The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life

In this week's episode, John speaks with fiction writer and editor Dave Housley about the joys of using writing prompts, the problem-solving of writing meaningfully improbable stories inspired by pop culture, and the limits of post-modern irony. His newest books is Aliens Attack!, now out with Mason Jar Press.

In this week's show, Rachael Tillman and I discuss The Bell Jar, in part 3 of our series on Sylvia Plath. If you are keen, check out the previous installments: episodes 685 (The Colossus and Other Poems) and 693 (Emily Van Duyne's Loving Sylvia Plath).

Sophia Ferrara returns to the secret HQ of TDO to chat about the pleasure-filled dystopia of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, while John freaks out about the novel's structure or lack thereof.

In #710, Sophia Ferrara returns to the secret HQ of TDO to chat about the dystopia of Rollerball, as imagined in the film and the short story, which was called "Roller Ball Murder." Jonathan E and his pal Moonpie turn out to be a threat to The Corporation while thriving in a technocratic bloodsport. Good times.

In this week's show, John speaks with the poet Philip Schultz about his wonderful new poetry collection, Enormous Morning. We discuss the self-critical voices that Philip calls the shit-bird, how personas can empower us to become more of ourselves, and the ironies of finding gratitude in our depression in observing how the world tears itself apart.

In this week's show, John speaks with the writer and actor, Felicia Day about her extraordinary page-turner of a graphic novel, The Lost Daughter of Sparta. We discuss how to regulate our bodies as writers, how rich the literature of ancient myth absolutely still is, and how to read for audiobooks, since she has a wealth of acting experience and John doesn't.

In this week's show, the poet Shawn Welcome and I talk about how to love poetry, how to gather together our literary communities, and our beloved city of Orlando, Florida.

On this week's program, I catch up with the amazing Richard Blanco about his recent collected poems, Homeland of my Body, a book sandwiched with two sections of exciting new work.

On this week's program, I talk to Mamie Pound about how flash fiction works, poetry, and finding the authentic, messy, true emotion and understanding despite the editors in our brains.

On this week's program, I talk to Elliot Ackerman about his new novel, Sheepdogs, a hell of a military caper story.

Happy Valentine's Day, world! Listen to Dianne Turgeon Richardson and I discuss the memorable, occasionally exhausting, and morally iffy smut of Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus.

After reading some of Charlotte Brontë's Tales of Angria (#682), John and Sophia go a-Brontë-ing again. They discuss Lucasta Miller's extraordinary survey of the Brontë cult and the durable, troubled legacy of their fiction.

In this week's show, I speak with the comedian Greg Proops about comedy writing, comedy performance, improv, politics, film, and more.

On #700, John speaks with the underrated novelist and essay writer Chuck Klosterman about his wickedly funny and ever-insightful new book called Football. They also speak about post-modernism and humor and how audiences perplexingly invert their expectations about reality when reading fiction and non-fiction. John perhaps goes on a rant about the 1985 New England loss in the Super Bowl.

On this episode, Samantha Nickerson interviews the journalist and memoirist about his new book, Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America.

On this episode, John interviews the rock band Descartes a Kant about the creation of exciting twenty-first century theatrical rock and roll. Listen to & buy DAK's music over at Band Camp.

Here John speaks with his friend Todd James Pierce about his research process, his work on Disney artist Mary Blair, and Todd's wonderful new book, Making Mary Poppins, now out with Norton.

On this show, John and Matt Peters continue The Kerouac Project Book Club with a discussion of William S. Burrough's third fiction manuscript, Interzone, the cliff before one arrives at Naked Lunch.

The Drunken Odyssey commandeered the Loose Lips oratory series during the tidings of yule and whatnot on December 2, 2025. The readers included Fred Lambert, Rachael Tillman and her deadly horsemen  Shawn McKee, Samantha Nickerson, and that rapscallion John King.

In this week's show, John interviews the poet Anne Waldman about her extraordinary new work, Mesopotopia.

Emily Van Duyne discusses her remarkable tome of scholarship on Sylvia Plath, including a literary history of how Plath's legacy has been shaped. Emily also guides Rachael and John's attempts to de-Hughes-ify the available texts.

John concocted a daft poetry game for friends with a body of work substantial enough  to withstand randomization of theme and topic 'til our drunken voices and ears escape beyond the hurly-burly of the everyday and enter the ethereal mindscape of friendship. Here is one's nights Fire x Fire x Fire for your listening pleasure, featuring the verses of Dianne Turgeon Richardson and Tod Caviness.

On this week's show, John speaks with fiction writer A.J. Rodriguez, the June-July 2025 Kerouac Project of Orlando resident.

On this week's show, John speaks with Ivonne Lamazares about her new novel, The Tilting House.

At the end of Schloctoberfest 2025, Jeff Shuster and I discuss the 1968 horror masterpiece Night of the Living Dead because how could we not? Our foray into 1960s black and white films is now ended.

This time around, Jeff Shuster and John discuss John Frankenheimer's thriller Seconds from 1966.

On this week's show, Jeff Shuster and John King delve into an existentially strange antihero story that feels a bit crazy and not entirely complete.

