Craft Talks

Here it is! The final episode of CraftTalks season three –featuring our 2024 St. Louis Literary Award recipient Jamaica Kincaid.

Anthony Arnove is the editor of several books, including Voices of a People's History of the United States, which he co-edited with historian Howard Zinn, and Voices of a People's History of the United States in the 21st Century, which he co-edited with Haley Pessin. Arnove also was a founder of Haymarket Books - which publishes work from writers like Angela Davis, Rebecca Solnit, and 2022 St. Louis Literary Award Recipient Arundathi Roy. In this CraftTalk, hosts Ted Ibur & Kate Essig talked with Arnove about the art of publishing, his work with Howard Zinn, and how to write fearlessly against injustice by finding your collective.

Donna Murch is an associate professor at Rutgers University and the author of “Assata Taught Me: State Violence, Racial Capitalism, and the Movement for Black Lives." Her work has appeared in the Guardian, The Nation, The New Republic, and Jacobin – among others. In this Craft Talk, Murch spoke with hosts Ted Ibur & Kate Essig about writing from oral history and the archive, how she writes about the past in order to understand the present, how listening to music helps her hear history in a new way, and how her book “Assata Taught Me” came to be.

Amitava Kumar is the author of several books of nonfiction and four novels, and his work has appeared in Granta, the New York Times, Harper's and many other publications. He's been awarded a Guggenheim fellowship, and his novel Immigrant, Montana was named as one of President Obama's favorite books of 2018. In this CraftTalk, hosts Kate Essig & Ted Ibur talk to Kumar about what it looks like to write with intention – and we caught up with him about his new novel “My Beloved Life.”

Derrick Goold is the St. Louis Post Dispatch Cardinals beat writer, a two-time Missouri Sports Writer of the year, an MLB Network contributor, and the host of the best podcast in baseball called The Best Podcast in Baseball. Hosts Ted Ibur & Kate Essig caught up with Goold right after the 2023 Cardinals season ended, and he shared with Craft Talks his approach to writing as a creative endeavor and a deadline-driven job – and whether there really is something to the "Cardinal Way."

Mahogany L. Browne is a poet, a young adult novelist, a children's book writer, the founder and executive director of the media literacy organization JustMedia, and the first ever Poet Laureate of New York's Lincoln Center. In this CraftTalk, Browne joins hosts Ted Ibur & Kate Essig on the day of the release of her 2023 poetry collection, Chrome Valley, to talk collaboration, creating across genres, and writing with perfect imperfection.

This week Saint Louis University welcomes St. Louis Literary Award Recipient Jamaica Kincaid – and launches a new season of the CraftTalk podcast. Join hosts Ted Ibur and Kate Essig as they preview what's in store this season on CraftTalk.

Ron Austin is one of those rare writers that you know is going to be a powerhouse in the publishing industry one day, and that day may be very soon. His exceptional debut is a collection of short stories called Avery Colt is a Snake, A Thief, A Liar. I could not help comparing it to one of my favorite creative nonfiction memoirs, Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes. McCourt's autobiography that captures the Depression and World War II eras from a poor Irish child's perspective in a way that keeps flipping the emotional switches between pathos, horror, and laugh-out-loud humor. I had the same reaction to the stories in Avery Colt is a Snake, A Thief, A Liar. Just as McCourt so successfully captured the unique voice and the internal feelings of the narrator and the way he observed the children and adult characters that cycled in and out of his life, Avery Colt's narrative voice does the same thing, but this time from a poor Black kid's experiences in North St. Louis. Ron Austin takes us in a deep dive into the stories and its incredibly vivid characters along with his fascinating perspectives on writing and teaching. -Ted Ibur Executive Director, St. Louis Literary Award Programs at Saint Louis University

Phong Nguyen is the author of three novels, The Bronze Drum (Grand Central Publishing, 2022), Roundabout: An Improvisational Fiction (Moon City Press, 2020) and The Adventures of Joe Harper (Outpost19, 2016), winner of the Prairie Heritage Book Award; and two story collections: Pages from the Textbook of Alternate History (C&R Press, 2019) and Memory Sickness and Other Stories (Elixir Press, 2011), winner of the Elixir Press Fiction Prize. Phong is Professor and Miller Family Endowed Chair of Writing; Director of Creative Writing at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In this episode of Craft Talks at Saint Louis University, we discussed many topics that connect to writing process and the arts, including Professor Nguyen's forthcoming novel, The Bronze Drum. The novel is based on the true story of the Trung sisters who raised an army of 80,000 women in the year 40 CE against the Han Chinese occupation of Lac Viet lands. Phong Nguyen provides a fascinating window into his approach to writing, research, and instruction. A must listen for students intersted in pursuing a career as a writer or artist and for fellow writers. Awards and Honors Prairie Heritage Book Award, 2019, The Adventures of Joe Harper Pushcart Prize Special Mention 2019, Short Story, "We're So Blessed, We're So Lucky" Pushcart Prize Special Mention 2011, Short Story, “My Hand Is My Cup” 9 Pushcart Prize Nominations, 2007-2018 Elixir Press Fiction Award 2010, Memory Sickness and Other Stories

