Episode 86 Notes and Links to Mark Athitakis’ Work
On Episode 86 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Mark Athitakis, and the two talk about Mark’s varied reading, his various writing and editing jobs, his role as book critic and literary reviewer, ideas of the critic as objective chronicler, and his work that highlights underappreciated writers and Midwestern writers.
Mark Athitakis is a writer, editor, critic, blogger, reporter, essayist, white-paper-ist. He has written short and long pieces for publications like The New York Times and Washington Post, published two books, and provided editorial assistance from basic proofreading to deeper guidance on book-length projects. He has taught, consulted, and generally helped people tell their stories better. His particular expertise is in association/nonprofit content and literary criticism, but he delivers professional work in a variety of contexts.
October 4, 2021 Review in USA Today of Jonathan Franzen’s Crossroads
September 13, 2021 Review in The Los Angeles Times of Rabih Alameddine's The Wrong End of the Telescope -“This Refugee Novel Knows it Can’t Change the World”
Authory.com Page for Mark-links to 300+ past publications
Buy The New Midwest at Bookshop.org
At about 2:00, Mark discusses his multifaceted career and the different types of writing he does as a “white paper-ist”
At about 4:25, Mark talks about his childhood, as a child of immigrants from Crete, Greece, and the ways in which language and reading and immigrant tradition affected his later expertise with writing
At about 7:30, Mark talks about his early reading and having his “head turned sideways” by writers like Nelson Algren and Harry Mark Petrakis who wrote about place, and immigrant communities such as he knew growing up in Chicago; he also references Paul Fussell’s Class and its impact on him
At about 13:30, Mark talks about more recent reading that has informed his love of literature and his own writing, including William Faulkner, Phillip Roth, Marilyn Robisnon, and admired critics like Parul Sehgal, Patricia Lockwood, Laura Miller, Leslie Jamison, and Elizabeth Nelson
At about 18:20, Mark responds to Pete’s question about moments in which he felt that his work resonated, and he talks about “really [taking] to it” when he began doing portraits of artists like Brian Wilson
At about 21:00, Mark talks about the importance of the alt-weekly in nurturing young writers, and the declining impact of these alt-weeklies
At about 22:25, Pete asks Mark about editing others’ work, especially with writing as a supposed solitary activity; Mark talks about his recent role as a writer-in-residence at the public library and what he learned from it
At about 26:40, Pete wonders about objectivity when it comes to criticism
At about 30:05, Pete inquires into if and how reading as a critic affects Mark’s reading for pleasure; he also asks Mark about the philosophy of “bashing” and negative reviews
At about 36:25, Mark responds to the Pete’s musings about the “democratization of reviews” and how this affects him
At about 38:00, Pete and Mark discuss Jonathan Franzen and his role as “controversial”; Pete cites parts of Mark’s recent positive review of Franzen’s Crossroads
At about 42:15, Pete asks Mark about the portrait he wrote for the LA Times about Rabih Alameddine and if Mark sees a need to be an evangelist or activist with a book like this one
At about 49:30, Pete and Mark discuss The New Midwest, Mark’s book, and Mark talks about the genesis and aim of the book, with Belt Magazine providing impetus
At about 54:00, Mark discusses his desire to avoid putting Chicago and Midwestern literature in opposition to other literary scenes in his book, but instead to celebrate the Midwestern scene
At about 57:00, Mark salutes Marilynne Robinson in citing her as a true Midwest writer and underappreciated student and chronicler of the region
At about 59:30, the two discuss David Foster Wallace’s work as Pete asks Mark if he is a “Midwest writer” and Mark’s thoughts about his work
At about 1:03:20, Mark reads a piece of his that he deems a bit different from his usual-a piece from The Washington Post about “quarantine reading”; Pete and Mark discuss the article’s ideas
At about 1:08:00, Mark gives his contact information
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Please tune in for the next episode, a conversation with Natalia Sylvester, YA author extraordinaire. She has written, among other books, the award-winning Running, and her upcoming book is Breathe and Count Back from Ten, comes out in May 2022. The episode will air on October 22.
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