A Boise hotel suite is the GrottoPod’s roving studio this week as our Storyfort Festival episodes continue. We talk with five-time novelist — and Richmond Fontaine and The Delines frontman — Willy Vlautin. X guitarist (and BQ crush) John Doe calls Vlautin’s newest book, Don’t Skip Out On Me, “Beautifully crushing and complete,” so you know it’s good. A hotel room in the West might be ideal for sitting down with Vlautin, whose first novel, The Motel Life, is set in his Reno hometown. We talk about growing up working-class in the West, and expecting to find adulthood mostly on a barstool but writing novels and songs instead. Our conversation ranges from the necessity of treating writing like any tough job, why janitors deserve to be protagonists, how you should always have back-up batteries and why playing in a band is a great way to make friends.