The Last We Fake
Alan Rifkin
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An LA novel-in-stories each season, along with selected short fiction from exceptional authors, both new and established, whose works take place at the shifting borders of the American Dream. Each season, host Alan Rifkin presents an original novel in twelve episodes. Separately, the episodes stand alone, but together they comprise a novel-length journey, with a cast of recurring characters.
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2 days ago
S3 E1 - The Celebrity, by Catherine Hein: Episode 1, The Party at Leonard Freeberg's
Season 3's novel, THE CELEBRITY, by Catherine Hein, traces the Hollywood journey of Wanda Fleming, the tenacious, calamity-prone co-host fatale of TV's Daytalk in the spring of 1962. Called to her grandmother's funeral in Orange County, the heroine must face life without her closest ally, settle on one lover, conquer her eating disorder, and ace a round of Password in order to secure a coveted game-show gig—if the world doesn't change too much first.
Hein's former life took her from 20 years in the entertainment industry to two years in a homeless women's shelter. That's where Wanda, the reigning spirit of this epic two-volume, 1,150-page historical novel of early-‘60s Hollywood, was born.
Hein's other writing credits include The Bob Newhart Show and a children's story series in The Los Angeles Times about a traveling circus in occupied France. She now holds a master’s degree in English and an MFA in Fiction from California State University, Long Beach.
Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Learn more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.
Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.
Closing credit music for Season 3 is performed by Ben Rifkin.
Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.
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Apr 2, 2023
Season 3 Trailer
Season 3's original novel, THE CELEBRITY, by Catherine Hein, traces the Hollywood journey of Wanda Fleming, the tenacious, calamity-prone co-host fatale of TV's "Daytalk" in the spring of 1962. Called to her grandmother's funeral, the heroine must face life without her closest ally, settle on one lover, conquer her eating disorder, and ace a round of Password in order to secure a coveted game-show gig—if the world doesn't change too much first.
Hein's former life took her from 20 years in the entertainment industry to two years in a homeless women's shelter. That's where Wanda, the reigning spirit of this epic two-volume, 1,150-page historical novel of early-‘60s Hollywood, sprang to life.
Hein's other writing credits include The Bob Newhart Show and a children's story series in The Los Angeles Times about a traveling circus in occupied France. She holds a master’s degree in English and an MFA in Fiction from California State University, Long Beach.
Trailer music is by Ben Rifkin.
Podcast art is by Ryan Longnecker.
Premieres May 2023
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Mar 25, 2023
S2 E19 - Lisa Cupolo Reads and Discusses "Whisper Screaming"
For this Season 2 finale, Lisa Cupolo reads her story "Whisper Screaming," about a Long Beach mother and actor whose inner question won't let her go, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the ghostly buffalo of Catalina Island. Cupolo's debut volume, HAVE MERCY ON US, recently won the W.S. Porter Prize for short-story collections. Her work has appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, Narrative, The Idaho Review, and elsewhere. She has been a paparazzi photographer in London, an aid worker in Kenya, a script doctor in LA, and a literary publicist at HarperCollins in Toronto. A native Canadian, Cupolo teaches at Chapman University and lives in Orange, California with her husband, the author Richard Bausch, and their daughter, Lila.
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Feb 4, 2023
S2 E18 - Richard Bausch Reads and Discusses PLAYHOUSE
*Richard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story ” —Sven Birkerts, **The New York Times**)** *previews a chapter of his 13th novel, PLAYHOUSE, scheduled for release by Alfred A. Knopf on February 14, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the book and his craft. Bausch’s works have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Narrative, Gentleman’s Quarterly. Playboy, The Southern Review, New Stories From the South, The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Prize Stories; and they have been widely anthologized, including in The Granta Book of the American Short Story and The Vintage Book of the Contemporary American Short Story. The Modern Library published The Selected Stories of Richard Bausch in March, 1996. He has won two National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund Writer’s Award, the Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The 2004 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. In 1995 he was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers. In 1999 he signed on as co-editor, with RV Cassill, of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Since Cassill’s passing, in 2002, he has been the sole editor of that prestigious anthology. Richard is the 2013 Winner of the REA award for Short Fiction. He is currently a professor at Chapman University in Orange, California.
Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Learn more at www.alanrifkin.com.
Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.
Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.
Special thanks to Ben Rifkin.
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Dec 22, 2022
S2 E17 - Gary Commins Reads and Discusses "Priest and Victim"
Retired Episcopal priest Gary Commins shares a new short story, "Priest and Victim," in which a pastoral meeting with a childhood rape victim turns over secrets both buried and not. Commins is the author of Spiritual People, Radical Lives as well as Becoming Bridges: The Spirit and Practice of Diversity and If Only We Could See: Mystical Vision and Social Transformation. His newest book, Evil and the Problem of Jesus, is forthcoming in 2023.
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Dec 12, 2022
S2 E16 - Fanny Koelbl Reads and Discusses "Le Weekend"
Four-time TEXTE.WIEN https://texte.wien/ Junge Literatur competition finalist Fanny Koelbl reads and discusses her new story, “Le Weekend,” then talks with Alan Rifkin about the fathomless collusion between love, biology, and the willingness to drown.
