Episode 16: Lucy Sante

Since her debut book, Lowlife: Lures and Snares of Old New York, Lucy Sante has charted her own path, not only as a writer of distinction, but as a writer who has created a genre all her own in the process. Her books include The Other Paris, a sequel of sorts to Lowlife; a memoir, A Factory of Facts; a book on Folk Photography and Evidence, about crime scene photography. Her first essay collection, Kill All Your Darlings, was released 14 years ago by Verse Chorus Press in Portland. Her second essay collection, Maybe the People Would Be the Times, also published by Verse Chorus Press, was released last year in the midst of the pandemic and was like a comfort food for me while we were on lockdown. Maybe the People is an autobiographical deep dive into Sante's youth in New York City's Lower East Side in the 1970s and 1980s and how it shaped his writing over the last three decades.