The Inner Loop Radio: A Creative Writing Podcast

Chet'la Sebree, author of "Field Study" and "Mistress," discusses how to feel inspired when the world unfolds in surprising or disappointing ways. She speaks of her students at George Washington University, and how she's focused on reminding them that art matters especially in a time of tumult. To keep creating, she makes room for free writing, processing, and most of all, community. Her prompt asks you to see a different community through the lens of "we."

Of the many paths to publication, small press contests hold some fascinating opportunities. Co-hosts Rachel Coonce and Abi Newhouse talk with November Author's Corner spotlight Luke Sutherland about his memoir winning the 2023 OutWrite Chapbook Competition. They discuss unexpected opportunities small press contests present, how they differ from traditional publishing, and how to maintain your agency in deciding which contest best fits your work. Luke reads from his memoir, Distance Sequence, and then they all pitch a pretend contest with experimental manuscript ideas that break the traditional book mold.

Welcome to the Inner Loop Radio in our latest segment of Just Checking where we bring you our sub-series by Leeya Mehta: Writers with Pets in Solariums. In this fifth and last edition for the year, Leeya Mehta talks with her friend, non-fiction writer Rashmi Sadana. We are calling this episode: Maybe We Can All be a Little Like Luna: a Conversation with Rashmi Sadana. Dr. Rashmi Sadana is an urban ethnographer and Berkeley-trained cultural anthropologist who has been writing about the city of Delhi for the last twenty years. Her most recent book is called “The Moving City” and tells the story of Delhi's new subway system from the perspective of the people who ride it. It's a story about the radical possibilities and concretized inequalities of the city. It's also the author's love letter to the city. Rashmi teaches at George Mason University and is otherwise at the beck and call of a gray tabby called Luna. References to Books: Rashmi Sadana, “The Moving City” Rashmi Sadana, “English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India” Dinaw Mengetsu, “SOMEONE LIKE US” Yahica Dutt, “Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir” Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste” BR Ambedkar, “The Annihilation of Caste”

Writers are nothing if not ambitious, but what does success really look like for a writer? Gwydion Suilebhan, cultural critic, essayist, playwright, and Executive Director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, joins us to discuss the journey, the destination, and the aftermath of what some consider literary success, and he proposes a different way to achieve writerly fulfillment. Plus, writers like to think of themselves as different in kind from other professions, but how different are we? We play a little game called Who Said It? to find out.

Tyrese Coleman, author of "How to Sit," discusses ways to feel inspired, including going on walks, getting outside, and using if-then writing prompts to tap into your creativity. She's working on creating routine to keep up writing habits, echoing Toni Morrison's routine of getting up early in the haunted hours to write. When is best for you to write? Coleman challenges you to take the time to find out.

We've all ridden the rollercoaster of emotions as writers--the joy when you actually *like* your work, and the despair when you overthink all of it. Co-hosts Rachel Coonce and Abi Newhouse talk with October Author's Corner spotlight, Nick Gardner, about feeling proud, feeling terrified, and how tapping into our childlike selves can actually help us breakthrough emotional turmoil. Nick reads us a part of his new book, Delinquents and Other Escape Attempts, which gave him particular grief while writing, and then they all play a game where they determine whether a piece of writing was written by a novice writer or a prestige one.

Welcome to the Inner Loop Radio in our latest segment of Just Checking where we bring you our sub-series by Leeya Mehta: Writers with Pets in Solariums. Amanda Newell lives on a farm in southern Maryland with a cat named Kit Kat and two horses, Eko and Ed. She's close enough to the Chesapeake to hear the waves breaking against the shore. She grew up riding and showing horses and still finds mucking stalls therapeutic. She also loves the other animals on the farm, including the foxes and deer, who sometimes dine together. Newell is the author of Postmortem Say, published in 2024 by Cervena Barva Press. Her chapbook, I Will Pass Even to Acheron, was a 2021 winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships and/or scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Frost Place, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Amanda is currently an associate editor for the contemporary poetry journal Plume. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir about reconstructing her identity in the aftermath of the suicide of her ex-husband, a former prosecutor and judge. Her website is: www.amandanewellpoet.com

Okezie Nwoka, author of “God of Mercy,” discusses the difference between love and care, and how self love plays a role in creating art. Nwoka takes us through a writing prompt that invokes the wisdom of aphorisms—short expressions that, here, will capture ideas of loving oneself and others. He talks about writing strategies and routines, and how he surrenders himself to the moment of free expression.

