Episode 427

with Hanif Abdurraqib, Eula Biss, and Lydia Loveless

Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello reveal their personal theme songs; cultural critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib describes how his playlist project 68to05 reflects the origins of his personal music fandom; author Eula Biss unpacks the intersection of homeownership and white privilege in her newest collection of essays Having and Being Had; and alt-country singer Lydia Loveless performs "Say My Name" from her latest album "Daughter."

Hanif Abdurraqib
Cultural Critic & Poet

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017 (you cannot get it anymore and he is very sorry.) His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he will release the book A Little Devil In America with Random House. He is a graduate of Beechcroft High School. Website • Twitter

Eula Biss
Poet, Essayist, Author

Eula Biss is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had. Her book On Immunity was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and Notes from No Man’s Land won the National Book Critics Circle award for criticism in 2009. Her essays and prose poems have recently appeared in the Guardian, the New York Review of Books, The Believer, Freeman’s, Jubilat, the Baffler, Harper’s, and the New York Times Magazine. She teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern University. Website

Lydia Loveless
Country Singer-Songwriter

Daughter–her first album in four years–marks the triumphant return of Lydia Loveless, and documents a period of personal upheaval, including a divorce and an interstate move away from her longtime home. Left feeling unmoored and adrift, Loveless worked to redefine herself, both in her own mind and within the context of the world. Written with her characteristic candidness and razor-sharp wit, Daughter is a self-aware journey into independence. Website • Twitter • Spotify