On this episode, bad guys. Host Meg Wolitzer presents three stories featuring famous villains, real and fictional. A woman writes a letter to a former president—now residing in Hell, in “Thank You, Mr. Nixon,” by Gish Jen, performed by Cindy Cheung. And a man in recovery faces off against a former Roman leader with a really bad rep in "Playing Ping-Pong with Pontius Pilate" by Greg Ames, performed by Nate Corddry. Finally, Moby Dick has a say in its own epic in “Captain Ahab, A Novel by the White Whale,” by Paul West, performed by Diane Venora.
Greg Ames is the author of the novel Buffalo Lockjaw, winner of the NAIBA Book of the Year Award, and the short story collection Funeral Platter. His work has appeared in Best American Nonrequired Reading, The Sun, Catapult, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, Southern Review, and North American Review, among other publications. Ames is an associate professor at Colgate University, where he teaches literature and writing.
Cindy Cheung can currently be seen in the film Love In Taipei as Aunt Shu. Her television and film credits include Agent Stoker, My Love Affair with Marriage, Bull,The Sinner,The Flight Attendant, Billions, Thirteen Reasons Why, High Maintenance, FBI, Blindspot, The Good Fight, Blue Bloods, New Amsterdam, House of Cards, Homeland, Mistress America,Obvious Child, The Light of the Moon,The Sunlit Night, Children of Invention,Lady in the Water, and Robot Stories. On stage Cheung has been seen in Catch as Catch Can, Golden Shield, Tiny Beautiful Things, Log Cabin, Iowa, The Great Immensity, Middletown, The Seagull, Antigone, The Sugar House at the Edge of the Wilderness, Sides: The Fear Is Real…, and her self-penned solo show, Speak Up Connie, directed by BD Wong for the All For One Solo Festival.
Nate Corddry is an actor, comedian, and writer who has recently been featured on the television series Barry. He can also be seen in television series such as High School, Paper Girls, Gaslit,Fosse/Verdon, Mindhunter, For All Mankind, and Perry Mason, as well as the Marvel podcast Wastelanders: Black Widow. Additional film and television credits include Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip; United States of Tara; Harry’s Law; Childrens Hospital; TRON: Uprising; St. Vincent; The Heat; Mom; The Hindenburg Explodes!; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; The Circle; New Girl; Ghostbusters; Standing Up, Falling Down; and as a correspondent on The Daily Show.
Gish Jen's latest work, a collection of linked stories entitled Thank You, Mr. Nixon, was recently featured on NPR’s Best Books list. The author of six works of fiction, including Typical American, Who’s Irish? and The Resisters, as well as two works of nonfiction, she has appeared in The Best American Short Stories four times, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century. Her honors include the Lannan Literary Award for fiction and the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; she delivered the William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in American Studies at Harvard University, and sits on the board of the MacArthur Foundation.
Diane Venore became famous for her performance as Chan Parker in the biographical film Bird, for which she won the New York Film Critics Circle Award. She is one of the first women to have played the title role in Hamlet, at the New York Shakespeare Festival. On screen, Venore has had recurring roles on Thunder Alley and Chicago Hope, and has been featured in The Jackal, Self Medicated, All Good Things, Criminal Minds, Private Practice, Grey’s Anatomy, and numerous others. She can most recently be seen in the film First Love.
Paul West (1930 - 2015) was born in England and educated at Oxford and Columbia Universities. He wrote poetry, essays, literary criticism, fiction, and memoirs, publishing more than fifty books in all. His writing can be found in AGNI, The Yale Review, Harper’s, and Conjunctions. West’s honors include a 1993 Lannan Prize for Fiction, an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, three Pushcart Prizes, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1996 the French government made him a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. West was married to the American poet, essayist, and naturalist Diane Ackerman.
Meg Wolitzer is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion, The Interestings, The Ten-Year Nap, and The Wife, among other books. She was the guest editor of The Best American Short Stories 2017, and is a faculty member in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton, where she co-founded and co-directs BookEnds, a one-year, non-credit intensive in the novel.
CREDITS
"Thank You, Mr. Nixon," by Gish Jen from Thank You, Mr. Nixon (Knopf, February 2022). Copyright (c) 2022 by Gish Jen. Used by permission of ICM.
“Ping-Pong with Pontius Pilate” by Greg Ames, from Funeral Platter (Arcade, 2017). First appeared in The Sun (August 2003). Copyright © 2003 by Greg Ames. Used by permission of the author.
“Captain Ahab: A Novel by the White Whale” from THE UNIVERSE AND OTHER FICTIONS by Paul West. (The Overlook Press, 1988). Copyright © 1988 by Paul West. Used by permission of The Overlook Press.