Most writers have experienced feedback from a writer's workshop, a writing group, or from friends and family, and we're told it's a necessary part of writing. But what's the key to figuring out what level of feedback works for you? What qualifies as a "good" workshop? And most of all, what type of feedback will help us actually keep writing? Plus, you can help decide whether the feedback Courtney, Rachel, Dan, and David give each other in realtime is actually beneficial.

Today, TIL board member Leeya Mehta focuses on writing a personal essay, inspired by reading James Baldwin's essay "The New Lost Generation." She talks about the way she is approaching this essay, which she's calling “The Day After: Searching for Language for Another Lost Generation.” Leeya suggests exploring exploring the politics of language as an essay prompt, and asks what you notice about language, and how it is being used in popular culture. How you would like to question that language and soften it? You may disagree, and think language is too soft, that we need to turn up the volume. In her attempt at this essay, she's reflecting on the topic she has set herself. She asks, what does “the day after” look like?

The heaviness of summer can bring up those heavy feelings of nostalgia, but when is it time to stop musing and put those feelings on the page? First released in August 2019, J.M. Tyree, author, film critic, and nonfiction editor of the New England Review, joins Rachel and Courtney to discuss just that, as well as how we weave the past and the present into a narrative. Rachel and Courtney delve into their own pasts, Samantha de Trinidad, Stephanie Bento, and LaCole Foots get nostalgic, and Amy Woolard, Paul Fauteux, Whitney Pipkin, Matthew Moniz, and Max Meltzer help us feel that summer rain.

The Inner Loop board member Leeya Mehta catches up with author Linda Chavez for her new sub-series of Just Checking In: Writers in Solariums with Pets. The pair discuss Linda's dogs and bird, talk about Linda's newest writing project involving her recently discovered past, and discuss some mischievous pet stories.

Is all writing inherently political? Co-hosts Rachel Coonce and Abi Newhouse talk with August Author's Corner spotlight Paul Jaskunas about balancing political topics in writing with their own political opinions, feeling trepidation about addressing hot button topics, and some examples of heavy-handed and subtle books involving political topics. Plus, they put their high school government and college rhetoric knowledge to the test in a game where they determine whether a political headline is fact or fiction.

Real-world cultures come up all the time in any genre of writing, but it can be difficult to world-build with something so nuanced. Host Abi Newhouse speaks with The Inner Loop's July Author's Corner spotlight, Diana Rojas, about creating stories from our own cultures. They cover how time affects culture, how to use specific cultural details to world-build, and they try to untangle ideas about working around cultural generalizations. Plus, they bring a few cultural misconceptions to the table--Abi with Mormonism, and Diana with first-generation Latinos--and discuss how to use those misconceptions to their advantage in their writing. You can buy Diana's book here: https://bookshop.org/a/101989/9781558859944

Abi catches up with freelance journalist and writer for the 730DC newsletter, Serena Zets. They discuss the DC journalism scene, stories Serena's been working on lately, and how writing creative nonfiction can be a great starting point for journalistic stories.

Andrew Bertaina, author of “One Person Away From You” and the new essay collection “The Body is a Temporary Gathering Place,” suggests inspiration comes from reading. Andrew takes us through a writing prompt that leads him to fictionalize a meeting with his late grandfather in the afterlife. Try negotiating the speculative realm in your own writing, and if you're stuck, you know what to do: pick up a book and find a line that reminds you why you started writing in the first place.

Finding the right point of view can make or break a story, and in nonfiction, the line of experimentation can be blurry. Hosts Abi Newhouse and Courtney Sexton speak with The Inner Loop's June Author's Corner spotlight, Danielle Ariano, about innovative points of view in memoir. They cover the empathy, challenges, and breakthroughs a new point of view can inspire, and Danielle reads from her new memoir, The Requirement of Grief. Plus, they all write a memory from someone else's point of view, and the outcome is full of unexpected nuance.

With the sudden shutdown of Small Press Distribution, let's dig into the value of independent presses and how their downturn might affect us as both writers and readers. Michael B. Tager, Managing Editor of Mason Jar Press and author of Pop Culture Poetry: The Definitive Edition from Akinoga Press, talks about independent presses from both sides of the publishing experience. Plus, we play a little game called indie press or indie rock band... can you tell the difference?

The Inner Loop board member Leeya Mehta catches up with “Carousel Court” author Joe McGinniss for her new sub-series of Just Checking In: Writers in Solariums with Pets. The pair check in with the dogs and another secret pet (!), talk about the difference between the creative process of fiction and nonfiction, and discuss how writing nonfiction can offer a specific sort of peace. Joe says that “the reality is there is no reality,” especially in the thrilling, immersive, and terrifying experience of writing.

