S5 Ep. 26: ‘Let Me Say It With All My Heart: This is Such Bullshit’: Shelly Oria and Kristen Arnett on the Reproductive Rights Crisis

fiction/non/fiction

Editor and writer Shelly Oria and novelist Kristen Arnett join co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss the reproductive rights crisis through the lens of art, specifically through the stories, plays, essays and poems that comprise McSweeney’s new anthology, I Know What’s Best for You, edited by Oria. In the wake of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the conversation teases out how, through art, charged political issues like abortion take on a specificity that they don’t in basic reporting or debate. The writers speak about misinformation and crisis pregnancy centers, as well as what a post-Roe future might hold. Arnett reads from her story, “The Babies,” and Oria reads from hers, “We Bled All Winter.”

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/.

This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf.

Selected Readings:

Shelly Oria

• I Know What’s Best for You: Stories on Reproductive Freedom
• Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings from the Me Too Movement
• New York 1, Tel Aviv 0

Kristen Arnett

• With Teeth
• Mostly Dead Things
• Felt in the Jaw

Others:

• “Key Passages from the Leaked Supreme Court Draft Opinion”, Maria Cramer
• “CNN Poll: The Supreme Court’s draft opinion on Roe v. Wade hasn’t shaken the mid-term landscape”, Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy
• The Brigid Alliance

Select contributors:

• R.O. Kwon
• Deborah Landau
• Deb Olin Unferth
• Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Donnetta Lavinia Grays
• Hannah Lillith Assadi
• Alison Espach
• Tommy Orange
• Riva Lehrer
• Cade Leebron

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