Endnotes on Family: Crystal Hana Kim, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, and More Voices from Thresholds

This is Thresholds, a series of conversations with writers about experiences that completely turned them upside down, disoriented them in their lives, changed them, and changed how and why they wanted to write. Hosted by Jordan Kisner, author of the essay collection Thin Places, and brought to you by Lit Hub Radio.

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It’s the end of our latest capsule, which we belatedly realized is structured around FAMILY! So, for this grab-bag Endnotes ep, we share an outtake from our convo with Crystal Hana Kim featuring news about her next novel, some recommendations from Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on how to do August, updates from Thresholds alums, and some summer reading recommendations from Jordan & Drew. 

Also, we’re taking a summer vacation! See you in September, with fresh pencils and notebooks and interviews!

Subscribe and download the episode, wherever you get your podcasts!

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Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore on how she does August:

Usually the way I survive the heat is by going out in the sun and lying in the park and passing out. Now, passing out is the key, because that’s what rejuvenates me. But the sun, if I pop out of my bed in the middle of the day wrapped up in the sun, it gives me energy. Then I can get up. And I have all these new dance moves that I’ve been practicing during the pandemic outside alone, and I hope to try out with dozens of other people at some point. But for now, dancing in the sun on my own. I’m trying to catch up with all my reading, the tower, the books on my table. I’m looking at them right now. It’s like you pull a book off the tower and then it’s possible that everything will fall.

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Jordan and Drew’s summer reading recs:

Drew: Getting into romance! Specifically “fealty and feelings” like Foz Meadows’s A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and Alexandra Rowland’s A Taste of Gold and Iron

Jordan: Pre-ordering! (Lynn Steger Strong’s Flight is a great option.) Also, following Marie-Helene Bertino’s advice of soaking into a single author—in my case, Virginia Woolf. 

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For more Thresholds, visit us at thisisthresholds.com. Original music by Lora-Faye Åshuvud and art by Kirstin Huber.