We talk about major writing tenets like plot, character, and setting all the time in fiction and nonfiction, but how do these ideas come up in poetry? Hosts Abi Newhouse and Aeriel Merillat speak with The Inner Loop's May Author's Corner spotlight, Amanda Shaw, about rooting the readers inside a poem, crafting a story's arc through a poetry collection, and the many levels of time throughout it all. Plus, try your hand at our trivia game, in which we guess which story matches each specific setting.

Looking for inspiration in all your usual places but coming up empty? Cameron MacKenzie, author of "The Beginning of His Excellent and Eventful Career" and "River Weather," suggests using your dreams to get you started on a new writing project. He takes us through his process of using one line to create a story, and how your unconscious brain can give you the best ideas. Take yourself seriously, he argues, even when you're not aware of what your self is up to.

In preparation for our upcoming Author's Corner panel on knowing when the writing is done, let's talk about writing endings! First released in December 2019, essayist and creative nonfiction icon, Jo Ann Beard joins us to discuss how to pack an ending with a punch! Plus, Courtney and Rachel rewrite the Christmas classic: T'was The Night Before Christmas. Join us for our Author's Corner Panel May 15th at 7pm at Kramers bookstore: Completing the Arc - Knowing when the Writing is Done. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/completing-the-arc-local-authors-panel-tickets-872801632177

The Inner Loop board member Leeya Mehta catches up with Kris O'Shee, a professional counselor, choreographer, and writer. The pair talk about ideal times and locations for writing, O'Shee's new writing projects about family and dance, and the joys of her dancing dogs. They ask: what needs to be destroyed so something new can be created? All the metaphors are here to get your creativity going.

We've all heard the old writing adage: "learn the rules so you can break the rules." But experimental writing can be tricky--how do we know when we've created something truly interesting vs. something just a little bit kitschy? Hosts Abi Newhouse and Aeriel Merillat speak with The Inner Loop's Author's Corner spotlight for April, Rumi Ryan, about mixing forms, messing with modalities, and ultimately holding true to what makes your work feel different.

If you're having trouble putting your story together, it might be because you don't have the right information. Rhaina Cohen, author of "The Other Significant Others," discusses journalistic methods and solutions that apply to all writing conundrums. She takes us through one of her favorite writing exercises involving a series of questions that nail down the details of our stories, and she shares how to get in the right headspace to find the answers.

Writers conferences. What are they? What are they good for? And are they worth the time and money? President of the Washington Independent Review of Books, Jennifer Yacovissi, joins us to discuss the merits of writers conferences, how to choose the right conference for you, and the upcoming Washington Writers Conference. Plus, Courtney and Jennifer choose their own adventures in a writer's odyssey!

Abi catches up with writer and Senior Nonfiction Features Editor for the Rumpus, Darcy Gagnon. They discuss a new take on approaching the work of your younger self, reading three books at a time, and a detective-like character Darcy really feels he embodies.

From the mystical to the fantastical, there's a spectrum of magic within writing. Courtney Sexton and Abi Newhouse sit down with local author, Len Kruger, to discuss the ways adding magic to your writing can create different opportunities for storytelling. Plus, we let tarot cards guide our next writing exercise...

Every writer experiences the ebb and flow of creativity, but sometimes we need a little push to get into the flow. Nonfiction writer and cofounder of The Inner Loop, Rachel Coonce finds rhythm in her writing routine through the rhythm of her words. She revisits familiar concepts of poetry as they appear in prose, and offers a prompt inspired by Raymond Carver in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration.

What's the value in a writing retreat? From concentrated time to write to communing with other writers, writing retreats can serve to jumpstart your writing when you're stuck in a rut. Abi Newhouse and Aeriel Merillat join Rachel and Courtney to talk about how their latest retreat helped their writing and their writing lives. Plus, the four revisit one of our favorite games… the exquisite corpse!

Strap in for the silliest installment yet of The Inner Loop Radio in celebration of our 100th episode! From hot pockets to small batch murders, there are even more laughs than usual, as Rachel and Courtney remember their favorite episodes, get sentimental with community memories of the past 10 years of TIL, and laugh all the way through our best “off-camera” moments in a beyond-funny bloopers reel.

If you find it easy to forget your strengths as a writer, you're not alone. There are so many voices around us all the time—in our podcasts, our reading, even our music—that can make us wonder what we might be missing in comparison. Nonfiction writer and The Inner Loop's Author's Corner program manager Abi Newhouse takes us through the ways she works to remember her own voice when, as an editor and podcast producer, others' voices rule her working world. Plus, ‘tis the season: she offers us a prompt on twisting a traditional dish or dessert to tell a larger story about your own culture in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration. Abi Newhouse is a writer, editor, and audio producer living in Washington, DC. A graduate of George Mason University's MFA in creative nonfiction, her work won The Hunger Journal's 2021 Spring Prose Contest and can be found in The Rumpus and The American Scholar, among others. A grant recipient of DC's Commission on the Arts & Humanities, she is at work on a book of essays.

