“Our Poetry Is Bad” Edition

This week on the Culture Gabfest, Stephen Metcalf and Julia Turner are rejoined by Dana Stevens, who makes her return from her Idaho writer’s residency. First, they discuss American Factory, the Sundance smash that’s being distributed by the Obamas’ new production company and is currently streaming on Netflix. It’s an urgent film about a Chinese conglomerate that purchased an auto glass factory in Ohio, and it raises questions about the global economy and the state of the labor movement in America. Then, Lana Del Rey’s new album, Norman Fucking Rockwell, is a critical darling. The hosts discuss it with Slate’s Carl Wilson. Finally, the panel interviews Dana about her writer’s residency at at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Idaho, and the pleasures and stresses of focusing on writing in that setting. In Slate Plus, the panel discusses their fantasy writers’ residencies.