Author & MFA teacher Nicholas Delbanco rejoins the show to celebrate Why Writing Matters (Yale University Press). We get into the notion of literary greatness, the immense craft and revision involved in good writing, the pride of seeing his students achieve lofty heights, and the ways imitation and influence can give way to originality. More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee joins the show to talk about his career and the notions of artistic rivalry, influence and love, and how they came together in his 2017 book, The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals and Breakthroughs in Modern Art. We get into how he got his start in art criticism in Australia, his love for Matisse and Manet, his friendship with Lucian Freud, why American has the best museums, the joy of writing for The Washington Post and why his wonderful Great Works, In Focus series needs a better name, his new project about Berthe Morisot, and more! Follow Sebastian on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Rebecca Mead joins the show to celebrate her amazing new memoir, Home/Land (Knopf)! We talk about the adventure of making a midlife leap — her departure from NYC after 30 years & her return to England —, the ways this memoir differs from My Life In Middlemarch, the moment she truly felt like she was a writer at The New Yorker, and more! Follow Rebecca on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

With her fantastic new book, Accidental Gods: On Men Unwittingly Turned Divine (Metropolitan Books), Anna Della Subin explores how deification has been used for liberation and oppression. We talk religion, rationalism, colonialism, oppression, and mythmaking, and the strange ways in which cultures have collided in the past five centuries, as well as what it means to topple the statues of 'white gods'. Follow Anna on Twitter, and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

New Yorker staff cartoonist David Sipress joins the show to celebrate his new book, What's So Funny?: A Cartoonist's Memoir (Mariner Books)! We get into the instant gratification of cartooning vs. the joy of writing a great piece of prose, the family dynamics that he's been puzzling through for 7+ decades, what it's like to process much of one's life through cartoons, the challenges of doing comics about the pandemic, and more! Follow David on Twitter, Instagram, and The New Yorker • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Author Mark Prins joins the show to celebrate his debut novel, The Latinist (WW Norton), a fantastic, Highsmith-ian novel of Oxford intrigue. We talk classics, poetry (Latin & otherwise), metamorphoses (Ovidian & otherwise), writing across gender, the Blake poem that transformed him, why it's important to Be Kind To Your Reader, & more. Follow Mark on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Author, critic and editor Nicole Rudick joins the show to celebrate the publication of her amazing book, What Is Now Known Was Once Only Imagined: An (Auto)Biography of Niki de Saint Phalle (Siglio Press). We get into Niki de Saint Phalle's word-paintings & what they tell us about the arts of revelation and concealment, Nicole's shifting concept of biography & the tyranny of the archives, the role of the audience/reader in art, and why Nicole's first big post-pandemic trip will be to Niki's Tarot Garden in Tuscany. Follow Nicole on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Cartoonist Darryl Cunningham rejoins the show to talk about his brand-new graphic biography, Putin's Russia: The Rise of a Dictator (Drawn & Quarterly). We get into Putin's postwar upbringing in Leningrad, his KGB career, the fall of the USSR, and how those key elements play into his strategy and tactics for Russia on the world stage. (We also discuss some less fate-of-the-world topics.) Follow Darryl on Twitter and Instagram and support him on Patreon• More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Let's pre-celebrate Valentine's Day with a conversation with Scott Meslow, author of the brand-new book, From Hollywood With Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy! We get into how Scott defines RomComs, what inspired him to chronicle their history, what these movies say about audiences & audience expectations, the entertainment industry, criticism, gender, and diversity trends, and plenty more. Follow Scott on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

With Bianca Stigter's documentary, Three Minutes: A Lengthening, on the festival circuit, author and inadvertent historian Glenn Kurtz joins the show to talk about his 2014 book Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film (FSG), the vibrant Jewish life in prewar Polish Nasielsk, and all that was lost and all that he found • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal