Podcasts about arts letters

Today, we hear from Laura van den Berg whose latest novel, STATE OF PARADISE, will be released on July 9. We're talking to Laura about writing a book that combines autofiction and speculative fiction and what to do when another novel you're writing is asking for attention.Watch a recording here. This audio/video version is available for one week. Missed it? Check out the podcast version above or on your favorite podcast platform.To find van den Berg's debut and many other books by our authors, visit our Bookshop page. Looking for a writing community? Join our Facebook page. Laura van den Berg was born and raised in Florida. She is the author of five works of fiction, including The Third Hotel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and I Hold a Wolf by the Ears (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020), which was one of Time Magazine's 10 Best Fiction Books of 2020. She is the recent recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her next two novels, State of Paradise and Ring of Night, are forthcoming from FSG in 2024 and 2026. She is the author of two previous story collections, The Isle of Youth (FSG, 2013) and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009), and the novel Find Me (FSG, 2015). She is currently a Senior Lecturer on Fiction at Harvard University. Laura lives in the Hudson Valley with her husband, the writer Paul Yoon, and their dog, Oscar.Photo by Paul Yoon This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com

Hannah Sward, daughter of the late poet Robert Sward, is the award-winning author of Strip, her debut memoir.  Hannah has appeared on NBC CA Live, C-SPAN BookTV, dozens of podcasts, and panels, and has published essays in the Los Angeles Times, HuffPost (forthcoming), Arts & Letters, and more. Hannah lives in Los Angeles where she is working on her next book. Hannah joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to talk about voice, what to do about family members concerned with what you're writing, or have written, writing short chapters, tools, getting personal, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We've stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You'll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners. (Recorded on March 15, 2024)  Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

With his new collection, A YEAR AND A DAY: AN EXPERIMENT IN ESSAYS (NYRB), master essayist Phillip Lopate explores the world & himself through the mode of a weekly blog. We get into how he adapted to a short, time-constrained essay form for The American Scholar, how he avoided The Columnist's Curse (limitless curiosity helps!), whether an essayist can truly write about anything, and how he has and hasn't changed since the 2016-17 period in which he wrote these pieces. We talk about Phillip's integration of the private and public self in his writing, how his wife & daughter felt about being included in this book, the question of whether he's fulfilled as a writer, why he hides his journal, and how editing the three Great American Essay collections allowed him to leave something canonical behind for students & readers. We also discuss how it feels when readers thinking they know him from his essays, how his books and essays add up to a fragmentary, lifelong memoir (and why he'll likely never write an actual memoir or autobiography), why his multiple myeloma diagnosis was more of a psychological hit than a physical one, how he found himself working on a biography of Washington Irving, the benefits of a fragmentary unitary self, the career validation of being inducted into theAmerican Academy of Arts & Letters, and a LOT more. • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our Substack

In this podcast, you will hear about AI and the future ahead. AI has recently taken the world by storm. Its groundbreaking capabilities are being used for customer service, generating more reliable credit scores, enabling trading and money management, regulatory compliance, security and fraud prevention, and more. This dynamic discussion features Jack Brennan (CIS Founding Chair & Chairman Emeritus, The Vanguard Group), John Behrens (Director, Office of Digital Strategy, College of Arts & Letters at University of Notre Dame), Brian Barbetta (Wellington Management Global Industry Analyst), and Shelley Zhuang (Founder and Managing Partner at 11.2 Capital). Highlights Overview of Catholic Investment Services and its mission Who are the panelists: Jack Brennan, Brian Barbetta, John Behrens, and Shelley Zhuang What AI is and its various aspects Specifics of generative AI and its use in text, images, video, and sound The imperfection of the systems: Current limitations of AI systems, common mistakes, and improvements anticipated in the future The reliability of artificial intelligence Practical uses of AI Emerging businesses and opportunities that are being developed surrounding generative AI The reliance of AI behavior on the data type and access, with changing policies concerning data access from platforms like Twitter, GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Reddit The possibilities for malicious use and misuse of AI Legal issues related to the ownership of AI-generated inputs and outputs Raising the issue of AI's impact on the environment due to the power consumption of data centers and the energy requirements of AI operations Nascent stage of AI development and the opportunities that lie ahead   Episode Resources Connect with Catholic Investment Services https://catholicinvest.org/about-us/ https://catholicinvest.org/about-us/#board-of-trustees https://catholicinvest.org/contact-us/ https://catholicinvest.org/cis-institute/ 

Students from Averill Park High School and artists covered the exterior of the Doors of Hope thrift shop and food pantry in West Sand Lake with images of sun, flowers and butterflies conquering a storm to highlight the struggle against opioids. The local community has seen a large number of young people dying from opioid overdoses. Frida Foberg of Arts, Letters, and Numbers discusses the mural project with Mark Dunlea of Hudson Mohawk Magazine.

Episode 73 is a bit of a departure from many of our conversations over the past two years. Chuck Forbes is our guest. He is Director of Brand Strategy at More Visibility. Back in 2000, my wife, Pamela, and I opened a durable medical supply company. Our primary market was mail order. We quickly realized there was a whole other world of online commerce available to us. We built a website and waited, and waited, and waited. The old adage, if you build it they will come (misquoted line spoken by Ray Kinsella, in the film Field of Dreams) didn't seem to be working out. Enter More Visibility. We learned about "optimizing the website design," we heard about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results. Because organic search is the most prominent way for people to discover and access online content, a good SEO strategy is essential for improving the quality and quantity of traffic to a website. It was a whole new world for us but we quickly realized our tiny company could compete with the much bigger and better capitalized companies in our space of commerce. Chuck is a home grown talent, having graduated from the College of Arts & Letters at FAU. If you have ever contemplated creating an online presence, this conversation is worth a listen!  

Guest host Jeff Alessandrelli talks with Eileen Myles about living between New York and Marfa, poetry as daily (and not daily) practice, sobriety, vernacular writing, putting together a new and selected, their new poetry collection A WORKING LIFE, aesthetic criticism, touring, Bobby Vee, translators, and more.Eileen Myles' books include Pathetic Literature, For Now (an essay/talk about writing), Evolution, Afterglow (a dog memoir), I Must Be Living Twice: new and selected poems, Chelsea Girls, and most recently A Working Life. The Trip, their super-8 puppet road film, can be seen on YouTube. Eileen has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was recently elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York and Marfa, TX.Jeff Alessandrelli is the director/co-editor of Fonograf Editions and BUNNY. fonografeditions.comPodcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

We are over the moon to welcome EILEEN MYLES back to the program.    We talk about Meditation, the concept of home, Making money as an artist, films, tea bags, coparenting, girlfriends ex girlfriend, tolerating the intolerable, activist groups, self-care, ambition and creativity.    Plus, Nicole gives an Unsolicited Whole Foods music review, hardcore music revisit & introduces HERMES THE TORTOISE!  Eileen Myles  is a Sagittarius, a poet, a  novelist, a performer and an art journalist. Their more than twenty books include Cool for You, I Must Be Living Twice, Chelsea Girls, afterglow, and MORE.  Eileen has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was recently elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters.    Eileen joined me from their home in Marfa, Texas to talk about their new book of poetry, A Working Life.  “With intelligence, heart, and singular vision, a “Working Life” shows Eileen Myles working at a thrilling new pitch of their poetic and philosophical powers.”   They ALSO have a giant, beautiful, important new anthology, Pathetic Literature.  Go get both!  

