Episode 18: On Shame & Writing

May 16th, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guest: David Olimpio
Produced by Katie Rainey

Welcome to the eighteenth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, brought to you by persons eponymous (corporations are people too, people-bunnies), for which we've invited David Olimpio, Editor in Chief of Atticus Review and author of the stunning, memoiristic collection of linked nonfictions, THIS IS NOT A CONFESSION. Today we'll be talking about his hostile takeover of Atticus Review (kidding, he bought it fair and square -- but seriously, corporations are people too), the heartbreaking yet tragedy-defying experiences embedded within his book, and, of course, we'll get a reading from David, which is sure to remind you why we do this work. 

>> Brian: Welcome to the eighteenth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum. We're here today with Dave Olympio, the editor in chief of Atticus Review, which has been kind enough to publish a couple of my reviews.

>> Katie: And mine.

>> Brian: And our lovely producers’.

>> Katie: I'm here too.

>> Brian: Yes. Dave is the author of This Is Not a Confession, a book of essays which explores the residual effects of sexual abuse, divorce and grief and more. Okay, so yeah, this episode’s...

>> Dave: Hello

>> Brian: Here's Dave.

>> Katie: Welcome, Dave, into our circus.

>> Brian: I am going to say that our episode's brand of fuckery is brought to you by parents showing up unannounced. So yeah, my parents, my parents are currently holed up in my bedroom, having arrived at my apartment all the way from DC two hours ago, after having given no indication of their travel plans.

>> Katie: Yep. We had no warning. And here they are. But we love them and they brought their dog, which is currently loving on Dave.

>> Dave: Which is really on brand for me. I have two dogs that I take photos of all the time.

>> Brian: That's my entire instagram. Yeah, that's literally all my instagram is. That's why I have an instagram, is to take photos of Rosetta over here.

>> Katie: So we already know that you're a super generous and forgiving person for doing a podcast in the middle of all this.

>> Brian: This's like classic neurotic Jewish family shit going on, my parents like not remembering that they're coming. And they brought rum cake too.

>> Dave: It's good rum cake.

>> Katie: So we have rum cake.

>> Brian: It's probably kosher. I'll check the box later anyway.

>> Dave: And I brought beer, but I'm the only one drinking.

>> Brian: Yeah, that is true, which is actually kind...

>> Katie: That's not on brand for us.

>> Brian: You know, I was telling Dave that my psychiatrist prescribed me Klonopin recently to help me sleep every now and then. So I'm laying off the booze just a little bit.

>> Dave: That's smart.

>> Brian: Being smart, harm reduction strategies, as the redditors would say. Okay, yeah. So let's talk about let's talk about Atticus first. Because you are the editor in Chief, as I said of Atticus Review. So you bought them, which is very interesting in itself. Let's talk about that.

>> Dave: Yeah. That seems to be going on a lot these days, like people buying presses or whatever.

>> Brian: How did that? Yeah, how did that happen?

>> Dave: Well, Dan Cuffaro, who started the press, he put out a call for editor in chief and and I had known him. He lived in the area in New Jersey where I was living at that time, so I'd kind of known him previously. And I got in touch with him and then got the job as editor in chief. And then I did that for three or four months. And then... my background is in web development. So I kept thinking of all these things I wanted to do with the page and everything.

>> Brian: And how long ago is this?

>> Dave: So this was a summer of 2016.

>> Brian: Okay, so it's a fairly recent;y.

>> Dave: So then I just and he seemed to be kind of like, checked out. I think he was burned out. I mean, I don't mean in a negative way, but he just seemed pretty burned out. So I kind of ran by the idea with him of, like, you know, just something you still want to continue to do. And because I would be interested, maybe, in buying it. So we talk back and forth and worked out a deal, and I took it over in January of 2017 and started.

>> Katie: When did it start?

>> Dave: Well, like around 2011.

>> Brian: That's fairly new. That's interesting, because that you weren't like a speculator. You were like, you've got the job because you wanted it. And then you bought it.

>> Dave: Yeah, and then I just I've always liked, you know, doing online publishing and stuff. I mean, I was a bit older than you guys, so I was kind of like a blogger, you know, back in the 90's.

>> Katie: What was your blog called?

>> Dave: It was "notsolinear" which is now my twitter handle. I was just kind of in the DC blog scene a lot, and I just always liked online publishing and online writing. There used to be sort of intimacy to it that sort of became non intimate as it went on long. I think people started becoming this persona, and they're blog. And then that became really not as cool

>> Brian: Competing for eyeballs has kind of changed that?

>> Katie: Some of the early blogs were picked up for books.

>> Brian: Yeah, do you guys remember Tucker Max? (laughs) Do you know you remember Tucker Max?

>> Katie: No.

>> Brian: It was this lawyer who basically wrote about his like conquests of women and alcohol.

>> Katie: Oh I was thinking of something like Julia and Julia or something (laughs)

>> Brian: And they turned that into a movie. I mean, that's... Jesus, That shows how much times have changed over the last decade. That was, like, ten years ago.

>> Dave: We had one of those guys in DC too who did the same stick. Basically, I'm trying to remember his name, but I don't even really want to say because I don't want to plug him, but yeah. He was really big just doing that kind of thing. You know, over the top chauvinistic stuff.

>> Brian: Yeah. And, uh, I guess I guess, though, I guess Tucker Max is like a reformed man. He's apologized for his way. So yeah, hopefully that yeah, indemnifies mu plug. But yeah. So I know what you mean about the blog's. I think one of my theories is that it's like, back then, just a lot of people didn't know how to do it. It's not like you had blogspot and these platforms. It was like, `` You know, a lot of these people are building their own web pages.

>> Dave: Yeah, I did. I mean, because I was a web developer. I built my own platform and everything, even though there was Blogger and I started doing that, but then it didn't have enough things that I wanted it to do. So I basically built my own.

>> Katie: Are you the reason, Atticus Web page looks so good.

>> Dave: That's right.

