How To Proceed

In this final bonus episode of How to Proceed, Linn Ullmann talks about how the idea for this podcast started, and her thoughts one year later. Emmanuel Carrere's final question to the readers, "Are you happy? And do you think it is important to be happy?", made Ullmann think of one of her favorite poems, Having it Out with Melancholy by Jane Kenyon. Together with the other interviewers this season, she gives you a reading of this poem, as a final tribute to our wonderful listeners, to the silent pandemics in our lives, the melancholy that sometimes fills our hopes and floating moments, but also the hope and solitude, the glimpses of happiness and comfort, the beating heart of the bird.

“Having It Out with Melancholy” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Used with the permission of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org

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In this episode, the French writer Emmanuel Carrère talks to Linn Ullmann about depression and how to write about something that can´t really be put into words, the question of form and truth, right and wrong and writing about the self and others. He also talks about his love for ghost stories, poetry and the gospels - "Christianity," he says, "is perhaps more about being a bad Christian than a good Christian".

Check out our show notes for more on the things Carrère and Ullmann talked about.

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For the first time in the How to Proceed podcast, we have not only one guest, but two! Namely poet and classicist Anne Carson and her partner and collaborator, Robert Currie. Together, they talk to guest moderator John Freeman about translating words into other forms, about love, about the color red - and green, and about the strangeness of working in a new landscape.

Be sure to check out our show notes for this episode here.

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Rachel Cusk talks to Kjersti Skomsvold about writing her memoirs and the Outline trilogy, and her upcoming novel Second place. She also talks about form and truth, change and repetition, the feminine personal and writing without felling like a writer.

Read more about Cusk, Skomsvold and everything they talked about in our show notes for this episode.

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In this episode, the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat talks to our guest interviewer, writer and editor John Freeman, about mourning and death, about birds and migration, about literary ancestors - and Toni Morrison.

Read more about Danticat, Freeman and everything they talked about in our show notes.

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Listen to Deborah Levy read, first an excerpt from her memoir The Cost of Living, and then an excerpt from Swimming Home.

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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Our guest in this episode is the British writer Deborah Levy. She talks to Linn Ullmann about living and writing in lock-down, about intimacy and formality, the personal and political, and how “The “I” is always a we. She also talks about mothers, swimming and how it takes someone leaving to understand them better.

Be sure to check out our show notes for more information and links to what they talk about.

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Our guest in this episode is the French writer Édouard Louis. He talks about writing for your enemies, Black Lives Matter, Toni Morrison and ghosts at the table. Read more in our show notes here.

Talking to Louis is the British writer Nadifa Mohamed, one of three guest interviewers as Linn Ullmann takes some time off to finish her novel. You can read more about Mohamed and our two other guest interviewers here.

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Listen to the German author Jenny Erpenbeck reading an excerpt from her novel End of Days (translated into English by Susan Bernofsky).

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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Our guest in this episode is the German writer Jenny Erpenbeck. She talks about hope and despair, time and empathy, writing routines, refugees, and the importance of things. Read more in our show notes here.

Talking to Erpenbeck is the Norwegian writer Kjersti Annesdatter Skomsvold, one of three guest interviewers as Linn Ullmann takes some time off to finish her novel. You can read more about Skomsvold and our two other guest interviewers here.

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Listen to the Canadian poet Moez Surani reading three poems: "Best Decisions of my Life So Far", "Lullaby for a Waning Empire" and "The Day We Lay in Bed Like John & Yoko", all from his latest poetry collection, Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real?

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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In this episode is the Canadian poet Moez Surani talks about the violence of language, about identity, and the distance between where we are and where we belong. And about happiness.

Talking to Surani is the award-winning Norwegian writer Eivind Hofstad Evjemo, one of three guest interviewers as Linn Ullmann takes some time off to finish her novel. You can read more about Evjemo and our two other guest interviewers here, and check out our show notes here.

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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The pandemic is a portal between one world and another, an opportunity to image another world, says the award-winning Indian author Arundhati Roy.

In this episode, Roy talks about fathers, fascism, beauty, love, and the search for words. Talking to Roy is the critically acclaimed British-Somali author Nadifa Mohamed, the first of three guest interviewers as Linn Ullmann takes some time off to finish her novel. You can read more about Mohamed and our two other guest interviewers in our show notes.

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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Listen to the American poet Mary Ruefle read three short texts, Self-Criticism, Personalia and grey sadness. All from her book My Private Property.

 Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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We have a globally out of control situation, says Mary Ruefle.

In this epsiode she talks about reading and writing, about clarity and fear, about menopause and the freedom of invisibility, and about being in the margins. And of course about dogs.

Be sure to check out our show notes for this episode, including some of Mary Ruefle's erasure poetry, right here.

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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George Saunders reads an excerpt from his New Yorker essay “Trump Days” and another excerpt from his critically acclaimed novel Lincoln in the Bardo.

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

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Is literature a political force? Yes, says George Saunders.

In this episode, he talks about Trump, civility and the public discourse of our time. On Kindness and Meanness. On form and revision. Voice, memory and empathy, and of course about the living and the dead.

Music by Kingocito and Sandra Kolstad. Artwork by Julius Vidarssønn Langhoff.

Be sure to check out our show notes for this episode, right here.

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