In these next few episodes, we are recording in collaboration with my fellow podcaster and now friend Ethan from Artistic Finance. Today we are talking with Linda Essig. Linda Essig, MFA, PhD, and former lighting designer, was appointed Baruch College's Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs on July 1, 2021. She previously served as dean of the College of Arts & Letters at California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) where she was responsible for nine academic departments, four centers, and the Ronald H. Silverman Fine Arts Gallery. Prior to Cal State LA, Dr. Essig was director of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Programs for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University (ASU) and founding director of its School of Theatre and Film. She also served as chair of the Department of Theatre & Drama and director of University Theatre at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Essig has authored four books and numerous articles and book chapters on both arts entrepreneurship and theatrical lighting design.  Her most recent book, published in 2022, is ‘Creative Infrastructures: Artists, Money, and Entrepreneurial Action'. Artistic Finance with Ethan Steimel We want to hear from YOU and provide a forum where you can put in requests for future episodes. What are you interested in listening to? Please fill out the form for future guest suggestions here and if you have suggestions or requests for future themes and topics, let us know here! @theatreartlife Thank you to our sponsor @clear-com The TheatreArtLife Podcast is a branch of our larger TheatreArtLife Community. Come visit us at www.theatreartlife.com

Born in Manchester, England, Jane South worked in experimental theater before moving to the United States in 1989. She has a BFA in Theater from Central St. Martins, London, UK, and an MFA in Painting & Sculpture from UNC Greensboro. Solo exhibitions include Shifting Structures: Survey (2019), Mills Gallery, Central College, Pella, IA; Raked (2014), Spencer Brownstone Gallery, NY; Floor/Ceiling (2013), Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, CT; Box (2011), Knoxville Museum of Art, TN and Shifting Structures: Stacks (2010), the New York Public Library, NY. Selected group exhibitions include the Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts at the American Academy of Arts & Letters, NY, SLASH: Paper Under the Knife, Museum of Arts & Design (MAD), NY; Burgeoning Geometries: Constructed Abstractions, Whitney Museum of American Art, Altria; The Drawing Center, NY; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA and the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD. Southʼs work has been reviewed in The New York Times, the LA Times, Artforum, Art in America, Sculpture Magazine, New York Magazine, Frieze, ArtNews, NY Arts Magazine, and The New Yorker. She is a contributor to the book “The Artist as Cultural Producer: Living and Sustaining a Creative Life” (editor: Sharon Louden). Grants and residencies include the Guggenheim Fellowship (2021); Brown/RISD Mellon Foundation Fellowship (2015); Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2009); Dora Maar House, Menérbes, France (2010); Camargo Foundation, Cassis, France (2010); Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2001 & 2008); New York Foundation for the Arts (2007); Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Italy (2008); MacDowell Colony, NH (2002 & 2004); Yaddo, NY (2001 & 2002). In 2018 South was elected to the National Academy of Design. Jane South is currently Chair of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute.

Dear Listeners,If you haven't seen it, You People is the new, hit movie on Netflix.With a solid cast of Jonah Hill, Lauren London, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Eddie Murphy, Nia Long, and David Duchovny, one would hope this “rom-com” to be something … well … special. Au contraire, it's essentially, to quote reviewer John Nolte, “…a dumb movie written by sheltered, spoiled, ignorant elitists creating ‘art' only to please their cult.” And a woke cult, it is.Adding our voices to the diverse commentaries, we critique the movie and draw upon the reviews of John Nolte and the ever-thoughtful Liel Leibovitz. *Join us for this lively conversation.With Thanks for You!Philip & D. Paul* ‘You People' Is a Warning, You People, by Liel Leibovitz, Tabletmag.com, Arts & Letters, February 3, 2023Everything Wrong With the Modern Comedy, by John Nolte, breitbart.com, January 23, 2023 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit enteringstageright.substack.com

ash good is a nonbinary queer poet & designer living, playing & working in Portland, Oregon. They are the author of five books & chapbooks—including most recently "us clumsy gods" from What Books press—as well as co-founding editor at First Matter Press (a 501c3 nonprofit), guide to Set Your Stories Free (a weekly generative workshop), curator of High Priestesses of Poetry & a reader for Frontier Poetry. Their poetry has been nominated for Best of the Net & appears in Faultline Journal of Arts & Letters, Cimarron Review, 45th Parallel, Chautauqua, Bird Coat Quarterly & others. http://www.ashgood.com us clumsy gods by Ash Good, Paperback | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com) https://www.instagram.com/justlightgrow/      

Welcome to Authors of Union. We talked with Dr. Michael Halperin, a 1993 Ph.D. graduate of Union. Dr. Halperin is an author, playwright, screen and television writer. One of his latest books is 'Fields of Poison'. The book recounts the odyssey of Antonio Velasco from a village in rural Mexico to a life of backbreaking labor as an eleven-year-old migrant farm worker in America. He rose to the heights of the scientific and medical professions investigating and preventing life-threatening pesticide poisoning. Against enormous odds, he developed diagnostic protocols and treatment of toxic pesticides that have a long-term impact on public health. Dr. Velasco's story represents the American ideal that the nation benefits from generations of immigrants. Dr. Halperin is an author, playwright, and screen and television writer. He has served as Executive Story Consultant for 20th Century-Fox and Story Editor at Universal Television, and writer-producer for MCA Television. He is the author of the bestselling “Jacob's Rescue: A Holocaust Story.” His book “Black Wheels” was a National Education Association choice for its African American 100 Best Book List. Others, “Judaism: Embracing the Seeker,” and  ​“Writing the Second Act” were Writer's Digest Book Club selections. In addition, he is the playwright of four plays. Visit his website to learn more about his work. The host for the interview-style podcast is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in Union's General Education Program, poet, and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. Rumney's poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. Rumney recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.

Welcome to Authors of Union. Today's guests are Union alumna Jennifer Mooney and journalist Byron McCauley, co-authors of 'Hope Interrupted'. They describe the book as a cautionary tale of hope and fear. It is a story of optimism and existential dread. Byron, an award-winning columnist, and business executive, and Jennifer, an award-winning communications executive with a scholarship in psychology, lean into hope and ask if there is or ever truly was an American Dream. The host for the interview-style podcast is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in Union's General Education Program, poet, and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. Rumney's poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. Rumney recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.

Phil Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served in Iraq. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics' Circle John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre, and was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times. His nonfiction work won the George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Journalism, Arts & Letters in the category of Cultural & Historical Criticism in 2018. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the Brookings Institution'sBrookings Essay series. He currently teaches fiction at Fairfield University. His debut novel,Missionaries, was released in October 2020 with Penguin Press.   His latest book, a collection of essays, is Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War. His website is www.philklay.com . 

“People need to realize that…with democracy, if we leave it now we may never get it back and then nothing can be done.”Those are the words of historian and author Robert S. McElvaine on The Lean to the Left Podcast, where he discusses many of the key events of the 1960s, particularly 1964 and 1965, and how they are influencing events today, especially the radicalization of the Republican Party and the growth of authoritarianism.Looking forward to the November elections, he says voters should "instead of looking at the gas pump and the grocery store and inflation, realize that democracy is on the line.” Make a comparison of the direction of both political parties and candidates, he said. “Look at the choice, what these people are. The most important thing is that in 2022 democracy is on the line.”While McElvaine believes Democrats will maintain control of the Senate and perhaps make some gains, “it doesn't look good in the House, and if they lose control in the House, those people are not going to certify a Democratic winner in 2024.”McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Distinguished Professor of Arts & Letters and Professor of History at Millsaps College. He is the author of eight books and the editor of three others. His latest is "The Times They Were a-Changin' - 1964: The Year 'the Sixties' Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn." The book argues that the current crisis in America centers on the right wing trying to reverse the revolutionary changes that began in 1964 and return our nation to a point where White men are in control. McElvaine's first two books on the Depression era have become standards in the field, acclaimed by historians and general readers alike. Two of his books have been named among the “Notable Books of the Year” by the New York Times Book Review. Both have remained in print and continue to sell nearly four decades after their initial publication.Here are some questions covered in our interview:1. Your book is about 1964, which was 58 years ago. What can the past – particularly that year – teach us today?2. I see that Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Insurrection, has praised your book, saying, that it “presents vivid details and unapologetic truths that can help to thwart rightwing radicals' plans to annihilate the progress we have made toward equality.” How does what you wrote about relate to the insurrection and attempted coup? 3. In your book, you reference how the fundamental ideals of the Republican and Democratic parties have changed over the course of American history. What are some examples?4. You say in the book that the United States moved closer to the ideals of 1776 and became a full democracy for the first time in the “Long 1964.” How so?5. You indicate in the book that the battle lines of today are about the revolutionary changes that began in 1964–whether to build upon them or reverse them. Please explain.6. You say that what the right-wingers who have taken control of the Republican Party mean when they say, “Take America Back” is to repeal the 1960s and take America back to the way it was before 1964. How would America be different if Republicans succeeded in turning back the calendar to pre-1964?7. How is all of this reflected in today's Supreme Court with its 6-3 conservative majority engineered by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump?8. The recent primary elections showed substantial gains by far-right candidates who bow at the altar of Donald Trump. What are the implications of this should this trend continue in November?9. You say in the book that the fundamental question across the span of American history has been whether it is to be a White man's country or an inclusive, diverse democracy. How was that question central in 1964 and how is it central today? Listen to the interview:Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lean-to-the-left-podcast--4719048/support.

“People need to realize that…with democracy, if we leave it now we may never get it back and then nothing can be done.”Those are the words of historian and author Robert S. McElvaine on The Lean to the Left Podcast, where he discusses many of the key events of the 1960s, particularly 1964 and 1965, and how they are influencing events today, especially the radicalization of the Republican Party and the growth of authoritarianism.Looking forward to the November elections, he says voters should "instead of looking at the gas pump and the grocery store and inflation, realize that democracy is on the line.” Make a comparison of the direction of both political parties and candidates, he said. “Look at the choice, what these people are. The most important thing is that in 2022 democracy is on the line.”While McElvaine believes Democrats will maintain control of the Senate and perhaps make some gains, “it doesn't look good in the House, and if they lose control in the House, those people are not going to certify a Democratic winner in 2024.”McElvaine is Elizabeth Chisholm Distinguished Professor of Arts & Letters and Professor of History at Millsaps College. He is the author of eight books and the editor of three others. His latest is "The Times They Were a-Changin' - 1964: The Year 'the Sixties' Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn." The book argues that the current crisis in America centers on the right wing trying to reverse the revolutionary changes that began in 1964 and return our nation to a point where White men are in control. McElvaine's first two books on the Depression era have become standards in the field, acclaimed by historians and general readers alike. Two of his books have been named among the “Notable Books of the Year” by the New York Times Book Review. Both have remained in print and continue to sell nearly four decades after their initial publication.Here are some questions covered in our interview:1. Your book is about 1964, which was 58 years ago. What can the past – particularly that year – teach us today?2. I see that Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Insurrection, has praised your book, saying, that it “presents vivid details and unapologetic truths that can help to thwart rightwing radicals' plans to annihilate the progress we have made toward equality.” How does what you wrote about relate to the insurrection and attempted coup? 3. In your book, you reference how the fundamental ideals of the Republican and Democratic parties have changed over the course of American history. What are some examples?4. You say in the book that the United States moved closer to the ideals of 1776 and became a full democracy for the first time in the “Long 1964.” How so?5. You indicate in the book that the battle lines of today are about the revolutionary changes that began in 1964–whether to build upon them or reverse them. Please explain.6. You say that what the right-wingers who have taken control of the Republican Party mean when they say, “Take America Back” is to repeal the 1960s and take America back to the way it was before 1964. How would America be different if Republicans succeeded in turning back the calendar to pre-1964?7. How is all of this reflected in today's Supreme Court with its 6-3 conservative majority engineered by Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump?8. The recent primary elections showed substantial gains by far-right candidates who bow at the altar of Donald Trump. What are the implications of this should this trend continue in November?9. You say in the book that the fundamental question across the span of American history has been whether it is to be a White man's country or an inclusive, diverse democracy. How was that question central in 1964 and how is it central today? Listen to the interview:

Jim Harrison was born in 1937, in Grayling, Michigan. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, and The New York Times.Harrison was also the author of over thirty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including seven volumes of novellas, Legends of the Fall (1979), The Woman Lit by Fireflies (1990), Julip (1994), The Beast God Forgot to Invent (2000), The Summer He Didn't Die (2005), The Farmer's Daughter (2010), and The River Swimmer (2013); eleven novels, Wolf (1971), A Good Day to Die (1973), Farmer (1976), Warlock(1981), Sundog (1984), Dalva (1988), The Road Home (1998), True North (2004), Returning to Earth (2007), The English Major (2008), and The Great Leader (2011); thirteen collections of poetry, including most recently Songs of Unreason (2011), In Search of Small Gods(2009), and Saving Daylight (2006); and three works of nonfiction, the memoir Off to the Side (2001) and the collections Just Before Dark(1991) and The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand (2001).The winner of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Association, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Letters (2007) and was named Officier des Arts et Lettres (2012) by the French Ministry of Culture for his “significant contribution to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance.” He has had his work published in twenty-seven languages.Harrison lived in Montana and Arizona before his death in 2016 at the age of seventy-eight.From https://groveatlantic.com/author/jim-harrison/. For more information about Jim Harrison:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:James McBride about Harrison, at 24:05: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-092-james-mcbrideSaving Daylight: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/saving-daylight-by-jim-harrison/“Jim Harrison, The Art of Fiction No. 104”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2511/the-art-of-fiction-no-104-jim-harrison“Jim Harrison”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/jim-harrison

Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls Check out StandUpwithPete.com to learn more  Kenneth C. Davis is the bestselling author of Don't Know Much About® History and other books in the Don't Know Much About® series. He also wrote the acclaimed In the Shadow of Liberty. For 30 years, Kenneth C. Davis has proven that Americans don't hate history — just the dull version they slept through in class. Davis's approach is to refresh us on the subjects we should have learned in school. He does it by busting myths, setting the record straight, and making history human. If your school, library or learning community would like to speak with Kenneth C. Davis about American history, click on   Classroom Skypes or Custom Virtual Visits to learn more. Phil Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics' Circle John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre, and was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times. His nonfiction work won the George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Journalism, Arts & Letters in the category of Cultural & Historical Criticism in 2018. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the Brookings Institution's Brookings Essay series. He currently teaches fiction at Fairfield University. His debut novel, Missionaries, was released in October 2020 with Penguin Press. Pete on YouTube  Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page

Welcome to Authors of Union. Today, we are going to talk with Dr. Pete Caccavari, who has written his first chapbook of poetry, Minor Loss of Fidelity, shipping soon from Finishing Line Press. The book depicts people reacting to their environment – whether natural or human-made – and their struggles to make sense of those encounters. Caccavari's poems chronicle a variety of losses, but also a variety of hard-won gains. These encounters with the environment are mirrored in encounters of content with poetic forms. Personal history, natural history, and poetic history undergird the present, and these gird the present for the future. (Source: Finishing Line Press) Caccavari wears two hats. By day, he is the Associate Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness and Title IX Coordinator for Union Institute & University. His job requires compliance and attention to detail. “I enjoy that job very much – it's where I can satisfy my desire for order."  By night, his creative side emerges. “Poetry, on the other hand, lets me color outside the lines and break the rules.” Caccavari earned his bachelor of arts in English from Xavier University and his M.A. Ph.D. in English from Rutgers University.  He lives in Cincinnati and credits the beauty of the landscape and city as inspiration. The host for the interview-style podcast is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in Union's General Education Program, poet, and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. Rumney's poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. Rumney recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at the University of Cincinnati.  

In this episode of Channel U, we celebrate National Poetry Month. Our guest is Union Institute & University alumna Lois Roma-Deeley (Ph.D. 2000). The award-winning poet, educator and current Poet Laureate of Scottsdale, Arizona will read selected poems from her books and discuss her work, her approach to writing, and her journey as a writer. Her most recent full-length book of poetry is The Short List of Certainties, winner of the Jacopone da Todi Book Prize. She is the author of three previous collections: Rules of Hunger, northSight and High Notes, which was a finalist for the Patterson Poetry Prize. Her fifth book of poetry, Like Water in the Palm of My Hand, is forthcoming from Kelsey Books in 2022. Roma-Deeley's poems have been featured in numerous literary journals and anthologies, nationally and internationally. Roma-Deeley was named the 2012-2013 U.S. Community College Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and CASE. Roma-Deeley founded and directed the Creative Writing and Women's Studies programs at Paradise Valley Community College as well as the Creative Writing Women's Caucus of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Roma-Deeley is Associate Editor of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry. Authors of Union features a conversation with one of our published authors. Your host is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in the UI&U General Education Program, poet and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. His poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. His fellowships include the American Antiquarian Society, The Writers' Room of Boston, and the St. Botolph Club, as well as a residency from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. He recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at UC.

