Writer, actress, publisher and adult performer Stoya checks in from Brooklyn. We talk about social change and protests against police violence, why now isn't the time for self-promotion and why it is the time to promote Black voices, what the next world may look like, and why the AVN Awards committee's decision to eliminate the category of "interracial" is long overdue. We also get into her pandemic life, the ethical debate over being on OnlyFans, wanting to get back to her AEW Wednesdays, the value of friendship, the toothpaste she hoards when she's in Serbia, and her relief at discovering that she & her roommate can handle the lockdown. Follow Stoya on Twitter, Instagram, and OnlyFans, and check out her magazine, ZeroSpaces • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Cartoonist, activist and live-drawing pioneer Liza Donnelly checks in from Rhinebeck, NY. We talk about the rhythm of her daily live-drawing video sessions and how they've improved her drawing & maybe her mental health, the Zoom event she held for Society of Illustrations with Roz Chast & Liana Finck, the longform graphic novel she's pondering, what she misses about NYC, her upcoming exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, how she's getting reacquainted with drawing on paper, the challenge of coming up with cartoons for The New Yorker nowadays, and more. Follow Liza on Twitter, Periscope and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Author & photographer Kipp Friedman checks in from Milwaukee, hours after the death of his father, the great writer Bruce Jay Friedman. We trade stories about BJF, but first we talk about how Kipp has been coping with pandemic life, and how, with his bar/bat mitzvah photography business on hiatus, Kipp has returned to a novel he began a few yeas ago about his time as a newspaper reporter in FL in the '80s. He also gets into how teaching tennis manages to keep him occupied while letting him keep appropriate social distance, the advantages of having a live-in chef (his son moved back in and loves to cook), the joy of bingeing on Eric Ambler novels and the Criterion Channel streaming service, and more. Read Kipp's memoir, Barracuda In The Attic • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

The first great author I ever recorded with, Bruce Jay Friedman, died on June 3, 2020, at the age of 90. His work means the world to me, so to celebrate his life, I've re-posted that 2014 podcast, along with a new introduction. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Design scholar, teacher, and author Steven Heller checks in from New York City. We talk about the anxiety & stress of pandemic life, and why he's thinking of designing a watch that just tells you the day of the week. We also get into his upcoming 70th birthday, and why that number is a big rubicon for him, his reread & revised opinion of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, the relaunch of Print magazine (he and partners bought the title a few months ago) and the how he sustains his Daily Heller blog there, the weird comfort of walking through a protest this week, his recent binge of Shtisel on Netflix, and more. Follow Steven on Twitter and Instagram and check out his blog at Print Magazine, The Daily Heller • Listen to our most recent full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Caldecott Medal-winning author & illustrator David Small checks in from SW Michigan. We talk about the "what am I going to do next?" moment he's fallen into, the bad timing of selling his papers to a university library last fall and how it means he has to recreate the opening of his next graphic novel from memory, whether his background as a kids book author & illustrator would help him explain This Whole Situation to kids, the upcoming sequel to one of her best-known books, Imogene's Antlers (and how he gave this one a more evil ending than the one his publisher suggested), living with CLL and other aspects of being 75, how he learned to use the dilation of pandemic-time to his advantage, and more. Listen to our full-length podcast and check out David's graphic novels, Stitches and Home After Dark • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Cartoonist & illustrator Robert Sikoryak checks in from NYC. We talk about his just-completed new book, Constitution Illustrated (Drawn & Quarterly), what he learned about the US Constitution & America in the process of making that book, and how that deadline insulated him a little from the effects of sheltering in place. We get into remote teaching of his art classes at Parsons, finding his best Zoom angle, trying to adapt his Carousel live cartooning performances to the social distancing world, and the sequel to Masterpiece Comics he hopes to work on next. Follow Bob on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Cartoonist & comics-historian Eddie Campbell checks in from Chicago. We talk Pandemic Hair, surviving with a pair of 2-month-old kittens (acquired by yesterday's guest, Eddie's wife Audrey Niffenegger), finishing his book on the great cartoonist and interviewer Kate Carew, the difference between imagining books and making them (I have no idea what he's talking about), how the scribbly charm or half-assed-ness of his comics takes a lot of work, catching up on Gasoline Alley reprints, his appreciation of the interchangeable anonymity of Picasso & Braque's unsigned cubist works, his belief that your bucket list should be enjoyment of the magic of the everyday, and more. Follow Eddie on Twitter and read his work • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Author & artist Audrey Niffenegger checks in from Chicago. We talk about her decision to add a pair of 2-month-old kittens to her pandemic household, the progress she's making on the sequel to The Time Traveler's Wife, how she fortuitously incorporated 9/11 into that book and has found a place for the pandemic in this one, and why she continues to wear lipstick every day. We also get into writers' tendency to keep fiddling with their books (especially and expensively in the case of Joyce with Ulysses), the bookstores she wants to visit after This Whole Situation, the question of positing a better world in fiction, Chicago's inequality and how it's exacerbating the health crisis, the nonprofit Artists Book House she helped launch, and why she's enjoying the silence even as her house succumbs to entropy. Follow Audrey on Twitter and support Artists Book House • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Publisher Annie Koyama checks in from Toronto. We talk about whether the pandemic has affected her plans to close down Koyama Press in 2021, and the big farewell she had planned for this year's Toronto Comic Arts Festival. We get into her guerrilla charity/grant-program to help cartoonists and other creative people, her concerns for her 92-year-old mom, the increasing racism toward people of Asian descent, how "being good in emergencies" gets tested when the emergency never ends, why she delayed her dive into Animal Crossing, and the ongoing lesson of appreciating the mundane. Follow Annie & Koyama Press on Twitter and Instagram, and pick up some of their books • Listen to our full-length podcast • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal