Ep. 300 A Lover of Place with Zach Stafford

Written By Cherie Marquez
Ep. 300 A Lover of Place with Zach Stafford

Writer, Vibe Check cohost, and Tony winning Producer, Zach Stafford joins The Stacks to discuss being a journalist, his many jobs over the year, and of course, books!. Zach reveals his surprise problematic favorite book, explains how his love of geography has informed his entire professional career and addresses the challenge of squaring his upbeat personality with being a serious journalist.

The Stacks Book Club selection for January is Erasure by Percival Everett. We will discuss the book on January 31st with Zach Stafford.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and it is our first episode of the brand new year and I am so excited to kick off 2024 with Zach Stafford. Zach is a journalist. He is a contributor at MSNBC, the former editor in chief at the advocate magazine, he hosts one of my very favorite podcasts vibe check along with friends of the show Saeed Jones and Sam Sanders. Zach and I today get to talking about an alternate life he could have lived as a geography professor, we talk about the importance of place his Tony Award for Strange Loop and of course the many many books he loves, and the one classic that he and I both have absolutely never read. Zack will be back for the stacks book club discussion of Erasure by Percival Everett on Wednesday, January 31. Quick reminder, everything we talked about on today’s episode of the stacks can be found in the link in the show notes. Alright, now it’s time for my conversation with Zach Stafford.

Alright, everybody, you heard the real intro. Here is the fun intro. We have had Sam Sanders, we have had Saeed Jones. We have even had a episode of Vibe Check play on this very feed, but we have not had the Tony Award winning editor, journalist, world’s greatest human Zach Stafford on the stacks until right this very minute, Zach, welcome to the stacks.

Zach Stafford 2:29
Oh my god. Thank you. I’m so full from that. That was the warmest welcome I’ve ever gotten in my entire life. Thank you. Well, good to be here.

Traci Thomas 2:39
My audience has been harassing me. They’re like, when is Zach coming on? I’m like, I hope soon so that you’ll stop yelling at me. So everyone who has been waiting for Zach, here he is.

Zach Stafford 2:50
I’m here. And that’s so nice, because I have like all of us impostor syndrome for everything. And I do a show every week called vibe. Check with two amazing people, Sam and Saeed. And when they told me about their experiences, because we met at a party like we didn’t know each other first. But we met through Sam at a party and siete talked about you but you were like this kind of mythological, literary character of my life. And only the Great’s came on the show. And I was like, Well, I’m not a great. So it’s a joke. Like, I don’t compare a grand and now I’m here. So thank you for having your time.

Traci Thomas 3:23
I am Glinda the Good Witch and I anoint you, Zach, the Great. Welcome to the podcast. So we love you. For people who don’t know you and for you to not talk about your professional resume. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself like where you’re from maybe a little bit about your relationship to books, but just sort of like who is Zach Stafford.

Zach Stafford 3:43
Yeah, so Zach Stafford is when I first became a writer professionally, my bio was Zach Stafford is a Tennessee writer living in Chicago. I now no longer live in Tennessee or Chicago, Los Angeles. But those two places are really huge for me in place has always been a huge part of my career in life. You know, growing up in the South, I was a book worm because I was the only black kid in my class, I was only a gay kid in my class. And books were my place of refuge. So, you know, that’s like reading. And that’s why I’m so excited to be here has shaped everything in reading is what made me a better writer. Because when I got to college, I was a, like a huge reader and lover of books, but my writing wasn’t great. And so many of my like English Lit professors and my modern language professors would make me write essays and read them aloud to them. And so anyway, and I got to meet so many writers, and it really inspired me. So eventually, for my resume portion of the spiel, I became a journalist. Surprisingly, I thought I was going to be a professor of geography, which is how much i Oh, yeah, I wanted to be a geo geographer. And I was really interested in all the beginning of my writing people who’ve known me for a long time that beginning my writing was very much about Grindr, and Do locative apps like Tinder and the emergence of a digital self, on the internet and how we are existing simultaneously, and meatspace, and a cyberspace that like you, Traci, have your digital self that currently is racking up bills on your Apple, you know, your Apple ID or living on Twitter, people are engaging with you. But you’re also sitting here with me talking about our lives. So there’s multiple, there’s a multiplicity of you in the world. So that was the beginning of my work was I was very interested in writing about that.

Traci Thomas 5:29
Okay, pause, I have to ask, I have to interrupt because I have to know, when you were interested in geography, were you interested in geography? Because of the online of it all? Or was that something that came to you later, like in your work, because I know you were you worked at Grindr, and you were sort of like in charge of that stuff. But when you were interested in geography, like growing up, and even in college, did you were you thinking about geography in relationship to online business or not yet?

Zach Stafford 5:55
It began that way. So I my first love of geography was the cartographic ways in which we think of maps. I thought maps are so interesting. I studied them voraciously. In middle school, I won my school’s geography bee, we had a geography my seventh grade.

Traci Thomas 6:12
What does that entail?

Zach Stafford 6:13
It’s describing like countries, so it would say something like, Okay, what is a country in Southeast Asia that is bordered by Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, amine Mar, and the answers Thailand. So they would ask you questions like that we’re not looking in this region of Africa, what are the countries that are all east of this area? So I used to be really good at that. I was really good at that. And I have, I think, a pretty photographic memory. But then it became about placemaking online, because as I was growing up, AOL chats were a huge part of my formation as a younger person. And that’s so much about place because the chat rooms were, you know, Tennessee, gay, Middle Tennessee chat or Tennessee Nashville chat. And so they’re about the digital world very early on became about placemaking. So that because of so fast, you need it these cartographic kind of Kartal spots to play shoe. So anyway, so that’s where it all began. And I had all these fake online boyfriends. And I would create like stories about myself because I wasn’t out. So it just became this like kind of romance of writing about myself online. And that all intersected when Grindr launched into a career writing about it. And then eventually, I worked at Grindr, too.

Traci Thomas 7:26
I love this. I cut you off. So then you went to Grindr, and then you were gonna go do a whole new pivot about your next part of your career, but I was always curious about jobs.

