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Introduction to Lee Upton: I am a multi-genre author, not because I’m polygamous when it comes to genre, but because each genre is addictive and possibly a bit contagious. Along with The Withers and Tabitha, Get Up, I’ve written seven collections of poetry, two short story collections, a novella, four books of literary criticism, and an essay collection. My poetry has appeared widely, including in The New Yorker, Poetry, and Southern Review, as well as three editions of Best American Poetry. I am the recipient of the Pushcart Prize, Poetry Society of America awards, the Miami University Novella Prize, the Saturnalia Book Prize, and other honors. For over three decades I taught at Lafayette College, where I assumed the title Francis A. March Professor Emerita of English and Writer in Residence when I stepped away from teaching to write full time.
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Introduction
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
00:00:16
Speaker
We're talking with Lee Upton coming in here. Lee has a rabbi, we're a little bit like in that part of the... But I wanted to introduce you, Lee, a writer, and in particular, coming up this summer, book called The Withers.
Exploring Writing Styles & Genres
00:00:36
Speaker
Multiple styles or the tones that Lee writes in. And want to talk a lot about that, but Lee... welcome to something rather than nothing i've waited to have you on here and here and i'm so excited well i'm i'm really excited to talk with you thanks for having me yeah so i don't know maybe just like dig in right at the beginning too when i was talking about um and your in your poetry too not to be like just throw that out there you poach i love poetry and i've been reading your poetry tell me about you as a writer just just in general like
00:01:14
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moving between different ah styles, forms. ah You have comedy, you have like ah yeah kind of dystopian, ah the the withers.
00:01:27
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What's it like for you? And what's that doing for you as a creator to be like, I'm not this type of thing. I'm um these type of things. Can you just tell us about that? Because I'm i'm really fascinated about that piece.
00:01:39
Speaker
Well, sure. um I write poetry and fiction short stories, novella and novels, um also literary essays as well, too. um But I love working among genres. I mean, it's just I mean, it's kind of greedy in some ways. I mean, I just want to. more and more experiences with language and with writing. And I think of all writing as essentially a kind of experiment. So there's a sense that I don't always know what I'm going to work on. Although sometimes I really tell myself I want to do X, Y, and Z for the comic novel,
Creating Joy Through Writing in Challenging Times
00:02:20
Speaker
Tabitha, get up. I actually told myself, I want to write a comic novel. And, um,
00:02:27
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And then i I just would get up every morning and try to make myself laugh. This was during COVID for that novel. And it was just a kind of a difficult period. The family member was very ill during this period. We had COVID. And so I told myself, I want to create something joyful in some ways. And ah I gave in that novel the world's best bar because remember we couldn't go out to bars so the character has a wonderful bar and uh has a lot of fantasies so in that novel it was really a case of deciding i'm going to write comedically for that and i was very annoying ah the whole time i was writing i would laugh i was laughing at my own silly jokes you know But um actually, the novel that's coming out in June, The Withers, was written before the comic novel and before the mystery novel. It was actually written in 2017, the main plot I had. and and so it was written before COVID, even though it's a kind of dystopian novel about an epidemic that in some ways...
00:03:42
Speaker
it was predictive of what would happen with COVID, but it's not coming out till, you know, this June. But working with multiple genres, I think ah poetry is a kind of foundational art for me. you and When I was a young woman, that's where I focused most of my energy
Poetry as a Foundation & Comedic Writing
00:04:00
Speaker
there. And and fiction, i was always writing fiction, but it was kind of on the sub on the on the sidelines. um But then through the years, ah I've never stopped writing a lot of poetry and give my heart to poetry. But I think once you start working in another genre, you
00:04:18
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You start somehow getting infected by that genre. It's very contagious for me. If I go into a genre, I want to ah explore more. So doing it, there I mean, it's it's almost like always being a beginner, but then it's always exciting, that exaltation of being a beginner and not knowing what will emerge. Even with a comic novel, even though I told myself I'd write a comic novel, I could never know down the line what would happen in that novel. And for me, that sense of adventure is what propels me as a writer and also propels me to experiment with different genres.
