and The Oceanic Feeling. She is a first-year candidate in psychoanalysis at the Contemporary Freudian Society.

Bach's essay "On Being Forgotten and Forgetting Oneself" can be found in his book Chimeras and Other Writings: Selected Papers of Sheldon Bach. Claire and Naomi also discuss Jamieson Webster's book Conversion Disorder.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

]]> Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:50:59 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1766 Writer, teacher, and psychoanalytic candidate Claire Donato joins Naomi for a discussion on the convergences between psychoanalytic process and writing, reading, editing, and teaching. They discuss the capacious rigors of a reading practice, the remixing and revising of our writing and the stories we tell about our lives, and the shock of a book project emerging from one's analysis.

Claire Donato is the author of three full-length books, most recently Kind Mirrors, Ugly Ghosts (Archway Editions). Her poetry chapbook, Woebegone (Theaphora), was released this year with an accompanying adventure-puzzle video game Donato co-wrote. Other recent writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Parapraxis, Soft Union, The Brooklyn Rail, The Chicago Review, The Car Crash Collective Anthology, and Forever, and she has contributed essays to anthologies included The One on Earth: Selected Works of Mark Baumer and The Mystery of Perception: A Conversation with Lynne Tillman. She lives in Brooklyn and currently serves as Assistant Chairperson of Writing at Pratt Institute, where she independently supervises MFA and BFA candidates and also teaches group courses including Autofiction, Poetry and Psychoanalysis, and The Oceanic Feeling. She is a first-year candidate in psychoanalysis at the Contemporary Freudian Society.

Bach's essay "On Being Forgotten and Forgetting Oneself" can be found in his book Chimeras and Other Writings: Selected Papers of Sheldon Bach. Claire and Naomi also discuss Jamieson Webster's book Conversion Disorder.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

]]> marginalia, naomi washer, autofocus, claire donato, psychoanalysis, Freud, poetry No Episode 5: "Sara Levine on on the 'devastating prolepsis' in Toni Morrison's Sula" 5 5 Episode 5: "Sara Levine on on the 'devastating prolepsis' in Toni Morrison's Sula" full 6b8be7e3-58d0-4052-bf77-863dba66d889 https://share.transistor.fm/s/f5b40dad Writer and professor Sara Levine joins Naomi for a conversation on Toni Morrison's Sula, in which they discuss tracking prepositions, the use of vowel sounds in influencing readerly movement, lobbies, and the traces of different readings in oft-re-read books.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

Sara Levine is the author of the novel Treasure Island!!! and the short story collection Short Dark Oracles. Her new novel, The Hitch, published by Roxane Gay Books, comes out in January. She also writes the Substack, Delusions of Grammar, which you can read here. She teaches creative writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

And to read "The Sentence Is a Lonely Place" by Garielle Lutz, mentioned by Sara during the podcast, click here.

]]> Writer and professor Sara Levine joins Naomi for a conversation on Toni Morrison's Sula, in which they discuss tracking prepositions, the use of vowel sounds in influencing readerly movement, lobbies, and the traces of different readings in oft-re-read books.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

Sara Levine is the author of the novel Treasure Island!!! and the short story collection Short Dark Oracles. Her new novel, The Hitch, published by Roxane Gay Books, comes out in January. She also writes the Substack, Delusions of Grammar, which you can read here. She teaches creative writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

And to read "The Sentence Is a Lonely Place" by Garielle Lutz, mentioned by Sara during the podcast, click here.

]]> Tue, 22 Jul 2025 03:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1647 Writer and professor Sara Levine joins Naomi for a conversation on Toni Morrison's Sula, in which they discuss tracking prepositions, the use of vowel sounds in influencing readerly movement, lobbies, and the traces of different readings in oft-re-read books.

To pre-order Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography, from Autofocus Books, please click here.

Sara Levine is the author of the novel Treasure Island!!! and the short story collection Short Dark Oracles. Her new novel, The Hitch, published by Roxane Gay Books, comes out in January. She also writes the Substack, Delusions of Grammar, which you can read here. She teaches creative writing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

And to read "The Sentence Is a Lonely Place" by Garielle Lutz, mentioned by Sara during the podcast, click here.

]]> sara levine, treasure island, sula, toni morrison, prolepsis, prepositions, marginalia, autofocus, autofocus books, naomi washer No Episode 4: "Deborah Shapiro on the influence of a stray desire to make artworks, from the letters of Vincent van Gogh" 4 4 Episode 4: "Deborah Shapiro on the influence of a stray desire to make artworks, from the letters of Vincent van Gogh" full 95e666e2-55c4-4942-a017-3dffc77d1941 https://share.transistor.fm/s/a976df12 Writer and publisher Deborah Shapiro joins Naomi in a conversation on The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh. From that starting point, they discuss the desire to create, underlining versus annotating, and the importance of lamps, physical and metaphorical.

