Sad Me of the Past Podcast

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Welcome to Sad Me of the Past, where we invite an established writer to revisit a piece they wrote in their tender years that fills them with affection, regret, nostalgia, embarrassment, relief, delight, anguish, all of the above, or something else entirely. Just as an infant must take those early, brave, awkward steps when learning to walk, we writers must make our own early, brave, awkward efforts as we set out on the journey of mastering our craft.

We had Nam Le on the podcast, joining us before his reading at Prairie Lights! We talk about early writing influences, the importance of an extraordinary writing teacher, and the wilds of writing while parenting. Nam takes us on his writer's journey -- from a law firm in Australia to the Iowa Writers' Workshop in Iowa City. Join us for this fantastic talk!
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Nam Le's first book, The Boat, received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Award, the Melbourne Prize for Literature, the NSW Premier's Literary Award for Book of the Year, the Pushcart Prize, the Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, a U.S. National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" Fiction Selection, as well as other awards, fellowships and shortlistings. The Boat was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and Editor's Choice, the #1 fiction book of 2008 by The Oregonian, the best debut of 2008 by New York Magazine, and a book of the year by numerous venues around the world including The Guardian, The Independent, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, The National Post, The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Amazon and Publishers Weekly. The Boat has been translated into fourteen languages and its stories widely anthologised, adapted and taught.

Links

• Nam Le's website
• The Boat (Buy)

• 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem (Buy)

  
  
  _{Music: Sailing Away by HoliznaCC0, free for use under a Creative Commons license. Nam Le Website pic, Dave Tacon.}