Bruce Wagner Writes Transgressive Novels About Tragedy & Transcendence

Why are we drawn to certain writers? What compels us to follow their voices into places most people refuse to go?

Bruce Wagner is one of those voices.

He’s a novelist who has spent his career using Hollywood as a laboratory for human behavior—crafting surreal landscapes peopled with the vainglorious and desperate, all of them searching for something they’ll never find, or perhaps have already lost.

With fifteen novels to his name—including his latest, Amputation, written in just a month after the LA fires—what strikes me most about Bruce’s work isn’t the accolades he’s earned. It’s the spiritual dimension beneath all that darkness.

The work is transgressive and scabrous—skewering Hollywood archetypes, descending unflinchingly into the worst of us. Yet there’s an affection for these characters, a recognition that we are all interchangeable—capable of the same darkness and light, all stumbling around trying to be better despite ourselves.

A traumatic childhood in Beverly Hills gave him a unique lens on fame and its discontents. A decade studying under the controversial Carlos Castaneda introduced him to teachings about the assemblage point and the path with heart that leads nowhere. Through it all, he maintained an operatic romance with language itself—developing what he calls a writer’s “scent,” the thing that both feeds and strangles him like a boa constrictor.

Today we discuss:

• Bruce’s Decade with Carlos Castaneda
• Hollywood as a Laboratory for Human Behavio
• Transgression & Transcendence in Art
• The Scent of Language & Creative Process
• Writing “Amputation” After the LA Fires
• Fiction as a Vehicle to Truth
• Memorable Moments & Everyday Art

For those who prefer a visual experience, the conversation is available on YouTube. As always, the audio version streams wild and free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Bruce is infinitely fascinating—truly one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. His refusal to compromise, his willingness to go where others won’t, and his insistence that we’re all capable of both darkness and light make him an artist fully expressed.

Whether you’re interested in the comedy and tragedy of being human, the relationship between suffering and art, or simply want to understand what fiction can reveal that nothing else can, this conversation is essential.

Peace + Plants,