The Last We Fake

Richard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story ” —Sven Birkerts, The New York Times)  previews a chapter of his 13th novel, PLAYHOUSE, scheduled for release by Alfred A. Knopf on February 14, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the book and his craft. Bausch’s works have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Narrative, Gentleman’s Quarterly. Playboy, The Southern Review, New Stories From the South, The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Prize Stories; and they have been widely anthologized, including in The Granta Book of the American Short Story and The Vintage Book of the Contemporary American Short Story. The Modern Library published The Selected Stories of Richard Bausch in March, 1996. He has won two National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lila-Wallace Reader’s Digest Fund Writer’s Award, the Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The 2004 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. In 1995 he was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers. In 1999 he signed on as co-editor, with RV Cassill, of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Since Cassill’s passing, in 2002, he has been the sole editor of that prestigious anthology. Richard is the 2013 Winner of the REA award for Short Fiction. He is currently a professor at Chapman University in Orange, California. Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Learn more at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Special thanks to Ben Rifkin.

Retired Episcopal priest Gary Commins shares a new short story, "Priest and Victim," in which a pastoral meeting with a childhood rape victim turns over secrets both buried and not. Commins is the author of Spiritual People, Radical Lives as well as Becoming Bridges: The Spirit and Practice of Diversity and If Only We Could See: Mystical Vision and Social Transformation.  His newest book, Evil and the Problem of Jesus, is forthcoming in 2023. 

Four-time TEXTE.WIEN https://texte.wien/ Junge Literatur competition finalist Fanny Koelbl reads and discusses her new story, “Le Weekend,” then talks with Alan Rifkin about the fathomless collusion between love, biology, and the willingness to drown.  Koelbl has previously studied in Vienna and Paris. 

Cameron Gomez reads his visionary but deeply human short story "Volcanoes, from Above: Oil on Canvas," then talks with Alan Rifkin about amusement parks out of season, risky career choices, and stories that decide not to be ironic. Gomez is a third-year English major at California State University, Long Beach, who dreams of glory, riches, and a better haircut. "Volcanoes..." is his second published work of fiction.

Writer Brooke Prado reads her macabre, symbolically rich but never quite implausible modern parable, "The Hollow Book," developed this fall in an upper-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the perils of reading in the dark.  Prado's work has been published in multiple journals, including Chaffey Review and Queer Sci Fi Anthology, as well as various contests online.  A fourth-year undergraduate majoring in English, she is at work on a short-story collection tentatively titled "Mother Oh Mother" and the first of what she hopes will be a long list of published novels. Follow her @brooke.prado on Instagram. 

Long Beach's Rafael Zepeda (Horse Medicine & Other Stories, The Yellow Ford of Texas, Can This Wolf Survive, Tao Driver), whose deadpan prose style across many books has earned praise from authors like Jim Harrison and Edward Field, reads from his 2012 novel Desperados and his narrative poem "A Descent into Baja," then chats with host Alan Rifkin about poetry, Picasso, cave paintings and Pekinpah. Zepeda is a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, a Poets, Essayists and Novelists Syndicated Fiction Award winner, and Professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. 

The finale of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 11 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 10 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 9 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 8 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 7 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 6 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 5 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 4 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 3 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Episode 2 of SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, about the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who voyage to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Season 2's original novel, titled SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, unfolds the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who come to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life--middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flower child Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benjy--branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once torn by and setting in motion the questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since.CREDITS:Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas.Host Alan Rifkin's novels, essays and short stories of Los Angeles have been published widely. Find out more about him at www.alanrifkin.com.Intro music is from the song "Slow," performed by Sally Dworsky. Written by Sally Dworsky and Chris Hickey. Available on iTunes, Spotify, Apple Music and all other streaming platforms.Closing credits songs for Season 2 are “Lullaby of Sunland,” composed and performed by Ben Rifkin, and “Trapeze Dress,” composed and performed by Dean Chamberlain. News and touring information about Dean are at therealcodeblue.com.Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker.Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

Season 2's original novel, titled SUNLAND, by screenwriter, journalist and novelist Charlie Haas, unfolds the brief desert flowering of a group of German artists, musicians, and free spirits who come to Southern California, “the America of America,” in 1914 to start the world over. They’re fleeing cops, city life, sexual norms, the oncoming world war, and the Internet of their time--the  telegraph, telephone, and movies--in favor of naked farming, altruism, and wild new music. The main characters, a family of four who abandon Berlin in hope of a saner life—middling violinist-dreamer Anna, factory worker Gerhard, prototypical flowerchild Lilli, and budding tech futurist Benji—branch out from the fields of San Bernardino to the real estate tracts of burgeoning L.A., at once wrestling with and setting in motion the longings and questions that have beguiled and bedeviled every American generation since. CREDITS:Music for the trailer is "Lullaby of Sunland," composed and performed by Ben Rifkin.Charlie Haas’s screenwriting credits include Over the Edge, Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee. His journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, New West, The Threepenny Review, and Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing, along with many other journals. Haas’s previous novel, The Enthusiast, was published by HarperPerennial in 2009. Follow his Twitter feed at: @Charlie_Haas. Podcast art by Ryan Longnecker. Sound production by Ben Rifkin.

In this Season 1 finale, Dina Villegas reads and discusses her graceful, arresting, uplifting and disturbing ballad of ambition and imperfection, “The 100 Melodies of Dan Van,” which she developed in a lower-division fiction workshop at California State University, Long Beach. A first-year student majoring in Political Science, Villegas is currently at work on a magical-realist fantasy series she has envisioned since childhood. She calls herself an undercover anthropologist, watches people from afar, and enjoys writing stories that she insists no one will ever read.