Dear Friends,Welcome back to a new podcast of Entering Stage Right. If you listened to last week's podcast, please note that it was a repeat we had done a year ago; ergo, the reference to it being the “merry month of May,” which a listener from Nashville thought was a calendrical mistake. No, we've not lost track of time yet—it's Easter week and Passover of April 2022—and spring, delightfully so, is “bursting out all over.”  This week's podcast, A Voice in The Wilderness, highlights the extraordinary playwright and filmmaker, David Mamet. We quote liberally from an article he wrote in tabletmag.com, entitled “American Occupation,” which you can find under the “Arts & Letters” section of tabletmag.com, dated April 13. The article, which is a clarion call to “overcome the occupation,” is worth an entire read.Join us as we continue to pray for the people of Ukraine, and may you enjoy the beauty, remembrances, and hope of this special season.With Thanks for YOU, Philip & D. Paul This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit enteringstageright.substack.com

Jackson (Kanahashi) Bliss is the winner of the 2020 Noemi Book Prize in Prose and the mixed-race/hapa author of COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES & OTHER EXPERIMENTS (Noemi Press, 2021), AMNESIA OF JUNE BUGS (7.13 Books, 2022), DREAM POP ORIGAMI (Unsolicited Press, 2022), the digital novella, DUKKHA, MY LOVE, & the newsletter, MIXTAPE. Born & raised in Traverse City, Michigan until the age of fourteen, he spent his adult life in SoCal, the Pacific Northwest, & the Midwest with stints in Argentina & Burkina Faso. Jackson has a BA in comp lit from Oberlin College, a MFA from the University of Notre Dame where he was the Fiction Fellow & the Sparks Prize winner, a MA in English, & a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from USC where he worked with Aimee Bender, Viet Thanh Nguyen, & TC Boyle. His stories & essays have appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, Ploughshares, Columbia Journal, Guernica, Longreads, Antioch Review, TriQuarterly, Fiction, Witness, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Vol.1 Brooklyn, ZYZZYVA, Joyland, Santa Monica Review, Juked, Quarterly West, The Daily Dot, Pleiades, the 2012-2013 Anthology of APIA Literature, Arts & Letters, Fiction International, Hobart, Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, & 3 am Magazine, among others. Jackson is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Bowling Green State University. He lives in LA with his wife and two stylish little dogs.Dream Pop OrigamiUnsolicited Press, 2022A World Without Books was created to help writers connect with readers during the pandemic. This Micro-Podcast provides authors a platform to share stories about writing, discuss current projects, and consider life without books. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast.Past Forward is a nonprofit organization dedicated to community building. As a public podcast service and distributor, our creative media is designed to amplify the voices of community leaders by providing a platform to share stories about civic engagement and cultural enrichment. For further learning, our book initiative provides access to millions of books at a discount price.

Award winning poet Eileen Myles (they/them) talks with Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ about their work and appearing in the new documentary “Queer Genius” distributed by Frameline. Directed by award winning filmmaker Chet Pancake “Queer Genius” chronicles five visionary queer artists including the late iconic lesbian filmmaker and producer Barbara Hammer, performance artist and actor Jibz Cameron, Black Quantum Futurism (Rasheedah Phillips and Camae Ayewa A.K.A. Moor Mother, literary and artistic creatives) and Myles who unapologetically break down barriers in their creative fields outside of mainstream culture. These intimate portraits resonate across generations as critically acclaimed and notoriously radical queer artists who have overcome personal and political obstacles to find new ways to live and share their visionary creative practices. In the lens of queer women and our LGBTQ culture the film confronts fame, failure, censorship, family, gender and sexuality. The documentary explores each artist's “Genius” sharing their thought process, creativity and experiences as expressed through their art and embraces communal possibilities of “Genius” from a queer and generational perspective. “Queer Genius” won the Boundary Breaker Award at Buffalo International Film Festival (2020) and the Audience Award-Best Picture at Q-Fest Houston (2020). “Queer Genius” is currently available virtually at San Francisco's Roxie Theatre nationwide. We talked to Eileen about their involvement with “Queer Genius” and spin on our LGBTQ issues.  Eileen Myles came to NYC from Boston in 1974 to be a poet. Their books include “I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems” and “Chelsea Girls”. Myles is the recipient of four Lambda Literary Awards and was honored with Lambda's Pioneer Award in 2016. Recently Eileen edited “Pathetic Literature” an anthology which includes the work of over 100 writers that will be released from Grove Press in November 2022. Eileen has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2021 was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York and Marfa, TX. (Photo credit: Peggy O'Brien) For More Info… LISTEN: 500+ LGBTQ Chats @OUTTAKE VOICES

Authors of Union features a conversation with one of our many published authors. Today's guest is Peter Lazes, (Union Ph.D. '74) alumnus with concentrations in Clinical and Industrial Psychology. Peter's book “From the Ground Up: How Frontline Staff Can Save Americas Healthcare,” coauthored with Marie Rudden, M.D., outlines concrete steps to improve the healthcare system with research-based labor management practices that apply to all areas of work. A specialist in organizational change, leadership development, and labor-management partnerships, Dr. Lazes will discuss the importance of worker participation in decision-making that has applications in many sectors of our economy. Dr. Lazes is the founder and former director of the Healthcare Transformation Project and Programs for Employment and Workplace Systems at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where he served for 40 years. He is now Visiting Professor and Co-Coordinator, Healthcare Partnership Initiative, School of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn State University. He has worked with labor union and management leaders in the U.S. and Europe to customize and implement strategic worker participation programs and employee-driven innovative opportunities. His recent work involves assisting hospitals and healthcare organizations to develop methods to improve patient care and reduce costs with a focus on frontline staff engagement. He has written more than 30 articles on such topics as the creation of agile work systems, new roles for unions in the 21st century, ways to create meaningful jobs, methods to increase civic participation, strategies for keeping American jobs and has produced several videotapes on topics such as creating breakthroughs in organizations. Dr. Lazes and his partner Marie Rudden, MD, plan to create a series of webinars about labor/management partnerships in the near future. Your host is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in the UI&U General Education Program, poet, and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. His poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. His fellowships include the American Antiquarian Society, The Writers' Room of Boston, and the St. Botolph Club, as well as a residency from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. He recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at UC.

Authors of Union features a conversation with one of our many published authors. Today's guest is Peter Lazes, (Union Ph.D. '74) alumnus with concentrations in Clinical and Industrial Psychology. Peter's book “From the Ground Up: How Frontline Staff Can Save Americas Healthcare,” coauthored with Marie Rudden, M.D., outlines concrete steps to improve the healthcare system with research-based labor management practices that apply to all areas of work. A specialist in organizational change, leadership development, and labor-management partnerships, Dr. Lazes will discuss the importance of worker participation in decision-making that has applications in many sectors of our economy. Dr. Lazes is the founder and former director of the Healthcare Transformation Project and Programs for Employment and Workplace Systems at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, where he served for 40 years. He is now Visiting Professor and Co-Coordinator, Healthcare Partnership Initiative, School of Labor and Employment Relations, Penn State University. He has worked with labor union and management leaders in the U.S. and Europe to customize and implement strategic worker participation programs and employee-driven innovative opportunities. His recent work involves assisting hospitals and healthcare organizations to develop methods to improve patient care and reduce costs with a focus on frontline staff engagement. He has written more than 30 articles on such topics as the creation of agile work systems, new roles for unions in the 21st century, ways to create meaningful jobs, methods to increase civic participation, strategies for keeping American jobs, and has produced several videotapes on topics such as creating breakthroughs in organizations. Dr. Lazes and his partner Marie Rudden, MD, plan to create a series of webinars about labor/management partnerships in the near future. Your host is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in the UI&U General Education Program, poet, and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. His poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. His fellowships include the American Antiquarian Society, The Writers' Room of Boston, and the St. Botolph Club, as well as a residency from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. He recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at UC.