Koelbl has previously studied in Vienna and Paris.
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Dec 4, 2022
S2 E15 - Cameron Gomez Reads and Discusses "Volcanoes, from Above: Oil on Canvas"
Cameron Gomez reads his visionary but deeply human short story "Volcanoes, from Above: Oil on Canvas," then talks with Alan Rifkin about amusement parks out of season, risky career choices, and stories that decide not to be ironic. Gomez is a third-year English major at California State University, Long Beach, who dreams of glory, riches, and a better haircut. "Volcanoes..." is his second published work of fiction.
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Nov 20, 2022
S2 E14 - Brooke Prado Reads and Discusses "The Hollow Book"
Writer Brooke Prado reads her macabre, symbolically rich but never quite implausible modern parable, "The Hollow Book," developed this fall in an upper-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the perils of reading in the dark. Prado's work has been published in multiple journals, including Chaffey Review and Queer Sci Fi Anthology, as well as various contests online. A fourth-year undergraduate majoring in English, she is at work on a short-story collection tentatively titled "Mother Oh Mother" and the first of what she hopes will be a long list of published novels. Follow her @brooke.prado on Instagram.
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Oct 24, 2022
S2 E13 - Rafael Zepeda Reads and Discusses DESPERADOS and "A Descent into Baja"
Long Beach's Rafael Zepeda (Horse Medicine & Other Stories, The Yellow Ford of Texas, Can This Wolf Survive, Tao Driver), whose deadpan prose style across many books has earned praise from authors like Jim Harrison and Edward Field, reads from his 2012 novel Desperados and his narrative poem "A Descent into Baja," then chats with host Alan Rifkin about poetry, Picasso, cave paintings and Pekinpah. Zepeda is a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, a Poets, Essayists and Novelists Syndicated Fiction Award winner, and Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach.
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Oct 16, 2022
S2 E12 - Sunland, Episode 12, by Charlie Haas
The finale of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.
Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.
Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.
Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.
Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.
Sound production by Ben Rifkin.
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Oct 9, 2022
S2 E11 - Sunland, Episode 11, by Charlie Haas
Episode 11 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.
Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.
Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.
Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.
Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.
Sound production by Ben Rifkin.
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Oct 2, 2022
S2 E10 - Sunland, Episode 10, by Charlie Haas
Episode 10 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matin…
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Sep 25, 2022
S2 E9 - Sunland, Episode 9, by Charlie Haas
Episode 9 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
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Sep 18, 2022
S2 E8 - Sunland, Episode 8, by Charlie Haas
Episode 8 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
playlist_add
Sep 11, 2022
S2 E7 - Sunland, Episode 7, by Charlie Haas
Episode 7 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
playlist_add
Sep 4, 2022
S2 E6 - Sunland, Episode 6, by Charlie Haas
Episode 6 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
playlist_add
Aug 28, 2022
S2 E5 - Sunland, Episode 5, by Charlie Haas
Episode 5 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
playlist_add
Aug 21, 2022
S2 E4 - Sunland, Episode 4, by Charlie Haas
Episode 4 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
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Aug 14, 2022
S2 E3 - Sunland, Episode 3, by Charlie Haas
Episode 3 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
playlist_add
Aug 7, 2022
S2 E2 - Sunland, Episode 2, by Charlie Haas
Episode 2 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matine…
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Jul 31, 2022
S2 E1 - Sunland, Episode 1, by Charlie Haas
Season 2's original novel, titled SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, unfolds the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who come to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once torn by and setting in motion the questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matin…
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Jul 16, 2022
Season 2 Trailer
Season 2's original novel, titled SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, unfolds the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who come to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life—middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flowerchild Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benji—branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.
CREDITS:
Music for the trailer is "Lullaby of Sunland," composed and performe…
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May 23, 2022
S1 E18 - Dina Villegas Reads and Discusses "The 100 Melodies of Dan Van"
In this Season 1 finale, Dina Villegas reads and discusses her graceful, arresting, uplifting and disturbing ballad of ambition and imperfection, “The 100 Melodies of Dan Van,” which she developed in a lower-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach. A first-year student majoring in Political Science, Villegas is currently at work on a magical-realist fantasy series she has envisioned since childhood. She calls herself an undercover anthropologist, watches people from afar, and enjoys writing stories that she insists no one will ever read.
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May 17, 2022
S1 E17 - Catherine Hein Reads and Discusses THE CELEBRITY
Catherine Hein's former life took her from 20 years in the entertainment industry to two years in a homeless women's shelter. That's where Wanda Fleming--the tenacious, calamity-prone TV co-host fatale of Hein's historical novel, THE CELEBRITY--was born. Called to her grandmother's funeral in the spring of 1962, the novel's heroine must face life without her closest ally, settle on one lover, conquer her eating disorder, and ace a round of Password in order to secure a coveted game-show gig—if the world doesn't change too much first. Hein's other writing credits include The Bob Newhart Show and a children's story series in The Los Angeles Times about a traveling circus in occupied France. She holds a master’s degree in English and an MFA in Fiction from California State University, Long Beach.