Professor Phyllis Weliver discusses her newest book, The Arrow Tree, a creative nonfiction memoir about recovering from long-haul COVID. We discuss a wide range of topics including the shift to creative nonfiction instead of more traditional "scholarly" writing for an academic audience. Professor Weliver delves into a wide array of subjects in this discussion. Some of the topics we cover include the relationship between form and subject in her writing, the role of digital resources play in preserving and disseminating works of literature and other art forms, her extensive musical training growing up on the grounds of the internationally renowned Interlochen Arts Academy, and the role nature plays in healing. Craft Talks: Part of the St. Louis Literary Award Programs at Saint Louis University

Victor Wang grew up in Northern China. Shortly after being sent to a Maoist “agricultural reeducation camp” for more than two years, he returned to Chinese society graduating with a BFA from The Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, one of three top art institutes in China. After graduation, Mr. Wang taught there for four and a half years and was sent to the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana as a visiting scholar. He earned his MFA at Fontbonne University. Mr. Wang has exhibited widely across the country as well as internationally, and has won various awards for excellence, including awards for both painting and art instruction. He is also the author of two books, Memoir of a Sunflower and Three Major Techniques of Oil Painting. Victor Wang currently lives in St. Louis, where he teaches painting, drawing and graduate critique classes as a full professor at Fontbonne University. Craft Talks: Part of the St. Louis Literary Award Programs at Saint Louis University

Rachel Greenwald Smith is a scholar and storyteller who seamlessly connects topics ranging from poetry to governing systems, punk music, economics, aesthetic innovations in the art and culture, motherhood, social unrest, and more. This interview delves into her new book, On Compromise: Art, Politics, and the Fate of an America Idea, as well as Ms. Greenwald Smith's literary (and musical) influences, writing habits, and the craft of research and composition. Rachel Greenwald Smith is the author of On Compromise: Art, Politics, and the Fate of an American Ideal (Graywolf Press, 2021) and Affect and American Literature in the Age of Neoliberalism (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She is an Associate Professor of English at Saint Louis University, where she teaches courses at the graduate and undergraduate level on contemporary literature and critical theory. Her essays have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Yale Review. Her academic articles have appeared in Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Post45 Peer Reviewed, American Literature, Mediations, Modern Fiction Studies, and elsewhere. She has edited two volumes of scholarship, Neoliberalism and Contemporary Literary Culture, with Mitchum Huehls (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017), and American Literature in Transition: 2000-2010 (Cambridge University Press, 2017). She is the recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Ryskamp Fellowship (2015). Originally from Portland, Oregon, she lives in Saint Louis.

Howard Schwartz is a prolific writer who has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He is widely considered among the top Jewish folklorists in the world. In searching for themes and images for his work in various genres, Professor Schwartz has often found his inspiration in biblical, midrashic, and kabbalistic lore. Many of his works retell ancient folktales, reflecting his belief in the importance of passing cultural lore from one generation to the next. His poetry frequently reflects the dreamlike and mysterious elements of Jewish mythology. Schwartz's fictional works, as typified in the collection of parables titled The Captive Soul of the Messiah, “are in part original, in part recreations of ancient legends, a conjunction of personal search and dreaming with mythical or timeless patterns or cycles,” reported Francis Landy in the Jewish Quarterly. As a result, Landy explained, Schwartz's stories “are at once familiar, filled with the aura of the sages, giving the impression of a blind and insatiable predilection for the alleyways of tradition, and at the same time being wholly pertinent, incisive metaphors for our own predicament.” Howard Schwartz is Professor Emeritus in the English department at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

We cover a lot of ground with writer/professor, Ethan Rutherford, soon after the release of his second collection of short fiction, Farthest South, published by A Strange Object. Ethan Rutherford’s fiction has appeared in BOMB, Tin House, Ploughshares, One Story, American Short Fiction, Post Road, Esopus, Conjunctions, and The Best American Short Stories. His first book, The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, a finalist for the John Leonard Award, received honorable mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and was the winner of a Minnesota Book Award. Born in Seattle, Washington, he received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota and now teaches Creative Writing at Trinity College. He lives in Hartford, Connecticut with his wife and two children. Photo credit: Lou Russo Photography