>> Brian: Yeah, actually, you know, I was like, I was looking at it just before.

>> Katie: Are you guys on a template?

>> Dave: We're on a template, but, you know, I can do a lot of customization.

>> Katie: Templates are just easier to hand down.

>> Dave: Yeah, Yeah, There's no reason to, like, start from scratch.

>> Brian: So for all of us looking, you know, for squarespace or whatever you're looking at, you know...

>> Katie: That's the end of that thought Brian

>> Dave: I'm actually for hire  I'm gonna plug myself. That's where I thought you were going.

>> Brian: I'm laughing at, like you're deep interest in, like, whether they're using a template or not.

>> Katie: Well, yeah, because I built ours.

>> Dave: Yeah, So I mean, isn't your sister in graphic design or something?

>> Katie: Yeah.

>> Dave: So, yeah, I'm actually gonna be getting back into that. I mean, I did web development for many years, as I worked for, actually, for mothers against drunk driving for their new national office. I was one of two guys that did their website and their intranet and all that stuff.

>> Katie: That's bringing back some memories right now.

>> Dave: Oh, yeah?

>> Katie: Yeah, because they were always under and like the after school specials like that. So it's weird.

>> Dave: They were interesting place to work for, but I met some great awesome people that I'm still friends with, but yeah, I mean, so I took over the press and 2017 and then just rebuilt the website started doing some new things like this Weekly Atticus. We have this newsletter that we send out every Saturday morning at ten.

>> Katie: Can you subscribe to the Web site?

>> Dave: Yeah and I probably need to get people to subscribe to that.

>> Katie: What is it?

>> Dave: AtticusReview.org. We started with a pretty huge email this just because it had been around since 2011 and people had subscribed. But Dan wasn't really sending out too much anymore, especially the previous maybe, you know, two or three years and so when I took it over and started doing the newsletters, I mean, we did get a lot of unsubscribes at first, cause I think a lot of people just didn't realize they were on this list, but now it's kind of balanced out, and we get a lot of good feedback from people. We try to do a newsletter where the intro is written by one of the editors each week and way like to make it a little more personal. So it starts with this sort of introduction, usually on a writerly topic from one of the editors, and then we post every day. So then this Saturday newsletter is just sort of the week's publishing's from that week.

>> Katie: How many people do you have on staff?

>> Dave: It's about twelve to fifteen. I don't know exactly. I can't remember now. But it's the main editors Dorothy Bendel's are managing editor. Michael Myerhoffer is the poetry editor on Michelle Ross is fiction, and then Shauna Craig is nonfiction. And then they each have, like some readers under You know, that help them and then... is doing a great job with their book reviews.

>> Dave: Yeah, that's... I'm so happy you brought that up. The last review that I submitted to Atticus, this is probably around the time that you were taking over. So I'd written a couple reviews, and then I reviewed a book that I did not like And I guess it was pretty brutal. And he came back to me. It was like, Look, can we like?

>> Dave: That might have been me pushing back a little bit on you.

>> Brian: I won't name the book or anything, but like, yeah, I was getting my honest opinion, you know, And like it ended up just being like either you like, tone it down or like, let's... I just chose not to, like, revise it cause I was like, I can't like, you know, and I totally get it. It's like it's tough because, you know, you want to be honest, but at the same time, like when you're when you're publishing stuff yourself like you have relationships with writers, you have your own reputation, and it was just a tough situation, you know?

>> Dave: Yeah. I mean, I don't want to suggest that we only publish good reviews, and I like people to be critical, but I just don't see I've had this discussion with some friends. I mean, if you're like the New York Times or something like, I see the point of a bad review. And even if you get a bad review in The New York Times, they can help you.

>> Brian: Yeah, it'll help you.

>> Katie: People want to know for themselves and still read.

>> Dave: I just feel like if it's a bad book than just let's... and I've had it happened several times now. It's like the reviewer just doesn't like the book. And I'm like, Okay, well, it's just not review it.

>> Katie: Yeah, better leave it. I feel that, like there's critical And then there's just, like take down And it could be... yeah.

>> Brian: I think it's important to talk about because I mean, on my end, it wasn't like, Oh, I just wasted my energy on that. It's like I kind of I feel like reviews air like an extension of the workshops we did at Sarah Lawrence. Like in a program is like when you think about someone else's writing, you write why you don't like it. Like it benefits you.

>> Dave: Yeah, totally.

>> Brian: And I can see, especially in hindsight, that it was a book that came out with a small press, and it's like, there's, you know, there's part of me that, like in a principled sense, I was like, Well, you know, we need to talk about what makes good writing and whatever. But I also think that like, yeah, a book that's big enough to come out in The New York Times. It's like, Well, let's talk about why this book got a lot of money and recognition And if it didn't deserve that necessarily, or some people believe that it didn't let That's a good dialectic to have. And I can totally see now how, you know, just like kind of shitting on a book. Not like, not like I was out to get someone, but, like, kind of like shitting on a book that's not going to get that much daylight anyway. It's like, What are we really doing here? You know, So I was kind of like, Well, that's an exercise and I just I threw it away, you know, it's fine. It was whatever.

>> Dave: It's definitely a tricky topic because I could see the other point of view, which is that maybe we just need more honesty, you know, with, especially with twitter and stuff. I mean, I think there's so much.

>> Brian: Especially, like, fake reviews on Amazon yourself. Like, you know, like, you know, it's like even when my book comes out, I'm gonna get twenty five people, you know, there's a certain number you got, you know, I mean, a lot of people. And so, yeah, there is that other side. I totally know what you mean, But but the only other book that I've paid..

>> Katie: Can you just elaborate on the twenty five people?

>> Brian: I actually don't know exactly what it means. Like, I just remember, at AWP, we were there, you know, a week and a half ago. It's been 2 weeks already. Were you there?

>> Dave: Yeah.

>> Katie: We saw each other briefly. Booth 9044. Was that it?

>> Dave: 9044. Close.

