Podcasts about bennington writing seminars

After today's episode, head on over to @therapybookspodcasts to learn about our latest giveaway. If you are enjoying these episodes, please leave us a 5-star review. *Information shared on this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. *Trigger warning for episode and book as the author does share about struggles with mental health. In this episode of What Your Therapist is Reading, Jessica Fowler is speaking with Anna Gazmarian about her book Devout: A Memoir of Doubt.  Anna shares how traditional views of faith and mental illness can be at odds, and explains how she redefined her spirituality to see God in moments of safety and love.  This conversation dives into themes of spiritual trauma, the intersection of faith and therapy, and the resilience of individuals with mental illness. Anna's perspective offers hope and insight, showing that thriving with faith and mental illness is possible. Highlights: 3:29 Anna shares how it was difficult to reconcile her faith with her diagnosis.  She shares how the book chronicles her experience. 5:21: Anna shares what her mental illness is like for her. 7:45: Anna shares how treatment was a miracle for her. 11:26: Anna sharing how she had to redefine what faith was for her.   About the author:  Anna Gazmarian hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her essays have been published in The Guardian, The Rumpus, Longreads, The Sun Magazine and Quarterly West.  

Aurélie Thiele is a French American writer and engineering professor living in Dallas, TX. She has studied writing at the UCLA Extension School and Bennington Writing Seminars, and holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. Her love of opera started when she was a high school student and her parents would take her to the opera at La Monnaie in Brussels. She can't sing but if she could, she would probably be a mezzo-soprano.Learn more at AurélieThiele.comIntro reel, Writing Table Podcast 2024 Outro RecordingFollow the Writing Table:On Twitter/X: @writingtablepcEverywhere else: @writingtablepodcastEmail questions or tell us who you'd like us to invite to the Writing Table: writingtablepodcast@gmail.com.

Day 7: Mark Wunderlich reads his poem “No Horse.” We are honored to be the first publisher of this poem.  Mark Wunderlich is the author of four collections of poems, the most recent of which is God of Nothingness published by Graywolf Press.  His other collections include The Earth Avails, winner of the Rilke Prize, Voluntary Servitude, and The Anchorage, which received the Lambda Literary Award.  He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Amy Lowell Trust, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Wallace Stegner program at Stanford University.  He serves as Executive Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and chairs the Writing Committee at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.  He lives near Catskill, New York.   Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for this fourth year of our series is from the second movement of the “Geistinger Sonata,” Piano Sonata No. 2 in C sharp minor, by Ethel Smyth, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.   

Hey everybody! Episode 133 of the show is out. In this episode, I spoke with Greg Wrenn. Greg reached out to me as he's just published his book, Mothership. It was a pleasure to have Greg on and share about his book, his background, his working with and overcoming PTSD, how he found healing with ayahuasca, and his connection to nature, especially the coral reefs. Greg has a beautiful story and we had a really good conversation about these topics. I trust you all will gain a lot from this episode. As always, to support this podcast, get early access to shows, bonus material, and Q&As, check out my Patreon page below. Enjoy!“A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of the forthcoming Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis (Regalo Press 2024), an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and ayahuasca to heal from childhood trauma, and Centaur (U of Wisconsin Press 2013), which National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes awarded the Brittingham Prize. ​Greg's work has appeared or is forthcoming in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, LitHub, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, the Poetry Society of America, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Spiro Arts Center.​As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis.Greg is currently sending out Homesick, his second poetry collection. A student of ayahuasca since 2019, he is a trained yoga teacher and a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, having explored coral reefs around the world for over 25 years. He and his husband live in the mountains of Virginia, the ancestral land of the Manahoac and Monacan people.”To learn more about or contact Greg, including his book, visit his website at: https://www.gregwrenn.comIf you enjoy the show, it's a big help if you can share it via social media or word of mouth. And please Subscribe or Follow and if you can go on Apple Podcasts and leave a starred-rating and a short review. This is super helpful with the algorithms and getting this show out to more people. Thank you in advance!For more information about me and my upcoming plant medicine retreats with my colleague Merav Artzi, visit my site at: https://www.NicotianaRustica.orgTo book an integration call with me, visit: https://jasongrechanik.setmore.comSupport this podcast on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/UniverseWithinDonate directly with PayPal:https://www.paypal.me/jasongrechanikMusic courtesy of: Nuno Moreno (end song). Visit: https://m.soundcloud.com/groove_a_zen_sound and https://nahira-ziwa.bandcamp.com/ And Stefan Kasapovski's Santero Project (intro song). Visit: https://spoti.fi/3y5Rd4Hhttps://www.facebook.com/UniverseWithinPodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/UniverseWithinPodcast

Interview begins @ 5:18 In this episode, we dive into the compelling journey of Greg Wrenn, author of the ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership. Greg begins by sharing a poignant excerpt from his book that ties back to an early memory of his mother, illustrating the profound impact of growing up with an emotionally dysregulated parent. His memoir not only explores personal trauma but also the psychodynamics that have shaped his life. Greg, a former Stegner Fellow and an associate professor at James Madison University, discusses the transformative nature of poetry, suggesting that a poem is not merely read but experienced. This belief mirrors his view on life's most impactful experiences—they may not always be pleasant, but they are transformative. A central theme of our conversation is the role of psychedelics, particularly ayahuasca, in personal healing and growth. Greg offers insights into current research, highlighting how psychedelics can reopen critical developmental periods, fostering integration, trauma recovery, and creativity. He emphasizes the importance of being mindful about what we "feed" our brain during these malleable times, as the experiences can deeply sculpt our mind and consciousness. We also critique the modern education system's focus on outcomes over experiences, discussing how this emphasis can hinder deep, meaningful engagement with learning processes. Greg shares how his healing was profoundly influenced by his connections with nature and his experiences with ayahuasca, drawing a powerful link between ecological awareness and personal well-being. Bio: A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis (Regalo Press 2024), an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and plant medicines to heal from childhood trauma, and Centaur (U of Wisconsin Press 2013), which National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes awarded the Brittingham Prize. Greg's work has appeared or is forthcoming in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, LitHub, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, the Poetry Society of America, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Spiro Arts Center. As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis. Greg is currently sending out Homesick, his second poetry collection. A student of ayahuasca since 2019, he is a trained yoga teacher and a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, having explored coral reefs around the world for over 25 years. He and his husband live in the mountains of Virginia, the ancestral land of the Manahoac and Monacan people. www.gregwrenn.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Episode Summary:(CW): Mental Illness, Suicidal Ideation, Depression, and Anxiety)Anna Gazmarian's new book Devout: A Memoir of Doubt, investigates the overlapping complexities of religious faith, mental illness, and doubt. If you grew up in religiously conservative spaces, odds are you either never talked about mental illness or you were made to believe only people with a demonic spirit could suffer from mental and behavioral disorders. According to research by the National Institutes of Health, evangelical Christians often see mental health as the outworking of a harmful spiritual condition and therefore, the solution is to just have more faith in God. This is not only completely erroneous, it's harmful. In this deeply personal conversation, Anna shares her struggles with depression, bipolar disorder, darkness, and doubt. For those of us who have lived on the dark side of the human experience, we have gifts to give to the world that only we can give because we know what it is like to lose touch with reality, to be in pain, to question the entire human experiment, to suffer with anxiety, to struggle to get out of bed in the morning, and to fight to find meaning in an otherwise meaningless existence. I'm honored to share this space with Anna and have this needed conversation about mental health and faith. Bio:Anna's debut, Devout: A Memoir of Doubt is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in March 2024. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her essays have been published in The Guardian, The Rumpus, Longreads, The Sun, and Quarterly West. She works for The Sun Magazine and lives in Durham, NC. Please follow us on social media (use the buttons below) and help us get the word out! (Also, please don't hesitate to use any of these channels or email to contact us with any questions, concerns, or feedback.)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a rating and a review, or share on your socials

This Quoircast eopisiode is brought to you by Fire And Silk by Meghan Irene Turner. Published by Quoir and will be available April 9th, 2024Trigger Warning: In this conversation we talk about Mental Illness and SuicideIf you or anyone you know is contemplating suicide or self harm, please call the suicide prevention hotline: The number is 988In this episode we chat with Anna GazmarianAnna Gazmarian holds an MFA in creative writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her essays have been published in The Rumpus, Longreads, The Sun, and The Guardian. Anna works for The Sun Magazine and lives with her family in Durham, North CarolinaYou can follow Anna on:Facebook     Instagram     TwitterYou can find all things Anna Gazmarian related on her websiteYou can purchase Devout: A Memoir Of Doubt on Amazon.comYou can connect with This Is Not Church on:Facebook     Instagram      Twitter     TikTok     YouTubeAlso check out our Linktree for all things This Is Not Church relatedPlease like and follow our Quoircast Partners:Heretic Happy Hour     Messy Spirituality     Apostates Anonymous    Second Cup with Keith     The Church Needs TherapyIdeas Digest     The New Evangelicals     Snarky Faith Podcast     Wild Olive     Deadly FaithJonathan Foster     Sacred Thoughts     Holy Heretics     Reframing Our StoriesEach episode of This Is Not Church Podcast is expertly engineered by our producer The Podcast Doctor Eric Howell. If you're thinking of starting a podcast you need to connect with Eric!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to Let's Deconstruct a Story! This month I'm talking to Jai Chakrabarti about his wonderful story, "A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness." Please find the link to the story at www.kellyfordon.com, It's best to read it before tuning into the podcast. Next month, I'll be talking to Leigh Newman about her story, "An Extravaganza in Two Acts," also available via a link on my website. If you have any questions for Leigh, feel free to contact me, and I will pass them along. Also, I've switched over to Let's Deconstruct a Story accounts on both Facebook and Instagram. Please follow us here: Facebook Instagram #letsdeconstructastory Cheers! Kelly Jai Chakrabarti: O. Henry and Pushcart Prize winner Jai Chakrabarti is the author of the novel A Play for the End of the World (Knopf '21), which earned him the National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction. The novel was also recognized as the Association of Jewish Libraries Honor Book, a finalist for the Rabindranath Tagore Prize, and long-listed for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Chakrabarti is also the author of the story collection A Small Sacrifice for an Enormous Happiness (Knopf), which was included in several end-of-year lists, including The New Yorker's Best Books of 2023. His short fiction has been published in Best American Short Stories, Ploughshares, One Story, Electric Literature, A Public Space, Conjunctions, and elsewhere and performed on Selected Shorts by Symphony Space. Beyond fiction, Chakrabarti's nonfiction has been widely published in journals such as The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Writer's Digest, Berfrois, and LitHub. He was an Emerging Writer Fellow with A Public Space and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College. Despite his literary pursuits, Chakrabarti is also a trained computer scientist. Born in Kolkata, India, he currently lives in New York with his family and is a faculty member at Bennington Writing Seminars. Your Host: Kelly Fordon's latest short story collection, I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020), was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind (WSUP), was a Michigan Notable Book, an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, an Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House (Kattywompus Press, 2019), was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. It was later adapted into a play by Robin Martin and published in The Kenyon Review Online. She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts in Detroit and online, where she runs a fiction podcast called “Let's Deconstruct a Story.” http://www.kellyfordon.com

In this edition of Madison Book Beat, host Andrew Thomas speaks with John West about his genre-bending memoir, Lessons and Carols: A Meditation on Recovery (2023, Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing Co.).Lesson and Carols takes its shape from the Christian liturgical practice of the same name, often celebrated on Christmas eve. The service consists of nine short lessons that sketch the fall of humanity, the coming Messiah, the need for redemption, and hope found in the birth of Christ. Between each lesson, congregants sing Christmas carols that provide musical counterpoint to the lessons just received. And John West's new memoir is divided accordingly: nine lessons structure a fragmentary narrative that reads equally as short meditations, prose poems, collections of quotations, and memoir on addiction and recovery, mental health, becoming a parent, the desire for redemption, the urgent need for poetry and music and ritual, and the elusiveness of language. The carols that divide the lessons are West's translations of the Latin poet Catullus's elegy. Driven by a desire for order and meaning, West's narrative nevertheless lingers with doubt, depression, and loneliness. Finding meaning in the rituals we co-create in the company of others, Lessons and Carols suggests that “maybe redemption is not a place you find, but a system of mapmaking. Sketch a land. Pencil in dragons. Imagine it real, resplendent, and broken under a waxing moon.”John West is a technologist and writer, currently reporting the news with code at the Wall Street Journal, where his work has won multiple awards and been a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Previously, he worked at the MIT Media Lab and the digital publication Quartz. He holds an MFA in writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars and degrees in philosophy and music performance from Oberlin College. He lives in Boston with his partner, their daughter, and a cat. You can follow him @johnwest on Twitter.