Nina Collins in conversation with Stephanie Gangi about her new book, Carry The Dog, which is also our December Book Club pick! About Stephanie: Stephanie Gangi is a poet, essayist and fiction writer. Carry the Dog is her second novel. Her acclaimed debut, The Next, was published by St. Martin's Press. Gangi's shorter work has appeared in Arts & Letters, Catapult, Dame, LitHub, Hippocrates Poetry Anthology, McSweeney's, New Ohio Review, Next Tribe, The Woolfer. She lives in New York City, where she is at work on The Good Provider, her third novel.

Authors of Union features a conversation with one of our published authors. Your host is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in the UI&U General Education Program, poet and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. His poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. His fellowships include the American Antiquarian Society, The Writers' Room of Boston, and the St. Botolph Club, as well as a residency from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. He recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at UC. Today's conversation (part two of two) is with Union Ph.D. '99 alumnus Melvin Gravely II, author of Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships, and Our Path to Equity. Dr. Gravely eloquently accomplishes what many have undoubtedly wished to do: talk openly to someone we know about race in the United States today. He uses significant experience as a business and civic leader to express a rare balance in this timely message. The book is a forthright, collegial conversation via chapters in the form of letters, each with a combination of personal reflection and meaningful hard facts. He challenges the reader but without judgment or indictment. His depth of thought, deftness of expression, and clear, layman's terms make for an urgent call to begin to close the gap between races in America. The book presents an invitation to understand three questions at the heart of the issue: What is really going on with race in our country? Why must we care? And what can we do about it together? In the end, Dr. Gravely calls on us to ask ourselves, “What is my role in all of this?” After reading Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships, and Our Path to Equity readers will understand why their answer to his question can change everything.

Authors of Union features a conversation with one of our published authors. Your host is Dr. Linwood Rumney, professor in the UI&U General Education Program, poet and author. He is the winner of the 17th Annual Gival Press Poetry Award for Abandoned Earth. His poems and nonfiction essays have appeared in many publications including the North American Review and Crab Orchard Review. His translations of Aloysius Bertrand, an early practitioner of the modern prose poem in French, have appeared in Arts & Letters and Hayden's Ferry Review. His fellowships include the American Antiquarian Society, The Writers' Room of Boston, and the St. Botolph Club, as well as a residency from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. He recently completed his Ph.D. as a Charles Phelps Taft Dissertation Fellow at UC. Today's conversation (part one of two) is with Union Ph.D. '99 alumnus Melvin Gravely II, author of Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships, and Our Path to Equity. Dr. Gravely eloquently accomplishes what many have undoubtedly wished to do: talk openly to someone we know about race in the United States today. He uses significant experience as a business and civic leader to express a rare balance in this timely message. The book is a forthright, collegial conversation via chapters in the form of letters, each with a combination of personal reflection and meaningful hard facts. He challenges the reader but without judgment or indictment. His depth of thought, deftness of expression, and clear, layman's terms make for an urgent call to begin to close the gap between races in America. The book presents an invitation to understand three questions at the heart of the issue: What is really going on with race in our country? Why must we care? And what can we do about it together? In the end, Dr. Gravely calls on us to ask ourselves, “What is my role in all of this?” After reading Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships, and Our Path to Equity readers will understand why their answer to his question can change everything.

Sean Riojas is a Producer at Arts & Letters in Richmond, Virginia. He recently made a move from New York City to Richmond and is loving the creative atmosphere. The producer role is often overlooked within this podcast, so having Sean on will significantly benefit the audience that yearns for a more hands-on project-based role within the industry. If you're organized and love to work with fast-paced teams, this role and episode are for you. Also, Art & Letters Creative Co needs to be on your agency radar if it hasn't been already. To connect with Sean, head to our Instagram @Breakingandenteringpod https://www.instagram.com/breakingandenteringpod/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/breakenter/message

Subscribe to Quotomania on Simplecast or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!Joan Didion was born in Sacramento, CA in 1934, the daughter of an officer in the Army Air Corps. A shy, bookish child, Didion spent her teenage years typing out Ernest Hemingway stories to learn how sentences work. She attended the University of California, Berkeley where she got a degree in English and won an essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine. The prize was a research assistant job at the magazine where Didion would work for more than a decade, eventually working her way up to an associate features editor. During this time she wrote for various other magazines and published her first novel, a tragic story about murder and betrayal, called RUN RIVER in 1963. The following year she married fellow writer John Gregory Dunne and the two moved to Los Angeles. The couple adopted a daughter whom they named Quintana Roo after the state in southern Mexico.Didion's first volume of essays, entitled SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM, was published in 1968 and was a collection of her feelings about the counterculture of the 1960s. The New York Times referred to it as “a rich display of some of the best prose written today in this country.” Her critically acclaimed second novel PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (1970) was about a fading starlet whose dissatisfaction with Hollywood leads her further and further away from reality. Herself engaging in the Hollywood lifestyle, Didion would go on to co-write four screenplays with her husband: PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (1971), PLAY IT AS IT LAYS (1972, based on her novel), A STAR IS BORN, (1981) and UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL (1996). A second book of essays, THE WHITE ALBUM, was published in 1979 about life in the late 1960s and the 1970s.Throughout the years Didion has written many more essay collections on subjects that have swayed her. Her fascination with America's relations with its southern neighbors could be seen in SALVADOR (1983) and MIAMI (1987). POLITICAL FICTIONS (2001) focuses on her thoughts on American politics and government. Didion and her family moved back to New York in the 1980s, and her observations of the city can be read in AFTER HENRY (1992). She reflects on California's past and present in her 2003 collection WHERE I WAS FROM.Joan Didion's husband died in 2003. Didion wrote about the grief she felt at Dunne's death in THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING (2005). The book has been called “a masterpiece of two genres: memoir and investigative journalism,” and won the National Book Award in 2005. Sadly, also in 2005, Didion lost Quintana Roo to acute pancreatitis. Didion wrote a memoir about the loss of her daughter called BLUE NIGHTS, which was published in 2011.Didion's work, which has been associated with the “New Journalism” movement, has been recognized on many occasions. She received the American Academy of Arts & Letters Gold Medal in Criticism and Belles Letters in 2005 and won the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2007. She is a member of the Academy of Arts & Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and The Berkeley Fellows. She received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Harvard University in 2009 and an honorary degree from Yale in 2011.  In 2013, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Obama, and the PEN Center USA's Lifetime Achievement Award.From https://www.thejoandidion.com/about. For more information about Joan Didion:Previously on The Quarantine Tapes:David Ulin about Didion, at 18:55: https://quarantine-tapes.simplecast.com/episodes/the-quarantine-tapes-085-david-ulin“‘After Life' by Joan Didion”: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/magazine/after-life.html“What We Get Wrong About Joan Didion”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/what-we-get-wrong-about-joan-didion“Joan Didion, The Art of Fiction No. 71”: https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3439/the-art-of-fiction-no-71-joan-didion

The unbelievable story of Dr. Ismail Serageldin - without a doubt the most intelligent guest of the TeachPitch Podcast (no offense to previous and/or future interviewees). Aldo speaks to Ismail about his profound challenges in making the Ancient Library of Alexandria the renowned institute of knowledge it is today.   Visit Dr. Serageldin's personal site here: http://www.serageldin.com/ More on the Library of Alexandria can be found here: https://www.bibalex.org Guest Introduction:  I know this is only our very first season and that it is still very early days as this episode will drop as number 8 in our series but I am quite confident that my next guest is one of the smartest people that I will ever have the privilege of interviewing for the TeachPitch Podcast.  Dr. Ismail Serageldin has written over 100 books and monographs and well over 500 papers on any notable topic varying from literature, to biotechnology to the value of science in our world.  Next to his own PhD from Harvard University he holds over 40 honorary doctorate degrees.  And on top of that he has been awarded many national medals and titles that will make your head spin. Awards from Chile, Azerbaijan, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro and most particularly; a Gold and Silver Star from the Order of the Rising Sun from the Emperor of Japan, a Commander of the Order of Arts & Letters by the government of France and The Public Welfare Medal from the US National Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Serageldin was the first Vice-President of Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development at the World Bank and after leaving this position became Founding Director of the Library of Alexandria where he served until 2017. Currently Ismail is Emeritus Librarian of the same renowned institution.  Our guest has also hosted a cultural program on Egyptian Television and developed a TV Science series in Arabic and English.  His message to the world is one that advocates hope & peace or as he says himself:  “The world is my home. Humanity is my family. Non-violence is my creed. Peace, justice, equality and dignity for all - is my purpose. Engagement, rationality, tolerance, dialogue, learning and understanding are my means. With outstretched hands we welcome all those who share these beliefs …”  Ismail - a very warm welcome to you! 

