My guest today is the bestselling author Emma Straub. Her books include This Time Tomorrow, Modern Lovers, The Vacationers, and more. And with her husband, Michael Fusco, she co-owns the beautiful Brooklyn bookstore Books Are Magic.

I’m so thrilled to have her on because, not only is she a wonderful writer, but Key Change is a series about music fandom and identity. And Emma’s newest novel American Fantasy is also about music fandom and identity. That story is set on a cruise ship centered around a nineties boy band and their fans.

But today, Emma’s going to tell me her story about her own relationship with the music of the Magnetic Fields. Stephin Merritt from the Magnetic Fields was just named one of the greatest living American songwriters by the New York Times, and Emma’s introduction to their music was their 1999 triple album, 69 Love Songs.

You can buy or stream 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields here.

footnotes:
Claudia Gonson
LD Beghtol
Future Bible Heroes, The Gothic Archies
“Epitaph For My Heart,” “Long-Forgotten Fairytale,” “Grand Canyon,” “The Book of Love,” “It’s Only Time,” and “Walking My Gargoyle”
Emma Straub’s Magnetic Fields tour blog

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My guest today is Baz Luhrmann, the award-winning director whose films include Moulin Rouge!, Strictly Ballroom, The Great Gatsby, Elvis, and Romeo + Juliet. His newest film is EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, a critically acclaimed documentary about Elvis that’s playing right now in theaters and in IMAX. Before becoming a massively successful film director, Baz began his showbiz career as an actor, and as a ballroom dancer, in Australia. His first film was Strictly Ballroom, which came out in 1992, and became one of the highest-grossing Australian films of all time. It was originally a play, and there’s a song in the film that was part of the story all the way back when it was first performed on stage. And that’s what Baz and I talked about for this episode.

You can buy or stream “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper here.

footnotes:
“One” by John Farnham
National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA), Cate Blanchett, and Mel Gibson
Ted Albert
Tara Morice and Craig Pearce

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My guest today is John Green. John is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, The Anthropocene Reviewed, and Everything is Tuberculosis. John and his brother Hank Green have co-created a lot of projects together, including their massive YouTube channel, ‘Vlogbrothers,’ and their podcast, Dear Hank and John. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for global health nonprofit Partners in Health. And when I asked John if there was a piece of music that changed his life, he knew the answer right away: “You’ll Never Walk Alone” by Gerry and the Pacemakers.

footnotes:
The musical Carousel
The Mountain Goats, Will Oldham, and Loretta Lynn

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