Season 3, Episode 1, features poet Denton Loving. He is the author of two poetry collections, Crimes Against Birds, published by Main Street Rag in 2014, and his new book, Tamp, published by Mercer University Press earlier this year. Set in Appalachia,Tamp's central theme focuses on the grief and sense of loss that followed the death of Loving's father. He also explores ancestry, religion, and our interactions with both the natural and dream worlds. Loving's work has appeared in River Styx, Iron Horse Literary Review, The Chattahoochee Review among other journals. He earned his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and has received scholarships and fellowships from organizations such as the Eckerd College Writers Conference and the Key West Literary Seminars. For over a decade, he co-directed the Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University where he also co-edited drafthorse: the literary journal of work and no work. He's also a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf.  Loving reads "The Fence Builder," "Genealogy," "A Love Poem about an Exploding Cow," "Hag Stone, Hex Stone, Holy Stone," and "There is a barn." Host: Davin Malasarn. Music by Joe Rivers. Artwork by Ayumi Takahashi. The Artist's Statement is brought to you by The Granum Foundation. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-artists-statement/message

“Lungfish is a force of nature—a deeply felt marvel of a book that navigates grief, parenthood, and the mysteries of family with unrelenting power and precision. Here is a story about the islands we build and carry with us. Here is storytelling at its best.” —Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to Earth Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives—or before they are found out. Relying on the island for sustenance and answers—bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious little green crabs; smells held by the damp walls of the house, field guides and religious texts, a failed invention left behind by her missing father—Tuck lives moment-by-moment through the absurdity, beauty, paranoia, and hunger that shoots through her life, as her husband struggles to detox. Exquisitely written and formally daring, Lungfish tells the story of a woman grappling through the lies she has been told—and those she has told herself—to arrive at the truth of who she is and where she must go. Meghan Gilliss's debut is a brilliant and heartbreaking novel about addiction, doubt, marriage, motherhood, and learning to see in the dark. Meghan Gilliss attended the Bennington Writing Seminars and is a fellow of the Hewnoaks Artist Residency. She has worked as a journalist, a bookseller, a librarian, and a hospital worker, and lives in Portland, Maine. Lungfish is her first novel.  Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novels Hold Still, Want, and Flight. Her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York, The Paris Review, Time, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at The Pratt Institute, Fairfield University, Catapult, and Columbia University and will be the Visiting Fiction Writer at Bates College for the 2022-2023 school year. She was born and raised in South Florida. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

“Lungfish is a force of nature—a deeply felt marvel of a book that navigates grief, parenthood, and the mysteries of family with unrelenting power and precision. Here is a story about the islands we build and carry with us. Here is storytelling at its best.” —Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to Earth Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives—or before they are found out. Relying on the island for sustenance and answers—bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious little green crabs; smells held by the damp walls of the house, field guides and religious texts, a failed invention left behind by her missing father—Tuck lives moment-by-moment through the absurdity, beauty, paranoia, and hunger that shoots through her life, as her husband struggles to detox. Exquisitely written and formally daring, Lungfish tells the story of a woman grappling through the lies she has been told—and those she has told herself—to arrive at the truth of who she is and where she must go. Meghan Gilliss's debut is a brilliant and heartbreaking novel about addiction, doubt, marriage, motherhood, and learning to see in the dark. Meghan Gilliss attended the Bennington Writing Seminars and is a fellow of the Hewnoaks Artist Residency. She has worked as a journalist, a bookseller, a librarian, and a hospital worker, and lives in Portland, Maine. Lungfish is her first novel.  Lynn Steger Strong is the author of the novels Hold Still, Want, and Flight. Her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York, The Paris Review, Time, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at The Pratt Institute, Fairfield University, Catapult, and Columbia University and will be the Visiting Fiction Writer at Bates College for the 2022-2023 school year. She was born and raised in South Florida. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Early childhood relational experiences play a vital role in laying the foundation for health, happiness, love, security, and emotion regulation. Laura is an expert in this, as a CASA (court appointed special advocate) who has taken an oath to advocate for the needs of vulnerable children.In this episode, we explore how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is limited in its ability to reach these deeper layers of the brain formed by our early attachments. Laura makes a case for the value of "right brain therapies," such as Dr. Laurence Heller's Neuro Affective Relational Model (NARM). We discuss the need to re-parent those who have experienced complex/severe developmental trauma, and how mind-body lifestyle therapies such as physical activity, nature, ocean therapy, volunteering, and fostering animals, can all help develop "earned" secure attachment in adulthood. Laura Wiley Haynes grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received a degree in English and American Literature from Brown University in 1983, and later her Master of Fine Arts, in Poetry, from The Bennington Writing Seminars. She worked in film in her early career, first in production and development and later as a screenwriter. After having children, she wrote part time from home, and over time became active as both a La Leche League Leader and a Bradley Childbirth Teacher. In 2015 Laura became a Court Appointed Special Advocate for Foster Youth, a trained paraprofessional role which combines advocacy, mentoring, and friendship for each foster youth, for as long they remain in the system. She has studied developmental psychology, neuroscience, and C-PTSD, to better understand the needs of this population, as well as the most effective ways of healing from early trauma.She has been suspended from her Twitter account, @haynes_wiley. Please contact Twitter Support to encourage them to un-suspend her. You can reach Laura at LauraWHaynes@gmail.com.Laura mentioned the Twitter account “Read Some Piaget, Please!” which you can follow @prof_curiosity1, and Darcia Navarez of Notre Dame University, who you can follow @MoralLandscapes. Laura recommends the following books:Dr. John Bowlby: AttachmentDr. Allan Schore: Affect Regulation And The Origin of The SelfSebern Fisher: The Use of Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental TraumaDr. Bessell van der Kolk: The Body Keeps The ScoreDr. Laurence Heller: Healing Developmental Trauma (NARM)Dr. Peter Levine: Healing TraumaDr. Peter Levine: Waking The TigerDr. Pat Ogden: Sensorimotor PsychotherapyDarcia Narvaez: Neurobiology and the Development of Human MoralityIf you enjoyed this conversation, please rate & review it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share this episode with a friend, or on social media. You can also head over to my YouTube channel, subscribe, like, comment, & share there as well.To get $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover visit EightSleep.com & enter promo code SOMETHERAPIST. Take 20% off your entire purchase of nourishing superfood beverages at Organifi with code SOMETHERAPIST.Be sure to check out my shop. In addition to wellness products, you can now find my favorite books!MUSIC: Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission. www.joeypecoraro.comPRODUCTION: Thanks to Eric and Amber Beels at DifMix.com ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

As long as Stephanie can remember she's been attracted to, and curious about, lots of different people. Of course, most of us are conditioned for this to not be something to embrace and so she didn't know what to do with it all. She began exploring her sexuality in her twenties and ended up in a relationship where she was able to start dipping her toes into non-monogamy with a partner before diving deeper into solo polyamory.   Throughout this beautiful interview she shares with us how she has learned and grown along her journey. Not only does she share her intimate story with us, she made an incredible film that is loosely based on some of her experiences. Our conversation weaves in themes from the film as we discuss the crossover to her real life and what non-monogamy looks like for her.   Stephanie Sellars is a New York-based filmmaker, writer, and performer. Her award-winning debut feature film, Lust Life Love, premiered at the Berlin Independent Film Festival and was released by 1091 Pictures on worldwide VOD platforms. She has also written, produced, directed, and acted in many award-winning short films, and her jazz album, Girl Who Loves, can be found on Spotify, iTunes and other music platforms. She holds an MFA in film from Columbia University and an MFA in creative writing from Bennington Writing Seminars. Lust Life Love can be watched on many platforms, including Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play and Tubi.   Check out the full show notes here.   Join the most amazing community of open-minded humans on the planet!   Skip the ads and sign up for the Premium Feed!   Click here to order your very own NNM shirt! Click here to join our upcoming Virtual Meet and Greets! $10 Off - Online STI Testing https://www.normalizingnonmonogamy.com/  

Ross Gay is the author of The Book of Delights, a life-affirming collection of short lyric essays that reminds readers to appreciate so-called ordinary wonders, even during turbulent times. His several volumes of poetry include Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Be Holding, winner of the 2021 PEN America Jean Stein Book Award; and Bringing the Shovel Down. A writing professor at Indiana University, Gay has earned fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and Cave Canem. Inciting Joy explores the ways that people can inspire love and compassion by recognizing that which unites us. Major Jackson is the Richard Dennis Green and Gold Professor at the University of Vermont, a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and the poetry editor of the Harvard Review. He is the author of five books of poetry, including The Absurd Man, Holding Company, and Leaving Saturn, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares, among numerous other periodicals and journals. Jackson's many honors include the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, a Whiting Writers' Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. A Beat Beyond is a collection of essays, interviews, and notes that delve into the intellectual and spiritual aspects of poetry in order to understand its political, social, and emotional functions. (recorded 10/27/2022)

Author Maggie Nelson discusses her book, On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, with writer Eula Biss. Maggie Nelson is a writer working in autobiography, art criticism, theory, feminism, history, aesthetic theory, philosophy, scholarship, and poetry. Nelson received a 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, a 2012 Creative Capital Literature Fellowship, a 2011 NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction. Other honors include a 2007 Andy Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant. Nelson has written several acclaimed books of poetry and prose, including the National Book Critics Circle Award winner The Argonauts. She currently teaches at the University of Southern California. Eula Biss is the author of four books and has been recognized with a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library. Biss' books have been translated into a dozen languages. As a 2023 National Fellow at New America, she is at work on a collection of essays about how private property has shaped our world. She currently teaches nonfiction for the Bennington Writing Seminars.

