Kristen Roupenian
In this episode we're joined by the writer Kristen Roupenian for a conversation about her haunting, scary, funny, and incisive collection of short stories You Know You Want This. In a dozen potent tales, Roupenian conjures both visceral horror and the laughter of revelation in works which often walk the line between wickedly dark fantasy-- and clear-eyed examinations of sexuality, gender, power and obsession in a world that is unmistakably and often uncomfortably our own. The result is an absolutely thrilling debut and the arrival of a dynamic new voice in fiction. Many readers were first introduced to Roupenian through her story "Cat Person" which appeared in the New Yorker in December 2017 and immediately became a viral sensation. That story now takes its place among the twelve in this collection, where it feels entirely and freshly at home. The author spoke to Bill Tipper by phone about her inspirations, the connection between humor and horror, and what it was like to have her fiction light up the Internet.