Eileen Myles (they/them) came to New York from Boston in 1974 to be a poet. Their books include For Now (an essay/talk about writing), I Must Be Living Twice/new and selected poems, and Chelsea Girls. They showed their photographs in 2019 at Bridget Donahue, NYC. Eileen has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York and Marfa, TX. eileenmyles.com Twitter: @EileenMyles Instagram: eileen.myles  "Love Song" is originally published on Queer Poem-a-Day at the Deerfield Public Library on June 28, 2021. Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for our series is from Excursions Op. 20, Movement 1, by Samuel Barber, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by a generous donation from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

D. A. Powell is a painter and poet living in San Francisco. His books include Repast (Graywolf, 2014) and Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf, 2012). He received the 2019 John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Twitter: @powell_da “Puzzle Pieces” was published in the chapbook Atlas T (Rescue Press, 2020, https://www.rescuepress.co/da-powell) and first appeared in Iowa Review vol 44 issue 3.  Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for our series is from Excursions Op. 20, Movement 1, by Samuel Barber, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by a generous donation from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

John Hoppenthaler's books of poetry are Domestic Garden (2015), Anticipate the Coming Reservoir (2008), and Lives of Water (2003), all with Carnegie Mellon University Press. His poetry and essays have appeared in many journals, anthologies, and textbooks, including New York Magazine, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Southern Review, Christian Science Monitor, Southeast Review, The Laurel Review, The Florida Review, West Branch, The Literary Review, Blackbird, New York Magazine, Making Poems: 40 Poems with Commentary by the Poets (State U of New York P, 2010), September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond (Etruscan Press, 2002), Blooming through the Ashes: An International Anthology on Violence and the Human Spirit (Rutgers UP, 2008), Chance of a Ghost (Helicon Nine Editions, 2005), Poetry Calendar (Alhambra Publishing, 2006-2012), Literary Trails of Eastern North Carolina (U of North Carolina P, 2013), A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry (U of Akron P, 2012), The Incredible Sestina Anthology (Write Bloody Publishing, 2013), The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VII: North Carolina (Texas Review Press, 2014), Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia (West Virginia UP, 2017), and A Compendium of Kisses (Terrapin Books, 2019).With Kazim, Ali, he has co-edited a volume of essays on the poetry of Jean Valentine, This-World Company (U of Michigan P, 2012). His essays, interviews, and essay/reviews appear in such journals as Arts & Letters, Southeast Review, Chelsea, Bellingham Review, Pleiades, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poetry, The Cortland Review, Tar River Poetry, Waccamaw, North Carolina Literary Review, and Kestrel, where he served as Poetry editor for eleven years. He currently serves as Advisory Editor to the cultural journal Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, where he edits “A Poetry Congeries.” He also serves on the Advisory Board for Backbone Press, specializing in the publication and promotion of marginalized voices.Among his honors are the ECU 5-Year Achievement for Research & Creative Activity Award, the ECU Department of English Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Activity, an Individual Artist Grant from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, grants from the New York Foundation on the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts, and the North Carolina Community Council for the Arts, and Residency Fellowships from The Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, the MacDowell Colony, the Elizabeth Bishop House, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He was named and served two terms as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the Eastern Region of North Carolina, and Domestic Garden received the Brockman—Campbell Award for the best collection of poetry by a North Carolinian in 2015.

"Classics in the Field" cookbook questions are tackled this week as Matt Sartwell of Kitchen Arts & Letters rejoins the show. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cheryl Boyce-Taylor is a poet and workshop facilitator. The recipient of the 2015 Barnes and Noble Writers For Writers Award, she is the founder and curator of Calypso Muse and the Glitter Pomegranate Performance Series. Cheryl earned an MFA in Poetry from Stonecoast: The University of Southern Maine, and an MSW from Fordham University. She is the author of four  collections of poetry: Raw Air, Night When Moon Follows, Convincing the Body, and Arrival. A poetry judge for The New York Foundation for the Arts, and The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, she has facilitated poetry workshops for Cave Canem, Poets & Writers, and The Caribbean Literary and Cultural Center. Her poetry has been commissioned by The Joyce Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts for Ronald K. Brown: Evidence, A Dance Company. A VONA fellow, her work has been published in Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Pluck!, Killings Journal of Arts & Letters, and Adrienne.  Her life papers and portfolio are stored at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in NYC.

On this episode of Arts & Letters, we celebrate the music from Season Six.

Ep. 123: Lisa Bielawa, composer and vocalist. Let's Talk Off The Podium with Tigran Arakelyan. In this podcast Bielawa talks about a recent project called Broadcast from Home, work with Philip Glass, time at Yale, various major projects and much more. Composer, producer, and vocalist Lisa Bielawa is a Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and takes inspiration for her work from literary sources and close artistic collaborations. Her music has been described as “ruminative, pointillistic and harmonically slightly tart,” by The New York Times. She is the recipient of the 2017 Music Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and was named a William Randolph Hearst Visiting Artist Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society for 2018.  Bielawa consistently executes work that incorporates community-making as part of her artistic vision. She has created music for public spaces in Lower Manhattan, the banks of the Tiber River in Rome, on the sites of former airfields in Berlin in San Francisco, and to mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Her music has recently been premiered at the NY PHIL BIENNIAL, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, SHIFT Festival, and Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, among others. She will have her second residency as a performer/composer at John Zorn’s venue The Stone in March 2020. Orchestras that have championed her music include the The Knights, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, American Composers Orchestra, and the Orlando Philharmonic. Premieres of her work have been commissioned and presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Rider, Seattle Chamber Music Society, American Guild of Organists, and more.  Bielawa began touring as the vocalist with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992 and in 2019 she became the inaugural Composer-in-Residence and Chief Curator of the Philip Glass Institute at The New School. In 1997 Bielawa cofounded the MATA Festival, which celebrates the work of young composers, and for five years she was the artistic director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus.  She received a 2018 Los Angeles Area Emmy nomination for her unprecedented, made-for-TV-and-online opera Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser, created with librettist Erik Ehn and director Charles Otte. Vireowas filmed in twelve parts in locations across the country and features over 350 musicians. Vireo was released on CD/DVD in 2019 (Orange Mountain Music) and she is also recorded on the Tzadik, TROY, Innova, BMOP/sound, Supertrain Records, Sono Luminus, and Cedille labels. For more information about Lisa Bielawa please visit: www.lisabielawa.net © Let's Talk Off The Podium, 2020

