My guest today is Desiree Cooper, the 2015 Kresge Artist Fellow. Cooper is a former attorney. She is also a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist and much-beloved community activist. Originally from Virginia, she currently lives in Virginia. BUT she lived in Detroit for decades and will always be an honorary Detroiter!

She is much beloved here, and I am honored to call her my friend.

Today’s podcast includes four stories from her award-winning flash fiction collection, Know the Mother. Cooper’s fiction, poetry and essays have appeared in The New York Times, 2023 Flash Fiction America, The Best Small Fictions 2018, Callaloo, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Rumpus, River Teeth, and Best African American Fiction 2010, among other publications.

This podcast was recorded at Book Suey, a fabulous cooperatively owned bookstore in Hamtramck, Michigan. My fellow moderator was member-owner Eli Sparkman.

Eli is the Detroit Program and Volunteer Coordinator for 826michigan, a youth writing organization. He is a Teaching Artist for The Moth and a Memoir Reader for Split Lip Magazine. He graduated from Northern Michigan University’s MFA program, where he was a Flash Fiction Editor for Passages North.

And many many thanks to Vincent James Perrone, who edited this audio podcast—the first one I’ve hosted with a live audience. Vincent is also a writer from Detroit. He’s the author of the poetry collection, Starving Romantic. He is currently based in Charlottesville, VA, where he is pursuing an MFA at the University of Virginia.

I hope you enjoy this episode and if you do, please consider joining me as a yearly member of the Substack and/or helping to sponsor LDAS with a small donation. I would love to produce more content, but I need funds to do that. LDAS is entirely listener-supported, which allows us the freedom to create content of our choosing, and I hope to keep it that way.

I appreciate your support.

And now for the show!

Hi Everyone,

I had so much fun discussing “Monitor World” with Cleo Qian. In case you missed my earlier posts, “Monitor World” was first published in Shenandoah in 2021, and is available ⁠here.⁠

Please read the story before listening to our discussion!

Here’s a link to Lucia Berlin, another writer discussed during our interview.

Next up on Let’s Deconstruct a Story, paid subscribers will be talking about Ethan Canin’s story, “The Palace Thief,” on Thursday, February 27th at 3 pm.

Cleo Qian is a queer fiction writer and poet. She is the author of the award-winning story collection LET’S GO LET’S GO LET’S GO (Tin House, 2023) and a 2024 National Poetry Series finalist.

Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in nearly thirty outlets including, recently, ZYZZYVA, The Sun, and The Massachusetts Review. She has been awarded residencies at Casa Snowapple and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She is a 2024 MacDowell Fellow and will be the 2025 Notre Dame Storozynski Writing Fellow.

She has taught creative writing at the low-residency University of Southern Maine Stonecoast MFA program and the Tin House Summer Workshop.

Please find Cleo Qian’s fantatic short story collection, Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go here on Bookshop.

Cheers,

Kelly

PS: All of the podcasts are free, but if you would like to support the podcast, please consider subscribing to this Substack. You’ll receive bonus material—discussions! prompts! fun Zoom discussion! Yay!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsdeconstructastory.substack.com/subscribe

Hi Everyone,

“The Depletion Prompts” was first published in The New Yorker on October 25, 2021, and is available ⁠here.⁠

Here’s a link to two other stories discussed during our interview:

Vladimir Nabokov's “Signs and Symbols.”

Virginia Woolf’s “The Mark on the Wall.”

Next month, I’ll be talking to Cleo Qian about her story, “Monitor World” first published in Shenandoah. Check out our discussion here on Substack!

Cheers!

Kelly

PS: All of the podcasts are free, but if you would like to support the podcast, please consider subscribing to this Substack. You’ll receive bonus material—discussions! prompts! fun Zoom discussion! Yay!