Third Person Limited
Third Person Limited is a podcast about books and culture with Nathan Pensky and Mason Stockstill, two writers living in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
We both work in academia, so we are therefore both tired, but in, like, a droll, entertaining way. Our opinions are numerous and wonderful to behold.
Each of our chats will focus on a specific book, author, or cultural trend. Talk will be wide-ranging, with other topics likely to include literary gossip, the importance of Michael Mann’s film Heat to modern culture, snack discourse, family news, philosophy of mind, confessional poetry, very funny jokes, and also much less funny jokes.
Episodes will often include interviews with working writers both well-known and up-and-coming. We encourage you to listen to this podcast when jogging or cleaning your apartment.
Visit our site at thirdpersonlimited.com
Episodes
Sep 2, 2025
Sep 2, 2025
58 min
Bestselling author of The Confessions and bookstore owner Paul Bradley Carr returns for Part 2 of our conversation about artificial intelligence, the power of narratives, drinking blood, and whether vaping is cool (spoiler: it’s not). The AI chatbots kept trying to disrupt our Zoom session with Paul, but for now, humans remain dominant. We also discuss Tom Comitta’s Patchwork, a novella constructed entirely from snippets of text taken from other, previously published works. One of our hosts was turned off by this experimental approach. Try to guess which one! We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Aug 18, 2025
Aug 18, 2025
1hr 6 min
Author Kyle Winkler joins this episode to talk about horror fiction and his novel Tone Bone. What's scarier: There's a Wocket in my Pocket or Goodnight Moon? Plus, we review BLOB by Maggie Su, and in the process, we enjoy saying "blob" over and over again. Try it!
Aug 4, 2025
Aug 4, 2025
1hr 10 min
We invited former tech journalist and bestselling author Paul Bradley Carr for a rollicking discussion about his new novel, The Confessions. It features an all-knowing Artificial Intelligence that doesn’t want to destroy the world—because it was trained by reading fiction. He also shared his polite and not-at-all derogatory thoughts about several leading tech industry personalities. Plus, our discussion of Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano’s latest novel, Ballerina, inspired Nathan to invent the cool new subgenre Proustian Noir.
Jul 20, 2025
Jul 20, 2025
59 min
We were joined by author and poet Dan Eastman for a discussion about confessional poetry, second-person POV, and the best memes. I ask you: should poems mention Facebook? Still waiting on our podcast name during this episode. Nice of Dan to not make fun of us for this.
Jul 13, 2025
Jul 13, 2025
1hr 24 min
Nate and Mason both have MFAs, but do they go around telling everyone and demanding book deals because of it? Well, yes, if you’re offering. But anyway, a social media firestorm about a take about Sally Rooney not having an MFA got us thinking: Are They Good and Should Anyone Care?
Jul 13, 2025
Jul 13, 2025
1hr 28 min
Our first episode, before we even had a name for this podcast. So, it's a big question, whether reading is good. Specifically, is reading fiction inherently good, as well as instrumentally good (meaning, it’s good for some other reason, like making you smarter)? We grapple with this, mostly by talking. Also: Why do so many YA novels use orphans as protagonists?