Ed Park, author of AN ORAL HISTORY OF ATLANTIS

Ed Park is the author of the novels Same Bed Different Dreams (2023), a Pulitzer Prize finalist and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Personal Days (2008), a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Bookforum, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. He is a founding editor of The Believer and the former literary editor of The Village Voice, and has worked in newspapers and book publishing.

An Oral History of Atlantis is his debut story collection. These 16 stories are utterly original and very funny. Some were written over a period of years, others in an hour. He joins Marrie Stone to talk about the collection and all the dozens of decisions that went into creating these stories. He also talks about his writing career, the things that made the biggest difference in his training, and his advice to writers.

For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It’s stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you’ll find an album’s worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It’s perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners!

(Recorded on July 2, 2025)

Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Host: Marrie Stone
Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

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Jill Ciment, author of THE BODY IN QUESTION