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16 episodes

S2 Ep 7: Stephen Shore reads from 'Modern Instances'
18/05/2026 | 10 mins.
In this final episode of Thought Pieces S2, listen to photographer Stephen Shore read from his experimental memoir Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography. Citing Mozart and Shakespeare, Shore writes about the importance of attending to the everyday, revealing the influences behind his seminal project ‘American Surfaces’ (1972-73).⁠
S2 Ep 6: Amelia Abraham reads from 'Sex, Clubs, Dissent'
13/05/2026 | 30 mins.
Amelia Abraham reads her essay 'Paradise Lost: The Life and Death of Sexual Subcultures' from her new visual history of queer nightlife Sex, Clubs, Dissent. Abraham charts an underground history of sexual subculture from London's Spunk & Chain Reaction parties in 1980s Vauxhall to the San Francisco SoMa leather scene photographed by the likes of Catherine Opie and Phyllis Christopher, to the Mapplethorpe censorship⁠ trials of 1990.⁠
S2 Ep 5: Kelly & Maxwell Sultan read from 'Water Over Thunder'
28/04/2026 | 13 mins.
In this episode, listen to Kelly & Maxwell Sultan read their favourite passages from Water Over Thunder: Selected Writings by their beloved husband & father, the great photographer Larry Sultan. They read extracts from throughout the collection, illuminating Sultan’s approach to photography, teaching and popular culture.
S2 Ep 4: Tracy K. Smith reads from 'Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body'
21/04/2026 | 4 mins.
Listen to Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and educator Tracy K. Smith interpret the photography of RaMell Ross into a lyrical and uncanny text. Taking five images from Spell, Time, Practice, American, Body (2023), Smith’s poem complements photographs taken by Ross in Hale County, Alabama, the setting of his Academy Award-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018).
S2 Ep 3: Moyra Davey reads from 'The Shabbiness of Beauty'
14/04/2026 | 13 mins.
In this episode, artist Moyra Davey describes encountering Peter Hujar’s photographs through the archive. Reading from The Shabbiness of Beauty, Davey focuses on Hujar’s lesser-known work of farm animals and babies, culminating in a thoughtful reflection on the artist’s legacy and the inherent mystery of photography.

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About Thought Pieces

Thought Pieces, the podcast from celebrated publisher MACK, brings you the best of arts writing across literature, poetry and criticism. Each week, discover a new piece of writing, read by the artist or writer themself. Episodes include Moyra Davey on encountering Peter Hujar’s photographs through the archive, Ishion Hutchinson’s homage to the British artist Donald Rodney, Stephen Shore on the importance of the everyday, Tracy K. Smith’s poetic response to the photography of RaMell Ross and Amelia Abraham’s essay on the changing nature of sexual subcultures. mackbooks.us - shipping worldwide

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