Originally from San Diego, California, Kahlil Robert Irving is an artist currently living and working in the USA. He attended the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art, Washington University in St. Louis (MFA Fellow, 2017); and the Kansas City Art Institute (BFA, Art History and Ceramics/Sculpture, 2015). His work has been exhibited at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; the Arizona State University Art Museum, Phoenix; and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Rhode Island, among others. Kahlil Irving was selected to participate in the 2020 Great Rivers Biennial hosted by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, where he is exhibiting a solo exhibition entitled “At Dusk” on view from September 11th, 2020 to February 21st, 2021. Recently, he was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors. In 2018, Kahlil Irving’s first institutional solo exhibition took place at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts, Connecticut, and was accompanied by a full-color catalogue with essays and an interview. Currently, he is presenting a large-scale commission on the project wall at the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Irving's work is also featured in two concurrent collection exhibitions Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 and Nothing is so Humble: Prints from Everyday Objects at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Kahlil Irving's work is in the collections of J.P Morgan Chase Art Collection, New York; Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. He is also one of the new 30 featured artists in Forbes Magazine’s annual 30 Under 30: Art & Style showcasing 30 groundbreaking cultural figures in the arts all under 30-years-old. Photo Credit of Kahlil Irving: David Johnson

David Keplinger is a Professor of Literature in the MFA Program at American University in Washington, D.C. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including The Long Answer (2020) published by Stephen F. Austin State University Press, and The World to Come (Conduit Books and Ephemera, 2021), a collection of prose poems which has won the 2020 Minds on Fire Prize. David has been awarded many literary honors over the years for his works including the UNT Rilke Prize, the Colorado Book Award, the Cavafy Prize from Poetry International, the Erskine Prize from Smartish Pace; Poet Mary Oliver awarded David the T.S. Elliot Prize for his book of poetry, The Rose Inside. David Keplinger has received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2011 he produced By and By, an album of eleven songs based on the poetry of his great-great grandfather, a Civil War veteran. He performed and presented on the project at the National Portrait Gallery’s Donald W. Reynolds Center in 2013. Mr. Keplinger’s work has been included in numerous anthologies in the United States as well as in China and Northern Ireland, and he has taught at the universities of Ostrava (Czech Republic) and Kosice (Slovakia) as well as co-founding and teaching in the summer creative writing institute at John Cabot University in Rome (2015-2016).

Ted Mathys is an assistant professor of Creative Writing in the English Department at Saint Louis University. He is recently named president of the prestigious and venerable St. Louis Poetry Center, which was created in 1946. Mr. Mathys is also the curator for the 100 Boots Poetry Series at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Ted Mathys is the author of Gold Cure (Coffee House Press, 2020) as well as Null Set (2015), The Spoils (2009) and Forge (2005). He is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. Ted Mathys was selected by Alice Notley for the Poetry Society of America's Cecil Hemley Memorial Award, and his poetry and criticism have appeared in American Poetry Review, BOMB, Boston Review, Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Fence, The Georgia Review, PBS NewsHour and other publications. Originally from Ohio, Mr. Mathys holds an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received the John C. Schupes Fellowship for Excellence in Poetry; and an MA in international environmental policy from Tuft's University.

Jeanette Batz Cooperman is one of the most recognizable names in Missouri journalism, a veritable institution in the field. She is a 2020 inductee into the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame and was named to the FOLIO:100 list of the “best and brightest” in the magazine industry nationwide. The award-winning Batz-Cooperman was previously an editor and staff writer for St. Louis Magazine for twelve years. She also worked as an investigative reporter for The Riverfront Times where she received recognition and numerous accolades from the National Black Journalists Association, the National Gay and Lesbian Journalism Association, the National Education Writers Association, and the Society of Environmental Journalists to name just some. Jeannette Batz-Cooperman has been a columnist for the Catholic Reporter, and her work has appeared in Seventeen Magazine, O: the Oprah Winfrey Magazine, the Utne Reader, Glamour Magazine, the Boston Globe, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She has written five nonfiction books and one murder mystery. Batz-Cooperman is now a staff writer for the literary magazine The Common Reader at Washington University in St. Louis.

Edward McPherson, associate professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, is the author of three books: Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat (Faber & Faber), The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats (HarperCollins), and The History of the Future: American Essays (Coffee House Press). He has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Paris Review, the American Scholar, the Gettysburg Review, Salon, Guernica, the Southern Review, and the New York Observer, among many others. Edward McPherson has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a Pushcart Prize, the PEN Southwest Book Award, the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction, an Artist Fellowship from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, and the Gesell Award from the University of Minnesota, where he received his MFA. He is a creative writing teacher and contributing editor of the Common Reader at Washington University. Craft Talks: Part of the St. Louis Literary Award Programs at Saint Louis University

Monica Sok, a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, is a Cambodian American poet and the daughter of refugees. She is the author of the brand new A Nail the Evening Hangs On from Copper Canyon Press. Ms. Sok's work has been recognized with a "Discovery" Prize from 92Y. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Poetry Society of America, Hedgebrook, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Kundiman, the Jerome Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, the Saltonstall Foundation, and others. Monica Sok also teaches poetry to Southeast Asian youths at the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants in Oakland, California. She is originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Craft Talks: Part of the St. Louis Literary Award Programs at Saint Louis University