In Episode 118, Caroline Zancan, Senior Editor at Henry Holt, joins me for another episode in the Genre 101 series — this time with a twist.  Caroline answers behind-the-scenes questions about editing literary fiction, as well as a deep dive into the genre itself.   This post contains affiliate links, through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!). Announcements I'd love your feedback on the podcast!  Please take a moment to complete my 2022 Podcast Survey! Highlights How Caroline got into editing: right place, right time, and Craigslist. The varying college degrees, the wide range of colleagues' previous careers, and whether there's a typical career path to becoming an editor. The je ne sais quoi factor and determining if a book is for Henry Holt. The entire process of book acquisition at Henry Holt — from determining what books to pursue and bidding on manuscripts to the approval process. Caroline's preference for dealing with an author's agent. The execution of a compatible vision for the editor-author relationship. The “right” length for a book and editing big-name authors. What the heck is ‘literary fiction' and why there seems to be a lack of consensus about this question. Current trends in the literary fiction world. Caroline's Book Recommendations [39:19] Two OLD Books She Loves Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders | Amazon | Bookshop.org [39:33] Trust Exercise by Susan Choi | Amazon | Bookshop.org [41:25] Two NEW Books She Loves Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason | Amazon | Bookshop.org [42:33] Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley | Amazon | Bookshop.org [44:14] The Series of Books She DIDN'T Love Elena Ferrante Titles  [45:46] One NEW RELEASE She's Excited About All This Could Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews (August 2, 2022) | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:32] Last 5-Star Book Caroline Read Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason | Amazon | Bookshop.org [49:40] Other Books Mentioned We Wish You Luck by Caroline Zancan [2:00] Happiness by Heather Harpham [2:17] The Parking Lot Attendant by Nafkote Tamirat [2:21] Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon [2:29] Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison Espach [2:34] On Writing by Stephen King [29:08] Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett [40:48] I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley [44:58] Look Alive Out There by Sloane Crosley [45:00] About Caroline Zancan On Twitter Caroline Zancan is a Senior Editor at Holt, acquiring literary and upmarket fiction and memoir, and the author of We Wish You Luck and Local Girls. She is a graduate of Kenyon College and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars.  Caroline lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their children. 

Suzanne Koven, received her B.A. in English literature from Yale and her M.D. from Johns Hopkins. She also holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. After her residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and has practiced primary care internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital for over 30 years. She is an associate professor of medicine at HMS and holds the Valerie Winchester Family Endowed Chair in Primary Care Medicine at Mass General.  In 2019 she was named inaugural Writer in Residence at Mass General. Her essays, articles, blogs, and reviews have appeared in The Boston Globe, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, NewYorker.com, Psychology Today, The L.A. Review of Books, The Virginia Quarterly, STAT, and other publications. Her monthly column “In Practice” appeared in The Boston Globe and won the Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Writing from the American Medical Writers Association in 2012. Dr. Koven co-directs the Media and Medicine certificate course at HMS and speaks to a wide variety of audiences on literature and medicine and the role of women in medicine. Her essay collection, Letter to a Young Female Physician, was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2021.  [Suzanne Koven in Boston MA]

http://suzannekoven.com/ Health Story Collaborative https://thenocturnists.com/ http://suzannekoven.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Literature-and-Medicine-List-2.pdf   Bio/Show Notes:Shownotes  Letter to a Young Female Physician    Suzanne Koven was born and raised in New York City. She received her B.A. in English literature from Yale and her M.D. from Johns Hopkins. She also holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. After her residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and has practiced primary care internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for over 30 years. In 2019 she was named inaugural Writer in Residence at Mass General. Her essays, articles, blogs, and reviews have appeared in The Boston Globe, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The New Yorker.com, Psychology Today, The L.A. Review of Books, The Virginia Quarterly, STAT, and other publications. Her monthly column “In Practice” appeared in the Boston Globe and won the Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Writing from the American Medical Writers Association in 2012. Her interview column, “The Big Idea,” appears at The Rumpus. Suzanne conducts workshops, moderates panel discussions, and speaks to a variety of audiences about literature and medicine, narrative and storytelling in medicine, women's health, mental healthcare, and primary care. Suzanne's essay collection, Letter to a Young Female Physician, was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2021. Excerpts from podcast interview:   This conversation really starts with your 2017 essay describing the challenges faced by female physicians. Resounding message:  “Dear young colleague, you are not a fraud. Your training will serve you well. Your humanity will serve your patients even better.” Did it surprise you that this book still needed to be written some 30 years after your training experiences involving sexism and imposter syndrome? In the book you reference a NYT op-ed by a female anesthesiologist w/ 4 kids to asserted that “women physicians who work part-time are betraying their patients, their full-time colleagues, and the taxpayers who subsidized their medical education.”  You trained at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, were you an outlier among female colleagues since you chose to practice medicine part-time very early on in your career and do you think that was part of why you were constantly feeling like you needed to prove yourself?    Throughout the book you shared your incessant struggle with body image and dieting – revealing your family nickname “Big Tush” and joking “If I ever knew as much about medicine as I know about dieting, I would win the Noble Prize!”   One of my favorite passages towards the end of the book is your ultimate self-acceptance: “I now see that everything I have ever felt good about- in my marriage, my parenting, my writing, and my doctoring- has been the work of the loud, curvy, curly headed girl, operating on instinct and without self-consciousness. And every wrong turn I've ever taken has been in pursuit of …the woman I thought I was supposed to be. CURVY CURLY always wins. Always.”   Trend in med schools to accept more humanities students and to focus on BOTH competence and compassion in medicine. Reminds me of Dr. Kate Treadway's course for 1st year med students: “Introduction to the Profession”  Students are sent out into the hospital to speak with patients. They can ask anything, but REQUIRED to ask: “What advice would you give me as I begin my career?” #1 answer patients give: “I JUST WANT YOU TO LISTEN TO ME”? Do you think it's becoming easier to integrate humanities and storytelling into our practice and how does that change the way we see patients?  As much as it is a letter to other physicians, your book  is very much a personal memoir. The portrayal of your relationship with your mom was so vivid, all the way to her final stages of life after suffering from a stroke. There was something you wrote which I think can be really helpful to young stressed out professional moms: “ I was reminded of something my mother, not at all inclined to self-pity, said to me near the end of her life when I asked what I could do for her: “Bring me back my husband, my friends, my career, my health- that's what you could do.”   SUCH a Reminder that whatever stress you think you have now, you're going to miss it!    Was that also a wake up call for you to appreciate the busyness of life?    Describing another female physician who was a friend, but had a tendency to compare herself unfavorably to you… “She marveled at how I'd simultaneously served her coffee and cookies, cuddled my daughter in my lap, offerd my son, who lay on the floor in a car seat a bottle, and swatted away our Chesapeake Bay retriever who was determined to lick milk dribbles off the baby's face- all while we gossiped about work. “You should have seen her, She was a Goddess.” P. 120  In the book you write about your son's at one point intractable epilepsy and how terrifying it was despite BOTH your and your husbands training.   “People ask “Is it easier or harder to have a sick child when both parents are doctors?” But this is the wrong question. There is no hard, no easy. Only fear and love, panic and relief shaking and not shaking.”  Can you share one of your unforgettable PAGING DOCTOR MOM MOMENTS with us, a time that's etched in your mind when trying to balance medicine and motherhood collided?

In the spotlight is Kathleen Stone, a lawyer, a writer and author of the recently published book “They Called Us Girls: Stories of Female Ambition from Suffrage to Mad Men,” a collective biography of women who defied expectations by entering male-dominated professions in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Her book reviews, art reviews and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Arts Fuse, Los Angeles Review of Books, Timberline Review and The Writer's Chronicle. She lives in Boston and holds graduate degrees from the Bennington Writing Seminars.One of our discussion points is her Literary Hub article “Eleven Over Sixty: A Reading List of Later in Life Debuts,” which can be read at this link: https://lithub.com/eleven-over-sixty-a-reading-list-of-later-in-life-debuts/ You can learn more about Kathleen Stone here: www.kathleencstone.com Novelist Spotlight is produced and hosted by Mike Consol, author of “Hardwood: A Novel About College Basketball and Other Games Young Men Play,” and three yet-to-be-published manuscripts, including “Family Recipes: A Novel about Italian Culture, Catholic Guilt and the Culinary Crime of the Century,” “Lolita Firestone: A Supernatural Novel,” and the short story collection “Love American Style.” Write to him at novelistspotlight@gmail.com. We hope you will subscribe and share the link with any family, friends or colleagues who might benefit from this program.  

Welcome to the Indie Writer Podcast where we talk about all things writing and indie publishing. Today we are excited to talk about Memoir Backlash Yasmin Azad, Esther Amini, & Megan Culhane Galbraith. Yasmin Azad who was born and raised in Ceylon, (now called Sri Lanka), was among the first group of girls in her Muslim community to go away from home to pursue a university degree.  In her twenties, after a brief stint as a lecturer, she married and moved to the United States. Living mostly in the Boston area, she raised her children and worked for over two decades as a mental health counselor. Her memoir Stay, Daughter, draws on her experiences growing up in a warm and close-knit but conservative society which at first resisted the education and independence of women but had, eventually, to embrace modernity. It is also informed by an understanding derived from her work as a counselor in the West, that the breakdown of traditional family values and structures comes with its own challenges, especially for women. She is currently working on a novel which explores the issues of family and belonging. Esther Amini is a writer, painter, and psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice. Her debut memoir is entitled Concealed: Memoir of a Jewish-Iranian Daughter Caught Between the Chador and America. Her short stories have appeared in Elle, Lilith, Tablet, The Jewish Week, Barnard Magazine, TK University's Inscape Literary, Proximity, Paper Brigade, and Medium.com.   Her essays can also be found in Zibby Owens' Anthologies Moms Don't Have Time To and Moms Don't Have Time To Have Kids. Esther Amini was named one of Aspen Words' best emerging memoirists and awarded its Emerging Writer Fellowship in 2016.  Seven of her pieces have been performed by Jewish Women's Theatre, (a.k.a. The Braid), in Los Angeles and in Manhattan, and she was chosen by Jewish Women's Theatre as their Artist-in-Residence in 2019. ChaiFlicks, (Jewish Netflix), is presently streaming an excerpt from Concealed called AM-REE-KAH. Megan Culhane Galbraith is a writer and visual artist. Her work was a Notable Mention in Best American Essays 2017, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and has been published in Tupelo Quarterly, Redivider, Catapult, Hobart, Longreads, and Hotel Amerika, among others. She is Associate Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars and the founding director of the Governor's Institutes of Vermont Young Writers Institute. Her debut hybrid memoir-in-essays, The Guild of the Infant Saviour was published by Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press in May 2021.      KEEP UP WITH OUR GUESTS!   Yasmin Azad: Website: https://staydaughter.com/ Stay Daughter by Yasmin Azad   Esther Amini Facebook: Esther Amini Instagram: @estheraminiauthor Website: https://www.estheramini.com/ Concealed by Esther Amini   Megan Culhane Galbraith Twitter - @megangalbraith Instagram - @m.galbraith Facebook - @megan.culhane.galbraith Website - www.megangalbraith.com The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child's Memory Book by Megan Culhane Galbraith _______________________________________ Check out the following books by our Patrons!  Deadly Declarations by Landis Wade Mission 51 by Fernando Crôtte Want to see your book listed? Become a Patron! 