>> Katie: Isn't that what I said?

>> Dave: Oh good job.

>> Katie: This is your crazy how I'm remembering... I still feel like I'm in AWP.

>> Brian: Well, they were talking at one panel. I mean, this is the vaguest fucking, you know, response I'll give. But they're talking about one panel about how there's like if you hit twenty five user reviews on, like on on Amazon thing like something happen like some boost of recognition happens, I'd like I'm totally butchering this, but, you know, that's and like, obviously those are all just shills for your book. These aren't, like, honest, like, you know, reviews. And so, yeah, I can totally see that. But the only other big book, the other book that I panned in a review I was published with a major press and and yeah, I mean, I stand by that, too, like it came out with three AM. And like I was like This is bullshit, Like this person probably got paid like a decent amount of money. They got a book deal and like, it's not a good book. I'm sorry, like, you know, like, and this is why so I don't know. It's not like you want to hurt someone's feelings But yeah, I digress.

>> Dave: We also do film reviews, and those of those have gotten some pans, you know? But I feel differently about those. Especially like the being, you know, because they used to do film reviews, but they do. They mainly do, like small indie films and stuff. But now I kind of opened it up. And Allison does that and she also does a really awesome job. And she's brought on some different reviewers. And they've panned some movies. But I guess I feel differently about that, because they're Yeah, they're big movies.

>> Katie: Yeah. I totally feel the same way.

>> Dave: Yeah, I don't know. It's tricky.

>> Brian: Yeah. No, I really do think that the pattern there is, like, those bigger movies are the you know, the big press books. It's like you're talking about more about, like, a privilege and how much is something that's earned, you know? So I think it is more relevant, but yeah. So you took over, Atticus. When did you When did you start, like, seriously writing? Have you always been a writer?

>> Dave: Yeah. I always wrote, since probably junior high I guess. I mean, I you know, And even before that, I had this journal that I found from my third grade that I like to reference, which it's kind of funny because it actually corroborated some things that I wrote about in my book because I guess that was a very seminal year for my brain. Like a lot of different things happen, but so I went back. Anyway, this is kind of going off topic, but yeah, So I used to write, like, a little journal in third grade, and then I kind of stopped. But high school, I guess, is when I started more seriously doing it. And then in college, I wrote like it for my own pieces. They let me do a creative thesis. So I did a novella is just now and a drawer.

>> Brian: Yeah. When's the last time you read it?

>> Dave: I guess it was a while ago is like over fifteen years ago. I picked it up because now that I'm forty five, fifteen years ago I was thirty. I thought I'd pick that up and maybe start something with it. And then I realized No, there's nothing here. So and then I took a long break. I bartended. I did a lot of stuff after college that had nothing to do with literary stuff. I thought I was going to gather all this life experience.

>> Brian: Were you writing at the time?

>> Dave: No, not a lot.

>> Brian: You were just you know, I mean, because no, I mean, I'll say after probably not as long as you, but after undergrad our third partner, Jon Kay. He invited me to go live out in Seattle. And that's how you know my book set in Seattle. And I just I worked, like, really shitty jobs. Or, like, you know, I had one like Concierge's Graveyard shift concierge, but, like, I just, like, did anything that would allow me to write, but, like, kind of the same idea. Like I was just like figuring out what I was going to realize that I guess, you know/

>> Dave: Yeah. I mean, I thought I wanted to do fiction, but I think where I found my voice or whatever was in blogging basically and that was, you know, again, like around 2000. I just wrote a lot of my blog, and it was kind of like personal essays, but I didn't know what to call it. During those, like, early days of blogging, I don't think people knew what to do.

>> Brian: I'm so intrigued by this, like, especially your perspective. Like, you mentioned like intimacy?

>> Brian: Yeah. I mean, I know a lot of bloggers who were just blogging about their life, and they would get in such a genuine way. It wasn't contrived. It was, you know, And there's several blog's that I read around that time, you know, and it's like it feels a little... I mean, I haven't and that's where I kind of learned I have a penitent or sort of interest in nonfiction, memoir and stuff like that. But, you know, just people expressing their humanness, you know, and people did that a lot more genuinely, I think.

>> Brian: Do you think it's because people are competing for eyeballs that blogs have changed or did one question on my being an entryway into this question is did you put your name on your blog?

>> Dave: I did.

>> Brian: And I guess what was the percentage?

>> Dave: A lot of people, especially in the DC blogosphere, were private. And you could be that. That's what's amazing. I don't think you could do that anymore.

>> Brian: Exactly. And there's a lack of ego in that, you know? You're talking about this kind of, like, contrived, like, you know, persona sort of thing. It's like when you're not putting your name on it, you're like, not trying to accomplish, except for just sharing something with other people.

>> Dave: You got a version. I think of somebody that was sort of their alter ego, but in a kind of a genuine way, because they weren't out like, make it big or something. They were just kind of doing it to do it, Yeah, and so that's what I would do. And I would just sort of write on that, And I didn't tweet it or I didn't do anything with it. I just thought people were going to find this thing, you know?

>> Katie: And did they?

>> Dave: Just other bloggers.

>> Brian: I'm so fascinated by this DC blogosphere because it's regional.

>> Dave: Yeah, we all read each other's blogs.

>> Brian: Like the Internet is literally worldwide.

>> Dave: I mean, I'm sure there were other readers I just don't or people that were from other areas, but I just remember there being kind of this community there in DC that I really liked. There was a good five there with other bloggers. And we'd have meet ups, you know, when we meet up at a bar. And that's where people started realizing who won another was like, Oh, you're so and so you know. So it kind of took the mask away a little bit. But before that I grew up in Texas and I lived in Houston but I lived in Dallas during the 90s and the late 90s and early 2000s, and during that time, I just like these writers. I mean I don't know this person doesn't even know who I am anymore probably. But there was one blogger that really I liked a lot named Bluish Orange. I just thought she was a really great writer and she wrote about herself in a very honest, intimate way. And yeah, and then we'd hang... like I got to know that.... And then that sort of had its own little group of people that were sort of a clique in this blogosphere being that I never really fit into. I met a bunch of that clique in South by Southwest. That's where writers would online writers would sort of meet back then.