Zach Stafford 7:34
Oh, it’s okay. So anyway, so beginnings, geography, geography, I was writing about Grindr. I was writing about love online. My very first column was at the Chicago Tribune. And I was literally hired to be the Carrie Bradshaw for Chicago, but gay, I will never forget my editor asking me to do that. And, and that became so much about like place and all these things. And then eventually, I became an investigative reporter at The Guardian, which is very much motivated by the Black Lives Matter movement erupting and being entangled in it without realizing, like, all my friends, were the people that went to Ferguson and I didn’t go to Ferguson, I wrote about it from Chicago, and then, you know, all of our lives changed that summer, at that time in 2013. And then from there, my life just kept going down this journalistic path, and it kept getting further and further away from geography. And then I wound up at Grindr, because they said, Could you build us a magazine using our geography, technology, and and then that’s where I was at. So for years, I was working in media news, and then in the pandemic, I pivoted to producing and I made and I helped make a musical on Broadway and that’s where the Tony and my my like bio comes from, which is the most random thing because I never want it to be a theater producer. And now I do a lot of theater producing so it’s

Traci Thomas 8:47
Well I was a theater major so having a Tony Award is like a huge fucking deal to me. You’re the second Tony Award winner on this podcast to my knowledge Oh my god. Yeah, cuz we had Ali Stroker on who won a Tony for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical she and I went to NYU together, and amazing She’s amazing. I know Michael Jackson.

Zach Stafford 9:07
Yep, there we go.

Traci Thomas 9:09
I choreographed Michaels musical only children in college that has Tony Award winner Brandon you’re Anna woods in it and like all of these fantastic people. So I know and love A Strange Loop. I have Michael was working on a strange loop when we were doing when we children like I remember him being like it’s a show about Usher. It was not sure because his name is Michael Jackson. And so he you know anyways, so while the Tony Award might be the most random thing to you, and it’s probably the most important thing to me about you.

Zach Stafford 9:36
Thank you obituary by average, and it’s it’s so and what’s so funny and maybe we can talk about this is like I love theater growing up so much but theater similar to like my place in Tennessee, my place and literature, my place in journalism. I never saw myself in any of these things in like a big way. So I didn’t think it was all possible for me so I never leaned in and then I was dragged into certain things like journalism wasn’t it wasn’t a full choice. It was a door that opened and I said, What’s behind this door, and then it became a thing. Theater also became that too. And it’s really amazing because I get to meet people like you who are like, no, no, girl, we exist here. We have been here for a while. It’s not a new thing.

Traci Thomas 10:16
So I love it. Um, if you I mean, it’s so interesting hearing you talk about like your career, like being dragged into it, because you were the editor in chief at the advocate. I was, yeah. If you weren’t, if you didn’t get dragged in the direction of journalism, and I guess theater, but what what do you think you would be doing? Like, what is the thing that you were like? I know, you said you may be wanting to be a geography. Professor. But do you think that’s what you would have done? Or do you think that there’s somewhere else you could see yourself in a parallel universe?

Zach Stafford 10:46
Oh my God, that’s such a good question. Um, I think, you know, there’s a version of me that, you know, went to grad school will finish I started and didn’t finish. But there’s a part of me that is now would be talking to you, as a geographer at some university, hopefully, you know, trying to get on on tenure track writing essays trying to publish stuff. And that feels very real to me, because there are many academics, my family, my mom is a neuroscience researcher, my stepdads. You know, psychologists, it’s like, there’s just my uncle was as an optometrist, but did research at Vanderbilt. And a lot of my family worked at Vanderbilt. So I just grew up around a lot of academics that academia always felt like very accessible, in many ways to me, especially seeing my mom go back to school later in life and accomplish what she did. And then enter. I was like, Well, you know, my mom can do this. I can, I can figure this out. But besides that, the dream jobs when I was growing up, was I wanted to be a fashion designer. That was big. That was the huge dream. I used to. I used to read all the time as a kid, like I literally, there was a moment in my life where I read, I tried to read a book a day, like I was like, my obsession was like, Can I read a book a day? It was like Steinbeck poetry, like, whoa, Rio was like, 1112,

Traci Thomas 12:02
You were gonna be like, it was like a five page chapter book, you know, like, a picture book.

Zach Stafford 12:07
I feel like, yeah, I was excited. Like Austin, I can read Jane Austen really fast. But um, I was obsessed with reading. And when I wasn’t reading, I was reading books. I was reading fashion magazines. And when I wasn’t reading fashion magazines, I was sketching, outfits, specifically dresses, and I love the style network and the fashion channels. And I would just watch runway shows. And, you know, and that’s where I think like, geography has always been a huge part of my life is because I felt out of place where I lived. And I felt like I should be in New York, I felt like I should be in Paris. So there’s always this tension of where I was, and where I felt emotionally I should be. And the Internet helps bridge that early on, because I got to project myself and displaces through you know.com. But yeah, back then, you know, I really want it to be that and then that became fashion became food. And I literally, there’s like, when I was 18, I literally was working in food. I did a competition called the top teen Chef Competition, why Chicago and I compete it on camera for a scholarship. So many times, I know, it’s like somebody, I’m just really good. I like no clothing. I know. I know of literature, like it’s like I’m just but I I thought it was gonna work in food for a while. And then it all kind of stopped. But I think through all of that writing was always so important. Because even when I was working on food, I was like, I want to write a cookbook. And I was working on with my grandmother that was about recipes passed through our family. And I was like, 18. So story, when I hit my 20s was always central to everything I did. And that’s why you know, I work in theater now because it’s story based as well.

Traci Thomas 13:48
It’s so interesting, like I’m listening to you talk about all these things you’re interested in. And like, I think because you started with geography, I’m just hearing about how all of these things are really placed. Based and story based. It’s like you were into geography, because you were interested in like the relationship of people to places and then fashion is like totally a place based art. And food is such a place based thing. And I just it’s so interesting hearing you talk about that. Because when I was like researching you and like preparing, and I saw your job at Grindr, I was like that’s such a weird random job. But now I’m like, Oh my God, that’s the job that makes more sense than any job he’s ever had. Like, it’s just like, totally clicks in my brain. And another thing and this is what Sam Sanders always says about you and I experienced when I emailed you to come on the show. He always says you’re such a connector. He’s like, Zack, is that connector? He’s like capital C, always connecting people. And when I emailed you, I was like, hey, Zack, I don’t know if you remember, but we met at this party. I’d love to have you come on. And you were like, yes, of course. I remember. It was so great. We talked about you on the podcast today. Also, I always see you on Shane’s page blah, blah, blah. And Shane’s one of my really good friends and I literally thought to myself, I was like He is such a connector because he took all of the little pieces that we have in common and connected them and like put them out for me. And I’m just like, I guess the question is there is like, what? What is the connecting piece to you that’s important or like, Why do you think that you always strive to do that? And I’m sure there’s some geography something there. But like, what is like, how do you? How do you become a connector?