Courtney catches up with nonfiction writer Timothy Denevi, who does his best Bob Dylan impression as they talk about Joan Didion, the dilation and expansion of narrow worlds, and how life can get complicated quickly, whether in an Atlas of Remote Islands or in MILF Island.

Writing in a Second Language with Pantea Amin Tofangchi by Rachel Coonce and Courtney Sexton

Food is what we all have in common, and often it's what brings us together around the holidays. First released in November 2019, former Washington City Paper food editor Laura Hayes and food journalist Susan Lutz, tell us how writing about food can be a vehicle for staging a scene, accessing difficult topics, or exploring the world around us, and how food writing as a genre has taken on new meaning. Plus, we hear food-related writing from local authors Sherrie Flick and Eric Kozlik.

Is ten years long or short in the life of a writer? Fiction writer and journalist Joanne Leedom-Ackerman shows us how her perspective on this has shifted. She offers us a prompt via Rainer Maria Rilke to get us thinking about our own writing lives and to get us to build narrative with what she describes as concentric circles in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration. Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her works of fiction include upcoming novel The Far Side of the Desert and also Burning Distance, The Dark Path to the River, and No Marble Angels. Her nonfiction book PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line was recently published, and she is the senior editor and contributor to The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. She has also published fiction and essays in books and anthologies, including Short Stories of the Civil Rights Movement; Remembering Arthur Miller; Snakes: An Anthology of Serpent Tales, Fiction and Poetry by Texas Women, the Bicentennial Collection of Texas Short Stories and Beyond Literacy. A reporter for The Christian Science Monitor early in her career, Joanne has won awards for her nonfiction and published articles in newspapers and magazines, including World Literature Today, The Christian Science Monitor, The Los Angeles Times, GlobalPost, and others. Joanne is a Vice President of PEN International and the former International Secretary of PEN International and former Chair of International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee. She also serves on the boards of the International Center for Journalists, Refugees International, the American Writers Museum and Words Without Borders and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Edward R. Murrow Center at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the ICRW Leadership Council. She is a former board member and Vice President of PEN American Center and past President of PEN Center USA. She is an Emeritus Director of Poets and Writers, the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and Human Rights Watch, where she served as Chair of the Asia Advisory Committee. She is an Emeritus Trustee of Johns Hopkins University and Brown University and has served on the Board of Trustees of Save the Children and the International Crisis Group.

Courtney catches up with writer, former TIL Author's Corner program coordinator, and current Olive B. O'Connor Fellow at Colgate University, Lena Crown. They talk about writing in a fellowship capacity (and in a small town), how poetry and nonfiction inform each other, and bringing the world into the classroom all on this month's episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

According to the NIH, writing lowers blood pressure and boosts immunity, but what are the other healing effects of writing? Poet and nonfiction writer Bernardine Watson joins Rachel and Courtney to discuss how the writing process changed her experience of living with an incurable disease, and reads from her book, Transplant: A Memoir from Day Eight Press and The Inner Loop Author's Corner October spotlight. Plus, from renting a hotel room to balancing on their heads, writers have always found creative ways to combine self-care and writing, and we get the details with some trivia!

Writing comes in waves, and sometimes even the most disciplined of approaches needs a little refresh. Author Rachel Louise Snyder takes us through her writing process: what it used to look like, what it looks like now, and how she gets inspiration from unexpected places. Rachel Louise Snyder is the author of "Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade," the novels "What We've Lost is Nothing," "No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us" and the memoir "Women We Buried, Women We Burned." Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times magazine, the Washington Post and on NPR, and she was a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. "No Visible Bruises" was awarded the 2018 Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, the 2020 Book Tube Prize, the 2020 New York Public Library's Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Sidney Hillman Book Award for social justice. It won Best Book in Translation in Taiwan in 2021 and has been translated into Russian, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, Spanish, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, and others. It received starred reviews from Kirkus, Book Riot and Publisher's Weekly and was named one of the best books of 2019 by the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Amazon, Kirkus, the Library Journal, the Economist, and BookPage; the New York Times included it in their “Top Ten” books of 2019. "No Visible Bruises" was also a finalist for the Kirkus Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the LA Times Book Award, and the Silver Gavel Award. Over the past two decades, Snyder has traveled to sixty countries, covering stories of human rights, gender-based violence, natural disasters, displacement and war. She lived, for six years, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and two years in London before relocating to Washington, DC in 2009. Originally from Chicago, Snyder holds a B.A. from North Central College and an M.F.A. from Emerson College. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2020-2021. Originally from Chicago, she has a joint appointment as a professor in journalism and literature at American University.