>> Brian: Yeah.

>> Dave: Which now South by Southwest, is kind of like a big mark like it's just marketers.

>> Katie: I feel like you have never even heard of that.

>> Dave: South by Southwest? It started as a music festival in Austin, and then now they have an interactive thing, which started back in the early 2000s, and they have a film division's well, yeah, And then there was this other blog that a lot of people knew at the time DOOCE.com. And she's one of the first ones like that got famous for losing her job because she was blogging.

>> Katie: Oh wow. What was she talking about?

>> Dave: Her family and her baby. And I mean, at first it was just her. She had a dog and she got married. And that was when I sort of was reading her blog. And then and then she had a baby and became sort of one of the first mommy blogs basically.

>> Brian: She lost her job?

>> Dave: This was before she had a baby that she lived out in LA. And she had this job and she has very opinionated and very honest.

>> Brian: And probably something that would lose your job. It's like back when Facebook came out and it's like if you if you were drinking in your photos, they would be like, You can't do that.

>> Dave: Yeah, the world we live in is so different. But yeah, I mean. And her name's Heather B. Armstrong. She still thinks she still makes a living off of her blog selling advertising and stuff. I mean, it's pretty, but it's a very different blog. It's more. Although she is getting back to her roots a little more. I checked it recently because she got sort of... It's almost like she sold out a little bit. She's got all this advertising money.

>> Katie: Sold out on here mommy blog (laughter). That Toys R Us money.

>> Dave: Her blog really just became less interesting to me. I mean, you know, it sounded like her doing like a schtick on yourself all the time.

>> Brian: Yeah, so yes, it sounds like you're very, very passionate like loyal to like honesty and like, intimacy. Because you said you thought you were gonna write fiction And it sounds like that might have been kind of like the reason that you drove to nonfiction like this book of essays is your only full length book of nonfiction?

>> Dave: So far. I'm working another one now, which sort of picks up on some of the themes that I started in that one. I mean, I feel like this one, I mean, clearly was very personal and very tried to address shame a lot. And that's sort of become my thing that I want to sort of embrace is talking about confrontation in the transcendence of shame in our lives. You know, because I think that that just suck so much out of us. There's things in our past that we hold on to.

>> Brian: And then, you know, they're written into our brains.

>> Dave: Yeah. Totally.

>> Katie: So will you read some of it?

>> Dave: Sure.

>> Katie: Want to do that now?

>> Dave: Sure.

>> Katie: I was admiring this before we started the podcast. This book is put together so beautifully. Ost press. They do really lovely work. Do you need the book to read from?

>> Brian: From memory

>> Dave: I'Ll just plug them a little bit because they're they're awesome to work with. And I mean, I know you guys are a fledgling press now, so I'm sure they'd be happy to talk to you.

>> Brian: That would be awesome. The people that have hooked us up with other presses has been unbelievably beneficial for us, like, you know, just.

>> Katie: And there's some cool things we've been doing with other presses. Like we're planning some collaborative book tours for authors together with other presses promotion things to help really help indie authors get more of a platform because this work is super important. When we talked about how we feel like indie presses are the ones that are really holding up like literary fiction and nonfiction and poetry. But yeah. So that's why we're really interested in collaborating with a lot of other presses. So can you get that your book on their website still?

>> Dave: Yeah, and I think it's even still available on Amazon. But yeah, I would go through their website. That would probably be the best way. Or through there. They also get distributed by SPD. So you got any one of those three options?

>> Katie: What's the title again?

>> Dave: It's "This is not a Confession". It came from one of the essays. I forget which one, but I have that line in there, this is not a confession. I was originally wanting to call it something else. I was wanting to call it shirts and skins, which also would have been sort of provocative in a different way.

>> Katie: That's a basketball reference?

>> Dave: Yeah, well, when your kids you play shirts and skins. I mean clearly, if you're your boys and you can take your shirt off I mean, that's our privilege. That's what we, I guess in our culture we get to do. But yeah, so we would play shirts and skins football or soccer or whatever. But yeah, the baby sitter that molested me when I was young... I mean, he lived on my block, so I started... There's one piece in here that's at the end that's fictionalized. It's more like from his voice, basically, and that was like that was actually the first piece I wrote about it.

>> Katie: Wow, why specifically from his voice?

>> Dave: Because I think I was still trying to figure out, like how I can do this and like, I didn't want it to be sentimental I think that was my main concern was that it would come across as sad.

>> Brian: Or sad, just for sad sake? Instead of like, you know what it is like, what's really going on under the surface here, because there's this This person made the decision to do this to you.

>> Dave: I mean, they were a teenager. They were, you know... he was a teenager, and since then, you know, just, like, kind of look back and been like, you know, just wondering what kind of what he was like, that I don't really remember him at all, except for kind of those times when he came over. And we did these things.

>> Brian: Yeah.

>> Dave: So there was something interesting to me about writing from his perspective and him being very unremorseful about it, sort of, And that made it seem like a good way to write about it where it wouldn't necessarily like I was out to elicit sympathy or something. Like I felt like almost if I did it in a way that you were angry at him , then that sort of emotion would take over the reader instead of, like, sadness or something.

>> Brian: Yeah, you're talking about a lot of what I feel to be like very important things about our society. Like I don't think thinking about the perspective of perpetrators is a bad thing. I think it's a helpful thing, and it's like to solve things like this.

>> Dave: Yeah.

>> Brian: It's a very helpful thing. It's tough, though. It's very hard.

>> Katie: Yeah, I was gonna ask is how was that for you emotionally? Just writing that?