Zach Stafford 15:25
I think connection has everything to do with being seen, and being authentically seen. I like to think that I have a ability that is probably special in that, like, I’ve really tried to hone it over years of, you know, paying witness or creating space to be a witness to people’s lives. And in really taking that as truth, like when someone tells me something, and that’s what got me into journalism, I believed so much in truth telling, I was like how you’re talking about your experience as a black trans woman trying to survive in sex work, which is like stuff I used to write about a lot. Like that is true. So that should be the beginning of this conversation. And I think a lot of times when people have conversations with each other, they’re really, you know, playing this game of like, I want you to ask me a question, I want to say something about myself. And I do to my own, you know, trauma, upbringing, whatever. I grew up around a lot of people who didn’t ask me a lot of questions. So I always felt like not very seen. And I felt as a black person in a very, you know, white space and a queer person, a very straight space, you know, not seen but stereotyped a lot. So I felt this tension in my life all the time. So, so whenever, what I learned to do to get through that is to find people that did see me and then also accepted me. And from there, I saw this power myself, because I saw how more confident I became when someone gave me space to be myself, or let me give me space to share my story and said, That’s true, I believe you that I want it to, you know, reflect that back. So whenever I’m connecting people, and this happens so much, it’s my attempts in real time to tell the other personality do I see you, but I want you to be other people that remind me of you that you should that you should know that you should be in community with. I think you guys could do something great together. And that’s where this the fuel for it comes. Because it’s so annoying, because Sam does bring it up all the time. But it’s annoying because how true it is. And I didn’t have the language. I didn’t think of myself as a connector before. I always thought of myself as like, there’s that just Busybody knows too many people and it just passing people off. But I do think there’s like an art to bringing people together. And there’s even a book that I’ve been reading. That’s called the The Art of gathering. Oh, right in front of me.

Traci Thomas 17:35
That’s my one of my favorite books. She did the show. preamps she did genius.

Zach Stafford 17:39
Oh my god we got so I’ve read it like three times.

Traci Thomas 17:42
I love it so much.

Zach Stafford 17:43
So that’s like my shit like that is me. Like it’s like intentionality. Why are we together? Why are we sharing space? What do we do with this energy that we’re pulling from each other? And yeah, so that’s where it just comes from. And I get like so much joy. And I think out of everything I’ve done in my life. It’s it’s always like it’s story driven. But it’s also connection driven. Because, you know, being an editor in chief was really about putting pieces together. It was someone pitching me. I want to do a story on the border of the US, Mexico and Tijuana. Great. How are you getting there? Who’s going to be a photographer? Who’s going to edit this? Who’s going to shoot the photos? How when are we going to release it? What was the audience for this was all about like putting together these packages, and then delivering it to the world? And yeah, and that’s where the connection part comes from. And I love it. And I will always be this way till I die.

Traci Thomas 18:32
I’m sure I am a connector. I don’t know if I’m quite as a connector as you I don’t think I know as many people as you. But I You’re speaking my language because I do love to be like, Oh, I know a person who you should talk to about that. Or like, oh, like I just, I don’t I don’t know why I do it. I think it’s just because I am a busybody like

Zach Stafford 18:53
A great is a great funnel for anxiety. If you’re an anxious person, you can then and then you’re also you do become the dark side of this as you become beloved quickly by helping someone by saying, Hey, I got someone for you. And then they’re like, Oh my God, you’re amazing. You helped me with something and you’re like, thank you now you don’t hate me, which is my biggest fear in life is that you’re

Traci Thomas 19:13
Well I’m scared that people are gonna hate me but I also have come to terms with the fact that people hate me like I like I’m pretty hateable. I understand like either you love me or you really don’t like me and I finally like come to terms with that. For me like when you like or like when you have like a dinner party and you get the right group of people together and I’m like, all like after everyone leaves I’ll turn to my husband and be like, I fucking nailed the guestlist on one.

Zach Stafford 19:35
Like I’m like wow, we are kindred like yeah, yes. Yeah, I big judge for me is um, and the friends are listening to this when this comes out. They’re gonna laugh because I was in Chicago the other day. We sat at a table and a very different boyfriend asked how did all How does everyone know each other? And everyone was like Zach, that was over like a decade. Everyone’s exact is literally the linchpin, but what I love it out that is that I was the beginning. But I’m not the end, these people become better friends. They have a deeper, more soulful connection that I have with them. Even my own partner sometimes has better relationships with people I’ve known for a decade than I do. And I take take so much joy in that because I’m like, oh, then I was a bridge, you two should know each other. Like, I don’t need to have the best relationship with everybody. But I think everyone deserves a best friend. And I would love to set people.

Traci Thomas 20:23
Oh, I love that so much. It’s so funny. My best friend, her partner. We all knew each other growing up in high school or whatever. And I became friends with him better in college. And then they started dating like a few years ago. And when people ask them, how are they know each other, she tells the true story, but he says it’s through me and I’m like, It’s not through me. But I love that you think that it’s through me? Like I’m like, actually this is how you guys met blah blah. Because I have one of those memories. I remember every detail and every time he says that I’m like it’s not true, but like yes,

Zach Stafford 20:53
fine all you have to let Traci you say something important sometimes help people remember stories or to quote Joan Didion we tell ourselves stories to stay alive. Like don’t tell someone’s story. Like let them just have it if it doesn’t really rock the boat.

Traci Thomas 21:03
Yeah, it makes me feel good. It makes you feel right. It’s fine. Okay, I want to know, well, I guess you sort of talked about this a little bit. But what I really liked about you the first time we met and just talking to now and listening to on the podcast is I feel like you’re like a very fun person you see, like a very good hang like we can have a good time. But then I look at like all your byline and I look at your body of work. And I’m like, Zach is a very serious journalist. Like Zach is like covered like you wrote a piece on O’Shea Sibley, like you’re writing about serious shit in American life, black life, queer life, the intersection of those things. Is it ever hard for you to square Zach, the person with Zach, the byline journalist guy,

