Join us for a heartening discussion of Where It’s All Going and Why There’s Not A Lot of Good Reason to Believe It’s Going to Turn Out Well. Sounds like another publishing conversation, right? Close, but this one’s about the actual end of the world. Which is also publishing, turns out.
Our guest is friend of the pod and beloved apocalypse harbinger Roy Scranton, Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative, whose writing you may have encountered in the novels War Porn and I Heart Oklahoma!, such nonfiction books as Learning to Die In The Anthropocene and We’re Doomed, Now What?, and various journals and magazines. This ep is occasioned by Roy’s latest book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, just out in August 2025 from Stanford University Press, which we find to be a true fount of 21st-century publishing inspo. In the book, Roy takes our magical thinking about ecological collapse and what we think we can do about it to task, questioning progress narratives and arguing for realistic responses in the tradition of Ethical Pessimism. Ethical? Pessimism? Sounds like small press publishing to us! Why make books? Why make books at the end of the world?
Along the way: suffering, time, attention, hope, nihilism, antagonism, the Serenity Prayer, Mary Shelley’s dad, AI, parasites, trolls, Michael Mann, Joseph Tainter, Johannes Göransson and Joyelle McSweeney of Action Books (s/o ep. 9), Matvei Yankelevich (s/o ep. 1), Charles Bukowski and Modest Mouse, crises in our national political discourse and in higher ed, publishing's carbon footprints, three adults trying to figure out what a Wojak is, and other stuff that’s decidedly not for everyone. Buckle up, doomers.
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Join us for a heartening discussion of Where It’s All Going and Why There’s Not A Lot of Good Reason to Believe It’s Going to Turn Out Well. Sounds like another publishing conversation, right? Close, but this one’s about the actual end of the world. Which is also publishing, turns out.
Our guest is friend of the pod and beloved apocalypse harbinger Roy Scranton, Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative, whose writing you may have encountered in the novels War Porn and I Heart Oklahoma!, such nonfiction books as Learning to Die In The Anthropocene and We’re Doomed, Now What?, and various journals and magazines. This ep is occasioned by Roy’s latest book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, just out in August 2025 from Stanford University Press, which we find to be a true fount of 21st-century publishing inspo. In the book, Roy takes our magical thinking about ecological collapse and what we think we can do about it to task, questioning progress narratives and arguing for realistic responses in the tradition of Ethical Pessimism. Ethical? Pessimism? Sounds like small press publishing to us! Why make books? Why make books at the end of the world?
Along the way: suffering, time, attention, hope, nihilism, antagonism, the Serenity Prayer, Mary Shelley’s dad, AI, parasites, trolls, Michael Mann, Joseph Tainter, Johannes Göransson and Joyelle McSweeney of Action Books (s/o ep. 9), Matvei Yankelevich (s/o ep. 1), Charles Bukowski and Modest Mouse, crises in our national political discourse and in higher ed, publishing's carbon footprints, three adults trying to figure out what a Wojak is, and other stuff that’s decidedly not for everyone. Buckle up, doomers.
Episode 7: Suzanne DeGaetano - “Small Presses Are the Lifeblood of the Indie Bookstore”
Index for Continuance
1 hour 27 minutes 3 seconds
2 years ago
Episode 7: Suzanne DeGaetano - “Small Presses Are the Lifeblood of the Indie Bookstore”
We spend this episode with the inimitable Suzanne DeGaetano of Mac’s Backs Books on Coventry, the beloved indie bookstore in Cleveland Heights (and popping up all over the city) that just celebrated its 40th anniversary. Suzanne shares invaluable insights into the workings of an independent bookstore; welcoming people and sustaining community; paying the bills; changes in the industry over the past 40 years; the role of events, social media, wholesalers like Ingram, and neon signs; the longstanding relationship between food service and literary work; and more. This is a Cleveland-forward episode so get ready.
You’ll hear us mention some other great indies in Northeast Ohio, like: Loganberry Books, Visible Voice, and Elizabeth’s. And we’ll talk a bit about changes at Small Press Distribution (SPD), the stubborn persistence of print books, Bookshop.org, and our feelings about the phrase “slim volume.” Oh, and Espresso Book Machines do exist, despite Hilary’s choice of verb tenses.
It’s summer, so in this month’s eps you’ll also literally hear Cleveland—birds, wind, traffic, whatever—because it was hot and the windows were open. This podcast is an immersive experience.
Index for Continuance
Join us for a heartening discussion of Where It’s All Going and Why There’s Not A Lot of Good Reason to Believe It’s Going to Turn Out Well. Sounds like another publishing conversation, right? Close, but this one’s about the actual end of the world. Which is also publishing, turns out.
Our guest is friend of the pod and beloved apocalypse harbinger Roy Scranton, Associate Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame and Director of the Notre Dame Environmental Humanities Initiative, whose writing you may have encountered in the novels War Porn and I Heart Oklahoma!, such nonfiction books as Learning to Die In The Anthropocene and We’re Doomed, Now What?, and various journals and magazines. This ep is occasioned by Roy’s latest book, Impasse: Climate Change and the Limits of Progress, just out in August 2025 from Stanford University Press, which we find to be a true fount of 21st-century publishing inspo. In the book, Roy takes our magical thinking about ecological collapse and what we think we can do about it to task, questioning progress narratives and arguing for realistic responses in the tradition of Ethical Pessimism. Ethical? Pessimism? Sounds like small press publishing to us! Why make books? Why make books at the end of the world?
Along the way: suffering, time, attention, hope, nihilism, antagonism, the Serenity Prayer, Mary Shelley’s dad, AI, parasites, trolls, Michael Mann, Joseph Tainter, Johannes Göransson and Joyelle McSweeney of Action Books (s/o ep. 9), Matvei Yankelevich (s/o ep. 1), Charles Bukowski and Modest Mouse, crises in our national political discourse and in higher ed, publishing's carbon footprints, three adults trying to figure out what a Wojak is, and other stuff that’s decidedly not for everyone. Buckle up, doomers.