With Halloween coming up, we discuss ghosts and goblins in writing, how they present themselves in fiction, and how they can be used to process our mortality. First released in October 2018, Journalist Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson tells us about The Woman Who Invented Forensic Training with Dollhouses and reads from her New Yorker article. No tricks this episode, but we have a special treat with Dan Knowlton and Kate Heller!

Rachel catches up with writer, Anna Qu, and they talk about getting back to writing after the whirlwind of book publication, the brain teaser of switching from nonfiction to fiction, and tomatoes versus zucchini, all on this month's episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Crossing genres can be fun, invigorating, and a new source of inspiration, so why does it sometimes feel like eating our vegetables? Poet, playwright, and ghost writer Alyson Gold Weinberg explains how all her outlets inform one another and reads from her latest collection of poetry, Bellow & Hiss from Finishing Line Press and The Inner Loop Author's Corner September spotlight. Plus, Rachel, Courtney, and Alyson demonstrate just how fun it can be to switch genres!

Often stories come to us in fragments: as a vivid image or a perfect sentence, but how do we turn those fragments into stories? Fiction writer, Jung Yun, shows how to create linear stories from nonlinear fragments and what happens when patience runs thin in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration. Jung Yun was born in Seoul, South Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. She studied at Vassar College, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in Tin House, the Massachusetts Review, the Indiana Review, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She is the recipient of individual artist's grants in fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, and the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation. She has also received residential fellowships from MacDowell, the Ucross Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the National Humanities Center. Currently, Jung lives in Baltimore with her husband and is an associate professor of English at the George Washington University. She serves on the board of directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

It's back to school season and it's time to get back to work, writers! First released in October 2019, Emily Mitchell joins Rachel and Courtney to discuss how teaching can inspire our creative writing, and we get to hear Emily read from her short story collection, Viral: Stories. Plus, Rachel and Courtney demonstrate the power of writing prompts for upcoming Inktober!

Courtney catches up with writer and professor, Kyoko Mori, and they talk about their mutual love of animals, Jo Ann Beard's Festival Days, and how writing is more like birds than cats, all on this month's episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

As writers, why do we publish at all? Is it for the accolades or for something more pure? If you write to publish, can it still be called art? Author and senior editor at HarperCollins Austin Ross joins us to discuss the balancing act between art and commerce, he tells us his agent horror story, and why he finally decided to publish with an independent press. Plus, we hear from his novel Gloria Patri from Malarkey Books and The Inner Loop Author's Corner August spotlight. Then, Austin teaches us the importance of eating the frog.

Do you hate writing exercises? Do you feel they are contrived and a waste of time? So did Robert Frost and Poet Michael Collier, who believed a writer's whole nature must be in everything he writes. But Michael shows us how writing exercises can build community via a Three Goat Story in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration. Michael Robert Collier is an American poet, teacher, creative writing program administrator and editor. He has published five books of original poetry, a translation of Euripides' Medea, a book of prose pieces about poetry, and has edited three anthologies of poetry. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Poet Laureate of Maryland. As of 2011, he is the director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a professor of creative writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, and the poetry editorial consultant for Houghton Mifflin (now Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

How do you write and make a living? Do you maintain a parallel career or find ways to make money through your writing? Poet, writer, and cultural worker, Abdul Ali, gives us insider tips on how to make money through writing, whether it be applying for grants, consulting, starting a business, or teaching, and how your work can feed your creative practice. Plus, Abdul, Rachel, and Courtney write a love poem… to money?

Courtney catches up with poet, Jose Padua, and they talk about gaining perspective through travel, connecting the absurd to the everyday, and Barry Manilow, all on this month's episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Love it or hate it, self-promotion is a necessary part of being a writer in today's digital age. Young black entrepreneur and spoken word artist, Dominic McDonald, aka Nerd the Poet, offers up his tips on a successful writing brand, and we get to hear a few poems from his collection, I'd Rather Be Called a Nerd from Day Eight Press, and The Inner Loop Author's Corner July spotlight. Plus, Rachel, Courtney, and Dominic do some big-business branding exercises.

What can memory tell us about the space between fiction and nonfiction? First released in September 2020, author Timothy Denevi shows us how to turn memory into story and to shift our focus from current events to writing in this Inspiration Takeover, a series of mini-episodes with different writers who offer us a little dose of inspiration.