The Drunken Odyssey with John King: A Podcast About the Writing Life

In #710, Sophia Ferrara returns to the secret HQ of TDO to chat about the dystopia of Rollerball, as imagined in the film and the short story, which was called "Roller Ball Murder." Jonathan E and his pal Moonpie turn out to be a threat to The Corporation while thriving in a technocratic bloodsport. Good times.

In this week's show, John speaks with the poet Philip Schultz about his wonderful new poetry collection, Enormous Morning. We discuss the self-critical voices that Philip calls the shit-bird, how personas can empower us to become more of ourselves, and the ironies of finding gratitude in our depression in observing how the world tears itself apart.

In this week's show, John speaks with the writer and actor, Felicia Day about her extraordinary page-turner of a graphic novel, The Lost Daughter of Sparta. We discuss how to regulate our bodies as writers, how rich the literature of ancient myth absolutely still is, and how to read for audiobooks, since she has a wealth of acting experience and John doesn't.

In this week's show, the poet Shawn Welcome and I talk about how to love poetry, how to gather together our literary communities, and our beloved city of Orlando, Florida.

On this week's program, I catch up with the amazing Richard Blanco about his recent collected poems, Homeland of my Body, a book sandwiched with two sections of exciting new work.

On this week's program, I talk to Mamie Pound about how flash fiction works, poetry, and finding the authentic, messy, true emotion and understanding despite the editors in our brains.

On this week's program, I talk to Elliot Ackerman about his new novel, Sheepdogs, a hell of a military caper story.

Happy Valentine's Day, world! Listen to Dianne Turgeon Richardson and I discuss the memorable, occasionally exhausting, and morally iffy smut of Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus.

After reading some of Charlotte Brontë's Tales of Angria (#682), John and Sophia go a-Brontë-ing again. They discuss Lucasta Miller's extraordinary survey of the Brontë cult and the durable, troubled legacy of their fiction.

In this week's show, I speak with the comedian Greg Proops about comedy writing, comedy performance, improv, politics, film, and more.

On #700, John speaks with the underrated novelist and essay writer Chuck Klosterman about his wickedly funny and ever-insightful new book called Football. They also speak about post-modernism and humor and how audiences perplexingly invert their expectations about reality when reading fiction and non-fiction. John perhaps goes on a rant about the 1985 New England loss in the Super Bowl.

On this episode, Samantha Nickerson interviews the journalist and memoirist about his new book, Becoming Baba: Fatherhood, Faith, and Finding Meaning in America.

On this episode, John interviews the rock band Descartes a Kant about the creation of exciting twenty-first century theatrical rock and roll. Listen to & buy DAK's music over at Band Camp.

Here John speaks with his friend Todd James Pierce about his research process, his work on Disney artist Mary Blair, and Todd's wonderful new book, Making Mary Poppins, now out with Norton.

On this show, John and Matt Peters continue The Kerouac Project Book Club with a discussion of William S. Burrough's third fiction manuscript, Interzone, the cliff before one arrives at Naked Lunch.

The Drunken Odyssey commandeered the Loose Lips oratory series during the tidings of yule and whatnot on December 2, 2025. The readers included Fred Lambert, Rachael Tillman and her deadly horsemen Shawn McKee, Samantha Nickerson, and that rapscallion John King.

In this week's show, John interviews the poet Anne Waldman about her extraordinary new work, Mesopotopia.