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you'll hear about: How the Common got started What is involved in running a literary journal Why grants and institutional support matter so much in the literary arts The importance of finding mentors and building a network How the Common creates community Our guest is: Jennifer Acker , who is the founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. Our guest is: Elizabeth Witte, who is a writer and editor based in western Massachusetts. She is a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council's Artist Fellowships in Poetry and author of the chapbook, Dry Eye (Dancing Girl Press); her work appears in a variety of journals, including Prelude, Word For/ Word, and Denver Quarterly. She is Associate Editor of The Common and directs the journal's education program The Common in the Classroom. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator and co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might also be interested in: Fatigue, by Jennifer Acker Amherst College The Bennington Writing Seminars https://www.bennington.edu/writing-seminars The Common More about the Common in the Classroom can be found here The Common in the Classroom, The Common Young Writers Program A podcast from The Common magazine on The New Books Network “This is the Place” Amherst College LitFest The Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Learn more about The Alternative Press conversation with co-founder Ken Mikolowski (courtesy of Centre For Print Research, UWE Bristol); and the Press's Multiple Originals project The Poetry Foundation You are smart and capable, but you aren't an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we'd bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you'll hear about: How the Common got started What is involved in running a literary journal Why grants and institutional support matter so much in the literary arts The importance of finding mentors and building a network How the Common creates community Our guest is: Jennifer Acker , who is the founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. Our guest is: Elizabeth Witte, who is a writer and editor based in western Massachusetts. She is a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council's Artist Fellowships in Poetry and author of the chapbook, Dry Eye (Dancing Girl Press); her work appears in a variety of journals, including Prelude, Word For/ Word, and Denver Quarterly. She is Associate Editor of The Common and directs the journal's education program The Common in the Classroom. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator and co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might also be interested in: Fatigue, by Jennifer Acker Amherst College The Bennington Writing Seminars https://www.bennington.edu/writing-seminars The Common More about the Common in the Classroom can be found here The Common in the Classroom, The Common Young Writers Program A podcast from The Common magazine on The New Books Network “This is the Place” Amherst College LitFest The Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Learn more about The Alternative Press conversation with co-founder Ken Mikolowski (courtesy of Centre For Print Research, UWE Bristol); and the Press's Multiple Originals project The Poetry Foundation You are smart and capable, but you aren't an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we'd bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you'll hear about: How the Common got started What is involved in running a literary journal Why grants and institutional support matter so much in the literary arts The importance of finding mentors and building a network How the Common creates community Our guest is: Jennifer Acker , who is the founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. Our guest is: Elizabeth Witte, who is a writer and editor based in western Massachusetts. She is a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council's Artist Fellowships in Poetry and author of the chapbook, Dry Eye (Dancing Girl Press); her work appears in a variety of journals, including Prelude, Word For/ Word, and Denver Quarterly. She is Associate Editor of The Common and directs the journal's education program The Common in the Classroom. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator and co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might also be interested in: Fatigue, by Jennifer Acker Amherst College The Bennington Writing Seminars https://www.bennington.edu/writing-seminars The Common More about the Common in the Classroom can be found here The Common in the Classroom, The Common Young Writers Program A podcast from The Common magazine on The New Books Network “This is the Place” Amherst College LitFest The Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Learn more about The Alternative Press conversation with co-founder Ken Mikolowski (courtesy of Centre For Print Research, UWE Bristol); and the Press's Multiple Originals project The Poetry Foundation You are smart and capable, but you aren't an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we'd bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you'll hear about: How the Common got started What is involved in running a literary journal Why grants and institutional support matter so much in the literary arts The importance of finding mentors and building a network How the Common creates community Our guest is: Jennifer Acker , who is the founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in Oprah Daily, Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, and The Yale Review, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. Our guest is: Elizabeth Witte, who is a writer and editor based in western Massachusetts. She is a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council's Artist Fellowships in Poetry and author of the chapbook, Dry Eye (Dancing Girl Press); her work appears in a variety of journals, including Prelude, Word For/ Word, and Denver Quarterly. She is Associate Editor of The Common and directs the journal's education program The Common in the Classroom. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the co-creator and co-producer of the Academic Life. She is a historian of women and gender. Listeners to this episode might also be interested in: Fatigue, by Jennifer Acker Amherst College The Bennington Writing Seminars https://www.bennington.edu/writing-seminars The Common More about the Common in the Classroom can be found here The Common in the Classroom, The Common Young Writers Program A podcast from The Common magazine on The New Books Network “This is the Place” Amherst College LitFest The Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Learn more about The Alternative Press conversation with co-founder Ken Mikolowski (courtesy of Centre For Print Research, UWE Bristol); and the Press's Multiple Originals project The Poetry Foundation  You are smart and capable, but you aren't an island and neither are we. We reach across our mentor network to bring you experts about everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we'd bring on an expert about something? DM us on Twitter: The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life

  Stephanie Sellars on Polyamory and Her Film, Lust Life Love Stephanie Sellars is a New York-based filmmaker, writer, and performer. Her award-winning debut feature film, Lust Life Love, premiered at the Berlin Independent Film Festival and was recently released by 1091 Pictures on worldwide VOD platforms. She has also written, produced, directed, and acted in many award-winning short films, and her jazz album, Girl Who Loves, can be found on Spotify, iTunes and other music platforms. She holds an MFA in film from Columbia University and is finishing her MFA in creative writing at Bennington Writing Seminars. In this featured interview, Stephanie talks about the many hats she wore during the making of Lust Life Love and the real-life navigation of polyamorous relating that inspired the film. Earlier in the show, co-hosts Robin Renée and Wendy Sheridan venture into The Geekscape to geek out on Futurama Season 5, Episode 4, "A Taste of Freedom." The 3 Random Facts offered this time involve The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, the nature of frogs' eyes, and "dream cheese." The News includes anti-vaccine mandate protests by truckers in Canada, censored Black history and other "controversial" topics in U.S. schools, the Māori party of New Zealand's call for a “divorce” from the crown, athlete complaints at the Winter Olympics in Beijing, another look at the impact of Neil Young and friends' departure from Spotify, and a ridiculous brawl over steak in Bensalem, PA.  Things to do: Watch Lust Life Love. Keep up with Stephanie Sellars on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Watch Futurama episode, "A Taste of Freedom," on Hulu. Get tickets for This Space Between Us, a new off-Broadway comedy by Peter Gil-Sheridan (Wendy's nephew!) -- Running February 22 - April 2, 2022 Explore the connection between cheese and dreams. You can find some "dream cheese" at Di Bruno Bros. Send your questions to Wendy and Robin for You Got Questions? We Got Answers! Watch the melee at Golden Corral. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq4cpBDCNEs Sound engineering by Wendy Sheridan Show notes by Robin Renée Fake sponsor messages by Ariel Sheridan Web hosting by InMotion Remote recording by SquadCast

In this episode, Sarah and Louise recap Season One and then they speak to Megan Culhane Galbraith.Megan Culhane Galbraith is a writer, visual artist and adoptee. Her debut memoir-in-essays The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child's Memory Book (Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press) was published in May 2021. Megan's work was listed as Notable in Best American Essays 2021 and 2017 and recognized by Poets & Writers in their "5 Over 50" issue. She is the 2022 Writer-in-Residence at adopteeson.com. Her essays, interviews, reviews and visual art have appeared in BOMB, The Believer, HYPERALLERGIC! ZZYZYVA, Tupelo Quarterly, Hobart, Redivider, Longreads, Hotel Amerika, and Catapult, among others. Megan has been awarded fellowships from The Saltonstall Foundation, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and The Horned Dorset Colony. She is the founding director of the Governor's Institutes of Vermont Young Writers Institute. She holds a BA in Journalism from the Pennsylvania State University and an MFA in Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Website:          www.megangalbraith.comTwitter:           @megangalbraithInstagram:       @m.galbraith and @the_d0llh0useFacebook:       https://www.facebook.com/megan.culhane.galbraithHere's our affiliate link for Buzzsprout:  When you sign up, you get a $20 Amazon Gift card.And if you want to support our show, you can go to our Patreon Page.Thank you to our current Patreon donors for their support.  They are: Laura Christensen, Barbara Frank, Ramona Evans, Linda Pevac, Blonde Records, Denise Cruz-Castino, Daphne Keys, Denise Hewitt, Michelle Styles, Emily Sinagra, Linda David and Ron Schneider.Reckoning with The Primal Wound: Official TrailerSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/themakingofmepodcast?fan_landing=true)

Welcome to the Indie Writer Podcast where we talk about all things writing and indie publishing. Today we are excited to be talking about the post-publication letdown with James Tate Hill, Renée K. Nicholson, and Megan Culhane Galbraith. James Tate Hill is the author of a memoir, Blind Man's Bluff, released August 3, 2021 from W. W. Norton. His fiction debut, Academy Gothic, won the Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel. His essays were Notable in the 2019 and 2020 editions of Best American Essays. He serves as fiction editor for Monkeybicycle and contributing editor for Literary Hub, where he writes a monthly audiobooks column. Born in Charleston, WV, he lives in North Carolina with his wife. Megan Culhane Galbraith is a writer, visual artist, and adoptee. She is the author of The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child's Memory Book, a hybrid memoir-in-essays published by Mad Creek Books/Ohio State University Press. Her work was Notable in Best American Essays 2021 and 2017 and her writing and art has been published or is forthcoming in HYPERALLERGIC!, BOMB, The Believer, Tupelo Quarterly, Hobart, Longreads, Hotel Amerika, Catapult, and Redivider, among others. She is a graduate of and the Associate Director at the Bennington Writing Seminars and the founding director of the Governor's Institutes of Vermont Young Writers Institute. Renée K. Nicholson is the author of the poetry collections, Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center and Post Script, and coeditor of the anthology Bodies of Truth: Stories of Illness, Disability, and Medicine. She serves as Director of the Humanities Center at West Virginia University. Keep up with guests: James Tate Hill: Twitter - @jamestatehill Facebook - @jthilliv Website - www.jamestatehill.com Blind Man's Bluff by James Tate Hill Renée K. Nicholson:  Twitter - @summerbooks1 Website - www.reneenicholson.com Fierce and Delicate by Renée K. Nicholson Megan Culhane Galbraith: Twitter - @megangalbraith Instagram - @m.galbraith Facebook - @megan.culhane.galbraith Website - www.megangalbraith.com The Guild of the Infant Saviour: An Adopted Child's Memory Book by Megan Culhane Galbraith _______________________________________ Check out the following books by our Patrons!  Proliferation by Erik Otto Mission 51 by Fernando Crôtte Want to see your book listed? Become a Patron!   