To preorder Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.

Deborah Shapiro is the author of the novels The Sun in Your Eyes (2016, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice), The Summer Demands (2019), and Consolation (2022). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Sight Unseen, Chicago Magazine, Literary Hub, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She's the founder of the occasional press, B-Side Editions, an editor-at-large at Sight Unseen, and lives with her family in Chicago.

]]> Writer and publisher Deborah Shapiro joins Naomi in a conversation on The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh. From that starting point, they discuss the desire to create, underlining versus annotating, and the importance of lamps, physical and metaphorical.

To preorder Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.

Deborah Shapiro is the author of the novels The Sun in Your Eyes (2016, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice), The Summer Demands (2019), and Consolation (2022). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Sight Unseen, Chicago Magazine, Literary Hub, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She's the founder of the occasional press, B-Side Editions, an editor-at-large at Sight Unseen, and lives with her family in Chicago.

]]> Tue, 08 Jul 2025 01:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1280 Writer and publisher Deborah Shapiro joins Naomi in a conversation on The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh. From that starting point, they discuss the desire to create, underlining versus annotating, and the importance of lamps, physical and metaphorical.

To preorder Naomi's new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.

Deborah Shapiro is the author of the novels The Sun in Your Eyes (2016, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice), The Summer Demands (2019), and Consolation (2022). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Sight Unseen, Chicago Magazine, Literary Hub, Washington Square Review, and elsewhere. She's the founder of the occasional press, B-Side Editions, an editor-at-large at Sight Unseen, and lives with her family in Chicago.

]]> marginalia, naomi washer, deborah shapiro, underlining, vincent van gogh, van gogh, letters, middlemarch, george eliot No Episode 3: “Rebecca van Laer on Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and theorizing one’s own writings on love” 3 3 Episode 3: “Rebecca van Laer on Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and theorizing one’s own writings on love” full 0ae498f0-4143-41b3-9983-5a8e00aa4f55 https://share.transistor.fm/s/8f876762 Episode 3: “Rebecca van Laer on Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and theorizing one’s own writings on love”


Naomi is joined by the writer Rebecca van Laer. They discuss Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse, writing as self-annotation, how to Pale Fire oneself, and more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Rebecca van Laer is a writer based in the Hudson Valley. She is the author of a novella, How to Adjust to the Dark (Long Day Press, 2022), and a memoir, Cat (Object Lessons/Bloomsbury, forthcoming in October 2025).


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> Episode 3: “Rebecca van Laer on Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and theorizing one’s own writings on love”


Naomi is joined by the writer Rebecca van Laer. They discuss Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse, writing as self-annotation, how to Pale Fire oneself, and more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Rebecca van Laer is a writer based in the Hudson Valley. She is the author of a novella, How to Adjust to the Dark (Long Day Press, 2022), and a memoir, Cat (Object Lessons/Bloomsbury, forthcoming in October 2025).


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> Mon, 23 Jun 2025 22:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1250 Episode 3: “Rebecca van Laer on Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and theorizing one’s own writings on love”


Naomi is joined by the writer Rebecca van Laer. They discuss Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse, writing as self-annotation, how to Pale Fire oneself, and more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Rebecca van Laer is a writer based in the Hudson Valley. She is the author of a novella, How to Adjust to the Dark (Long Day Press, 2022), and a memoir, Cat (Object Lessons/Bloomsbury, forthcoming in October 2025).


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> barthes, love, pale fire, nabokov, self-annotation, rebecca van laer, marginalia No Episode 2: "Claire Foster on becoming two lines from a Diane Seuss poem" 2 2 Episode 2: "Claire Foster on becoming two lines from a Diane Seuss poem" full c9692527-451f-4e51-b213-4e7ec9846054 https://share.transistor.fm/s/a0b6bca9 In this second episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi is joined by Claire Foster, a reader, writer, and literary translator from French. In what is truly a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss, Roland Barthes on Roland Barthes, projects inspired by the act of underlining, and more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Claire Foster is a reader, writer, and literary translator from French, most recently of Pierre Clémenti’s 1973 prison memoir, A Few Personal Messages. Her writing and translations have been published or will soon appear in The Hopkins Review, Public Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Full Stop Quarterly, and The Kenyon Review. Her translation of Valérie Manteau's novel The Furrow (Prix Renaudot, 2018) is forthcoming from Invisible Publishing. She also works as manager, events coordinator, and bookseller at Type Books, an independent bookstore in Toronto.


