For readers, lockdown has meant closed bookstores and Amazon delays; for writers, you can add cancelled book tours to the usual worries—kids at home, not enough time but also too much time, and the discomfort of an uncertain future. Now you can listen to some of your favorite authors dissect these strange times on short (10 minutes or so) weekly phone calls. Episode one hosts Emma Straub, who has a new book, All Adults Here, and Ann Patchett (Bel Canto, Commonwealth). In Episode two, Jia Tolentino (Trick Mirror) discusses the satisfaction of reading fiction right now—it’s centering and fulfilling at a time when we feel we’re just floating in a void,” she says—with Brit Bennett, whose new book, The Vanishing Half, is out this summer. —J.V.

Listen to Emma Straub & Ann Patchett here.