Writing Cultural Criticism w. JUAN VIDAL

Juan Vidal

Juan Vidal is a writer and critic for NPR. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Esquire, GQ, Vibe Magazine, and elsewhere. His first book, Rap Dads, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.

Discussed In This Episode:

Knowing when to let a project go. How writing is like fatherhood. The rise of first-person cultural criticism. "A writer, first and foremost, is a curious person." Editor Chris Jackson on the word-to-thought ratio. Being a first-generation Colombian-American writer in the Trump age. Collaboration. Melville House, New Directions and reading in translation. Writing book proposals (and sample chapters that no longer exist). Listening to weird sounds taps into the psyche, probably! Twitter, live music and instant reactions.

Reading List:

White Girls by Hilton Als (Amazon | IndieBound)
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Amazon | IndieBound)
Reputations by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Amazon | IndieBound)
"How I Passed My Skateboarding Addiction To My Kids" by Juan Vidal
Samanta Schweblin (Amazon | IndieBound)

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