00:05:00
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Oh, it's really exciting. what what but what When you're doing like the... the the Tabitha, the, the, the comedy novel, um, uh,
00:05:13
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you're saying you're getting like in the frame of like trying to laugh and stuff. Like what, what were you what were you, what were you doing? Like for me, i I adore laughter for me. Um, at least not to be like too analytical, but like healthy wise, me getting like,
00:05:27
Speaker
Like the energy blasting out and the air blasting on my body is like so fun. So like I could totally understand being ah like, what we what were you doing? And like to like inhabit the the comic space. If you're annoying, is for you. No, no. Like tell me what you're doing.
00:05:44
Speaker
Well, I think for me, um that novel ah grew out of a rhythm. The character has a kind of way of talking. And as soon as I caught her rhythm, the the first ah line in the novel is know is just, it propelled me. It's, I know every woman looks better after a divorce. I know every woman looks better after a divorce. Holy shit, that's a lie. That's an open line. That's her first line. Good on you.
00:06:16
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Yeah, and and um so that voice just caught me. As soon as I could, i've as soon as I, I'd written um a short story that didn't really work. It had an email at the end of it with with with that voice in the email. And I liked the voice because I think I measure the writing by a kind of
Embracing Failure & Criticism in Art
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energy. And so So it was following through on that voice, that rhythm of how this character thinks in the world. In September, the sequel is coming out. that The comic novel is coming saw that. the sequel is Tabitha Stay Up.
00:06:52
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And, ah you know, I just wanted to experiment with her voice again. So I think that for me, um moving between genres is so much part of just... um ah yeah it's a kind of just you know going into the wilderness a bit to see what will emerge. And I've had had the experience where I'll start out, for instance, with a poem, but then it can turn into a short story. Or I've had multiple times where I've written what I hoped was a novel and I realize it doesn't work and I make it into short stories. And
00:07:30
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So, um, there's, I hate to waste all that effort, but I'd never think of it as really wasted. I always think yeah something can come of it. I can learn from it. I also have a little mantra that I use in writing, which is, is, um, welcome failure, come in failure. Yeah. And I do that because then I can be bolder if i already welcome failure.
00:07:54
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And it's because, especially with comic writing, you're going to fail no matter what. Yeah, like really, really expect it in that, right? ah Yeah. Yeah, there's a real markers that. And also Welcome Failure because um characters have to fail, in you know, at least part of the time in whatever kind of writing I'm working with. And so in some ways, I think of it as bonding with my characters. We're all failing somehow.
00:08:21
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And so I can follow them out and have a lot of sympathy for, know, that urgency that people feel. We don't want to fail. Yet, you know, any plot has to involve some kind of failure along the way, even if it even if your ending is happy or there's some kind of conclusion where the world is set up right along the way, you know, you're, you're working with failure. So I do that to calm my own nerves, but also to just realize that's part of the business. You're gonna, you know, you, you can't win. You can't win everyone. you can't even win small group. You just don't know. you might as well welcome failure. There's, I think not to interrupt, but like, I think there's something within that, like, you know, there's the courage that's within that too. Right. To fail. But there's also like, there's this idea that I thought like, you know, whether people are experienced like some criticism or antipathy towards it, or like, you know, for me, there's this, this kind of Buddhist concept is like, there's, there's,
00:09:30
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your greatest teacher is that person. Your greatest teacher is the one who twerks you, tweaks you up and gets your backup and stuff like that because there's a reflection back upon something that's making you really uncomfortable. And I always find like criticism being within that, like you have to get past this and initial, pardon my French, like F off of like, I know did that. I accomplished that. I took care of that. Look at page 277 versus somebody being like,
00:10:00
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Nah, you know, or, you know, or you know, expressing, you know, whatever, or it wasn't funny or, you know, and that's so difficult. That's so difficult in art, but it's difficult for us as as a person. So.
