Richard Scott Larson's debut The Long Hallway (University of Wisconsin Press, April 2024) is a lyrical memoir that expresses a boy’s search for identity while navigating the darkness and isolation of a deeply private inner world.

Growing up queer, closeted, and afraid, Richard Scott Larson found expression for his interior life in horror films, especially John Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Halloween. He developed an intense childhood identification with Michael Myers, Carpenter’s inscrutable masked villain, as well as Michael’s potential victims. In The Long Hallway, Larson scrutinizes this identification, meditating on horror as a metaphor for the torments of the closet.

Richard joins host Sara Batkie for a conversation about the masks we wear, the horrors of suburbia, and finding the right home for your work.

Richard Scott Larson is a queer writer and critic. His debut memoir, The Long Hallway, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Born and raised in the suburbs of St. Louis, he studied literature and film criticism at Hunter College and earned his MFA from New York University.

He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and his work has been supported by residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, Paragraph Workspace for Writers, La Porte Peinte, and the Willa Cather Foundation. He’s an active member of the National Book Critics Circle, and his writing has been recognized twice by The Best American Essays.

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Lisa Malawski talks with Rachel Werner

about her children’s book, Moving and Grooving to Fillmore’s Beat and her cookbook,

Macro Cooking Made Simple.

Rachel is a model, an author, a poet, a book reviewer, the founder of The Little Book

Project, a freelance writer and digital medical consultant, teaching artist, certified holistic

nutritionist, certified yoga instructor and mindfulness practitioner. Rachel has a daughter

named Phoebe and a dog named Butter.

Moving and Grooving to Fillmore’s Beat is a beautiful story about the historical Fillmore

District in San Francisco, CA. It teaches children about the Fillmore District’s creative

legacy and names some of the famous artists at the Fillmore such as Carlos Santana

and Maya Angelou.

Macro Cooking Made Simple has fifty plus recipes for clean eating and healthy living.

Rachel has always had a love-hate relationship with food. Rachel was diagnosed with

an eating disorder at the age of 19. Exploring the creative process of eating was a

complete game changer for Rachel in regard to her health and her career.

In this episode, Rachel shares two of her poems and reads one of her daughter’s

poems.

Lisa thanks Rachel for sharing her many talents, and for always being curious in all

things.

Madison author Beth Nguyen’s latest book Owner of a Lonely Heart (Scribner, July 2023) is a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth’s relationship with her mother.

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her family fled Saigon for America. Only Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. It was named a Best Memoir of 2023 by Oprah Daily, and was selected by Time, NPR, and BookPage as a Best Book of 2023.

Beth joins host Sara Batkie ahead of the paperback release for a conversation about the expectations of motherhood, changing her name, and the fallibility of memory.

Beth Nguyen is the author of four books, most recently the memoir Owner of a Lonely Heart, published by Scribner in 2023. Owner of a Lonely Heart was a New York Times Editors’ Choice pick and was named a best book of 2023 by NPR, Time, Oprah Daily, and BookPage. Nguyen’s three previous books, the memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner and the novels Short Girls and Pioneer Girl, were published by Viking Penguin. Her awards and honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, a PEN/Jerard Award from the PEN American Center, a Bread Loaf fellowship, and best book of the year honors from the Chicago Tribune and Library Journal. Her books have been included in community and university read programs around the country. Nguyen’s work has also appeared in numerous anthologies and publications including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Literary Hub, Time Magazine, and The Best American Essays.



Nguyen was born in Saigon. When she was a baby, she and her family came to the United States as refugees and were resettled in Michigan, where Nguyen grew up. She received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan and is currently a professor in the creative writing program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.