Zach Stafford 21:49
oh, my God, it used to be such an issue. So I feel like today in the past few years, I don’t write as much like now I’ll do like a piece or two a year. So in the past few years, it’s been, you know, the New York Times helped me do a feature in the real estate section about Fire Island and issues in Fire Island, which to your point was like, I’m this fun loving guy that people probably have met in Fire Island. Yeah. And I write this like definitive piece in The Times about how racism and housing are in crisis there and geography. And then, like even O’Shea simply, you know, I’m huge Beyonce fan. And he went to so many of her shows, but then someone gets murdered in New York City. And I’m the I write about it. And very quickly, because I just had to like jump to it because it felt very authentic to me. And that was also about place because a che was murdered miles away from her as she was performing. And for me, it was like, such a tragedy of place, right? And who can be in place like a like a show like fiance’s and then who can what happens when you’re not in that place? So when I was younger, though, at the height of my really serious investigative journalism, like my I used to be the guardian, it was for like, three years. And I was an opinion columnist. At first. I just made a column. This is super fun, because I just write my opinion, and you create, like wars online. It used to be really fun to be on Twitter. And that was great. Then I moved into really hard news and doing things around, you know, murders, police brutality, traveling, I’d be on murder seems really heavy. And like people who knew me back then just saw the tension building of I’m so happy, so happy go lucky. But like the work was really draining me. And I’d be at these dinner parties. And people would be like, what do you do? And I’m like, Well, today I was at a prison, and this. And it was just like, so contradictory to how I present it. And so it was really complicated for me. And I felt really like I didn’t feel like a real journalist, because I was really nice. I felt like a fake journalist. Because when I had like a young person, if I was doing a story, like I remember doing a story in Kansas City, about this young man and Deonte, green, and I was 25, I think at the time, and he was murdered. And I was with his mom, and I was sitting on her bed. And we’re talking about I just like, held her hand. And I remember being like, I’m not a real journalists, because I’m holding your hand. But I was like, I am a real journalist, because I’m actually being bearing witness to this. So it just felt like this constant back and forth. And I was a bit to me and everything. And I think that’s what I’ve just accepted these days where, you know, we’re all complicated. I can be super fun, make a borderline inappropriate joke, but also let there be a very serious thing arise and I can rise to the occasion. It’s kind of like, I used to sit when I was at Grindr. I used to tell our newsroom all the time, when they’d be like, Well, why are we doing because when I was at Grindr, we launched a magazine that was really journalistically, I think, really amazing. Like we did things that other queer magazines weren’t doing. And that’s why I eventually went to the advocate. And people would say, like, Why does Grindr do news? And he’d be like, well, similar to Playboy, Playboy Once Upon a Time did real news, right, how to correspond it in the White House that would do reporting from there. And I think we as people are complicated, you can be corny and also want To read something’s in, like vice versa and on and on. So I think like, you know, I’ve just learned to hold all those multitudes of myself and not make myself feel bad about it because I also I’m very conscious of people meet me and they’re probably like, this is probably a PR gay or a marketing gay because I’m so happy. Like, oh, wow, he’s like, I’ve like literally moderated a presidential debate in the 2020 race. And it’s like, oh, no, he’s like, big gone, like head to head with, like, our now presidents or people who run for president. So it’s kind of, it’s fun. I like it. It’s like, your life.

Traci Thomas 25:33
I love it. Because I feel like, you are like, you’re someone that I trust, because I feel like, I know, you’re going to do a good job. But also, I know, you’re not going to be like, to hoity toity, or like, I’m not gonna, like, I know that you’re accessible to me. And I feel like that’s probably why a lot of people like you, and like your work is, it’s like, you’re gonna get the hard hitting news. But you’re gonna get it in a way that like, meets you where you are. And I just really appreciate that about your work. And like, also, when you guys talk on vibe chat, like, that’s like, my favorite thing about the show is you guys give real serious consideration to these issues. But you do it in a way that I’m like, these are my friends. Yeah.

Zach Stafford 26:16
It’s like, because like you’re I think it gives weight to your humanity, that you’re a person moving to the world that watches horrible news all day sees the market zipping imagines the most awful futures for your children and family. But you also like want to laugh.

Traci Thomas 26:32
But you also like the new jack Harlow,

Zach Stafford 26:35
the new Jack like you like, you contain all of this at once. And I think I got tired of being in the machine and Sam went to this machine to have, you know, the formal journalism training have you got to talk a certain way be a certain way when I was like, it doesn’t have to be delivered this way. We can like literally Kiki and I can tell you the world’s ending. We’re also gonna end like, right, it doesn’t matter how I deliver.

Traci Thomas 26:55
Right? Well, that’s how this show came to be. It’s like, I want to talk about books, but I don’t want to be the fucking New Yorker.

Zach Stafford 27:00
Like Exactly. Like it just like, yeah, it just the air gets so thin when you’re up there. And it just is not. It’s not fun. And it’s I mean, it’s why I stopped doing academia, because I’ve remember so clearly, I published my first academic article, it was called the power of the queer queen. It was a super queer theory, jargon heavy, bullshit type of writing thing that I used to do. And my mom who’s brilliant, one of the smartest people I know, read it. And she said to me, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I thought is that my future writing things that my mother won’t even understand. And I took that article and published a piece on Thought Catalog when that was a thing called the Five men you meet on Grindr, first blog, and it took all that theory and brought it into practice in an accessible way. And I think like, that’s why I love your show. And I love so many other piece shows that our friends do. Because like, how do we take literature? How do we take theory? How do we take news and make people feel comfortable engaging with it? And yeah, and that’s what we need more of.

Traci Thomas 27:58
I love it. Okay, our segment called Ask the stacks or somebody writes in, they send an email to ask the stacks at the stacks. podcast.com. And they tell us what they’re looking for in a book. And normally I prepare, but today, I completely forgot. So I just read this question for the first time, right before we started, and I have not put my predictions out or my suggestions down. So we’ll do it together. We each have to give like one I’ll give three, you’ll give 123 Whatever you want. And it’s a really short one. It comes from Mary and Mary said I would love some recommendations for narrative nonfiction written by women. narrative nonfiction written by women.

Zach Stafford 28:39
Yeah. So is that memoir content?

Traci Thomas 28:44
So okay, I don’t consider narrative nonfiction memoir, though. Some people do I consider narrative nonfiction, like, nonfiction that has like a story but maybe isn’t like history. Like, like, sometimes true crime can fall in that category. Like, did you read like Empire of pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, like a book like that. You’re talking like that kind of book. That’s like what I think of as narrative nonfiction, there is an argument to be made. That memoir is narrative nonfiction, I think like memoir, plus, when it’s like a memoir, but they’re talking about a bigger thing. I would consider that narrative nonfiction. But the categories and literature are so vague because they’re really just for marketing. Do you know what I mean? So it’s like this, whatever this marketing person at Penguin Random House decides is, whatever, that’s what it is. What’s gonna happen? Um, I can go first if you want.