00:10:15
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I just want to like point that out like that, that, that approach is like so, so healthy. And it's one that me over the years, like I'm trying to do more of that. mean, like I can look like, i think deep down sometimes like we don't want to look like a fool, right? We don't want like look stupid or like haven't done it well. And that's a powerful, it's a powerful thing for me. and in talking to artists and others, it's like, yeah that's a, you know,
00:10:43
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Got to work through that. um Different question. When did you first see
The Writer's Identity Journey
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yourself? I'm going to use writer, but I you know i talk about art in general. When did you first see yourself as as as a writer or when did you first see yourself as an artist, ah creator,
00:11:01
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i think I think that, you know, I've written since i've since childhood. And, um i you know, my undergraduate degree was as a journalist. It was in journalism. And i i for um you know I paid my way through college by writing for the Capitol newspaper in in Lansing, Michigan, the Lansing State Journal. I was just a freelance writer. So I got paid per piece. But i I, you know, since probably pretty early childhood, I really wanted to be ah a writer. i remember that we would get, um i grew up in a farm in mid-Michigan. We'd get the Detroit Free Press newspaper. And there was there was a cartoon about Brenda Starr, girl reporter. And I thought, oh, maybe, you know, maybe there's a world for me where I can write. But I like writing books. very early on. And then, um, when I, oh you know, went to, you know, got the undergraduate degree, but while I was an undergraduate, I was in poetry workshops and I really fell in love with the form instant, instantly. i mean, just instant love. And, um, and I still have those friendships from that period in my life, the other people who were writing poetry. So I think then, um
00:12:18
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And we did a lot of readings and and and and stuff too, like in the area. We we were we were pretty vocal about ah our love for for poetry. So I think that that really set me on the path. i I've always found it a little hard to um think of myself even as an identity. you know i even I don't even quite identify identify it sounds a hard but i don't mean quite identify with my name. i As you know, sometimes when I sign a check, i have to think for a minute, oh, what's my name? yeah and um And so i think maybe that connects too with multiple genres. It's always kind of ah a search or a kind of of falling into different personalities or different voice rhythms that appeals to me. And I also think sometimes of writing that writing sometimes for me almost feels like erasure. Yeah. it's almost like it's a way to kind of forget trauma or forget things in the past. I mean, they're written down sometimes in disguise form, even disguised from myself, but then I move on to some something else. And I like the way that writing gives you a sense as a human being, you know, maybe, you know, it goes back to what you were talking about spiritually of not being quite, not being quite possessed in some ways as a human being, you know, that we're, we're, you know, we're, we're, we're all multiple, you know, we're, we're, we're, um, in in that sense, I think writing is it very fulfilling for me, but yeah I felt about pretty, I didn't really call myself an artist or a poet. ah Usually I just call myself ah ah a writer because that's been, you know, unending for me. Yeah. Well, saying you're, you're a writer, at you can't communicate everything that anybody needs needs to know as well, like about, you know, uh, uh, about, um,
00:14:10
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about about writing. I got to tell you, you mentioned poetry. um I've read your poems even a while ago and I love your poetry. And another thing about it too is like, I think like as an audience or like for me, just as a person like receiving art and like writing is that like, like heavy, intense relationship, which can be common, you know, mid teens through twenties, like poetry,
00:14:40
Speaker
I didn't know what it all meant to me. i knew it was super powerful and super important. I read everything. And then sometime around, like, doing the podcast the last few years, like, I'm bumping into, like, I'm at Powell's bookstore. I'm in a bookstore in a small press piece. I'm paying attention to these little areas that I might have walked past and bumping into poetry. And it was like an enlivening, again, of, like the like, in my body of being like, yeah.
00:15:08
Speaker
And I always try to describe poetry for me, but like for me, it's power.
Power & Complexity of Poetry
00:15:13
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and And I think some philosophers have talked about this. It's power is in like the, maybe like the execution of words for me to express ah complexity or profundity or something much bigger. And it's not about economy, even though it is, it's about like how the poet,
00:15:36
Speaker
Only the poet can express certain things or or certain type of confusions like in ah in in in this manner. And that's been really powerful for me to go back to like that form and to interview poets um and You know, that that it's mysterious. Where does poetry come from? if Humans have been doing this, you know, for a long time.
00:15:59
Speaker
um inhabit So I'm just like talking about like a couple distinct times of me inhabiting that poet space and it maybe writing and such. But for you, your relationship with with poetry um over over time, is that like, is that your, you feel is it like your home?
00:16:17
Speaker
poetry Yes. Yes. um I love what you said. I mean, it is, you know, it's a sense in poetry. There's a a powerful compression within poetry. yeah it just you know and And I often think of it as a kind of whirlpool of energy, you know, drawing us, drawing us inward.