I'm so excited to share with you today's guest on What You're Craving- Hannah Howard. She is an amazing author who is able to encapsulate the trials, tribulations, heartbreak and glory of having and recovering from an eating disorder. Hannah and I dish about her new book, “Plenty” and her first book, “Feast” - both of which I devoured, pun intended. Hannah talks all about recovering from an eating disorder while working in the food industry, her surprise in finding out how common it is for people in the food industry to live a double life with their eating disorder, and how she learned to find peace and form a new experience of life through renegotiating her relationship with food. We get into the importance of tuning into what we're feeling, breaking up with dieting, and acknowledging mess-ups as an inevitable part of the process. This is seriously a conversation you do not want to miss.   Hannah Howard is a writer and food expert who spent her formative years in New York eating, drinking, serving, bartending, cooking on a line, flipping giant wheels of cheese, and managing restaurants. Her memoir, Feast: True Love in and Out of the Kitchen, debuted as Amazon's #1 bestselling memoir in 2018, and she has recently released her new book Plenty: A Memoir of Food & Family.    Hannah has a BA from Columbia University in Creative Writing and Anthropology and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her work has been featured in New York Magazine, VICE, SELF, mic Thrillist, Serious Eats, Bust, refinery29, Salon, and the Chicago Review of Books.    Grab your copy of Hannah's new book Plenty here! You can also find out more and by following Hannah on Instagram and checking out her other book Feast here. I'm obsessed with knowing all about you, so please follow (and DM!) me on Instagram and Facebook and find more on my website. We're in this together and the journey is going to be so awesome. Produced by Dear Media

This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod head back to school with special guest Bree Rolfe, a teacher from Austin, Texas, where she helps high school students discover literature and creative writing. She is also a poet, whose collection Who's Going to Love the Dying Girl is out now. She is also a dear friend of Literary Disco, a fellow graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars and exactly one semester ahead of the rest of us. Bree was involved in a lot of the late-night drinking and debating sessions that became this very podcast. For today's discussion, Bree had us read three short stories that she assigns to her students: "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid, "New Boy" by Roddy Doyle, and "Today Is Costa Rica" by Assaf Gavron. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, Diane sits down with Hannah Howard to discuss her new book and find out what makes this memoir so special. Hannah Howard is a writer and food expert who spent her formative years in New York eating, drinking, serving, bartending, cooking on hot lines, and flipping giant wheels of cheese in Manhattan institutions such as Picholine and Fairway Market. She has a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Hannah has been published in New York magazine, Salon, and SELF. Hannah is the author of two memoirs, Feast: True Love In and Out of the Kitchen and Plenty: A Memoir of Food and FamilyHeritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support Cutting the Curd by becoming a member!Cutting the Curd is Powered by Simplecast.

I'm a writer and food expert who spent my formative years in New York eating, drinking, serving, bartending, cooking on a line, flipping giant wheels of cheese, and managing restaurants. I write about delicious things, teach food writing classes, and might just spend all day at a market shopping for fruits and veggies. My memoir, Feast: True Love in and Out of the Kitchen, debuted as Amazon's #1 bestselling memoir in 2018. My new book Plenty: A Memoir of Food & Family is coming out in fall 2021. I have a BA from Columbia University in Creative Writing and Anthropology and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. My work has been featured in New York Magazine, VICE, SELF, mic Thrillist, Serious Eats, Bust, refinery29, Salon, and the Chicago Review of Books. I live in Brooklyn with my cute husband, cute puppy, and very cute daughter. Hannah Howard Website https://www.hannahhoward.nyc/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dean-jones9/message

This is the third episode of a four-part series featuring the winners and honorable mentions of the 2021 Book Awards for the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS). This episode features two of the winners in Creative Writing Prose: Xuan Juliana Wang, whose collection Home Remedies explores the new generation of Chinese diasporic wanderers, and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, whose collection The Foley Artist provides a new treatment of queer Filipinx diasporic lives. Xuan Juliana Wang was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her collection Home Remedies won the 2021 AAAS award in Creative Writing: Prose. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is finishing his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction, Lambda Literary, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a board member of Kundiman. His collection The Foley Artist won honorable mention in Creative Writing: Prose. Christopher B. Patterson is an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/lgbtq-studies

This is the third episode of a four-part series featuring the winners and honorable mentions of the 2021 Book Awards for the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS). This episode features two of the winners in Creative Writing Prose: Xuan Juliana Wang, whose collection Home Remedies explores the new generation of Chinese diasporic wanderers, and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, whose collection The Foley Artist provides a new treatment of queer Filipinx diasporic lives. Xuan Juliana Wang was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her collection Home Remedies won the 2021 AAAS award in Creative Writing: Prose. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is finishing his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction, Lambda Literary, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a board member of Kundiman. His collection The Foley Artist won honorable mention in Creative Writing: Prose. Christopher B. Patterson is an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

This is the third episode of a four-part series featuring the winners and honorable mentions of the 2021 Book Awards for the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS). This episode features two of the winners in Creative Writing Prose: Xuan Juliana Wang, whose collection Home Remedies explores the new generation of Chinese diasporic wanderers, and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, whose collection The Foley Artist provides a new treatment of queer Filipinx diasporic lives. Xuan Juliana Wang was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her collection Home Remedies won the 2021 AAAS award in Creative Writing: Prose. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is finishing his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction, Lambda Literary, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a board member of Kundiman. His collection The Foley Artist won honorable mention in Creative Writing: Prose. Christopher B. Patterson is an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-american-studies

This is the third episode of a four-part series featuring the winners and honorable mentions of the 2021 Book Awards for the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS). This episode features two of the winners in Creative Writing Prose: Xuan Juliana Wang, whose collection Home Remedies explores the new generation of Chinese diasporic wanderers, and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, whose collection The Foley Artist provides a new treatment of queer Filipinx diasporic lives. Xuan Juliana Wang was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her collection Home Remedies won the 2021 AAAS award in Creative Writing: Prose. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is finishing his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction, Lambda Literary, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a board member of Kundiman. His collection The Foley Artist won honorable mention in Creative Writing: Prose. Christopher B. Patterson is an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

This is the third episode of a four-part series featuring the winners and honorable mentions of the 2021 Book Awards for the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS). This episode features two of the winners in Creative Writing Prose: Xuan Juliana Wang, whose collection Home Remedies explores the new generation of Chinese diasporic wanderers, and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, whose collection The Foley Artist provides a new treatment of queer Filipinx diasporic lives. Xuan Juliana Wang was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and received her MFA from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her collection Home Remedies won the 2021 AAAS award in Creative Writing: Prose. Ricco Villanueva Siasoco received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and is finishing his Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction, Lambda Literary, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and is a board member of Kundiman. His collection The Foley Artist won honorable mention in Creative Writing: Prose. Christopher B. Patterson is an Assistant Professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Join Carol with her guest, Dr. Suzanne Koven, as they talk about how to deal with imposter syndrome, body image issues, and work-life balance. Has your inner voice been telling you you're not good enough? Have you been beating yourself up with dieting and calorie restrictions, thinking that's your key to happiness? Stop. Take a moment and consider what Dr. Suzanne has to share. Stay tuned! Here are the things to expect in the episode: ● Turning off that negative inner voice, also known as station “KFKD” (K-F*cked) ● The surprising thing that happens when you allow others to see your flaws ● How you can address your feelings in a critical and scientific way ● Why dieting is not the right solution to your body image problems, it's time to stop body policing! ● And much more! About Dr. Suzanne Koven: Suzanne Koven was born and raised in New York City. She received her B.A. in English literature from Yale and her M.D. from Johns Hopkins. She also holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars. After her residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and has practiced primary care internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston for over 25 years. In 2019 she was named inaugural Writer in Residence at Mass General. Her essays, articles, blogs, and reviews have appeared in The Boston Globe, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The New Yorker.com, Psychology Today, The L.A. Review of Books, The Virginia Quarterly, STAT, and other publications. Her monthly column “In Practice” appeared in the Boston Globe and won the Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Writing from the American Medical Writers Association in 2012. Her interview column, “The Big Idea,” appears at The Rumpus. Suzanne conducts workshops, moderates panel discussions, and speaks to a variety of audiences about literature and medicine, narrative and storytelling in medicine, women's health, mental healthcare, and primary care. Suzanne's essay collection, Letter to a Young Female Physician, was published by W.W. Norton & Co. in 2021. Connect with Dr. Suzanne Koven: Website: www.suzannekoven.com Letter to a Young Female Physician: https://www.amazon.com/Suzanne-Koven/e/B00OYR5SZW?ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_3&qid=1622744191&sr=8-3 Connect with Carol Perlman: Website: https://healthy4lifebycarolperlman.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthyforlifebycarolperlman/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-perlman-8a735513/ Email: carol@healthy4lifebycarolperlman.com Connect with Carol Perlman: Website: http://www.carolperlman.com/ | http://healthy4lifebycarolperlman.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/healthyforlifebycarolperlman/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-perlman-8a735513/ Email: carol@healthy4lifebycarolperlman.com

Morgan Jerkins reads an excerpt from her book "Caul Baby," backed by an original Storybound remix with French Cassettes, and sound design and arrangement by Jude Brewer. Born and raised in Southern New Jersey, and now residing in Harlem, New York, Morgan Jerkins is the New York Times Bestselling author of "This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America" and "Wandering In Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots." She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches regularly at Columbia University. Her third book "Caul Baby" was one of 2021's most anticipated books by TIME, Buzzfeed, and Oprah Magazine. French Cassettes is a harmony-driven power-pop group from San Francisco. The quartet's new LP, Rolodex, is hook-filled and rooted in pop, layered with intricate vocal harmonies and counter-harmonies, inventive percussion, and every shade of clean and fuzzy guitars stacked up like an orchestra. These uncommonly majestic, esoteric pop forms serve as the perfect delivery service for their playful and verbose lyrics. Support Storybound by supporting our sponsors: Home. Made. is a podcast hosted by Stephanie Foo that explores the meaning of home and what it can teach us about ourselves and each other. Listen to Home. Made. wherever you listen to podcasts. Norton brings you Michael Lewis' The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, a nonfiction thriller that pits a band of medical visionaries against a wall of ignorance as the COVID-19 pandemic looms. Scribd combines the latest technology with the best human minds to recommend content that you'll love. Go to try.scribd.com/storybound to get 60 days of Scribd for free. Finding You is an inspirational romantic drama full of heart and humor about finding the strength to be true to oneself. Now playing only in theaters. Acorn.tv is the largest commercial free British streaming service with hundreds of exclusive shows from around the world. Try acorn.tv for free for 30 days by going to acorn.tv and using promo code storybound. Storybound is hosted by Jude Brewer and brought to you by The Podglomerate and Lit Hub Radio. Let us know what you think of the show on Instagram and Twitter @storyboundpod. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy.  Since you're listening to Storybound, you might enjoy reading, writing, and storytelling. We'd like to suggest you also try the History of Literature or Book Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jennifer Acker is founder and editor in chief of The Common, and author of the debut novel The Limits of the World, a fiction honoree for the Massachusetts Book Award. Her memoir “Fatigue” is a #1 Amazon bestseller, and her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews have appeared in the Washington Post, Literary Hub, n+1, Guernica, The Yale Review,and Ploughshares, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship and LitFest. She lives in western Massachusetts with her husband. Without These Books is a thank-you-inspired Video/Podcast. Each episode celebrates authors, books, and characters that changed us as writers, readers, and as people. Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you podcast. Watch on our YouTube channel or at withoutbooks.org.Without Books®, a division of Heritage Future, is an author-centric book initiative. Our resources support authors. We also provide access to millions of books.Jennifer Acker selected The Transit Of Venusby Shirley Hazzard for her episode of Without These Books.