In October, The Drunken Odyssey crams Literature aside to consider wild, dark fun cinema with our curator of Schlock, Jeff Shuster! This year, John and Jeff discuss 4 black-and-white films from the 1960s. First up is this chili pepper of a film that arose the year before the Summer of Love.

Sylvia Plath is legendary for being a tragic poet mostly known for her novel, The Bell Jar. John and Rachael are fans of Plath's poetry and The Bell Jar, but hereby set out on a historical project to read Plath's work as the world would have known it first, and as she would have known it herself, without the legend imposing its darkest meanings onto every possible opportunity. 

This conversation with Samantha Nickerson, Brian Salmans, and Rachael Tillman will give you some idea of the mischief you are missing out on, and the pain John is putting himself through.

This week, John speaks with the fiction writer, cartoonist, and musician Eugenio Negro about his new novel, Despair Priorities, the long term project, and figuring out what will be deeply satisfying as a writer and reader.

Sophia Ferrara joins John down the rabbit hole of Charlotte Brontë's early private storytelling.

In this week's show, John teams up once again with his friend Matt Peters to discuss the second book of William S. Burroughs's original quartet of novels. They also discuss the recent film adapation of the same.

On today's show, I speak with the essayist Katharine Coldiron about how the way we watch movies are sometimes our autobiographies, sometimes our philosophies, and sometimes our humanity.

On 679, John speaks with the novelist Keith MacKenzie about how to plan an unplannable thriller, and how body horror and comedy and existentialism are awfully close neighbors.

On 678, John speaks with recent Kerouac Project of Orlando resident Zach Zimmerman about memoir, memories, childhood, comedy, tragedy, the problems of authenticity, and other vital literary matters.

On this episode, John and Rachael discuss the poetic output of Hannah Arendt's poetry, newly translated into English in a new book from Norton, translated by Samantha Rose Hill and Genese Grill, plus Fred Lambert delivers another masterful installment of the Booze News Roundup.

On this episode, John speaks with Kerouac Project of Orlando resident Skye Jackson about how to create a poetry collection that can be read in one sitting, how to balance the concrete and imaginative abstraction, inviting the audience in, recording a poetry audiobook, ekphrastic poetry, and living in New Orleans.

On this episode, John speaks with Tom McAllister about writing burnout, writing prompts, revision, and discovery, as well as Tom's wonderful new collection of flash memoirs, It All Felt Impossible.

In this week's replay episode, John talks to author and editor Jaquira Díaz in a show dating back to 2014. Many thanks to Brian Salmons.

On today's art-infused program, Drew Barth speaks with comic book legend Peter Kuper about his wonderful new book, Insectopolis, a project created during Peter's residency at the NY Public Library, plus I briefly speak with my friend, the artist Jeff Wilfong, about his upcoming residency at the Timucua Arts Foundation here in Orlando.

This episode is a recording of the inaugural meeting of the Kerouac Project of Orlando's Book Club. Matt Peters and I discuss William S. Burroughs's debut novel, Junky, and its place in the first quartet of his transformative works. The setting for this conversation is the place where Jack Kerouac lived when On the Road came out, where he lived when writing the first draft of The Dharma Bums.

Dan Reiter reads from his new book, On a Rising Swell: Surf Stories from the Space Coast, with the jazz piano accompaniment of Daniel Tenbusch, touching the bohemian spirit of Jack Kerouac, who wrote the first draft of The Darma Bums at that very venue. John and Dan share notes about the writing life, the freedom of constraints, the careers of Joan Didion, Jack Kerouac, and Hunter S. Thompson, and physical transcendence—with the occasional contribution from Dr. Truth.

On this show, John speaks with Dmetri Kakmi about holding onto the mysteries of storytelling, the setting of Australia, the wild problem of self, and his wonderful new novel, The Woman in the Well.

After taking a year off to recover, Jeff Shuster return again for a May the 4th episode of The Drunken Odyssey, in which we discuss the seldom-discussed Ewoks trilogy. As a result, we might never have another May the 4th conversation. But the conversation was lively.

On this show, John speaks with the literary scholar, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who writes lucidly about classic American fiction in readable, important, and enjoyable prose. One of Dr. Fishkin's areas of expertise is Mark Twain. Her new book is Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn's Comrade.

While John attempts his convalence from his contempible cold, here is a replay of a classic episode from 2013 with the fiction writer Tessa Mellas.

In Margie Sarsfield's debut novel, Beta Vulgaris, a hipster Brooklyn couple take on temporary work at a Minnesota beet farm at harvest time in order to earn extra money to help them maintain their Brooklyn lifestyle. Elise, the protagonist, who suffers from anxiety that she is no longer medicated for, notices that her fellow workers disappear, either because the work is too difficult or else other mysterious reasons. Elise's experience becomes more anguishing when her boyfriend also disappears, and then the beets start materializing around her wherever she goes, and the beets gradually begin to speak to her.

On this show, correspondent Samantha Nickerson speaks with Sally Wen Mao about her story collection, Ninetails, plus Samantha speaks with Susan Mauddi Darraj about her new novel, Behind You Is The Sea.

In honor of the passing of David Lynch, John and Stephen McClurg discuss the peculiar mysteries of a screenplay for a legendary project that was never made, Ronnie Rocket.