Zach Stafford 29:38
I’m trying to Yes, I would love that because I’m gonna make sure that the book I’m thinking of is okay.

Traci Thomas 29:42
So the first one that comes to my mind is the book that I’m currently reading. I have not finished this so maybe it might suck but I’m into it so far. It’s called trail of the lost by Andrea Lankford. And Andrea is a former park ranger and she is Following three lost hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail, which is the same hike that Cheryl Strayed did. And they all disappeared, and she’s was a recovery park ranger like in all these different parks, and she said, you know, she’s never had cases where the bodies were never found if they died, just like in these three cases in a few months, they never found any of these guys. And so she’s like, following their trail, she’s trying to figure out what happened. She’s telling you about parks, she’s sort of giving you this bigger picture of the Pacific Crest Trail, but also going in on these three guys. So that’s my first recommendation. My second recommendation is my favorite book of 2023, which was we were once a family by Roxana as Garyun, which is the story of the Hart family murders, which is phenomenal, and I’ve talked about it at length and Roxanne was on the show. But it’s about the two white women who adopted the six black children and then drove them off the cliff. And she digs into the book, and she really gives you like a tender and loving look at the children and also their birth families. And then she also explains to you about family separation, specifically in Texas, but also more broadly in the country and how these systems work. It’s just a phenomenal book. And then the last one I’m gonna give you is the other book I’m reading right now, I love narrative nonfiction book. And it’s called punished for dreaming by Bettina love. And the subtitle is how school reforms harm black children and how we heal. And so she’s talking about charter schools. She’s talking about reformed schools, she’s talking about the ways that children, black children have been treated in school systems. And she uses her own story. And she starts sort of with like, Brown versus Board and how that took black teachers out of schools. And she brings it all the way up through the president and she names names. She’s like Ronald Reagan, this motherfucker. And then she’s like, telling you each person who fucked up, who did stuff that harms kids, she talks about, like, the way that athletics are kind of lorded over children, and they’re like, Oh, you’re here just to play sports, you need to take these easy classes. And it’s just this really powerful sort of scathing book, and I’m really liking it.

Zach Stafford 32:13
Okay, you are so good at this. I do whatever. I’m just like, as I’m going through everything. I’m like, that’s a memoir. That’s a memoir.

Traci Thomas 32:21
That’s okay. Give a memoir.

Zach Stafford 32:22
I was like, I was like, What can I pull from Joan Didion? Because she’s such a reporter of a person. But it’s like essays that are guiding you through American life. So that doesn’t feel like a narrative that’s taking us through the whole writing. What is something?

Traci Thomas 32:38
If there’s a memoir you love though, I feel like that can fit a lot of people consider memoir narrative nonfiction. Yeah.

Zach Stafford 32:44
Oh, I think this works. I’m gonna say it works. Yeah, um, I want to pick Audrey Lorde, the cancer journals, where she writes about fighting cancer, but cancer and how it impacts black women and their experiences with the medical system in her own body and power. And I think she was living in the Caribbean at the time. And she was writing this in St. Lucia, I think, if I remember, right, but it’s just a really stunning way in which you use, you know, a personal experience to tell the larger structural story of what black women are experiencing.

Traci Thomas 33:17
Okay, there we go. Mary, if you read any of these books, let us know what you think. And everyone else at home email, asked the stacks at the stacks podcast.com. So you can get your recommendations because we’re running low, so I need them, so send them to me. Okay, now we’re going to talk about Zach’s tasting books. We always start here two books you love one book you hate.

Zach Stafford 33:40
Okay, so two books I love one would be Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. It just feels like home in many ways, even though it has a tragic ending. I just love that book so much. And it was my introduction that James Baldwin, who of course, you know, all of his work has profoundly shaped me, but I don’t know, that was one of the first books where I was like, Okay, this is gay. I love it. And it’s about France and all these other things. And then another book that I’m going to put up there is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen used to be like now, I mean, out of everything I read today, not so much. But a book that has withstood the test of time for me and was a refuge as a young person was amazing. And I would read the book, and then watch the BBC miniseries, all the time as a kid, and I was just, again, very gay. So those the two I love. The one that I hate was surprising that I remember today. And I chose it because I did feel this huge amount of anger when I remembered it. But it’s the book The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump. Oh, and why I dislike that book Beyond obviously his politics and things he’s done in the circus that is him running again, is that it was the only book my dad I think ever read really in his life. My dad’s not a big reader. Oh, My dad is a black man from the south and just found so much inspiration from a book that I was like, even at a young age when he made me read it when I was a teenager. I was like, this isn’t for us. Like we’re not the same type of man as this man who says things like, dream big to go big. Take risks, listen to your gut, like the the advice is like not very amazing. It’s just like, if you’re really rich, and have connections, do whatever the fuck you want. So I just really resented that book. And I’ve always resented that my father admired that book so much, because it felt like that was the fuel that led us to, you know, him become president was people really love that book for some reason. And I hate that.

Traci Thomas 35:41
I love this answer. I think you’re the first person to say this book on the show. Oh, great. I love it. What kind of reader Are you now as an adult?

Zach Stafford 35:52
I read. I wish I read more. So reads so so much. Now it feels like it’s for work, which I don’t love. Like, I do miss the days in which I wasn’t paid to talk to people about their books, or write about their books. Because it used to be less stressful, because now I think I read differently when I’m going through a book if I’m about to be in a conversation with somebody. But what I really love just because I grew up, you know, on the internet, and being friends with so many writers that have become huge players like Sid Jones, like Roxane Gay, all these people. I remember when I was like, 21 emailing with them about things is that I can look when I walk into bookstores now. And I also was an editor for so many years. So I know so many writers, I walk into bookstores, and I know so many people who are publishing, and it makes me so hyped because I get to read their memoirs, essay collections, their their fiction. So I really like love my friends work are people I’ve read online who have now created a work that’s gotten bigger. So that’s where my reading goes, is that like I see? Yeah, I see a friend publishing I’m going to read the book.

Traci Thomas 36:57
I love that. What’s the last really great book you’ve read?