Paul Holdengräber is joined by Sven Birkerts on episode 181 of The Quarantine Tapes. Sven is a writer and he talks with Paul today about his recent move. He describes his experience of packing and unpacking his library and they discuss the meditation of looking through old books and seeing your own changing tastes and interests.Paul asks Sven about his books,The Gutenberg Elegies and Changing the Subject. They discuss how this past year has increased our reliance on technology and Sven’s discomfort with what the world of algorithms demands from us before turning to his upcoming book on Nabokov’s Speak, Memory and his relationship to serendipity. Sven Birkerts is the author of 11 books of essays and memoir, including The Gutenberg Elegies, The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again. His most recent his book is on SPEAK, MEMORY in Ig Publishing's Bookmarked series. Currently the co-editor of the journal AGNI, he was for many years the Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars. He recently moved to Amherst, Ma.

Inner Moonlight is the poetry reading series for the Wild Detectives in Dallas! Join us the second Wednesday of every month for reading and conversation with one brilliant writer. In this episode, host Logen Cure talks to novelist and poet, Rebecca Balcárcel. Rebecca Balcárcel's debut novel, THE OTHER HALF OF HAPPY is a Pura Belpré Honor Book and ALSC Notable Book that was named one of the Top Ten First Novels of 2019 by the American Library Association. Rebecca took her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. St. Mary's University published her book of poems, Palabras in Each Fist in 2009. Find her on YouTube as the Sixminutescholar. She loves popcorn, her kitty, and teaching her students at Tarrant County College as Associate Professor of English.

Have you ever signed up for one of those ancestry sites, or maybe sent in a sample of your saliva and received DNA results?  Well what can those results really tell you about the people and the traditions that inform your personal lineage? In Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots, author Morgan Jerkins takes a unique approach to understanding where she came and uncovers a wealth of incredible stories, traditions, and painful surprises. About the AuthorMorgan Jerkins  is the New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America, which was longlisted for PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay and a Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, and Wandering In Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots. Her third book, Caul Baby: A Novel, is forthcoming from Harper Books in April 2021.  She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. A recently named Forbes 30 under 30 Leader in Media, Jerkins regularly teaches at Columbia University’s School of the Arts in the Nonfiction department. Born and raised in Southern New Jersey, she’s currently based in Harlem and at work on television and film projects. Episode Credits:This episode was produced by Andrew Dunn and Amanda Stern. It was edited, mixed and sound-designed by Andrew Dunn who also created Bookable's chill vibe.  Our host is Amanda Stern. Beau Friedlander is Bookable's executive producer and editor in chief of Loud Tree Media.  Music:"Books That Bounce" by Rufus Canis, "Uni Swing Vox" by Rufus Canis, "Jungles" by Isaac Aesili, "Every Corner In The Black Lodge" by 1939 Ensemble, "Molasses and Wine" by Heliix, "The Chase" by Principle, "Brainiac"  by Cold Storage Percussion Unit.

A series of deaths and personal losses in 2018 hang over Mark Wunderlich's poems in his new collection, God of Nothingness (Graywolf Press). We talk about that writing, how living through it unwittingly prepared him for the past year in Pandemia, and how the current situation compares with his arrival in NYC at the height of AIDS. We get into the uses of autobiography in poetry (his editor refers to his poems as "fiercely autobiographical"), Mark's queerness being tied to his poetic-self, the inspiration of James Merrill and his mentorship by JD McClatchy, the notion of a poem as a created environment permitting freedom, why his poems go from longhand to typewriter to computer, his experience conducting a Rilke course by snail-mail in 2020, his pandemic-adjustments as director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and more. Follow Mark on Twitter and Instagram • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal

Meaghan Quinn is a shopkeeper and poet. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and a BA from Hollins University, an all women's university. Quinn has a background in writing, teaching, and the jewelry industry. She has worked with her uncle's award winning jewelry store in Virginia, as well as her family owned store Quinn's Fine Jewelry. She now is a co-owner of The Gilded Oyster, a fine jewelry boutique specializing in coastal and Celtic jewelry located in Falmouth, MA. Come visit us : )Connect with Meaghan Below _@gildedoyster (Instagram )@gildedoysterfalmouth (Facebook)meaghan@thegildedoyster.com

Heather is the author of two novels. Her debut, The Lost Girls, won the Strand Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for an Edgar Award. The Distant Dead was published on June 9, 2020, and was named one of the Best Books of Summer by People Magazine, Parade, and CrimeReads. A former antitrust and intellectual property litigator, she traded the legal world for the literary one and earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2011. She lives in Mill Valley, California, where she writes, bikes, hikes, and reads books by other people that she wishes she’d written.THE DISTANT DEAD- A body burns in the high desert hills. A boy walks into a fire station, pale with the shock of a grisly discovery. A middle school teacher worries when her colleague is late for work. By day’s end, when the body is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel, a small Nevada town will be rocked to its core by a brutal and calculated murder. Adam Merkel left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school in Lovelock seven months before he died. A quiet, seemingly unremarkable man, he connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills. The two outcasts developed a tender, trusting friendship that brought each of them hope in the wake of tragedy. But it is Sal who finds Adam’s body, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles’ compound. Nora Wheaton, the middle school’s social studies teacher, dreamed of a life far from Lovelock only to be dragged back on the eve of her college graduation to care for her disabled father, a man she loves but can’t forgive. She sensed in the new math teacher a kindred spirit--another soul bound to Lovelock by guilt and duty. After Adam’s death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him and finds a dark history she understands all too well. But the truth about his murder may lie closer to home. For Sal Prentiss’s grief seems heavily shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he’s telling about how his favorite teacher died. As she tries to earn the wary boy’s trust, she finds he holds not only the key to Adam’s murder, but an unexpected chance at the life she thought she’d lost. Weaving together the last months of Adam’s life, Nora’s search for answers, and a young boy’s anguished moral reckoning, this unforgettable thriller brings a small American town to vivid life, filled with complex, flawed characters wrestling with the weight of the past, the promise of the future, and the bitter freedom that forgiveness can bring.

Bill welcomes novelist, essayist, and teacher Aimee Liu to the show. Aimee is the author of numerous bestselling novels as well as nonfiction books on medical and psychological topics. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Ms., and many other publications. She is on the faculty of Goddard College's MFA in Creative Writing Program at Port Townsend, WA. Aimee earned her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. She worked as a flight attendant, edited business and trade publications, and was an associate producer for NBC's TODAY show before turning to writing full-time. Her latest novel is Glorious Boy. Don't miss it!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Aimee Liu is the author of numerous bestselling novels as well as nonfiction books on medical and psychological topics. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Ms., and many other publications. She is on the faculty of Goddard College's MFA in Creative Writing Program at Port Townsend, WA. Aimee grew up in Connecticut but spent two of her earliest years in India. Her father was born in Shanghai, the son of a Chinese scholar-revolutionary and his American wife. You just might find a few of these threads in her novels! She received her BA from Yale University, studying painting. After setting visual art aside for decades, she's recently come roaring back into this medium, courtesy of Instagram! You can find her current "PhoPaintings" @aimeeeliu. Aimee returned to grad school to earn her MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars. She worked as a flight attendant, edited business and trade publications, and was an associate producer for NBC's TODAY show before turning to writing full-time. She lives in Los Angeles. ABOUT THE BOOK - GLORIOUS BOY Glorious Boy is a tale of war and devotion, longing and loss, and the power of love to prevail. Set in India's remote Andaman Islands before and during WWII, the story revolves around a mysteriously mute 4-year-old who vanishes on the eve of Japanese Occupation. Little Ty's parents, Shep and Claire, will go to any lengths to rescue him, but neither is prepared for the brutal and soul-changing odyssey that awaits them. Visit her website at www.aimeeliu.net Facebook: @AimeeLiuBooks; Twitter: @aimee_liu Instagram: @aimeeeliu

Today’s guest is Caroline Zancan author of the novel Local Girls, as well as her latest, We Wish You Luck. She is a graduate of Kenyon College and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. A Senior Editor at Henry Holt, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their children. Caroline joined me today to talk about unique mix of art and business that is the publishing industry. Aslo covered - being both an author, and an editor, and the often misunderstood author / editor relationship. Support the Podcast Read the Transcript  Links for Caroline Twitter: https://twitter.com/carolinezancan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carolinezancan82   Ad Links:      Personal Revolution Podcast: https://www.himalaya.com/revolution1 Canvas People: https://www.canvaspeople.com/

In Episode 47, Caroline Zancan (author of We Wish You Luck) discuss her time getting her MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars, how her job as an editor at Henry Holt impacted her as an author, and the allure of campus novels. This post contains affiliate links (plus: here’s your Amazon Smile-specific affiliate link), through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!). Sponsor This episode is sponsored by Book of the Month. Use the code SARAHSBOOKSHELVES at checkout to get your first book for just $9.99! This month, I chose You Are Not Alone, The Holdout, and Anna K. Check out my commentary on all the February picks to help choose the right book for your reading taste. Highlights What parts of Caroline’s experience at a low-residency MFA Program she incorporated into We Wish You Luck. The allure of campus novels. The value of having a degree from a MFA Program (and the ways it doesn’t help you). Why she chose to tell the story in the collective voice and to leave the three main characters’ perspectives out of the collective. How her job as an Editor impacted her as an author and, conversely, what she learned as an author that she took back to her editorial job. How the “book shopping” process works for someone who works in publishing. Some funny Goodreads reviews of Ulysses. How publishers factor events like elections into their publishing calendars. Caroline’s Book Recommendations Two OLD Books She Loves  Play it As it Lays by Joan Didion | Buy from Amazon [23:54] Happiness, As Such by Natalia Ginzberg | Buy from Amazon [27:51] Two NEW Books She Loves The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [31:15] Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman | Buy from Amazon [35:22] One Book She DIDN’T Love Ulysses by James Joyce | Buy from Amazon [37:41] One NEW RELEASE She’s Excited About Rodhamby Curtis Sittenfeld (Release Date: June 30, 2020)| Buy from Amazon [41:16] *Note: when we recorded, there was no cover or full blurb about this book available from the publisher. Since recording, you can now see the cover on Goodreads, which interestingly, features an actual photo of Hillary Clinton (how is this legally possible?!)! Other Books Mentioned You Are Not Aloneby Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen (Out March 3) | Buy from Amazon [1:10] The Holdoutby Graham Greene | Buy from Amazon [1:10] Anna Kby Jenny Lee | Buy from Amazon [1:10] Local Girlsby Caroline Zancan | Buy from Amazon [2:16] We Wish You Luckby Caroline Zancan (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [2:28] The Secret Historyby Donna Tartt | Buy from Amazon [10:17] Oligarchyby Scarlett Thomas | Buy from Amazon [11:41] The Truantsby Kate Weinberg | Buy from Amazon [11:41] The Virgin Suicidesby Jeffrey Eugenides (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [15:11] Then We Came to the Endby Joshua Ferris | Buy from Amazon [15:11] The Woman in the Windowby AJ Finn | Buy from Amazon [23:06] The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion | Buy from Amazon [23:35] Family Lexiconby Natalia Ginzburg | Buy from Amazon [29:09] Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [34:13] Infinite Jestby David Foster Wallace | Buy from Amazon [39:00] An American Wifeby Curtis Sittenfeld | Buy from Amazon [41:20] You Think It, I’ll Say It: Storiesby Curtis Sittenfeld (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [43:10] Eligibleby Curtis Sittenfeld | Buy from Amazon [43:32] I’ll Be Gone in the Darkby Michelle McNamara (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [45:12] Before the Ruinsby Victoria Gosling | Buy from Amazon [46:27] The Other’s Gold by Elizabeth Ames (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [48:07] The Ensemble by Aja Gabel (My Review) | Buy from Amazon [48:07] The Comfort of Strangersby Ian McEwan | Buy from Amazon [51:48] Other Links Winter 2020 Book Preview “Rediscovering Natalia Ginzburg”, The New Yorker Sarah’s Best Books of 2019 List “New Curtis Sittenfeld Novel Will Imagine Hillary Clinton’s Life Without Bill”, The Guardian About Caroline Caroline Zancan is the author of the novels Local Girls and We Wish You Luck. She is a graduate of Kenyon College and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. A Senior Editor at Henry Holt, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their children. Next Episode Mini Episode featuring Genevieve Trono (@genthebookworm)…airing February 26. Support the Podcast Support on Patreon – When you support the podcast on Patreon for $5/month, get bonus podcast episodes and other goodies! ShareIf you like the podcast, I’d love for you to share it with your reader friends…in real life and on social media (there’s easy share buttons at the bottom of this post!). Subscribe …wherever you listen to podcasts, so new episodes will appear in your feed as soon as they’re released. Rate and ReviewSearch for “Sarah’s Book Shelves” in Apple Podcasts…or wherever you listen to podcasts!

