Severance Radio: Episode 8
About the Event
Featuring Kristen Arnett and Scott Dickensheets
Severance Radio is an on-air book club dissecting Ling Ma’s satirical, dystopian novel Severance. The novel is a moving family story that explores loneliness, corporate monotony, and survival in the midst of a global health crisis.
Severance Radio airs on KUNV 91.5FM Sundays at 7 pm PST. Stream it live anywhere in the world at kunv.org/listen/.
Ways to Listen
Las Vegas: 7 PM at KUNV 91.5 FM | Stream it live: kunv.org/listen/
Reno: Noon at KWNK 97.7FM | Stream it live: kwnkradio.org/listen
Rebroadcast
Las Vegas: Mondays at 11 AM on KUNV 91.5 HD-2 | Stream it live: therebelhd2.com/live
Reno: Wednesdays at 6 PM PT on KWNK 97.7FM | Stream it live: kwnkradio.org/listen
About The Episode
In this episode, novelist and twitter comedian Kristen Arnett and Desert Companion editor Scott Dickensheets discuss the value of satire in the middle of a pandemic. As we listen to the audiobook, you can follow along on pages 148 – 168 of the Severance paperback.
DISCUSSED: Diminutive explainers, timing, absurdity, unconnected events,, survival instincts, grief, funerals, Trevor Noah (comedian), coping mechanisms, contrast, humorless people, dinner parties, missing old routines
Kristen Arnett is the NYT and Los Angeles Times bestselling author of the debut novel Mostly Dead Things. She is a queer fiction and essay writer. She was awarded Ninth Letter‘s Literary Award in Fiction and is a columnist for Literary Hub. Her work has appeared at North American Review, The Normal School, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Guernica, Electric Literature, McSweeneys, PBS Newshour, Bennington Review, Tin House Flash Fridays/The Guardian, Salon, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her story collection, Felt in the Jaw, was published by Split Lip Press and was awarded the 2017 Coil Book Award. She was recently a Shearing Fellow at the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Black Mountain Institute. Her next two books (Samson: A Novel and With Foxes: Stories) will be published by Riverhead Books.
Scott Dickensheets is the deputy editor of Desert Companion, the magazine of Nevada Public Radio. Before that, he top-edited the alt-weeklies Las Vegas CityLife and the Las Vegas Weekly, served as managing editor of Las Vegas Life magazine, and worked in a number of positions at the Las Vegas Sun. Dickensheets has edited, co-edited, or contributed to eight volumes of the Las Vegas Writes anthology series, and was an assistant editor of Nevada: 150 Years in the Silver State, the official book of the Nevada sesquicentennial.
Severance Radio: A Nevada Reads Book Club is jointly produced by Nevada Humanities and the Black Mountain Institute, and is part of Nevada Reads, a statewide program of Nevada Humanities. This program is made possible with the support of: Nevada Humanities, Black Mountain Institute, Nevada State library, Archives and Public Records, The Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Nevada Center for the Book. The Nevada Center for the Book is a program of Nevada Humanities and is the state affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.