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> In this second episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi is joined by Claire Foster, a reader, writer, and literary translator from French. In what is truly a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss, Roland Barthes on Roland Barthes, projects inspired by the act of underlining, and more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Claire Foster is a reader, writer, and literary translator from French, most recently of Pierre Clémenti’s 1973 prison memoir, A Few Personal Messages. Her writing and translations have been published or will soon appear in The Hopkins Review, Public Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Full Stop Quarterly, and The Kenyon Review. Her translation of Valérie Manteau's novel The Furrow (Prix Renaudot, 2018) is forthcoming from Invisible Publishing. She also works as manager, events coordinator, and bookseller at Type Books, an independent bookstore in Toronto.


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> Tue, 10 Jun 2025 06:00:00 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1545 In this second episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi is joined by Claire Foster, a reader, writer, and literary translator from French. In what is truly a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss, Roland Barthes on Roland Barthes, projects inspired by the act of underlining, and more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Claire Foster is a reader, writer, and literary translator from French, most recently of Pierre Clémenti’s 1973 prison memoir, A Few Personal Messages. Her writing and translations have been published or will soon appear in The Hopkins Review, Public Books, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Full Stop Quarterly, and The Kenyon Review. Her translation of Valérie Manteau's novel The Furrow (Prix Renaudot, 2018) is forthcoming from Invisible Publishing. She also works as manager, events coordinator, and bookseller at Type Books, an independent bookstore in Toronto.


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> marginalia, writing, translation No Episode 1: "Marina Blitshteyn on Theory, A Sunday" 1 1 Episode 1: "Marina Blitshteyn on Theory, A Sunday" full a7905215-2ba0-4ead-85c8-ff7c6cc1696c https://share.transistor.fm/s/e83777c7 Episode 1: “Marina Blitshteyn on Theory, A Sunday”


In this first episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi is joined by the writer Marina Blitshteyn. They discuss the, perhaps unexpected to Marina, marginalia Marina added to her copy of Theory, A Sunday from Belladonna Press. Their conversation explores books as bodies, how trauma lives in the body, how our selves resurface and reemerge through reading and deep periods of not reading, and much more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Marina Blitshteyn is the author of two poetry collections, Two Hunters (Argos Books, 2019) and i take your voice (Switchback Books, 2022), Winner of the Gatewood Prize. Her chapbooks include Russian for Lovers (Argos Books), Nothing Personal (Bone Bouquet Books), $kill$ (dancing girl press), and Sheet Music (Sunnyoutside Press). Forthcoming titles include Landguage from Bunny Presse.


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> Episode 1: “Marina Blitshteyn on Theory, A Sunday”


In this first episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi is joined by the writer Marina Blitshteyn. They discuss the, perhaps unexpected to Marina, marginalia Marina added to her copy of Theory, A Sunday from Belladonna Press. Their conversation explores books as bodies, how trauma lives in the body, how our selves resurface and reemerge through reading and deep periods of not reading, and much more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Marina Blitshteyn is the author of two poetry collections, Two Hunters (Argos Books, 2019) and i take your voice (Switchback Books, 2022), Winner of the Gatewood Prize. Her chapbooks include Russian for Lovers (Argos Books), Nothing Personal (Bone Bouquet Books), $kill$ (dancing girl press), and Sheet Music (Sunnyoutside Press). Forthcoming titles include Landguage from Bunny Presse.


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> Mon, 26 May 2025 22:54:14 -0400 Paratext Publicity Paratext Publicity 1635 Episode 1: “Marina Blitshteyn on Theory, A Sunday”


In this first episode of Reading Around the Margins, Naomi is joined by the writer Marina Blitshteyn. They discuss the, perhaps unexpected to Marina, marginalia Marina added to her copy of Theory, A Sunday from Belladonna Press. Their conversation explores books as bodies, how trauma lives in the body, how our selves resurface and reemerge through reading and deep periods of not reading, and much more.


To preorder Naomi’s new title, Marginalia: an autobiography from Autofocus Books, please click here.


Marina Blitshteyn is the author of two poetry collections, Two Hunters (Argos Books, 2019) and i take your voice (Switchback Books, 2022), Winner of the Gatewood Prize. Her chapbooks include Russian for Lovers (Argos Books), Nothing Personal (Bone Bouquet Books), $kill$ (dancing girl press), and Sheet Music (Sunnyoutside Press). Forthcoming titles include Landguage from Bunny Presse.


Music: lofi london by snoozy beats is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.

]]> marginalia, books, poetry, chapbooks, reading, writing, psychoanalysis No