Ep. 217: Jennifer Acker is founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Common. Her short stories, translations, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Guernica, n+1, Ploughshares, The Journal, The Literary Review, Ascent, Sonora Review, Harper’s, The Millions, The New Inquiry, and Publishers Weekly, among other places. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she teaches literature, creative writing, and editing at Amherst College.   Her debut novel, The Limits of the World, is now available, and she sits down with us to talk about the novel and about her own writing journey and her own Multiracial family. For more on Jennifer, please visit her website at: https://jenniferacker.com/ For more on host, Alex Barnett, please check out his website: www.alexbarnettcomic.com or visit him on Facebook (www.facebook.com/alexbarnettcomic) or on Twitter at @barnettcomic To subscribe to the Multiracial Family Man, please click here: MULTIRACIAL FAMILY MAN PODCAST Huge shout out to our "Super-Duper Supporters" Elizabeth A. Atkins and Catherine Atkins Greenspan of Two Sisters Writing and Publishing Intro and Outro Music is Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons - By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/  

She’s founder, and Editor-in-Chief of The Common. Her short stories, translations, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Literary Review, Harper’s, and Publishers Weekly, among other places. She has a Master of Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she teaches literature, creative writing, and editing at Amherst College. Her name is Jennifer Acker and today she takes us on an adventure to explore her latest release, The Limits of the World…

She’s founder, and Editor-in-Chief of The Common. Her short stories, translations, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Literary Review, Harper’s, and Publishers Weekly, among other places.She has a Master of Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she teaches literature, creative writing, and editing at Amherst College. Her name is Jennifer Acker and today she takes us on an adventure to explore her latest release, The Limits of the World…

She’s founder, and Editor-in-Chief of The Common. Her short stories, translations, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, The Literary Review, Harper’s, and Publishers Weekly, among other places.She has a Master of Fine Arts from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and she teaches literature, creative writing, and editing at Amherst College. Her name is Jennifer Acker and today she takes us on an adventure to explore her latest release, The Limits of the World…

Sunil Chandaria is struggling to write his PhD dissertation in philosophy at Harvard University. He feels his father’s disapproval because he didn’t become a doctor, and his mother’s disapproval that he doesn’t have a job or a wife. The Chandaria family lives in Columbus, Ohio. They are emigrants from Nairobi, Kenya, but they are Gujarati-speaking Jains whose grandparents left India for jobs in Africa at the end of the 19th century. Sunil’s father is now a successful doctor and his mother owns a giftshop that sells African-made art, clothing, and gifts. When Sunil’s cousin gets injured in a horrible car accident, the family returns to Nairobi, where Sunil surprises everyone by announcing that he and his Jewish-American girlfriend are married. Then he in turn is surprised to learn that his cousin is actually his brother. The Limits of the World (Delphinium Books, 2019) is a rich novel about how we navigate the bonds of family, culture and religion in a world made smaller by immigration and technology. Jennifer Acker is founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Common. Her short stories, translations, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Guernica, n+1, Ploughshares, Harper’s, The Millions, and Publishers Weekly, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and teaches literature, creative writing, and editing at Amherst College. She was born and grew up in rural Maine and has lived in Kenya, Mexico, and Abu Dhabi. She now lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, Nishi Shah, and The Limits of the World is her first novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sunil Chandaria is struggling to write his PhD dissertation in philosophy at Harvard University. He feels his father’s disapproval because he didn’t become a doctor, and his mother’s disapproval that he doesn’t have a job or a wife. The Chandaria family lives in Columbus, Ohio. They are emigrants from Nairobi, Kenya, but they are Gujarati-speaking Jains whose grandparents left India for jobs in Africa at the end of the 19th century. Sunil’s father is now a successful doctor and his mother owns a giftshop that sells African-made art, clothing, and gifts. When Sunil’s cousin gets injured in a horrible car accident, the family returns to Nairobi, where Sunil surprises everyone by announcing that he and his Jewish-American girlfriend are married. Then he in turn is surprised to learn that his cousin is actually his brother. The Limits of the World (Delphinium Books, 2019) is a rich novel about how we navigate the bonds of family, culture and religion in a world made smaller by immigration and technology. Jennifer Acker is founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Common. Her short stories, translations, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Guernica, n+1, Ploughshares, Harper’s, The Millions, and Publishers Weekly, among other places. Acker has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, and teaches literature, creative writing, and editing at Amherst College. She was born and grew up in rural Maine and has lived in Kenya, Mexico, and Abu Dhabi. She now lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, Nishi Shah, and The Limits of the World is her first novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  Today our podcast connects with Namrata Poddar. Namrata Poddar writes fiction, non-fiction, occasionally translates Francophone writers of Afro-Asian diaspora into English and serves as Interviews Editor for Kweli where she curates a series on Race, Power, and Storytelling. For over a decade, her work has explored the intersection of storytelling and social justice via race, class, gender, place and migration. Her creative work has appeared in The Margins, Transition, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, The Feminist Wire, Necessary Fiction, Longreads (forthcoming) and elsewhere. As a literary critic, her work on islands and coastal cultures have appeared in English and in French in anthologies on the Caribbean, Pacific, and Indian Ocean across the world. She holds a Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in fiction from Bennington Writing Seminars, and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Transnational Cultures from UCLA where she taught contemporary multiethnic literature in the departments of English, African, Global, French & Francophone Studies and Honors Collegium. She has lived in different parts of the world and currently calls Huntington Beach home.     1888 Center programs are recorded and archived as a free educational resource on our website or with your favorite podcast app including Apple and Spotify. Each episode is designed to provide a unique platform for industry innovators to share stories about art, literature, music, history, science, or technology. Produced in partnership with Brew Sessions.   Producers: Jon-Barrett Ingels and Kevin Staniec Manager: Sarah Becker Host: Jon-Barrett Ingels Guest: Namrata Poddar

Season 2, Episode 38 - Keith Lesmeister Dan Sterenchuk and Tommy Estlund are honored to have as our guest, Keith Lesmeister. Keith is the author of the story collection We Could've Been Happy Here (MG Press 2017). His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, Gettysburg Review, North American Review, Redivider, Slice Magazine, and many others. His nonfiction has appeared in River Teeth, Sycamore Review, The Good Men Project, Tin House Open Bar, Water~Stone Review, and elsewhere. He received his M.F.A. from the Bennington Writing Seminars. He lives and works in rural northeast Iowa. Website: https://keithlesmeister.com Keith's book: We Could've Been Happy Here can be purchased at any of the retailers listed here: http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/we-couldve-been-happy-here-by-keith-lesmeister/ The Curiosity Hour Podcast is hosted and produced by Dan Sterenchuk and Tommy Estlund. Please join our Facebook Group, The Curiosity Hour Podcast, to continue the discussion about this episode online: www.facebook.com/groups/thecuriosityhourpodcast/ If you have any guest suggestions, comments, or feedback, please email us at guestsuggestions@thecuriosityhourpodcast.com. Disclaimers: The Curiosity Hour Podcast may contain content not suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion advised. The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are solely those of the guest(s). These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Curiosity Hour Podcast. This podcast may contain explicit language. Notes: The brief music at the beginning and end of the podcast is the track, "Trail" on the album "Trail EP" by Nobara Hayakawa. We are using under creative commons license. The artist/publisher does not endorse or approve any of the content of this podcast. freemusicarchive.org/music/Nobara_Hayakawa/

Jami Attenberg in conversation with Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney at Live Talks Los Angeles, March 21, 2017, discussing the writing life and her new novel, All Grown Up.   The talk took place at the Moss Theatre in Santa Monica, CA. From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection. Jami Attenberg  is the New York Times bestselling author of five novels, including The Middlesteins and Saint Mazie. She has contributed essays about sex, urban life, and food to The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Lenny Letter, among other publications. She divides her time between Brooklyn and New Orleans. “Jami Attenberg’s sharply drawn protagonist, Andrea, has such a riveting, propulsive voice that All Grown Up is hard to put down, but I urge you to resist reading it in one sitting. Both the prose and the author’s knowing excavation of one woman’s desires, compromises, strengths, and fears deserve closer attention. Like Andrea herself, this novel is beautiful and brutal, intelligent and funny, frank and sexy.”—Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times best-selling author of The Nest “Hilarious, courageous, and mesmerizing from page one, All Grown Up is a little gem that packs a devastating wallop. It’s that rare book I’m dying to give all my friends so we can discuss it deep into the night. I’m in awe of Jami Attenberg.” —Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette Who is Andrea Bern? When her therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid—she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh—that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult: her best friend, Indigo, is getting married; her brother—who miraculously seems unscathed by their shared tumultuous childhood—and sister-in-law are having a hoped-for baby; and her friend Matthew continues to wholly devote himself to making dark paintings at the cost of being flat broke.  But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart? Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, All Grown Up is a breathtaking display of Jami Attenberg’s power as a storyteller, a whip-smart examination of one woman’s life, lived entirely on her own terms.   Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is the New York Timesbestselling author of The Nest,which has been translated into more than 25 languages and optioned for film by Amazon Studios with Sweeney writing the adaptation. She has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. The Nest is her first novel.