Zach Stafford 37:03
Last was a great book. I would say in the wake by Christina Sharpe, which I talk a lot about, and by cheque, it just really has impacted me in a way that I hadn’t felt in a while. It reminded me of being 19. In college, again, a reading Judith Butler, or bell hooks for the first time. Yeah, and just being overwhelmed with how someone makes so much sense of my own body in the world. So that book is really and it’s one I keep, you know, offering to people sending to people, begging people to, to read, I still haven’t read it. Oh, it’s so good. You haven’t read it.

Traci Thomas 37:44
I read the new I’ve read the new one. Ordinary notes. Yes. And it’s really good. Have you read that one, too?

Zach Stafford 37:49
I’ve started it. I’ve not finished that. My dad side got me on that one. Because I was like, in the week in the week, he’s like, Girl, there’s a whole new book.

Traci Thomas 37:58
Where are you bad?

Zach Stafford 37:59
Like, sorry, I missed that.

Traci Thomas 38:01
What are you reading right now? And do you read multiple books at a time?

Zach Stafford 38:05
I completely read multiple books at one time. It’s a problem because I’ll carry a book in my backpack at all times. And then I’ll like, buy something or get something else. Right now I am reading the art of gathering that’s literally what I’m reading reading is usually sitting right in front of me and that’s what’s right in front of me by Priya Parker. And I’m also I feel like I’m like, you know, breaking news potentially. But I’m reading Erasure by Percival Everett.

Traci Thomas 38:33
So we’re not breaking news. Now that that’s our book club pick for this month. When you when they hear this. But yeah, reassure by personal effort, and you’ve seen the movie.

Zach Stafford 38:41
I’ve seen the movie, I’ve seen the movie first, which I kind of sometimes love. I love seeing them sometimes a movie before the book. And I’ve seen the movie I’ve been in court Jefferson for a long time now the director and writer and and it’s a really phenomenal movie that is going to most likely be up for best picture of the Oscars, which is very exciting.

Traci Thomas 39:01
So you saw it first and then you’re reading it. I’m going to read it first and then see the movie so I gotta read it soon so that I can see it before we talk so that we can have the death a combo, you know, the conversation? Who do you turn to to pick a book? Do you go on the internet? Do you go to a book review? Are there friends that you trust? Like how do you decide what to read next?

Zach Stafford 39:21
I mean, I go to site Jones. He reads so much. He’s always reading always looking. So I go to him. I you know, I listen for friends of mine on their podcasts or shows that I listened to to bring up a book that’s coming out or I get pitched a lot of books. So too. So you know, whenever that comes in, I do read these kind of excerpts. And that guides me which sometimes isn’t the best way because that’s a publicist pushing you but it’s really like through my personal network of friends like friends. Whenever a friend tells me they’re reading something, I take that as a big deal because I feel like people don’t read very much anymore. So if someone’s Like, I’m obsessed with this book that I will probably buy the book immediately, and then try to read it eventually.

Traci Thomas 40:05
Can you think of any book that you’ve really loved that someone recommended to you? That wasn’t side Jones?

Zach Stafford 40:10
Yes, a friend of Marcus, who surprised me with this one, recommended and sent me the book, it’s called The Science of storytelling by stories make us human and how to tell them better. And it’s a scientific approach to storytelling. And it talks about how the brain actually loves repetition and story and how story actually fuels our own sense of the world around us from a brain level. And my mom is a neuroscientist, so like brain, anything that I can find to be a bridge between her and my stepdad is great. And this book became that for me, and it just is a really beautifully accessible scientific way of thinking of story.

Traci Thomas 40:51
I love that. Okay, what’s a book that you like to recommend to other people?

Zach Stafford 40:57
What the fuck I like to recommend to other people i for i recommend this book a lot. And I feel bad because it’s really annoying, I think at some level, but it’s this book called cruising Utopia by Jose Esteban Munoz, he’s a queer theorists he died. I think it that kind of goes at NYU. But it’s about it’s kind of the canonical text today of where queer theory is at. And he uses popular media to talk about it. People like Kevin Aviana, who was the person and Beyonce his new album that she pulled from to create those beats. He’s writing about a lot of that music that she’s inspired by to talk about what it means to be queer today. But it’s a book I’ve given to so many queer friends of mine academics, there was even a moment where I gave it to a painter. And he created an entire series based off this and then did a portrait of me, which was very weird. I’d never given someone a book. And then they created a whole pack full book. But it kind of has this. For me, it has this one note in it that I always think about, and it says queerness is not here yet. And it’s about being queer in America around the world is kind of like looking at a North Star. Like it’s always a place that you’re looking to, but you’ll never get there. And it’s always changing and moving. And it gave me a lot of comfort because it always felt when I first got the book, that being queer felt very stagnant felt like it was a box you checked in then it was over. And he didn’t feel that way. But But academically, people were talking about it, you come out of the closet, you you identify as gay, but as like, I feel like my identity is always shifting and changing. And his book allows you to see that from like a really beautiful, like theoretical lens with some really great writing in there, too.

Traci Thomas 42:41
I love that. Okay, I’m hearing you talk about a lot of nonfiction. But your two favorite books or novels are the two books you love to read novels. So I’m wondering, What’s your relationship to reading fiction versus nonfiction?

Zach Stafford 42:54
It’s fiction for me feels like a like a nice vacation for my brain, like a way in which I can like, I feel like I read fiction like by the beach, where I’m like diving into a book that that helps me go to another world. I think just being a journalist, I find myself so drawn to nonfiction, and it helps me I applied to so many things in my life. Nothing fiction does it but I feel like I love documentaries a lot. Yeah, I love unscripted television a lot. I love people so much that I like seeing them animated in their real lives. The fiction is a place that I need to like work on similar to working on like scripted projects, or whatever I mean, strangely, is scripted, obviously, right? Like, that was the first big script. But it felt nonfiction to me

Traci Thomas 43:40
It felt like right, because it was like auto fiction. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, I’m a big nonfiction person. And I do read fiction, but not a ton. And I also am just really drawn to like true life stories. So I totally relate. What’s your ideal reading setup? Where are you are their snacks and beverages time of day temperature? Any of those kinds of things.

Zach Stafford 44:07
I’ve learned that I can’t read with music that has words so I like a vibe like a like a Lo Fi can be any hotel bar in any part of the world. I love reading by a pool a lot. Like I spent a lot of a summer in California finding pools or outdoor spaces to read and layout. So I really enjoy that. I don’t love reading. When I’m going to bed I know it’s a very popular thing to do because I get so inspired and my brain just turns back on and I can’t go to sleep so I need to like zone out but yeah, outside. Nice music, snacks or beverages. Oh glass of wine would be great cocktail.