It's hard to believe it, but we've reached the end of Season 2 of The Mind Over Finger Podcast!!!  To celebrate, I have a great treat for you.  I'm speaking with one of the most acclaimed and frequently performed composers working today: Jennifer Higdon! It was an incredible honor to have the chance to sit with Jennifer and to soak up her wisdom and this wonderful energy that she's got!  Among many other things, you'll get to hear about her unusual path to a career as a composer, how she approaches the compositional process, her view on the classical music world today, and she tells us about the habit that has contributed to her success.   Mindful efficient practice can completely transform the way you perform and feel about-music making! If you think this would change your life…… then this is for YOU! Dr. Renée-Paule Gauthier invites you to join : THE MUSIC MASTERY EXPERIENCE A TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY TO LOVING THE PRACTICE ROOM, ROCKING THE STAGE, WINNING THE JOB, AND TAKING YOUR CAREER TO NEW HEIGHTS A 3-month experience for all musicians, starting June 1st, 2020 BOOK A CALL AND LET'S SEE HOW WE CAN GET YOU RESULTS!   MORE ABOUT JENNIFER HIGDON: Website: http://jenniferhigdon.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jennifer+higdon Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jennifer-Higdon-127096427366514/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BwFJrDGB2sZ/   Pulitzer Prize and three-time Grammy-winner Jennifer Higdon taught herself to play flute at the age of 15 and began formal musical studies at 18, with an even later start in composition at the age of 21. Despite these obstacles, Jennifer has become a major figure in contemporary Classical music. Her works represent a wide range of genres, from orchestral to chamber, to wind ensemble, as well as vocal, choral and opera. Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having "the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally", with the Times of London citing it as "…traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness." The League of American Orchestras reports that she is one of America's most frequently performed composers. Higdon's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Atlanta Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Minnesota Orchestra, The Pittsburgh Symphony, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President's Own Marine Band. She has also written works for such artists as baritone Thomas Hampson, pianists Yuja Wang and Gary Graffman, violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jennifer Koh and Hilary Hahn. Her first opera, Cold Mountain, won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; the first American opera to do so in the award's history. Performances of Cold Mountain sold out its premiere run in Santa Fe, North Carolina, and Philadelphia (becoming the third highest selling opera in Opera Philadelphia's history). Upcoming commissions include a chamber opera for Opera Philadelphia, a string quartet for the Apollo Chamber Players, a double percussion concerto for the Houston Symphony, an orchestral suite for the Made In America project, and a flute concerto for the National Flute Associations' 50th anniversary. Higdon received the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her Violin Concerto, with the committee citing the work as "a deeply engaging piece that combines flowing lyricism with dazzling virtuosity." She has also received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, The Independence Foundation, the NEA, and ASCAP. As winner of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition's American Composers Invitational, Higdon's Secret & Glass Gardens was performed by the semi-finalists during the competition. Higdon has been a featured composer at many festivals including Aspen, Tanglewood, Vail, Norfolk, Grand Teton, and Cabrillo. She has served as Composer-in-Residence with several orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Fort Worth Symphony. She was honored to serve as the Creative Director of the Boundless Series for the Cincinnati Symphony's 2012-13 season. During the 2016-17 and 2017-18 academic years Higdon served as the prestigious Barr Laureate Scholar at the University of Missouri Kansas City. Most recently, Higdon received the prestigious Nemmers Prize from Northwestern University which is awarded to contemporary classical composers of exceptional achievement who have significantly influenced the field of composition. Beginning in 2018, Higdon will complete two residences at the Bienen School of Music as the Nemmers Prize recipient. Also in the 2018-19 season, Higdon will be in residence at University of Texas, Austin, as part of the Eddie Medora King Award. Higdon enjoys more than 200 performances a year of her works. Her orchestral work, blue cathedral, is one of the most performed contemporary orchestral works in the repertoire, more than 600 performances since its premiere in 2000. Her works have been recorded on over 60 CDs. Higdon has thrice won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition: first for her Percussion Concerto in 2010 and in 2018 for her Viola Concerto. Dr. Higdon received a Bachelor's Degree in Music from Bowling Green State University, an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Hartt School and Bowling Green State University. Dr. Higdon currently holds the Rock Chair in Composition at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press.   Visit www.mindoverfinger.com and sign up for my newsletter to get your free guide to a super productive practice using the metronome!  This guide is the perfect entry point to help you bring more mindfulness and efficiency into your practice and it's filled with tips and tricks on how to use that wonderful tool to take your practicing and your playing to new heights! Don't forget to visit the Mind Over Finger Resources' page to check out amazing books recommended by my podcast guests, as well as my favorite websites, cds, the podcasts I like to listen to, and the practice and podcasting tools I use everyday!  Find it here: www.mindoverfinger.com/resources!   And don't forget to join the Mind Over Finger Tribe for additional resources on practice and performing! If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on iTunes!  I truly appreciate your support!     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme!  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson. Also a HUGE thank you to my fantastic producer, Bella Kelly!   MIND OVER FINGER: www.mindoverfinger.com https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/

Award winning TV news anchor Jane McGarry dips cookies in milk with Lauriston IV. The co-host of WFAA TV's "Good Morning Texas" on ABC loves mornings and her cup of coffee, but this time, she's the one being interviewed. Jane has covered every major story and interviewed celebrities and national leaders from President George W. Bush to Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. She's also passionate about inspiring young people through the Black Academy of Arts & Letters.#podcast #milkandcookies #Anchor #WFAA #ABC #GoodMorningTexas #TalkShow #Host #Broadcaster #Journalist #Fun #Funinterview #8yearoldinterview #celebrityinterview

We bring you Part 2 of our Montclair Literary Festival Panel Series with Nathan Englander: Fiction writer Julie Orringer talks with Nathan Englander at last month's Montclair Literary Festival about his latest book, kaddish.com. Nathan Englander is the author of the novels Dinner at the Center of the Earth and The Ministry of Special Cases. He was the 2012 recipient of the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for What We Talk About.   Translated into twenty languages, Englander was selected as one of “20 Writers for the 21st Century” by The New Yorker, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Award, the Bard Fiction Prize, and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Letters.  He is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at New York University and lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and daughter.

Love is in the air as the gang gets together on Valentine’s day to feature two poems by Emma Hine: “I Wake Up in the Painting by Rousseau” and “The Red Planet Counts Her Craters“. Tune in to hear the lamentations of several of our editors as they discuss Valentine’s day Emma Hine is from Austin, Texas, and holds an MFA from New York University. Her work has previously appeared in Arts & Letters, Gulf Coast, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Ninth Letter, and The Missouri Review, among others. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and works at the Academy of American Poets.Listen on and hear the fate of these two pieces! Let us know what you think about this episode on Facebook and Twitter with #MarsBuffet I Wake Up In the Painting by Rousseau                                                        This time he, the sleeping figure, I, the lion, my pupils round in their egg-whites,                                         night-wind                                                         angling his scent dunewards. He has surprised me. I never expected a human in the sand                                          like a god fallen                                                         asleep, a bare-throated mandolin on the pillow beside him. I smell the striped shoulder                                          of his robe.                                                         Don’t know which path he took across the desert. On the nightstand we keep a lamp,                                          a vase,                                                          a digital clock. Beneath the blue walls I hold the moon in my teeth and breathe on it, feel no                                         devouring dread.           The Red Planet Counts Her Craters     The way Mars is bolted in place, all she can see is the sky. She recites red sky at night, sailor’s delight until her atmosphere shimmers. She hopes             that from everywhere else, she’s visible, the brightest storm brewing in this big wide sea. She converts sensations into units of distance and units of force, so that each time a body collides with her,             she can add it to her catalogue of impact: where, how hard, how long the tremor. She lifts the oxide dust gently from a crater and says asteroid at an oblique angle,            seventy-eight miles across. She does this just by feel. No looking. Which might be why she so loves the probes. When they land, she goes as still as she can, so they won’t startle and unlatch. She wants them           always charting her shoal plains. When one enters her gravity too slowly and bounces away, she wonders what went wrong. She imagines it lost out there without context, how it wanted her,            couldn’t touch her, or stay.   Present at the Editorial Table: Kathleen Volk MillerMarion WrennTim FittsSamantha NeugebauerJason Schneiderman Engineering Producer: Joe Zang  

Evan Lavender-Smith is the author of the novels From Old Notebooks (Dzanc Books, 2013) and Avatar (Six Gallery Press, 2011). His fiction and nonfiction prose have appeared in Arts & Letters, BOMB, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, Glimmer Train, Harvard Review, Hobart, The Offing, The Rumpus, The Southern Review, The White Review and many other magazines and websites. A founding editor of Noemi Press, he is an Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Tech.

