Tin House Live: Richard Powers on The Overstory

Tin House Live: Richard Powers on The Overstory

Author: David Naimon, Milkweed Editions May 19, 2023 Duration: 1:34:23

Back in 2019, when Richard Powers was a guest on Between the Covers for The Overstory, we also appeared together that very same night, in conversation again. This time, an onstage ticketed event at Revolution Hall before a live audience. I’ve wanted to share this second conversation ever since. Not only because I prepared two distinctly different interviews, but also because this was Powers’ first visit to Oregon for The Overstory, a book not merely set in the Pacific Northwest but one that deeply engages with the longstanding history of forest defense in the region on behalf of the last remaining stands of old growth forest. Because Powers hadn’t been to Portland for his hardback or paperback tours and had since won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this very book, and because of the deep connection the Portland community has to the stories within this novel, the atmosphere was electric at this sold-out event, overflowing with anticipation, excitement, and joy. I’m so happy to be able to now share this with you and want to thank Richard Powers, W. W. Norton, and Powell’s Books, the host of the event, for making that possible. And whether or not you’ve heard the podcast conversation that aired with Powers in 2019, it is a great complement to today’s episode. Two conversations on the same day, one with just Richard and me, the other celebrating the book in community, quite different in tone and content and yet interwoven and speaking to each other.

For the bonus audio archive, Richard contributes a reading of an incredibly moving  W. S. Merwin poem about trees, which joins Jorie Graham reading poems by others about rain, Kaveh Akbar reading about worms, Forrest Gander reading poems about lichen, and much more. The bonus audio is only one possible benefit of joining the Between the Covers community as a listener-supporter. You can find out about them all at the show’s Patreon page. Lastly, here is today’s very tree-centric Bookshop.

 


There's a particular kind of conversation that happens when a thoughtful reader sits down with a writer, one that moves beyond simple promotion into the real heart of the creative act. Between The Covers is built on that very premise. Hosted by David Naimon and presented with Milkweed Editions, this long-form interview podcast delves into the lives and minds of authors working across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each episode feels less like an interview and more like a privileged eavesdrop on a deep, meandering dialogue. You'll hear writers discuss not just their latest book, but the fragments of life, the stubborn questions, and the daily rituals that feed their work. Naimon’s approach is informed and curious, often leading guests into unexpected reflections on craft, influence, and the ideas that haunt them. The result is a consistently illuminating audio experience that feels like a private workshop in narrative, language, and thought. For anyone who loves the texture of words and the stories behind them, this podcast offers a sustained and intimate look at how literature is made. It’s a space where the finished book is just the starting point for a richer exploration.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 100

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry
Podcast Episodes
Elle Nash : Deliver Me [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:47:07
Perhaps it is fitting that today’s episode, with writer and founding editor of Witch Craft Magazine, Elle Nash, is launched on the shortest day of the year, the longest night of darkness. Nash’s new novel Deliver Me expl…
Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part Two [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:28:12
Today’s part two of the conversation with Naomi Klein about Doppelganger highlights the Jewish elements in the book, and looks at them through the lens of Palestine and Israel. We discuss Zionism, Marxism, and the Jewish…
Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar : Tone [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:30:10
In Kate Zambreno & Sofia Samatar’s Tone they construct a shared voice, that of the “Committee to Investigate the Atmosphere.” Yes, they do this to investigate tone, in the writings of everyone from Nella Larsen to Claric…
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore : Touching the Art [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:34:18
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore returns to Between the Covers to talk about her remarkable new book, Touching the Art. A mixture of memoir, biography, criticism, and social history, Touching the Art is above all a complicate…
Bhanu Kapil : Incubation : A Space for Monsters [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:34:20
Bhanu Kapil’s postcolonial feminist road novel Incubation: A Space for Monsters has long been out of print. The book of hers that most engages with the mythos and reality of America, Incubation follows Laloo, a British w…
Colleen Burner : Sister Golden Calf [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:35
Colleen Burner’s novella Sister Golden Calf is the story of two sisters on the road set in a world without men. Inspired, in part, by Vanessa Veselka’s essay “Green Screen: The Lack of Female Road Narratives and Why it M…
Kate Briggs : The Long Form [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:21:51
Essayist and translator Kate Briggs’ first novel The Long Form is a book about, and happening within, the relationship between Helen and her infant daughter, Rose. What does making a novel baby-centric, not a novel about…
Lydia Davis : Our Strangers [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:58:06
Today’s conversation with Lydia Davis about her latest story collection, Our Strangers, a collection of 143 stories, is a deep dive into storytelling. These stories, whether incredibly short or quite long, often eschew b…
Naomi Klein : Doppelganger : Part One [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:18:24
Naomi Klein’s new book, Doppelganger, is a departure for her. One some of her closest friends even cautioned her against. On the one hand, it is what we’ve come to expect from Klein, a brilliant framing, through the coin…
Tin House Live : Matthew Zapruder on Story of a Poem [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:50
You could say that Matthew Zapruder’s Story of a Poem is about the revision of a poem, that it follows the life of one poem, from its first phrase to its final draft, and invites us, in the most mesmerizing way, behind t…