00:16:34
Speaker
And I think that I've just, what's so exciting is that there's so many ways to, to experience poetry and there's so many wonderful things. wonderful poets and so many kind of voice prints. They say our voice prints are as individual as fingerprints and all. So there's that sense that, you know, it's irreducibly human. And think for me, have next year, in 2027, my new and selected poems will be coming out from Saturnalia Books. And so I've been looking. Yeah, I'm so grateful about that. I've been putting together a draft of that collection to go to the editor. So I've looked out, you know, through the books of poetry and to see how, you know, there are changes over time, but some of the same obsessions repeat and the same, you know, love of compression. You know, what was odd for me as someone who also writes novels that are so long is coming out of many, many years of primarily writing poetry because poetry is so much focused on the individual word and the line, of course, and rhythmic effects. Whereas novels are so many words. I never thought for years I could ever write a novel because it's just too many words to combine properly. And then was used to writing ear and only ear and mainly, but the kind of fiction, there's so many ways to write novel, but the kind of novels that I aspire to write tend to have cause and effect, they tend to have scenes, they tend to have development, and with poetry I was so used to that
00:18:23
Speaker
impact of compression, that it was almost turning everything I learned inside out. But that also is what was exciting about it, to do that, but try to to preserve ah some of the imagistic qualities of of poetry within fiction. i think of the the great novelist Muriel Spark, a Scottish novelist, who I love her novels, for one thing, because by and large, they're short, and it's just wonderful to read the shorty. A fulfilling novel.
00:18:52
Speaker
But ah she said that she she was also a poet, and she said that she also thought, she called all her novels poems, so she didn't want to make a make a distinction somehow. yeah that's that's That's kind of liberating in in some ways to try to um pull off the label. And at the same time, i know for me, it took me a long time to learn how to write and a novel, to be a lot of um failed attempts again and again. And I think I've read every book, craft book on writing novels. It's on the market.
00:19:29
Speaker
you know i just Yeah, that's the way your brains would work. You'd be like, what can i how can I crack the, not the code or something, but how can I crack this a little bit better or or even i even Even outlining novels, I'd look at novels and kind of outline, well, how how do they do this? And then, of course, when I wrote, I'd kind of throw that all out the window, you know, because you can't write with those strictures. Yeah.
00:19:54
Speaker
um I want that, of I want to ah just one more indulgence on poetry. I've had a couple, early on, a couple teachers, professors, one really kind of
00:20:10
Speaker
forced a completely different approach to poetry, which made sense contextually. i studying old English, middle English poetry. and my professor is so capable of everything. He was a poet himself and everything, but he brought us younger students in. It was like, everything was sound.
00:20:31
Speaker
Everything, everything was sound of the poems because you can kind of understand the language. There's some translation and stuff, but he was hyper-focused at the beginning. It was such a twist for me being like, listen to this. Like, of course, you could read it really well and it had this, you know, the poetry at that time was like, I'm in the Mead Hall and here's the poem and ah everybody can, you know, I mean, not the, um,
00:20:58
Speaker
And so it was such a wild approach for me because I was like my, you know, young man brain was so analytical. What's the word mean? You know what I mean? It was, it was, it was about the, the puzzle, the Lego bricks of like the words and he just kind of blew it apart. So like I was able to be exposed early, you know, to different type of,
00:21:19
Speaker
poetry but poetry teachers but I think overall like it ended up harmonizing like hearing that bombastic voice of like the sound what's the poem sound like what's it feel like on your skin yes and then the other piece of it being like look at those words and what am I thinking about now I'm thinking about life and death and a hummingbird and like at the same time and i'm like You know, so it was a really kind of like explosive way.
00:21:44
Speaker
And I was frustrated at beginning at the beginning. He's like, listen how it sounds. I'm like, I want to know which Viking killed the other one. Like, what's the update in the plot? So it's such a ah beautiful way to engage with it. But for or for you in poetry, like, um not that it's like it's it's an either or, but... um That's your relationship between the sound of it and the you know the the meaning words pulled within it. Do you deal with that area a little bit or is that just in my head?
