Julia Fierro is the guest. She is the founder of the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop and her debut novel, Cutting Teeth, is now available from St. Martin's Press. The Millions says "When a group of thirty-something parents gather at a ramshackle beach house called Eden, no serpent is required for the sins, carnal and otherwise, to pile up. Fierro, founder of Brooklyn's Sackett Street Writers' Workshop, argued in The Millions last year that writers need to put the steam--and the human sentiment--back into sex scenes in literary novels. You may want to keep Fierro's debut novel on a high shelf, away from children and prudish literary snobs." And Megan Abbott says "Julia Fierro’s Cutting Teeth offers immense rewards to readers far beyond those who will identify with the frantic, conflicted, yearning parents who fill the novel (though many will). It’s for any reader seeking a tale rich in character, strong in voice and filled with both incisive social critique and a luminous generosity of spirit, a rare combination indeed." Monologue topics: mail, Labor Day, childbirth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.