Writer and director Brad Michael Elmore joined me to talk about his films The Wolfman’s Hammer and Can’t Get No (watch both of these free on youtube), the will to just do things, his rollercoaster career in Hollywood, the need to create, and his serialized audiobook Nativity in Black.

A tarot reading on self-possession, bending your frame, and bringing your own carrots. Shout out to Dolly.. DM me with TAROT in the first few words to set up a personal reading for a reasonable fee.

Matthew Fresta and Matthew Sini from Getting Lit join me to talk Italo Calvino’s whirlwind love letter to writing, reading, and the source of stories. We discuss what Calvino’s delightful use of postmodern technique, why the tone of this book might be the secret to its potency, whether there is a Father of Stories, and much, much more.

Getting Lit on Patreon, Substack, Spotify

First published in 1893, The Million Pound Bank Note by Mark Twain is an absolute classic American short story. A farcical rags to riches tale.

J. Reuben Appelman is a celebrated writer of true crime (THE KILL JAR, investigating a notorious serial homicide case in Detroit in the 1970s). His latest, THE CHEATING SIDE, is a classic work of hardboiled fiction firmly set in the modern era.

From the back: When Idaho private investigator Jimmy Chinden’s murder investigation threatens a land deal worth millions, the politically protected Aryan mob comes gunning for his family―but the old money outlaws might be outgunned.

The great John Jay Stancliff joined me to talk about his latest novel, PIERCE, out August 11 from Farthest Heaven. His book is about fatherhood, men, work, and the deep struggle of virtue.

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Follow John on twitter.

A tarot reading on finding home again, growing versus building, and what it means to play the victim. DM me with TAROT in the first few words to set up a personal reading for a reasonable fee.

On Elton Manzione and the Third Eye of Vietnam.

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The great J David Osborne joined me to go deep on the cult classic HOUSE OF LEAVES. We get into what works, what doesn’t, what might have back in 2000, what the house might mean, and why we might never see another book like it in the age of the internet.

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Buy JDO’s books

Listen to Agitator on Apple, Spotify, or Patreon

Well before she became a household name, Willa Cather contributed this piece to McClure’s Magazine, a photo negative of a bildungsroman, and a tragedy about the draw of glitz and glamour.

A tarot reading on trusting your gut, savoring the solace, and willing yourself to find the edge. DM me with TAROT in the first few words to set up a personal reading for a reasonable fee.

Scott Laudati is a renaissance man. A musician, painter, filmmaker, and a true poet. We talk about being on local television, his ceaseless travels across this beautiful country, throwing away the phone, and his powerful new collection of poetry RAINBOW ROAD.

Buy Rainbow Road

Scott’s great travel videos on youtube.

Scott on twitter.

Good Morning and please listen to me: TREE OF SMOKE is a Great American Novel, about war, espionage, fathers, sacrifice, depravity, and much more. The book’s central metaphor stands everywhere and nowhere, like a dark wraith unfolding itself across the modern psyche.


The great Kevin Kautzman, from Art of Darkness, joined me in the tunnels beneath this remarkable book.

Author Kenan Meral joined me to talk about books within books, the terror of sublimity, the reality of deepfakery, and his excellent new novel STIGMA OF THE LIVING FLESH.

Follow Kenan on twitter

Buy STIGMA OF THE LIVING FLESH from New Ritual Press

In this FREE version of the MADNESS episode, I get into hobby tunneling, Gass via Gaston Bachelard, the linguistic and mythic dimension of matter, and what it means that THE TUNNEL is a novel of the Earth.

I’m joined by the Portuguese fiction writer and aphorist Laeth for a conversation about jazz, writing as discovery, listening for the voice, and his singular work, including his most recent novel SKETCHES OF ALICE

Laeth’s website (buy SKETCHES OF ALICE and his other books)

Laeth on substack

Laeth on twitter

Out of the archives of The Black Mask—the magazine that launched the careers of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler—comes a tale by Harold Ward, an unsung hero paid pennies by the word.

Inspector Des Moines is clever, tough, and no nonsense, but when dead people start pulling heists, he has to call on the enigmatic Mohammed Gunga to wage battle against evil itself.

A tarot reading on the things that enslave us, self-medicating and scrolling, and organizing one's mental state to bring vision into reality. DM me with TAROT in the first few words to set up a personal reading for a reasonable fee.

In which we go deep into the life of John Williams: oil booms, abandonment, tall tales about WW2, booze, women, and three “perfect” novels.

In this clip, I get into the influence of Yvor Winters’ odd brand of classicism on one of the 20th Century’s greatest novelists.

Clark Ashton Smith was a poet once called “The Last of the Great Romantics".” But he is more remembered as one of the three most significant writers of pulp mainstay Weird Tales. H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith who was perhaps even stranger in his vision than either of them.

“The Nameless Offspring” first appeared in Strange Tales in 1932. A tale of family secrets, a haunted manor, and a beast we’d now refer to as a Pale Crawler.