00:22:20
Speaker
No, no, your teacher sounds fascinating. And and yeah I love that you know he he pushed against the normal way many people were were thinking about poetry. Oh, yeah, I have to have to have certain sounds working for me. And I guess that's how I i test out a poem. I test it out on on sound, I think, through multiple drafts more than on synths somehow, because the sound is going to allow me to finally maybe say something i didn't know I could know.
00:22:51
Speaker
So the sound is always just, ah you know, I think with poetry is so important. and And even with fiction too. I mean, I have to um you read portions aloud to see if they work or the dialogue works. But particularly in poetry, the sound is ah for me ah a kind of leading factor.
00:23:11
Speaker
And because the sound is kind of the... the entry, the entryway into, into the poem for the reader, but for, for the writer too. And the sound is going to create the little magical possibilities.
00:23:28
Speaker
I love it. I love it. Thank you. um All right. What is, what is art? What is art? You're a creator. You're a creator. you're You're creating things, right? Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:40
Speaker
ah Indulge me. ah the I've read your poetry, these art pieces. What what is what is what is art? I know. i don't I don't think I've ever been asked that question before, but I will take a stab. Of course. That's all we all do as humans. we We're very...
00:23:59
Speaker
I would say in some ways art is what escapes definition and that art is an enhancement and an enlargement of life.
Art Beyond Usefulness
00:24:12
Speaker
And art is a way for human beings to express what otherwise is inexpressible. And i think many things can be can be art. I think of ah If you think of like a staircase and a banister, we need that to hold on to.
00:24:30
Speaker
And, you know, that would be enough just to hold on to it if it's sturdy. But if you look so often, at least in parts of the banister, we are tempted to make it artful, you know, beyond usefulness. We'll create fleur-de-lis or... we'll, in one way or another, add something to what we have. And that instinct to go beyond what's expected, what's known, that artful instinct, you know, is very human. And we're continually doing that, whether it's writing a poem or or it's, you know, making making a gift. You know, I can remember as a kid, remember how you...
00:25:12
Speaker
would paste macaroni and stuff or playboy. That's a flashback. Yeah, you'd you'd be so proud of it. But yeah within it is something that you are trying to express. And very often I think artists, even when it's kind of despairing art, is in some ways um about love, about wanting love or or expressing love. And and you know so often it's in...
00:25:39
Speaker
going beyond what is useful into some other area. yeah So that's, that's what I'd say very broadly is art. Well, when you were talking about like, there's an aspect, it really pulled it in my head because there's the aspect of the mundane, right? So like for humans, it's not in in many places. It is just enough to be practically, practically efficient and do the thing. Right. We, we, we know that.
00:26:05
Speaker
um However, just even in that simple example, you're showing like something just the basic functionality, but practicality to be able to move is being like, Let's create something monumental out of the pieces of that. And that's just like an instinct that, comes for me, in feeling that, like poetically, that comes through it. And I'm like, yeah, that's what that's what we're trying that's what we're trying to do. It's not just this.
00:26:27
Speaker
It's that as well. And like, are you experiencing art? Or also the stop and look, right? That's the big piece about it, right? Like there's so much. I want to say ornamentation, but there's so much.
00:26:41
Speaker
growing out of our spaces, like you also have to see it be, of oh, wow, that's beautiful, you know, and and step back. Yeah, I think art is so much about attention, you know, to create art, you have to be attentive, but to receive art, you have to be attentive too.
00:26:59
Speaker
So that art of attention, it's very much an art also. All right, everybody, i'm you can't see me right now I'm taking off my glasses. I want to read the back of The Withers by Lee Upton because um this is coming out June 23, 2026.
Themes & Inspiration for 'The Withers'
00:27:17
Speaker
we just heard, which I didn't know from Lee a little bit earlier, that that Lee had been writing this, being done back in 2017. But, folks, you want to know what it's about. I got to tell you what it's about. And I'm going to ask Lee to just –
00:27:31
Speaker
Fill in a little bit more, but here we go. In the aftermath of a devastating epidemic, bodies marked with eerie patterns called withers become symbols of a painful past, a past many want to forget.
00:27:43
Speaker
Riata, one of the marked, finds herself cast out, a survivor of controversial surgeries that saved her life but cost her everything else. Seeking refuge, she recovers in the home of a surgeon who once saved her.
