HeyJaredBad Lit Friends
Bad Lit Friends is a writing podcast that barely knows what it's doing. And that’s the point. Hosted by fiction writers Meagan Thompson-Mann and Kirk Rafferty, this show is equal parts craft discussion, existential despair, ego massage, and wildly unsolicited hot takes.Each…
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 13
- Latest publication
- Sep 25, 2026
- Audience
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 3, 2026
Latest episodes
One Rule for Me: Hypocrisy in Booklandia, Part 2 (opens the original)
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We’re back for part two of our series on hypocrisy in Booklandia, and this week we're asking why readers get to be messy while authors are expected to be saints. If you're a writer, you're supposed to accept criticism gracefully, never respond to reviews, maintain an impeccable social media history, and somehow remain above reproach at all times. Sounds reasonable! We talk about review bombing, the unwritten rules of authors reviewing other authors, and the increasingly weird parasocial relation
One Rule for Me: Hypocrisy in Booklandia, Part 1 (opens the original)
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Booklandia is a vibes-based economy, and this week the vibe is: one rule for me, one rule for thee, and absolutely zero self-awareness about the difference. Zero, zilch, nada. We're kicking off a multi-parter on hypocrisy in publishing, specifically the kind where authors are expected to document their entire creative process like they're preparing for a witch trial, while publishers hire AI engineers and call it “efficient” and “the future.” Yeah, sure, okay. We also get into querying, where yo
Even more Lies, Damn Lies, and Listicles: On Blacklists and Book Bans Part 3 (opens the original)
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We are FINALLY wrapping up our accidental trilogy on author blacklists, book bans, and the dangers of missing context, and we will do this by providing context, so there's that! We talk about what it means to designate a writer as dangerous, problematic, or even culturally "forbidden." From the fatwa against Salman Rushdie to N*zi book burnings, McCarthyism, and today’s organized school and library bans, we explore why “just a list on Threads or Instagram” isn’t as harmless as it might seem. You
It's Too Darn Hot (to Record a Full Episode, Sorry) (opens the original)
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Just one Bad Lit Friend this week, and she's on just long enough to say: we're really sorry, we're super hot (in more ways than one!), and we'll be back next week. We swear! If you want to point fingers, well: SoCal's heat dome took out Meagan's AC on August 23rd, then came for her precious interwebs, because apparently one act of God wasn't enough to delay the BLF. Back next week with the full and final (probably) episode of our miniseries on book bans, book boycotts, and why you should probabl
More Lies, Damn Lies, and Listicles: On Blacklists and Book Bans Part 2 (opens the original)
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We're back with more of another accidental miniseries (whoops), and this week we are getting into the alleged receipts behind the Sleepy Readers Club's Authors to Boycott list. Like, who decided who goes on it? What did these writers actually DO? And what happens to the authors who can't weather a pile-on the way Stephen King can? We also talk associational guilt, reading in narrow hallways, and why your private "people I find problematic" list should probably stay in a Google Doc where it belon
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