The Big Idea

Fiction doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives in dialogue with every other human endeavor: psychology, science, philosophy, politics, music, and everything in between. The Big Idea pairs novelists with thought leaders from other fields for wide-ranging moderated conversations about the big ideas we all wrestle with in contemporary life. Their crackling, unpredictable exchanges will enlighten and entertain audiences and connect contemporary novels to the broader world.

For our next installment of The Big Idea, author Stephen Fishbach (Escape!) and NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour co-host Linda Holmes will join us for Pulling Back the Curtain on Reality TV, a daring conversation moderated by arts journalist Chris Klimek.

Stephen Fishbach is a bestselling novelist and Pushcart Prize-winning short story writer. His novel Escape! was an instant national bestseller and received praise in the Atlantic, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, People, and many others. 

Through Stephen’s corporate work, he has tried to use media superpowers for positive social change. At MTV and Logo TV, he worked on campaigns that used those channels’ broad reach to raise awareness about discrimination, marriage equality, and school violence.

In 2008, he was runner-up on the TV show Survivor, and in 2015, he was voted by fans to return for an all star season of the show. He is currently the cohost of the podcast Survivor Know-It-Alls.

He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.

Linda Holmes bio here

Chris Klimek has written for The Washington Post, The Washington City Paper, NPR, Vulture, The Atlantic, Slate, and Rolling Stone. He is the host of the podcast Movie Death Match and a frequent panelist on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour.

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