00:27:56
Speaker
When she learns his wife is pregnant, a shadow falls over this fragile sanctuary. Ruthless organ traffickers roam the streets and Riyada is drawn into a desperate fight to protect the unborn child and her friends with what Lisa Gornick calls the creeping terror of a Grimm's fairy tale.
00:28:14
Speaker
The Withers is a haunting exploration of obsession, loss, loyalty, and the fragile threads of memory in a world plagued by betrayal. Can trust ever be reclaimed?
00:28:26
Speaker
Whoa.
00:28:29
Speaker
That's a big one. That's a big description. um So, well, just to enter enter into it, folks, the put this on your radar. We'll have links and everything in the podcast talking about the the new work.
00:28:46
Speaker
ah Coming out by Lee Upton. But, um okay, you wrote this way before. You're talking about some stuff that was connected, like, maybe up again to the pandemic. of about What was it like for you, like, in talking about The Withers, to have created this and being like, what is what is this what is this that I've created? And what is this in this world over time?
00:29:12
Speaker
Well, um thanks for for reading the back of the novel. Yeah, I i started it in 2017, but i was i was writing it then, you know, through these years. but they But the whole epidemic, it's an epidemic from a foodborne illness. that was already there even before yeah COVID. So it was a kind of an uncanny when COVID came because I already had ah in the novel, there are controversial theories about the epidemic. There are, um ah you know, conspiracy theories. There's also questions about the origin of the epidemic. And there's also in many ways, the the novel is about forgetfulness. And I think even with COVID, we tend to forget what people endured and the terrible losses that
00:29:57
Speaker
people have gone through. So that element of the plot was established really early for me. And then through the years, while i was writing I was written before Tabitha Stapp was written, before Wrongful. it was you know it's It's the third of novel novel published, but it was the first written.
00:30:19
Speaker
and um and then rewritten and rewritten and rewritten. But, ah you know, I think that this is how it started for me with this novel. I had seen a newspaper article about a couple who were vacationing overseas who died. When their bodies were were brought back to the United States, ah it was discovered with horror that all their internal organs had been removed.
00:30:46
Speaker
Oh my gosh. You can imagine. I remember reading this and ah i didn't clip the article or, you know, save it on my computer or anything um like that. you know, this was quite a while ago, but I just, that horror of that kept bothering me. And so I think in some ways the whole novel goes out of this idea of organ trafficking, even as a ah metaphor or ah a symbol. Um,
00:31:15
Speaker
you know I think of you know how you know I'm talking to a ah newly engaged man here, but the idea of you know I give you my heart, that sense of you know how we think about internal organs in a positive, beautiful way. There's also with organ trafficking, the absolute horror, the World Health Organization estimates that maybe be as many as 20% of organs are are trafficked and there's a billion dollar illegal, you know, organ trafficking network. yeah yeah You know, often, you know, um, you really impoverished people are lured for, for kidneys or part of livers. But, um,
00:31:56
Speaker
You know, it's yet another form of human trafficking. And so my novel is set in kind of a near future. And so I could imagine that, you know, certain things would happen medically that I could kind of predict. That's how the novel was, you know, in its early form, already predictive of what we later learned with COVID, because it's simply logical that certain things would happen in a culture if there was say, as in my novel, massive organ failure. And my main character, Riyada, she cannot take the antibiotics for this. She cannot have ah anything but a human organ. What happens in the novel is though there are great medical advances, but for certain genetically compromised people like Riyada, they're given diseased organs. and to see what will happen. So in some ways, she's a kind of ah kind of guinea pig, but she's allowed to survive through this. And so it's it's it sounds so grim, doesn't it? But it's in some ways a novel about really deep friendship and the best kind of loyalty and a person developing self-trust.
Ethical Considerations & Real-world Issues
00:33:14
Speaker
People have read it say it's it's a slow burn. Yeah. which I guess it is, you know, I'm establishing a kind of world here and then things start happening very quickly at a certain, at a certain point. I'm thoroughly, to interrupt, I'm thoroughly enjoying the book and the, you know, the area we're talking about, I think like, you know, so thinking about philosophy, like there's all these like questions I become fascinated with, but like, even in the backdrop of like,
00:33:44
Speaker
almost like humans general ability to give consent in their situations. Right. You think of like within economics and like the situation that people are in you know, when you give consent, are you are you the interaction between forces or two different people? Are you a truly able to say yes to something that has such an impact?