Traci Thomas 44:53
Daydream. Do you have a favorite bookstore?

Zach Stafford 44:57
Yes. And actually went there. The Today, women and children first in Chicago.

Traci Thomas 45:02
Oh, in Chicago, of course. Yeah.

Zach Stafford 45:04
It’s uh, yeah.

Traci Thomas 45:05
That’s amazing. And what’s the last book you bought? Do you remember?

Zach Stafford 45:09
the last book I bought? I think it was a razor wrenches last book about technically Yeah, I think me too, actually.

Traci Thomas 45:17
What’s the last book that made you laugh?

Zach Stafford 45:23
The Britney Spears memoir?

Traci Thomas 45:25
Did you love it?

Zach Stafford 45:26
I was so into it.

Traci Thomas 45:28
I was so into it.

Zach Stafford 45:29
I think I can say this much because this won’t reveal anything. I know the ghostwriter of it. The person that wrote it with her. There was a team and you know, I’ve been friends for a long time. So and he did not disclose anything so Britney Spears as people are listening. He did not bring his NDA, but reading it and listening to the audiobook was so cool to be like my like, I know the person that like work with her on shaping this and to hear her tell the truth and need right we’ll do like help bring that truth out. I was obsessed with I was obsessed with all the name dropping that like Ryan Gosling just appears out of nowhere it as a kid, like the Justin Timberlake truth bombs, like all of that, just really, like was so amazing, but just her like, how she talks about her life so casually just made me laugh. I was like, This is ridiculous.

Traci Thomas 46:13
Wait Is her ghostwriter secret because I know who her ghostwriter is to

Zach Stafford 46:17
I don’t know what kind of public is it?

Traci Thomas 46:20
I hope my friend Chelsea Devantez does that celebrity book club pot or now it’s called glamorous trash. And she said his name our show. Yes. No, it is public.

Zach Stafford 46:28
Sam Lansky. Yeah, I was like, I know who it is. But I wasn’t sure. Okay. I was like, I still think she gets in the New York Times cigarette we can talk about it.

Traci Thomas 46:38
Sam Lansky. I thought he did a great job. I thought the book was so good. I read it like the day it came out in one day on the audio or whatever, and peep on I was like, oh my god, you guys, this is so good. And so many people were like, really? And I was like, yes, like it’s really pretty. It’s pretty, pretty incredible. And I love celebrity memoirs genre, like I read, probably like five to 10 a year. And this one was by far my favorite of this year. It’s just like, also was so short. Like you give me a five hour audiobook. Chances are I’m gonna love it. Like I don’t want I don’t know, Prince Harry. I read it, but 24 hours is too many hours for me. That’s 20 Too many hours. Okay, like

Zach Stafford 47:23
18 hours for Jada Pinkett Barbra Streisand’s 48 hours.

Traci Thomas 47:27
Just hers is 1000 pages, but at least with Barbra Streisand. Well, I’m not going to read it. At least I’m like you’ve been famous for so long. With Jada Pinkett Smith. I’m like, booboo, honey. No.

Zach Stafford 47:41
And also, what do we not know already? You know, you put it here. Like, this is everything. This is Yeah.

Traci Thomas 47:46
That’s the last book that made me want to, like actually commit a violent act against a human, not her. But just I wanted to go out into the street and like push a stranger. I was just like, I hate it. Um, what’s the last book that made you cry?

Zach Stafford 48:01
Last book. I think I don’t cry. But I think I’m like a big non cry, which is weird. It’s like once in a blue moon.

Traci Thomas 48:07
I don’t really cry either.

Zach Stafford 48:08
It’s this Yeah, not there. But um, the Britney Spears memoir was really it’s heartbreaking. You know, getting all the confirmation of how rough everything was for her and, and how we participate in how terrible it was without realizing that was really hard. So yeah, that was, that was the recent one that really got punch. Yeah.

Traci Thomas 48:29
What’s the last book that made you angry?

Zach Stafford 48:35
I mean, thank you, thank you. Just, I mean, it’s just what I love about slavery more lately, is the beginning Memoirs of people that I feel like I grew up with, and I now care more about when I was young. A lot of the memoirs that were coming out about old Hollywood, I didn’t have that personal connection to oh, now when Mariah Carey releases her, which has the best audio book,

Traci Thomas 48:59
That was our first book club pick of 2023 in January.

Zach Stafford 49:03
It’s so so good, but when you’re listening to that, you can also place yourself within her story. Like I was a I was MCs kid growing up in the 90s she was coming to fame in the 90s, early 90s, late 80s And this was like you just see yourself woven into it. So yeah, so everyone was everything and I found myself emotionally responding to this memoir, because it’s just becoming more truthful these days.

Traci Thomas 49:25
Serena Williams has one coming out allegedly this year or next year. Okay cannot wait that will be the one I’m like, I just It’s I mean hopefully if it’s a letdown I’m gonna feel so sad but like I believe in her where’s the book that you read that you felt like you really learned a lot or the last book you felt like you learned a lot.

Zach Stafford 49:45
The last book I felt like I learned a lot I mean, Christina sharp I feel like I was learning a lot but the quickly the first Shanna think I read this book and actually like love the author so much is in the dopher acapella Bro, he wrote this book called asylum. And it’s about his immigration process to the states. And his journey of being out it in Nigeria and coming here. And I had done so much reporting on, you know, immigrant experiences, and I’ve been to I’ve been to detention center, like all this stuff. But I’d never read from someone firsthand. And it just really, like, changed my life in many ways and thinking about, you know, ice and America and Trump and his damage he’s done to people because sometimes I feel like he’s impacted my life, of course, in so many ways, but I’m not the lowest rung on the ladder in a day was and to see what happened. Post Obama to him was just shocking to me. So as asylum

Traci Thomas 50:47
Yeah, that sounds really good. Just for people listening, I’m linking to everything he mentions in the show notes, so you don’t have to write these down. There’s a whole list of every book everything we talked about. Are there any books that you have not read that you’re embarrassed about? Still having never read?

Zach Stafford 51:07
Yes, I’m gonna go to the Great’s for this and Moby Dick. I have never read and have no, just don’t care.

Traci Thomas 51:16
It’s just that’s one of the most hated books that people say on the show. I’m like, I’m not gonna read it too many people hate it for me. Like, it could be great. But it could also suck. I just, I can’t.

