This New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year (2019) is a story of two families told from the perspectives of various family members. It examines class, gender roles, queerness, and the intersections between personal & collective history, in this case the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 and the Great Northward Migration of 6 million African Americans from the rural American South to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West.

In this month's episode - our final episode for Season 1 - hosts Vina Orden and Tamara Crawford discuss Fernanda Melchor’s English-language debut novel, Hurricane Season, which explores the misogyny and rampant violence against women and trans people that goes unnoticed and unmentioned in society. For transcripts, links to things mentioned on the show, and other bonus material, please visit our blog (https://medium.com/the-lift-up-podcast).

It's sci-fi month on The Lift Up! Hosts Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden discuss The City We Became, the latest novel by award-winning author N. K. Jemisin, and Friday Black, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's debut short story collection. Both writers create hyperreal versions of American society, imagining what it might look like when communities either succeed or fail to come together against the evils of our time—from racism and xenophobia, to police violence, to gentrification, to overconsumption and unfettered capitalism. Thanks to listener and friend of the pod Camille, who suggested Jemisin, specifically her must-read Broken Earth trilogy! For transcripts, links to things mentioned on the show, and other bonus material, please visit our blog (https://medium.com/the-lift-up-podcast).

In this month's episode, hosts Tamara Crawford and Vina Orden discuss both the UK (2016) and US (2018) editions of The Good Immigrant, a collection of essays edited by Nikesh Shukla (both versions) and Chimene Suleyman (US version). The 46 contributors to both editions have roots in China, India, Iran, Kashmir, Pakistan, Malaysia, South Korea, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Argentina, France, Ireland, Northern Cyprus, Turkey, and other places around the world. They explore and challenge the idea of "the good immigrant" by writing about struggles; the multiplicities in their identities; re-connecting with one's culture or finding one's identity; examining whiteness or white adjacency; colonial and post-colonial traumas; respectability politics; being invisible; representation in popular culture; publishing and the problem of the "single story," among many themes. Additional credit for this episode goes to Nick Kirk for helping with research on the historical timeline around immigration policies in the UK. For transcripts, links to things mentioned on the show,  and other bonus material, please visit our blog (https://medium.com/the-lift-up-podcast).

In this month's episode, hosts Vina Orden and Tamara Crawford talk about Nicole Dennis-Benn's sophomore novel, Patsy, which explores the story of a young Jamaican woman who leaves her daughter behind to chase the love of her life and the American Dream in Brooklyn, NYC, and who finds herself charting a different course as the reality of her undocumented immigrant experience sets in.

Hosts Tamara and Vina discuss Tommy Orange's 2018 debut novel, There There, which delves into the lives of twelve "urban Natives" from Oakland who grapple with their personal and collective histories, identities, and relationships. As Americans celebrate Independence Day on July 4, we thought it all the more important to remember (in the words of one of the characters Dene Oxendene), "for Native people in this country, all over the Americas, it's been developed over, buried ancestral land, glass and concrete and wire and steel, unreturnable covered memory. There is no there there."

In Part 2 of our interview with the writer Gina Apostol, whose novel Insurrecto was featured this month on The Lift Up, we discuss gate-keeping in the publishing industry; the economics of writing; and the importance of doing the work that’s within your desire, even—or especially if—it does something to counter the system.

Writer Gina Apostol joins hosts Tamara and Vina for a conversation (in two parts) about her fourth novel, Insurrecto, as well as football (or soccer, to American listeners); the Pilipino as a hyper-postmodern hyper-human; and the importance of activism and long-term organizing for meaningful social change.

In the lead-up to Philippine Independence Day on June 12, hosts Tamara and Vina discuss Gina Apostol's Insurrecto, exploring the forgotten Philippine-American War through the mediated lenses of Pilipina translator Magsalin and American filmmaker Chiara Brasi.

Who are Tamara and Vina, and why did they start The Lift Up? Listen to find out more about your hosts and their motivations in starting this monthly literary podcast...