>> Dave: It was like an emotional time in a lot of different ways. Not just because of that, So I was kind of going through depression and stuff, but I don't know. I think I found it good overall. So, yeah, this is like something that I'm really interested in is sort of this well, and I should back up and say like, one of the reasons that I was able to write about it at all because my mom had passed away that year. And so and that was when the first essays that came out about or you know that I started writing about it because I was just. And she was the main person like I'd ever I didn't want her to know about it. I thought it would hurt her.

>> Brian: Oh wow, and she never knew?

>> Dave: Mhm.

>> Brian: How do you feel about that now? Do you still feel good about that?

>> Dave: I still feel fine about there. Yeah, yeah, because I think it would have really upset her.

>> Katie: I can understand that. It was kind of wanting to protect her from the pain that she couldn't control, and she probably would have felt guilty for.

>> Dave: But there is all these things about, like, secrets then. Because now I mean, part of what my next book is about is this secret that I found out about her as I was like the final year I was publishing my book, discovered some things about her, and so that's going to be one of the threads in my next book. So and then, you know, part of what my next book is about is it's going to be kind of just not so much about her necessarily. But I want to talk about, you know, still this threat of shame and secrets, but also childbirth and the tension around that because, you know, that was a big deal with my wife and I. We've had a lot of issues over the last several years having children, and so I just find it interesting some of the parallels, I guess that I never knew my mom sort of had in her background and that I wish I had known because I would have... I think it would have given more context. And I would have been able to talk to her about children and stuff in a more like, honest or just sort of a more informed way about, like, what her past was like.

>> Brian: Yeah. Is this an interesting time for you with, like, some of the media coming out like the Leaving Neverland and, like, stuff like that?

>> Dave: I mean, I think those things, those stories definitely...

>> Brian: Did they help or did they, like, dredge up a lot of shit or like, a lot or a little of everything?

>> Dave: Well, you know, a little of everything are they just sort of make me It is weird.

>> Dave: It's just weird to think about, you know, especially like as a kid when a lot of this stuff was going on. I mean, I liked Michael Jackson a lot. So it's strange. And I think that's there's a lot more complications to the whole thing than just the like my part of the story there's, like, you know, whatever was going on in his brain and stuff to.

>> Brian: Exactly.

>> Dave: Which you know is not like, necessarily something that gets explored, I think in most sort of sexual abuse narratives, you know, just sort of almost sympathy or sort of trying to figure out where that other person was coming from.

>> Brian: Yeah, I really admire you for saying that because I think it's extremely damaging to our society that we don't focus on that kind of thing because obviously, our natural inclination is to be angry, of course. But it's it's like if you want to solve the issue, you gotta actually solve the issue. You know, and that's hard. It is just really hard.

>> Dave: I mean the thing that really sort of, I guess to use the world triggered or whatever. But the thing that really got me was when Junot Diaz wrote that essay in the New York Times, and I guess what bothered me most is just how slammed he was after that by so many different people. And I just felt this sense of defensiveness towards him.

>> Katie: A lot of people felt that he was pre empting the allegation that came out. But either way I mean it is, I think it's just clear that a cyclical.

>> Dave: Yeah.

>> Brian: Exactly.Is it hypocritical? Yes, But is that as important as the fact that of, like, why he's writing that piece? Yes, he's preempting something. But a lot of times, as have this happens because it happened to them.

>> Dave: Yeah, like it's well, it is the preoccupation I think with these are the kind of things that are just really hard to, you know, talk about on Twitter and various things. But I just feel like there's probably a lot of men... I know that statistically there's a lot of men who have had this sort of thing happen to them. And it's It's like they the idea of sort of acting out in a sexual way because you were sexually abused. I mean, that happens across the board to men and women.

>> Brian: In so many ways. Probably so many ways we haven't documented yet.

>> Dave: Yeah, and often times probably a lot of if they're women, they probably wind up getting labeled two sluts or something because they probably use sex as a escape a lot of the time. Or that there's various things that might you going on there, you know, and and then for men, Unfortunately, they also have the There's just if there's a certain type of man, I guess, or you know, and then they become into a position of power and then it becomes sort of this this other dynamic that's not very appealing.

>> Brian: I'm trying to pose this is not like a selfish insight. What I'm thinking about is, you know, there's a lot of talk about who deserves to write from what perspective or like, you know, and a lot of it is mostly centered around like race. Can a white person write a book from A from A like a black woman's perspective. But it's interesting because, like, that's hyper focused on like like one certain demographic. But like what I'm thinking about right now is I have a character in my novel who's sexually molested as a child. And it's like I've but I haven't experienced that. Like, I'm wondering how many people are out there that it's like, um, I allowed to write about that? What are the feelings about that? You know what I mean? Like, cause I have. I have a lot of the way I presented Is that like, you know, he's as a young adult he's a pretty serious alcoholic and clearly disturbed. I mean, this is like an extreme case, but land then, like slowly over the book, you kind of like go back and see a little bit like you, like he's kind of like impressionistic shots of like what happened, you know, and I don't know. I mean it just it does it now. Now it's like everything you write about those experiences like who knows? Like if I'm allowed to or if it works.

>> Dave: There's definitely a sense of censorship feel like that is happening among well intentioned liberals.

>> Brian: Yeah, so you're not on that end?

>> Dave: I'm not. But I could be criticized for a perspective of privilege, and maybe that's why I feel the way I do.

>> Brian: But that's kind of why bring it up is because, like, the script has kind of flipped. It's like, you know, obviously as a straight white male, but at the same time, like this is a huge deal. It's very impactful. So why should that not count as like, you know, am I allowed to tell that story? So that I think it's important that, like you hold that perspective, that's like, I think people should be able to write about things and explore.

>> Dave: Yeah. Because they might be writing about, like something else through that medium, you know that they don't necessarily want to write about. I mean, it's a case by case basis. I'm sure that there's and really what it comes down to is, Do they pull it off? And sometimes they don't.

>> Brian: I totally agree, you know, that's exactly how I think of it. It's like a lot of times when these arguments or discussions come up. I think it really comes down to, like, was the writer good or not? If you write it well then who is going to complain?