00:34:04
Speaker
um trafficking element, and but being compelled, being forced. um And you think about like it how, um how more personal can you get to like my body, like a piece of my body, right? That's as we started to talk about. And um there's something primal and freaky about,
00:34:29
Speaker
And just about that that idea in in in general. I didn't realize it was like you had mentioned 20%. So you're saying like within the context of um organs that show up to be used, about 20% are connected to organ trafficking. Is that so? Yeah.
00:34:52
Speaker
This will be you know an international, there can be um you know medical clinics who are doing this you know under the radar. So it is an international trafficking situation. um you know The New York Times did ah an investigative piece ah back this past year, you know i think they updated it in September, but about um procurement organizations, even in this country. And Organ trafficking is a kind of miracle. It's, know, saves lives. It's so important. So you realize why the demand is there, and that's important. But they're looking at at ethical ethical standards with with some organizations, particularly organizations.
00:35:35
Speaker
ah You know, it can be a kind of medical judgment call after surge circulatory death when the heart stops pumping. You know, how long do you wait? Could the heart wake up again? So, you know, to try to be really careful and the the ethical procedures are, you know, you know, they have to be, you know,
00:35:55
Speaker
Absolutely defined. um because But one thing is in the U.S., you know, there's it's a different team that decides that a human being has died and yeah before the procurement organization can can come in. But the New york Times had some investigations where some relatives felt a bit pressured about about organ donation. that's we yeah get so there's some questions there. And in the novel, ah you know, there's a sense that one reason why people reject my main character is she's marked with what are called withers that let people know that she's had ah a human organ, but then it might have been taken from someone in this future world, not in the world we inhabit, who wasn't
00:36:44
Speaker
truly clinically not alive. So um it's it's in some ways about um being marginalized by what people assume continually. And without you have nothing to protect yourself from that assumption. and in the novel, too, there's various controversial theories about people who've undergone the kind of surgery that my character has undergone that are are really problematic as well.
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah. Well done, Lee. Well done, Lee. um ah Folks, ah again, ah the Withers speaking specifically about this.
Supporting Authors & Literature Culture
00:37:24
Speaker
And you in and you know um you get this ah pre-ordered. and and and and And talk to your bookstore, wherever you pre-order um your books, because that's so important. And I know you might hear it a lot, listeners, and I'm not trying to be preachy, but for authors putting it out. The readers are you know out there, and if you think you're a reader, you want to support, get your name on there. Know you'll get the book right when it comes out. It also really helps the publishers and authors know like what's going to go on, how the splash is going to be at the beginning. and
00:37:58
Speaker
As you you know as any any readers might know, there's all sorts of lives for books, and hopefully for authors, the lives of their books start very soon after they're published. um just just just really uh really important to do um and uh published by regal house uh publishing uh i love lee i gotta to tell you one of the pieces i love being a book lover myself is to get the advance and kind of like i feel like there's like almost like a cultural like like peep show of like what's ahead like in you know books and stuff like it's such a thrill to me because um
00:38:40
Speaker
I feel a vibrancy around literature. I feel a culture around literature. literature And I, and and when people want to talk books and it's, you're unapologetic, right? Like you, you lose it in the books. That's the energy, um, uh, that I feel. i was just in San Francisco. I was at city lights books for crying out loud in San Francisco, you know, Lawrence Ferling Getty and the, the poetry's there. And there's also this, um,
00:39:05
Speaker
social activism or this is a spot where people are going to protest and like just sitting there and like books books books books poetry it's uh it's that powerful to me and uh just uh just uh really appreciate appreciate the things you do i'm gonna hit you with the the titular question the one uh which can you know folks can you take a stab at it it's like actually Lee Upton, why is there something rather than nothing?