Zach Stafford 51:26
It has bad vibes. I don’t. I don’t want to read it. So I never ends. I mean, it’s like one of those books that like, there’s a series of books that you read about in your high school or, or middle school, and that’s one of them, and everyone makes it their personality, if they think they’re very like smart, like, oh, yeah, whatever. So there’s that one. Yeah. Moby Dick.

Traci Thomas 51:43
Do you have any problematic favorite books?

Zach Stafford 51:49
Okay. Yes. But it’s a kind of a cheat. So they’re journals, but that are a book. So I am a get me drunk. And I’ll talk to you about this forever. I’m obsessed with the journals from Lewis and Clark, like Meriwether Lewis in Explorer, explorers, that that are literally the reason for like colonialism on the west side of this country, which is why it’s so problematic. This is like the guys that created the path through indigenous territories, and ushered in the Union soldiers to take out them and the Mexican government. So I’m obsessed with them. There are so fascinating. I’m so mad. There’s not a movie made of their exploration because when you read the journals closely, it’s very apparent to me projecting a contemporary lens on to a past subject that Meriwether Lewis is a homosexual and is in love with Clark deeply. And that the big reason why he goes west is that he’s fired by. I think it’s Jefferson Jackson, one of the Jefferson Jackson, one of those people, I’m not fact checking someone old and white flag then fires them that was a president. He then is sent on this exploration brings card because he really admires him. And on this trip, he is just deeply in love with this man and doing everything for him to fall in love with him. But this man is obviously in love with other people like Sacajawea and other folks that come across and that Meriwether Lewis becomes really like gay in the most stereotypical ways. He there’s one moment where there’s a hailstorm, and they take cover and some soldiers are with them. And he decides to make cocktails afterwards with the ice. And I’m just like, but he’s also awful to so many people. And he has a really tragic that no one talks about that he does die sadly by by suicide at the end of his life, and so we like prop these two men up, but when they came back from a trip, like one of them was severely fucked up.

Traci Thomas 53:41
Quick, I have a few things to tell to get on the record about this. First of all obsessed with this take second of all, and people. This is how you know, I’m sort of an idiot. I thought Louis was a lady. I thought they were husband and wife. I thought it was Lewis and Clark. I don’t know why. But I have done exactly zero reading about these people. There’s like an era in American history that I truly do not care about. It’s like the 1800s before the Civil War, like not like 1830 to like 1850 couldn’t be less interesting to me. And I feel like that’s where currently Mr. Lewis and Mr. Clark not to be confused with Mrs. Lewis and Mr. Clark. That might be where they’re situated. But I I sense that they are in love. I just thought they were a married couple.

Zach Stafford 54:28
I don’t know. Maybe many people think that too, that they romanticize heterosexuality so much that they’re like, oh, they were obviously a couple going nope, two single men who went on this together getting broke back. It’s very glory, original Brokeback and we need the movie. Immediately.

Traci Thomas 54:45
I’m able to produce it Hello, you’ve got a Tony Award or you’re laying around

Zach Stafford 54:48
and I’m like, let’s do this like because it just like, I mean not to spoil the end but um, they famously when they hit Oregon, they took the trip backwards separate. So something happened At the end, they don’t really know anything else separated when they came back. Louis fell into deep depression married, but his wife wrote a letter, or these journals are like, have so much wife wrote a letter and she’s pretty much like we never had sex and I divorced him. So she divorced him really fast. And then he sadly passed away. So it’s like such there’s so much drama in the end is like, not fulfilling like, it’s not like this big like love Simon ending of a movie. It’s not like they run off to sunset, like one of them goes to marry a woman, the other one dies. And that homophobia just blossoms in America. And the beginning of America’s expansion was a tragic love story of a queer man and a straight man, I think he’s just really fast.

Traci Thomas 55:37
Okay, you have sold the shit out of this, I cannot wait. We’re all going to read it. Okay, if you were a high school teacher, what’s a book you assigned to your students?

Zach Stafford 55:46
I would say gender outlaw by Judith Butler, I keep bringing up all this like academic stuff. I love. Like, I love these. And I think just because I think that’s the book or Judith Butler, the theorists writes that gender is a performance. And when I was a teenager, I needed to hear that when I didn’t hear it the first time at like, 18, where, you know, we every day, we wake up and make conscious choices, like I put on the shirt to signal something to you about my identity I put on the shoes, etc, etc. And that, like you have a lot of control over how you move through the world in that desk back into all these systems like gender. So the book is fascinating beyond that, but that was the big takeaway for me to be like, oh, all of this is constructed. This is all a social contract that we’re living in. And I think if people understand that earlier on, they can maybe navigate it easier later in life.

Traci Thomas 56:33
Okay, last one. If you could require the current president of the United States to read one book, what would it be?

Zach Stafford 56:42
Joe Biden, you can read one, that black guy, that fucking guy. Um, so my, my book I would give to our president currently is lighting Gaza writings born of fire, which was edited by a few authors, all Palestinian, everyone in the book is Palestinian. But I think it gives, you know, a lot of humanity that’s needed greatly in discussing this conflict on every side, but this book is one that isn’t very well known that people should read.

Traci Thomas 57:11
I love it. I love it. Thanks, everyone. That’s gonna be back on January 31. The last day of this month in this brand new year, we’re talking about the novel arratia by Percival Everett, we will have spoilers, so be sure to read the book with us. Come back at the end of the month. You can find Zach all over the internet. I’ll link to everything you talked about on the show notes, a link to the podcast link to his socials. Zach, thank you so much for being here.

Zach Stafford 57:38
Thank you. This was just the highlight of my week. This has been lovely. Yay.

Traci Thomas 57:42
And we’re recording this on a Friday so that means I mean, always like if somebody says on on a Monday it’s like okay, batch it’s Yeah, Monday.

Zach Stafford 57:49
You’ve been through some highs and lows that you want. So yeah, thank you.

Traci Thomas 57:53
And everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Alright, y’all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you, of course to Zach Stafford for being our guest. I’d also like to say a quick thank you to Chantel Holder for being our connector on today’s episode. Remember, The Stacks book club pick for January is Percival Everett’s novel Erasure which we will discuss with Zach Stafford on Wednesday, January 31st. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks and joined the stacks pack. Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you’re listening to your podcasts. If you’re listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, will you please leave us a rating and a review. For more from the stacks follow us on social media at the stacks pod on Instagram threads and tik tok and at the Stacks pod underscore on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com This episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin MacWrite. The Stacks is created and produced by me Traci Thomas.

Cherie Marquez https://www.cmediacollective.com/
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