Tiferet Journal, and our Tiferet Talk Interviews host Gayle Brandeis, are most honored and pleased to have award winning novelist Hilma Wolitzer as our esteemed guest on May 17th at 6:30pm EST.   Hilma Wolitzer is an American novelist who has received honors and fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Her novels include Ending, In the Flesh, The Doctor's Daughter, and Hearts. Her 14th book, An Available Man, was published in 2012. She has taught at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Columbia University, New York University, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Wolitzer has two daughters, Meg who is a novelist, and Nancy, who is a freelance editor and visual artist. She lives in Manhattan with her husband who is a Psychologist. For more information about our guest, please visit: http://www.hilmawolitzer.com/index.htm Please consider subscribing to TIFERET JOURNAL where you will receive 1 print and 3 digital issues per year—each beautifully designed and filled with highly-crafted, quality stories, excellent essays, moving poetry, enlightening interviews with well known authors and thinkers, and beautiful art from painters and photographers around the world, which all share our cross-cultural humanity. http://tiferetjournal.com/subscribe/

Episode No. 3 of the KC Art Pie podcast features poet Gloria Vando Hickok, who founded Helicon Nine, co-founded The Writers Place, and generally, is a very busy woman. Photo by Anika Paris We spoke over the phone about Helicon Nine: The Journal of Women’s Arts & Letters which she founded in 1977 in Kansas City, Missouri, to provide a quality literary publication by and about women. The magazine provided a forum for women in the arts at a time when women were being excluded from major anthologies, history books, museums, and academic curricula. It published the work of well over 500 artist. In 1992 Helicon Nine, changed its name to Midwest Center for the Literary Arts, Inc., in order to expand its mission to include the publication of fine books of literature through Helicon Nine Editions and the founding of The Writers Place, a regional literary community center, library, and gallery offering public and educational programs for all ages. As a poet, Gloria has edited and published numerous anthologies of poetry and received awards for her own books, Promesas: Geography of the Impossible, a personal encounter with the history of colonialism and her family roots in Puerto Rico; Shadows and Supposes, named the Best Poetry Book of 2003 by the Latino Hall of Fame; and Woven Voices, a cross-generational work with her mother and daughter. Though she returns to Kansas City regularly, she now lives in California. Limited back issues of Helicon Nine are available on Amazon, including one of Gloria's favorites: The Marianne Moore issue   The Helicon Nine Reader: A Celebration of Women in the Arts

Jeff Wray is a professor of English and Film Studies in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. An independent filmmaker and screenwriter, Wray’s award winning feature films include “China,” made for PBS and broadcast nationally. His film “The Evolution of Bert” premiered in the Chicago International Film Festival and was screened at the Pan African Los Angeles Film Festival, among others. In his career, Jeff’s films have screened in more than 100 festivals around the world. He teaches film directing, screenwriting and capstone courses on narrative fiction film. Jeff earned his master of fine arts from Ohio University.

Johanna Schuster-Craig is an assistant professor of German and Global Studies in the College of Arts & Letters. Her research looks at German integration policies, which aim to incorporate immigrants and refugees into the nation. Johanna uses fieldwork methods with social work organizations in Germany to observe how local residents negotiate these policies. She earned her doctorate from Duke University.

Ann Larabee is a professor in the Department of English in the College of Arts & Letters. A professor at Michigan State University since 1988, her most recent work has involved the relationships among technology, culture, and media. In 2000, she published Decade of Disaster, which examined cultural responses to technological disasters. She is currently at work on a historical study of bomb-making among radical groups, exploring issues of technology transfer, constitutional restraints on speech, and the institutional boundaries placed around dangerous knowledge and instruction. With Professor Arthur Versluis, Larabee is co-editor of the Journal for the Study of Radicalism, featuring interdisciplinary scholarly work on global radical movements. Larabee is considered an expert on the history of terrorism and has contributed to the formation of the historiography of this emerging field. Larabee earned her doctorate from Binghamton University.

Jeff Grabill is a professor of rhetoric and professional writing and chair of the Department of Writing, Rhetoric and American Cultures in the College of Arts & Letters. He is a senior researcher with WIDE Research (Writing in Digital Environments) and also a co-founder of Drawbridge Incorporated, an educational technology company. He studies how digital writing is associated with citizenship and learning. Jeff has published two books on community literacy and articles in journals such as College Composition and Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, Computers and Composition, and English Education. Jeff earned his doctorate from Purdue University.

Boulevard Women (BkMk Press Books) Boulevard Women is a collection of braided short stories about the lives of several women, including a teenager, a forty-something widow, and a seventy-something traditionally Southern-minded lady, who are neighbors on Boulevard, a historic avenue in Athens, Georgia, that has seen better times. As the characters discover what growing up—and growing old—entails for contemporary American women, their lives reveal the complicated relationships between race, gender, and religion in our modern-day lives. Praise for Boulevard Women The acclaimed writer Kelly Cherry, who selected the book for the 2012 G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, writes, ''With this debut collection Lauren Cobb proves herself as a writer who can create suspense, humor, and aesthetic shapeliness out of ordinary materials.”  The critically lauded writer Judith Ortiz Cofer adds, “Boulevard Women is a compassionate and passionate rendering of the lives of the invisible women of a neighborhood in Athens, Georgia, that has seen better times. ... In a remarkably cohesive weave of interlocking stories, Lauren Cobb gives us a compelling look at our own lives.” According to Susan Rebecca White, author of A Place at the Table, “Lauren Cobb's Boulevard Women deftly explores the inner lives of women the world has largely overlooked. As the foundations of their lives shift and sometimes crumble, Cobb allows her characters to grow and change rather than to be knocked down. Cobb's warm and wise heart guides them, and us, to a renewed sense of home.” David Masiel, author of The Western Limit of the World, writes, “I loved this book. I couldn't put it down until I'd finished, and I couldn't get it out of my mind even then.”  Award-winning novelist Sheri Joseph says, “Boulevard Women is a mesmerizing collection of linked short stories, with characters so real, so familiar, that they lingered in my thoughts long after I closed the book. Set against the backdrop of race and religion in the contemporary South, this literary debut reveals an impressive stylistic ranger, from wry social comedy reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge to the poetic lyricism of To Kill a Mockingbird. ... an entrancing world that I didn't want to leave.” And Lorraine Lopez, author of Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories, adds, “Lauren Cobb's unforgettable characters grow and change, unfolding and expanding to reveal unexpected dimensions and complexity, great depth and wit, in ways that will astonish and delight.” Lauren Cobb's short fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including the Beloit Fiction Review, Green Mountains Review, Arts & Letters and the Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories for 2007. Her awards include Another Chicago Magazine's Chicago Literary Award and second place in the Second Annual Southern California Review Fiction Award. Her collection of linked short stories, titled Boulevard Women, received the 2012 G. S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction and was published by the University of Missouri-Kansas City's BkMK Press in December 2013. Originally from Los Angeles, Lauren Cobb now lives in northern Minnesota, where she is a professor of English at Bemidji State University. She is currently working on a literary murder mystery.

Jeffrey Wilson, M.Sc.,Director and co-founder of the Independent Crop Circle Researchers'Association (ICCRA)has been investigating crop circles that have been reported in the United States since 1996,and has visited well over 100 during the last twelve years.He was an early member of the Center for Crop Circle Studies(CCCS),in both the UK and USA branches before both organizations went defunct.He has been a contributor of USA crop circle reports to the Crop Circle Connector website since 1996.He was a frequent contributor to Crop Circle News until that website closed.Wilson received a Master's Degree in General Science from Eastern Michigan University located in Ypsilanti, Michigan,where he taught both Physics and Astronomy classes,and helped operate and maintain Sherzer Observatory on a volunteer basis.He has also designed and taught an online Astronomy class for the OMNIBUS Master's Degree program at Schoolcraft College(jointly with Madonna University)in Livonia,Michigan.He was a six-time certified Skywarn severe weather spotter for the Washtenaw County Emergency Management Division and the National Weather Service while he lived in that county.From 1997-2000,he served on an Environmental Task Force for Representative Lynn N. Rivers,13th District,United States House of Representatives.He is a past member of both the American Geophysical Union and the Michigan Academy of Science,Arts & Letters where he has presented at their annual conferences.Wilson wanted to write his Master's thesis on crop circles but couldn't get any academics to sponsor it. Instead he received a grant for his thesis from NASA under the Michigan Space Grant Consortium to analyze and map geologic reflectivity data from NASA’s Lunar Prospector Mission.Wilson now works as an analyst in private industry. Read More about at his website http://www.iccra.org/members/jeffrey-wilson.htm