>> Katie: Yeah, usually any reviews that come out, you know, are like... there was this YA author recently Who is Asian? I think she's Chinese. I can't remember. But she wrote, essentially a fantasy YA novel that has slavery of some kind in it, and she ended up pulling her book. She pulled her own book because of backlash because people said like something about I do not know the whole story and so I will not, like, pretend to even be an authority on it. But from what I do know is that she pulled her own book because of backlash people saying that you know, the slave narrative wasn't hers to tell. And one it was like, YA fantasy. But also like there's slave narrative. And so I'm just, you know, we're always interested on like and talking with people and especially, as you know, the publisher of a journal like Who has thie authority to write what? A lot of reviews I read come from you know, they end up making stereotypical caricatures of whatever other perspective they're writing from. And I think that if the writing is actually good and they've done their research that usually people do not get upset, that if you're, you know, respectful and taking the care to actually know another culture, that...

>> Dave: Yeah.

>> Katie: Yeah, so it would be really interested to hear you read.

>> Dave: Ok. I want to set it up by saying I am going to propose a panel for AWP to be about transcending shame through writing. Or did I say this already? I may have said this already.

>> Brian: You touched on that idea but not the panel.

>> Dave: I think it's a really interesting topic. And one thing that I've sort of been facing for myself, I think, is that I mean, there's parts of my book that are very lyrical, So, like, I've kind of been confronting how sometimes, all right, about stuff, and I think a lot of people do this, like ther write about stuff in a sort of vague way. And so it comes in and it's pretty. It's pretty what they're writing. But it's like you read it and you go, What is it? I don't really know. Comptel. This is something personal that you're writing but I don't know what you're writing about.

>> Brian: It's opaque.

>> Dave: Yeah, so that's always bugged me, especially as an editor. You know, when I see that I'm just like I want to write about and oftentimes I do. I just write back and say I don't I don't think you're writing about something else here.

>> Brian: Do you think it's what you think is usually fear subject?

>> Dave: Probably. I mean, I think so, but yeah, and that's definitely what it was with me. But so there was stuff in here that I think is sort of fun to read, but it's more lyrical, and it's less direct.

>> Brian: That sounds awesome. I really can't wait to read this.

>> Dave: Yeah, but I'm not going to read that today because that's what I read a lot in my when I did the book tour and when I read it Animal Riot I read this piece called Good With Numbers, which is really fun to read.

>> Katie: And when did you read for Animal Riot?

>> Dave: It would have been during my book tour time so two years ago, 2016. And Devon wrote, I mean, he, he announces everybody so nicely. He just wrote, you know, said this glowing thing and I was like, Man, I don't even want to read. I just want to bask in this. (laughter)

>> Brian: That's how a lot of people react.

>> Katie: We've had a lot of people use our bios as blurbs.

>> Dave: Yeah, and then there's some since kind of sensational stuff because I mean, another thread to this book is that my wife and I had an open relationship for the last five years or so. So there's a lot of sexy stuff, like the third of the chapter of the book is kind of all this sort of sex, which that was also fun to write about. But it was sort of done with the the idea of, like trying to explore, like what it was that I was what was happening in my marriage, what was happening to me, what was sort of and also like, I lived in the suburbs, which really had bad connotations for me, and so does writing a lot about how there's all these things happening in the suburbs that you just... It's supposed to be this nice place, but you don't know what's going on behind everybody's closed door, and that's kind of what LK James picked up on with the doors on the cover.

>> Brian: When you say chapters, what do you mean by that?

>> Dave: Oh, did I say chapter? I meant like the whole third section. There's different essays, but they're divided up into three sections. So the first part is like a lot about my mom. The second part is about kind of like my dad, I guess. And then my childhood and then the third parts about my marriage and in the middle is this essay called The Big Bad Wolf, which is the most direct I wrote about being molested.

>> Brian: Yeah.

>> Dave: It's very un lyrical. But now, in retrospect, I feel like I wish I had read from it more because I think it was more. I think I was being hypocritical like, because I want honesty from my writers. But I was sort of, but that fear was there. Talking about it directly in front of people. So I wound up reading the stuff that was more fun to read. (laughs)

>> Katie: It's difficult at a reading series too.

>> Dave: Yeah, right. You want to be entertaining.

>> Katie: The dramatic staff, no matter how good it is, will just get dead silence and you as an author are what's the feedback? And unless somebody bursts into tears or something, it's difficult at a reading. I can understand why you would want that more energizing pieces.

>> Brian: I think it's harder for the reader than anyone take the pulse of the room, because while you're reading it, you're just like looking down on your page. You're like, whatever. It's like even in the audience you can sometimes like, you know, sense like Oh, yeah, everyone's like riveted right now, you know?

>> Katie: I tend to only read funny things at readings. Because if no one laughs then I know it doesn't work.

>> Dave: Yeah, I mean, that's the flipside. You're right. I mean, that's probably why I did it is that it's definitely more entertaining, But But these ones might work Mohr And these because I did read this actually, in a group, my friend Kylie did this writing group and I read for them, and we did sort of a discussion afterwards, and that was the first time I read it public, you know, in front of people. And I think it went over okay, so this is part of an essay called the larger essay called The Big Bad Wolf. And then it's divided up in the sections. And I interspersed the sections with talking about different ways that writers have written the story about The Big Bad Wolf because it's been written by a lot of different people, and it's always kind of this backdrop of, like Anne Sexton wrote about it in a way that was very like, clearly about sort of sexual dynamics and stuff. And so I thought that was really interesting. But so this section's called Making It Matter (https://davidolimpio.com/this-is-not-a-confession/).

>> Dave: So I'm going to go on a little longer because I want to go on with this narrative of shame.

>> Brian: Do it. Yeah.

>> Dave: So this section is called Repertoire (https://davidolimpio.com/this-is-not-a-confession/ ).

>> Dave: This next section's too long. I'm gonna leave it right there. But there's another section where...