00:39:37
Speaker
but Oh my goodness. um I thought I was going to get off free
Existential Humour & Personal Anecdotes
00:39:43
Speaker
without that. But here I go. I'll tell you a funny a funny story about this. I only gave it maybe because I i was fearful. I had Lori Fetrick who used to be ice on American gladiators. Okay. like Like gladiator woman. And during it before I asked the question, something rather than nothing, I said, going ask you this question. and I'm not sure how appreciative you're going to be. But you can also say, fuck off, Ken. not answer that question. Well, she took option B. Well, I'll try. I think that, you know, the thing is, is that –
00:40:23
Speaker
It's kind of amazing how we can't have nothing. There's never nothing. you You move and space fills up. So we don't really have a choice. it's all When my daughter, one of my daughters was about three years old and i would you know something would have happened that she didn't like like, she would say something that she'd heard me say in her their sweet voice. She'd say, it's always something.
00:40:52
Speaker
And I love that. It's always something. And I think that's really true. It's always something. And it's the same way, um you know, how your life can seem like it's it's it's going along and, they're they' you know you know, nothing's tumultuous. And then suddenly you get slapped in the face. So it's always something. but So I think, you know, you know nature abhors a vacuum. But our individual lives, they're just full of a lot of something. I love that. No, it's, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. um
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, of course, here, buddy, Something Rather Than Nothing podcast up over 300 episodes. I was so excited to... ah to to get in contact with with with Lee. Really, really just um appreciate what you what you write. And I'm actually going to drop down into some more your poetry. Like I said, I had to come in contact with it over time, but there's something about You know, reading somebody's poetry yeah as collected or as sequenced, which is, um you know, just ah a really nice way to engage ah Lee. We're telling folks to, you know, preorder the book, look around, things like that. where Where do folks find you? Because we want to make sure folks find like, you know, your works, um website, things like that, because ah there' this you've done a lot of great things. So folks need to come in contact with it.
00:42:20
Speaker
so thank Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this wonderful interview. It's been a real joy to talk with you. It really has been. Same here. Really, really lovely. yeah Well, www.leeupton.com. That's my website. And so from there, and if you just Google...
00:42:37
Speaker
i lee Lee Upton. I have doppelgangers. I have, ah I don't know, ah it's a motorcyclist racer or whatever. so it's kind of exciting. That's not you too? Okay. That's not me too. so there's I think I'm biochemist. But Lee Upton. And usually, you know, things will come up. But my website, then you can see, you know, what's there and what's coming up.
00:43:01
Speaker
Thank you, everybody.
Invitation to Explore Lee Upton's Works
00:43:02
Speaker
Lee Upton, ah poet, writer, artist. um We talked, too, about the different genres of writing. So find out... I know what you want, the comic novels, well, the comic novel, Tabitha Get Up. And what was the sequel's title again? I saw it. Yeah, the Tabitha Get Up.
00:43:25
Speaker
And then the sequel is coming out in September. And that's Tabitha Stay Up. And so that'll be really, really ah exciting. I think was nervous about changing her life, but in a sequel, you have to change the life, you know, and um her life does change, but, you know, I hope people will will enjoy it And also literary mystery wrongful. Oh, yes, yes. that was a lot
00:43:55
Speaker
That was – the literary mystery wrongful is really about, you writers behaving badly and publicists behaving badly. Yeah. It was such fun. It's a kind tribute to Agatha Christie. And I loved writing it and I love hearing what people think of it. So, yes. So please, Wrongful, too. I really would love people to read that as well, of course. You love that baby as well. Oh, God. love the babies.
00:44:26
Speaker
oh god yeah i love i love all the babies yeah yeah uh so great uh everybody lee upton uh uh honored to have you on uh something rather than nothing everybody come on uh 2026 you probably need to read more books books can i don't know something it's a vibe i'm on so i'm just trying to share it too um you know fill up some of your time with the book um the world as it is goofy is weird and times violent and intimidating but um
00:44:58
Speaker
books are always there. They're going to be there when the dust and the rubble and everything, you know, comes about. Uh, so that's, that's, that's the vibe I get when I'm talking to, uh, authors. So, uh, we have, uh,
00:45:12
Speaker
have a wonderful Have a wonderful day and have best of luck with things. And everybody check out Lee Upton's writing and hope you enjoyed this this episode. ah Reaching out from Oregon out to the beautiful state, beautiful state out east of Pennsylvania. Thank you so much, Lee.
00:45:32
Speaker
Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. Awesome. Awesome.
00:45:40
Speaker
This is Something Rather Than Nothing.