Episode 212 – Samuel R. Delany

Virtual Memories Show 212:
Samuel R. Delany

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“The most important thing I thought students needed was the one thing you’re never allowed to teach.”

Legendary author (and longtime pal) Samuel R. Delany (a.k.a. Chip) joins the show to talk about the sex lives of older gay men, how he’s taken to Facebook, how losing his library was akin to lobotomization, the writers he misses, Star Wars, his attraction to homeless men, retiring from teaching, the one thing he wanted to teach students but was never allowed to, the split between good writing and award-winning writing, and his passive-aggressive technique for getting me to organize a breakfast brunch for him. (It worked; there are pictures on my Instagram feed.) Give it a listen! And go buy lots of Chip’s books!

“When you lose several thousand books and you’re a writer, that’s kind of like having a lobotomy. . . . I have the desire for exactitude but no method to achieve it unless I have texts in front of me.”

“Too many appalling writers have won the Nobel Prize for literature.”

Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!

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About our Guest

Samuel R. Delany is the author of dozens of books, including Dhalgren and The Mad Man, and the best-selling nonfiction study Times Square Red, Times Square Blue. He lives in Philadelphia and recently retired from teaching at Temple University. The Lambda Book Report chose Delany as one of the fifty most significant people of the past hundred years to change our concept of gayness, and he is a recipient of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a lifetime’s contribution to lesbian and gay literature. Wesleyan University Press recently published In Search of Silence: The Journals of Samuel R. Delany, Volume I, 1957-1969.

Credits: This episode’s music is Nothing’s Gonna Bring Me Down by David Baerwald, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded at Chip’s apartment in Philadelphia on a pair of Blue enCORE 200 Microphones feeding into a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I recorded the intro and outro on a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone feeding into a Cloudlifter CL-1 and a Mackie Onyx Blackjack 2×2 USB Recording Interface. All processing and editing done in Adobe Audition CC. Photo of Chip at his breakfast brunch by me. It’s on my instagram.