>> Brian: You sure you don't want to read it?

>> Dave: Um. It's kind of a cool story because it's pertinent and you can cut it out if it winds up going too long.

>> Katie: No, we've had some people read for like fifteen minutes. It's totally fine.

>> Dave: Oh really? Ok. This one's called Changing Power Dynamics... Well in between those two is like another one from Little Red Riding Hood by Andrew Lang. So each of these sections, which I'm not going to read because they're kind of boring to read. But Changing Power Dynamics ( https://awst-press.com/library/changing-power-dynamics )

>> Dave: So that's that section.

>> Katie: Damn.

>> Brian: Wow.

>> Dave: So I think I'll end it there. But those were ones that I wish I had read more when I was giving readings because I feel like they're more, like, direct.

>> Katie: You really pull in a room. I mean, I think you would have silence the audience for sure.

>> Dave: Sometimes that's good. Sometimes it's not good.

>> Brian: No, but I can see what you mean. It's like, you know, it's asking a lot of an audience, especially if you come up with the person before you read something really funny, you know, and everyone goes, We're having a good time, you know?

>> Dave: Right.

>> Brian: And then you're asking the audience say, Like, let's step into this world right now. I think a lot of a lot of people are willing to do that. But it's not like we always feel that that's like, you know, the case. It's hard, you know?

>> Katie: How did you feel writing those? That last one specifically?

>> Dave: The essay came out faster than almost anything. I knew I needed something to just pull in all the other essays and kind of like indicate more directly what some things were about. And so that was like the last essay I wrote. And it was actually probably the easiest.

>> Katie: So, you know, that's what I was wondering is like this. We've been talking about shame a lot, and so did that creep up while you where did you have any regrets publishing it?

>> Dave: Totally. But I was kind of like sweating and like, I was kind of scared. But at the same time, I was like, This is I think this is the honest stuff that I need to put in there at some point.

>> Katie: Have any of those people who were involved in that read your book? Or know about it?

>> Dave: Well, he hasn't contacted me to say anything, but I'm Facebook friends with him. The Sam character. That's not his name, but yeah...

>> Brian: Yeah, essays like that are so important.

>> Katie: I mean, the second you wrote it, someone else came out and shared theirs.

>> Brian: Honestly, I'm just thinking about the fact that you are so willing to step outside the good / evil paradigm so much like writing and media like succumbs to and danes to.

>> Dave: Like, right and wrong?

>> Brian: Like this is right or wrong. I mean, you're you're in the middle of so much trauma and, like, weird stuff happening, and you're even able to look inside yourself and see where you might have even been at in certain senses, like I mean, yeah, it's just it's great.

>> Dave: Yeah. There's another essay in the sexy section that's... (laughs)

>> Katie: Is that what it's called? (laughs) That's what it's called your head?

>> Dave: Yeah, uh, you know that where I talk more about as an adult, kind of having that feeling to where, Okay, I might have overstepped, like, you know. It was one of those situations where I think we were both sort of in it at the same time for a little while. But then...

>> Brian: You're referring to your marriage?

>> Dave: No. Having sex with somebody else outside my marriage.

>> Brian: But as part of an open marriage or whatever.

>> Dave: Yeah, yeah, but the person I was I had slept with, you know, that night was, was all in and but at the end, she definitely, I think, regretted it. And then I just felt really bad. So there's an essay and they're about that. You know, I could just sort of see where it's just hard.

>> Brian: Yeah, there's no there's no good and evil in physics, like, you know, in an objectivity and like it's just the way we function is I'm just very appreciative of people like you writers like you that are willing to get past the value judgments so easily and say like, let's, like, actually talk about what's going on here, not like who is the most aggrieved or outraged or hurt, even though those things are all very important. It's like in order to really understand those issues you have to look underneath the surface, you know?

>> Dave: Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely I mean anti, you know, violence of any kind. But sometimes when these things, sometimes things sort of unfold on Twitter, and I just I feel like people. I mean, the Junot Diaz was one of those situations where I just felt like people were attacking and sure, he was not probably had done some not great things, but I do feel like to discount sort of his past and was a disservice.

>> Brian: It just It just maintains the cycle. To discount that past.

>> Dave: We have a situation at Atticus where somebody and you know, this is the way these things unfold. I feel like in the literary world... do you remember the document that went out about that shitty men in media?

>> Brian: Yeah. We have no experience with it. We know people who have been on it and you know, it is strange. Very strange.

>> Katie: Yeah. The literary community is very small. I think just for context in case people don't know that there was a list put together kind of behind the scenes that was passed around between a lot of like literary like prominent women and non binary folks who were naming people that had allegedly abused them in some way, whether it's like domestic violence, sexually assaulted things like that. It came out and I think that the debate was like, Can you put together a list like that without, like, forward coming... You know, because now these men just have their names on their list, but at the same time, you think, like, how else are people going to come like forward? Because you just can't in a lot of these situations. But I think like there wasn't a real conversation around what was actually going on. I think it was more about the dramatics of it.

>> Dave: That was kind of like what came to mind. But we had some there was a situation like that that happened, and I don't even I honestly don't even remember the guy's name. But he we had accepted him, and we've got a piece of his got wind that a lot of magazines were pulling his piece because this thing, something had happened. We were trying to figure out what to do. And thankfully, we didn't have to decide because he actually went up contacting us and wrote us this really long email and said, You know, this thing has blown up. I'm gonna withdraw my peace. I'm really sorry and said, You know, I feel like there's been a real misunderstanding, but I understand why this thing blew up, and I mean, it just seemed very honest what he wrote. And so I just wrote him back and said, Thank you for writing and I think... I don't know what happened with that, I don't know, but those are the types of things like, I sort of wonder where that's going to go.

>> Katie: I don't know. I mean, you know, I think we I recognized obviously a lot of names on the list because the literary community is smaller than you think. But we did have one person that we consider a good friend that appeared on that list, and that was not our experience of him. And so that was really hard to deal with, just trying to navigate that.