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May 9, 2022
S1 E16 - Joe Donnelly Reads and Discusses "Bonus Baby"
As baseball season takes hold, award-winning journalist, writer and editor Joe Donnelly reads his short story “Bonus Baby,” which was selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories collection of 2016. Donnelly’s features, fiction and essays have appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, LA Weekly, Mother Jones, The Surfer’s Journal, The Washington Post, and The Times of London, as well as in numerous nonfiction and fiction print anthologies. His story “50 Minutes,” written with Harry Shannon, was selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2012 and is the basis of a short film being directed by Paul Schneider. A 2014 finalist for the Pen Center USA Literary Award in Journalism, Donnelly serves as Visiting Assistant Professor of English and Journalism at Whittier College and edits Red Canary Magazine. His latest collection, So Cal: Dispatches from the End of the World, was recently released by Punk Hostage Press. Learn more about him at…
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May 3, 2022
S1 E15 - Rich Ferguson Reads "The Los Angeles Book of the Dead" and Other Works
State of California Beat Poet Laureate and novelist Rich Ferguson shares a playlist of his unique and prophetic LA works, each set to music and largely recorded during the Covid lockdown months of 2020-21. A winner in Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match L.A., Ferguson has* *shared the stage with such poets and musicians as Patti Smith, Wanda Coleman, and Moby; was a featured performer in the film, What About Me? featuring Michael Stipe, Michael Franti, and k.d. lang; and is the author of 8th& Agony , the novel New Jersey Me , and his latest poetry collection, Everything Is Radiant Between the Hates, released by Moon Tide Press.
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Apr 25, 2022
S1 E14 - Meg Pokrass Reads and Discusses “Cash Register Tape” and “Her Own Music”
Flash fiction author and editor Meg Pokrass presents a Los Angeles trilogy titled "Her Own Music" and a standalone story, "Cash Register Tape," set in the San Fernando Valley, then chats with host Alan Rifkin about low points that promise everything. Pokrass's work is featured in three Norton Anthologies of the flash fiction form, and her work was recently selected for The Best Small Fictions 2022.
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Apr 18, 2022
S1 E13 - Charlie Haas Reads and Discusses SUNLAND
Novelist (THE ENTHUSIAST), screenwriter (OVER THE EDGE, TEX, GREMLINS 2, MATINEE), and feature writer (ESQUIRE, NEW YORKER, NEW WEST) Charlie Haas presents a sneak preview of his new novel, SUNLAND--about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free-love bohemians who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over--then chats with host Alan Rifkin about dreams that succeed by failing.
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Apr 11, 2022
S1 E12 - Double Parking at the St. Germain (reprise)
Episode 12 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Apr 4, 2022
S1 E11 - Museum of Art
Episode 11 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Mar 28, 2022
S1 E10 - There You Stood on Your Feather, Part III
Episode 10 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Mar 21, 2022
S1 E9 - There You Stood on Your Feather, Part II
Episode 9 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Mar 14, 2022
S1 E8 - There You Stood on Your Feather, Part I
Episode 8 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Mar 7, 2022
S1 E7 - The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual
Episode 7 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Feb 28, 2022
S1 E6 - The Chanteuse
Episode 6 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Feb 21, 2022
S1 E5 - The Hopeful Twin Brother Wolf, Part II
Episode 5 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Feb 14, 2022
S1 E4 - The Hopeful Twin Brother Wolf, Part I
Episode 4 of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Feb 7, 2022
S1 E3 - Zealots
Part Three of “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” a novel-in-stories that threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Jan 31, 2022
S1 E2 - Paper Moon
Season 1, titled “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Jan 31, 2022
S1 E1 - Double Parking at the St. Germain
Season 1, titled “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the twelve linked episodes—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century, and the timelessness of young dreams.
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Jan 21, 2022
Informational Welcome
An all-new novel-in-stories each season, along with exceptional West Coast fiction, both new and old, from the shifting borders of the American Dream.
Debuts February 2022.
Find us on Apple Podcasts.
CREDITS:
Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.
Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.
Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.
Special thanks to Ben Rifkin, Sarah Fleming, Chip Rice, John Gould, Gary Commins, Sheila Finch, and Brandon Cook.
Representation: Chip Rice c.rice@wordlink.us
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Jan 21, 2022
Season 1 Trailer
Season 1's original novel, titled “The Drift That Follows Will Be Gradual,” threads together a reporter's cherished past—1980s, Los Angeles—and his mentally ill millennial son’s determination to claim his own season in the sun. Jeffrey Leviton is a fading romantic, twice divorced, with visions of literary grandeur. Beginning in the 1980s, a golden age of magazine journalism and a period of unmatched freedom in Los Angeles, and continuing through the convulsions of the 2010s, Leviton grows through a harrowing crucible of circumstances—romantic chaos, alcoholic recovery, homelessness, and cultural transition—all while attempting to anchor his son Philip’s precarious security. Part father-son drama, part roman a clef of a changing LA, the eight linked stories—bittersweet, sometimes funny, deliciously messy—stumble toward redemption through themes both So Cal and global: the ache of cultural drift, the alienation of the awkward and the uncelebrated in the 21st Century,…
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