George Saunders, in an excerpt from his Art of Fiction interview, explains how his teenage job delivering fast food prepared him to write fiction; Monica Youn reads her poem “Goldacre,” which tells the truth about Twinkies; Molly McCully Brown reads her essay “If You Are Permanently Lost,” in which she confesses that “space makes no sense”; and Venita Blackburn reads “Fam,” a very short story about self-love and social media.

This episode was sound designed and mixed by Helena de Groot, and mastered by Justin Shturtz.