>> Brian: The list is understandable as a as a reaction. I understand that. But I think the form of it and the title especially shows that show show is that it shows that we're totally incapable as a society of finding the correct way to hold people accountable for their actions. Because the shitty men in media list the title alone says, We're not interested in figuring out why this happened or how or like, you know what to do about it. We're interested in outing these people and fucking their lives over, and it's understandable. Like, you know, you get, get the anger, especially when you have a whole species of women who are like getting harassed and assaulted for all this, you know, it's it's totally understand.

>> Katie: And then that just it's just someone to write the shitty women in media list. And then it became cyclical.

>> Brian: Exactly.

>> Dave: I'm not comparing any of the women that were involved with that to Donald Trump or anything like that. But it is a very similar thing that we're watching unfold with Donald Trump in the way he's divisive, you know, it's just becoming more just the way people are. And it's not helping.

>> Brian: It's worrisome. I really just hope that over time...

>> Dave: It's bullying.

>> Brian: Yeah. It really is just staying caught up in the anger and the trauma itself instead of really getting underneath the skin and figuring out how to solve these problems.

>> Katie: At the same time, I have no good, like, alternative. Other than conversation, we can say that, but it's really, really hard in these situations.

>> Dave: Well, I mean, one thing I've been wanting to do with Atticus, frankly, is have the conversation more in trying to figure out how to do that. And one way that one of the editors on the on our team, Jen Maidenberg and full disclosure she's also my girlfriend now, So she went to a panel at AWP, and there was a good panel called Monstrous Men, Monstrous women something something in the age of metoo. And, you know, I wanted to go, but I had had the man the table during that time. But she went on and said it was really like because, you know, we're both kind of nervous, like, Oh, my God, what's gonna happen during this panel? It’s just going to be a shit show or something. And it was actually like people wrote some really well thought out smart essays about stuff on. And there was a real discussion that happened in the room. And so we're and we're talking to the woman who put that panel together, and we'd like to sort of, like, publish all those essays that they wrote for that panel, Basically, So I don't know where that's at.

>> Katie: Wow, if you need some help with that...

>> Brian: Absolutely. I didn't even see this coming. I knew what your book was about, but for some reason like before you came... I wasn't like, Oh, wow, we're gonna have this conversation about all this... and not just that character in my novel that I told you about. But there's another character who holds this secret about being abducted and it's wrapped up in this other situation. How much I could relate to that even though I have never.. I have never been through necessarily... I guess I have had secrets. But like that idea of, like once you like... it's currency. Like I've wrote exactly about that. And I was like, Well, I feel like we're on the same wavelength right now because I spent a lot of time reading about that in my novels. Yeah, I think, yeah. Unfortunately, I think we do have to close and I mean that we could sit here and... You will definitely have to have you on again for sure. I'm going to read your book. I just finished a book. I'm gonna read yours next. I'm really excited to read it.

>> Katie: If people want to submit to Atticus are you guys open to submissions?

>> Dave: Yes, we're open year round. We go on these little breaks every once in a while because we just get too overloaded. And so it's just kind of random, but we'll take the submission things off for a little while, but mostly we're open.

>> Brian: And what are you really excited about coming up?

>> Dave: Stuff that's....

>> Brian: Good (laughs)

>> Dave: Well, can I read you a little blurb on our website?

>> Katie: Yeah. We know we got some great people who listen to the podcast you need to submit. You know who you are. This is my shaming here to submit.

>> Dave: No, I need to get back to it too.

>> Katie: We have one listener, Pedro, who should be writing more.

>> Dave: Did you say Pedro?

>> Katie: Pedro Ramirez. He won our Twitter contest.

>> Brian: He's adorable. I love him.

>> Katie: He's a good human and he comes to a lot of our readings and stuff.

>> Brian: And I mean that literally. His dimples are out of control (laughter). It's unreal.

>> Katie: So Pedro you have to write something and submit. Anyway...

>> Dave: Well we crafted this little this Jen Maidenberg, me and Dorothy Bendel, the managing editor, we wrote this thing, and I've tried to memorize it, but it doesn't sound good so I'm just going to read it. The writing and Atticus Review is unashamed, unadorned and unafraid. We want our contributors to dig deep into wounds to uncover words that touch the heart of the heart ache. Not to wallow, but rather to transcend despair through art and arrive at something hopeful. The stories we love are often lonely and sometimes ugly, but we're also deeply attracted to the bright, bold and hope-infused. We like hybrid unconventional work that pushes boundaries, elevates and edifies on intellectual level that investigates the inscrutable essence of a thing that avoids artifice to stand firmly in its unique voice.

>> Katie: Wow. Can you guys come write copy for our submissions page?

>> Dave: So I don't know. I'm trying to lead us more towards nonfiction just cause that's where my bent is.

>> Brian: But you guys do personal essays?

>> Dave: Yep. Way have several on there that are really powerful.

>> Brian: Cool.

>> Dave: And but we also you know, poetry and fiction as well. Fiction is the most submissions, but I think that's kind of universal.

>> Katie: Yeah. AtticusReview dot org.

>> Dave: Yeah.

>> Brian: Awesome.

>> Dave: Thank you, guys.

>> Brian: Thank you. This is this has been great. Thank you so much for coming on. I will read are closer. And I think we're good.

>> Dave: Cool.

>> Brian: Okay. All right. That's it for today's episode, if you like what you heard, please subscribe and review in whichever platform you're listening. You can get in touch with us on Twitter at @AnimalRiotPress or Facebook and Instagram at Animal Riot Press or through our website animalriotpress.com... This has been the eighteenth episode, right? This has been the eighteenth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast with me, your host, Brian Birnbaum, and featuring Dave Olympio, and we're produced by Katie Rainey...  Well, actually, Katie was also on the episode. I got to say that, too. But we're produced by Katie Rainey, without whom we would merely be three of Shakespeare's thousand monkeys banging on a typewriter.