Jenn Shapland's first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award and the Southern Book Prize, and it won the 2021 Lambda Literary Award, the Judy Grahn Award, and the Christian Gauss Award. In her new essay collection, Thin Skin, Shapland explores the porousness of boundaries between humans and the environments we inhabit, between us and other people, and between us and the social constructs we create.

What does it mean to be sensitive when we live in a toxic environment? How do we navigate the difference between taking responsibility and assuaging our guilt? Between resisting injustice and coping with it? And how do we reckon with what's happening in the world when no one wants to talk about it? Shapland answers these questions and more in this month's episode of Story Behind the Story.

Special Guest: Jenn Shapland.