Morgan Jerkins discusses her writing process. She lives and writes in New York.  She graduated from Princeton University with an AB in Comparative Literature, specializing in nineteenth century Russian literature and postwar modern Japanese literature, and she has an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She speaks six languages. Currently, she’s a contributing editor at Catapult and a Book of the Month judge. On the freelance side, her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vogue, The New York Times, The Atlantic, ELLE, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, andBuzzFeed, among many others. Her debut essay collection, THIS WILL BE MY UNDOING, is forthcoming from Harper Perennial. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Charles Bock is the author of the novels Alice & Oliver and Beautiful Children, which was a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book, and which won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Slate, as well as in numerous anthologies. He has received fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, Yaddo, UCross, and the Vermont Studio Center.  Charles is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars.  He lives with his wife, Leslie Jamison, and his daughter in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sally Ashton is a poet, writer, Editor-in-Chief of the DMQ Review, college professor, lecturer, blogger, workshop presenter, and teacher who has taught well over 60 workshops. She was appointed the second Santa Clara County Poet Laureate, April 2011, a two year term. She has collaborated with both visual artists and musicians. Her book of poems, These Metallic Days was published in 2005 as part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Choice Chapbook Series. Her second chapbook, Her Name Is Juanita, was published as a special project by Kore Press in 2009, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the press. Her first full-length collection, Some Odd Afternoon, was released February, 2010 by BlazeVOX Books. Selections were nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2011 by Jennifer K. Sweeney. A review by Dean Rader appears at Rattle online. Two poems from 2010 issues of DMQ Review, which she edits, were chosen for inclusion in Best American Poetry 2011, by guest editor Kevin Young, fall 2011. Ashton was awarded a Montalvo Artist Residency in 2011 as well as an Arts Council Silicon Valley Artist Fellowship, Poetry, 2005. Besides nominations listed above, Ashton was also a 2006 and 2001 Pushcart Prize nominee, and a finalist for Best of the Net 2007. She won First Prize in the 2014 Fish Flash Fiction Contest from Fish Publishing, Dublin, Ireland. Writing across genres and specializing in hybrid forms, Ashton’s work regularly appeared in Sentence: a journal of prose poetics, and currently in such journals as Brevity, Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry Flash, Drunken Boat, Poet Lore, and Zyzzyva. Work appears in the textbook anthology, An Introduction to the Prose Poem; in Breathe: 101 Contemporary Odes; and in best-seller Poems for the 99 Percent. She’s a guest-blogger for the Best American Poetry blog. Sally earned her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, 2003, teaches creative writing at her alma mater, San José State University, and teaches regular local workshops. She has taught in Lisbon, Portugal through Disquiet International Literary Program in 2011,2014, and 2015. A full CV of appearances is available and includes Moe’s Books, Berkeley for Poetry Flash; Frank Pictures Gallery in Santa Monica; the Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA; KGB Bar, NYC; and as a SJSU University Scholar.

Brief Encounters (W.W. Norton)What anthology could unite the work of such distinct writers as Paul Auster, Julian Barnes, Marvin Bell, Sven Birkerts, Meghan Daum, Stuart Dybek, Patricia Hampl, Pico Iyer, Leslie Jamison, Phillip Lopate, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Lawrence Weschler?  What anthology could successfully blend literary forms as varied as memoir, aesthetic critique, political and social commentary, slice-of-life observation, conjecture, fragment, and contemplation?  What anthology could so deeply and steadily plumb the mysteries of human experience in two or three or five page bursts? For the late Judith Kitchen, editor of such seminal anthologies as Short Takes, In Short, and In Brief, "flash" nonfiction—the "short"—was an ideal tool with which to describe and interrogate our fragmented world.  Sharpened to a point, these essays sounded a resonance that owed as much to poetry as to the familiar pleasures of large-scale creative nonfiction.  Now, in Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, Kitchen and her co-editor, Dinah Lenney, present nearly eighty new selections, many of which have never been published before, having been written expressly for this anthology. Taken together, as a curated gallery of impressions and experiences, the essays in Brief Encounters exist in dialogue with each other: arguing, agreeing, contradicting, commiserating, reflecting.  Like Walt Whitman, the anthology is large and contains multitudes.  Certain themes, however, weave their way throughout the whole: the nature of family, the influence of childhood, the centrality of place, and the role of memory.  In Lynne Sharon Schwartz's "The Renaissance," for example, the author remembers her relationship with her mother, tracing her own adolescent route from intimacy to contempt.  In "The Fan," Eduardo Galeano dramatizes the communal devotions of the soccer fan.  And in "There Are Distances Between Us," Roxanne Gay considers the seemingly impossible and illogical demands of love.  What binds these and many other disparate essays together is the ways in which they enrich, color, and shade each other, the manner in which they take on new properties and dimensions when read in conjunction. Dinah Lenney is the author of The Object Parade and Bigger than Life, and, with Judith Kitchen, edited, Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction. She serves as core faculty in the Bennington Writing Seminars and the Rainier Writing Workshop, and as the nonfiction editor at Los Angeles Review of Books.Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir, and The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller. Her work has appeared in Salon, Slate, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Redbook, O the Oprah Magazine, and other publications. She lives in Palm Springs and teaches in the UCR Palm Desert MFA Program in Writing and the Performing Arts.Chris Daley’s work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, DUM DUM ZINE, and The Collagist, where “Thoughts on Time After Viewing Christian Marclay's ‘The Clock’” first appeared. She teaches academic writing at the California Institute of Technology and, as Co-Director of Writing Workshops Los Angeles, offers creative nonfiction workshops for students at all levels. Chris has a Ph.D. in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center. Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, nonfiction and journalism. Her book of poems include Scattered at Sea (Penguin, 2015), and Dearest Creature (Penguin, 2009) which was named a New York Times Notable Book, and was short listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. Her previous twelve books include Ghost Girl, Medicine, Crown of Weeds, Nerve Storm, and Bitter Angel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. She was the 2010 guest editor of the yearly anthology Best American Poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry several volumes of Best American Poetry and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. She currently teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the University of California at Irvine.Tod Goldberg is the author of a dozen books, including, most recently, Gangsterland. His nonfiction, criticism, and essays have appeared widely, including in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Best American Essays. He lives in Indio, CA where he directs the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside. Jim Krusoe has published five novels and two books of stories, Blood Lake and Abductions. His first novel, Iceland, was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2002. Since then, Tin House Books has published Girl Factory, Erased, Toward You,and Parsifal. Jim teaches writing at Santa Monica College as well as in Antioch's MFA Creative Writing Program. He has also published five books of poems. His latest novel, The Sleep Garden, is due out this winter from Tin House.

Journeying with us today are two phenomenal men: Best-selling Author, International Speaker, Business Strategist and Intuitive Mentor Ken D. Foster of Premier Coaching (www.premiercoaching.com), and Poet, Author, and Literary Activist E. Ethelbert Miller (www.eethelbertmiller.com). The accolades for both are downright stunning. Ken is one of the country's leading figures in the science of business and consciousness. Over the last 19 years Ken has worked with thousands of clients who have increased their awareness, changed viewpoints and have transcended their limitations around business, money, success, relationship, and communication. Ken is a master at guiding clients to find the deep answers to their greatest challenges in business and life by showing them how to attain soulful communion and apply proven methods to realize peace, abundance, joy, and fulfillment. He will speak with us today about the techniques he uses, how he came to the path of the work he does, and the many ways his clients struggle then overcome. E. Ethelbert Miller knows all that it is possible to know about African American literature; he is an international expert on Black writing. He has written over 11 books as well as four anthologies and counting. He is the board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), a progressive multi-issue think tank and a board member of The Writer's Center and editor of Poet Lore magazine.  From 1974-2015, he was the director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University.  Mr. Miller is the former chair of the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. and a former core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. We will speak with Poet Miller about several issues of the day, learning from the breath, depth, and width of his vast knowledge of the legacy that is African American writing.  

Please join us this afternoon as students in the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program read from their work. Readers include Autumn McAlpin, Stephanie Abraham, Brianna J.L. Smyk, Annalouise Carter, and Mellinda Hensley. They will be joined by faculty member Dinah Lenney. Hailing from Memphis, TN, Autumn McAlpin is now a writer, director, and producer working in LA as she completes her MPW degree at USC. Autumn has worked as a freelance columnist for The Orange County Register for nine years, and she is the author of Real World 101: A Survival Guide to Life After High School, Amazon's top-selling graduation gift book in 2011 and 2012. An award-winning filmmaker, Autumn is the writer and producer of the upcoming feature film Waffle Street, starring James Lafferty, Danny Glover, and Julie Gonzalo. She has two other features in development. Stephanie Abraham is an essayist, media critic, blogger and business writer. Her writings have appeared in Bitch, Role Reboot and Mizna. She is currently working on her first memoir. Visit her at StephanieAbraham.com. Brianna J.L. Smyk is the nonfiction editor of the Southern California Review and a student in USC's Master of Professional Writing program. A fiction and nonfiction writer, Brianna holds a master's in art history and was the lead arts writer for NolaVie in New Orleans. AnnaLouise Carter is a prose and poetry writer living in South Los Angeles. Originally from Oregon, she graduated with a degree in English from Stanford University, and has also studied at Oxford and the University of Salamanca. She has been published in xoJane and Christianity Today, and shares a home with her husband, two housemates, and an overweight black cat. Mellinda Hensley is a fiction writer at MPW and the Editor-in-Chief of the Southern California Review. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Writing and Journalism at the University of Evansville in Indiana, and has been published in The Boiler Journal, LA Magazine, the Review Review, The Ohio River Review, and also currently contributes to the blog Smash Cut Culture.Dinah Lenney is the author of a collection of essays, The Object Parade (Counterpoint Press), and Bigger Than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published as part of the American Lives series at the University of Nebraska Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in a wide range of publications and anthologies including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, AGNI, Creative Nonfiction, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, and Brevity.com. Dinah is the senior nonfiction editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and serves as core faculty for the Bennington Writing Seminars, the Rainier Writing Workshop, and in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. www.dinahlenney.com (@dinahlenney on Twitter).

The Object Parade (Counterpoint) This new collection of interconnected essays marches to a provocative premise: what if one way to understand your life was to examine the objects within it? Which objects would you choose? What memories do they hold? And lined up in a row, what stories do they have to tell?  For tonight's reading, Dinah Lenney will be joined by Los Angeles Times book critic (and author himself) David Ulin. In recalling her experience, Dinah Lenney's essays each begin with one thing -- real or imaginary, lost or found, rare or ordinary, animal, vegetable, mineral, edible. Each object comes with a memory or a story, and so sparks an opportunity for rue or reflection or confession or revelation, having to do with her coming of age as a daughter, mother, actor, and writer: the piano that holds secrets to family history and inheritance; the gifted watches that tell so much more than time; the little black dress that carries all of youth's love and longing; the purple scarf that stands in for her journey from New York to Los Angeles, across stage and screen, to pursue her acting dream.  Read together or apart, the essays project the bountiful mosaic of life and love, of moving to Los Angeles and raising a family; of coming to terms with place, relationship, failures, and success; of dealing with up-ended notions about home and family and career and aging, too. Taken together, they add up to a pastiche of an artful and quirky life, lovingly remembered, compellingly told, wrapped up in the ties that bind the passage of time.  Dinah Lenney is the author of Bigger than Life, published in the American Lives Series at the University of Nebraska Press, and excerpted for the “Lives” column in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. She serves as core faculty for the Bennington Writing Seminars and for the Rainier Writing Workshop, and in the writing program at the University of Southern California. She has played a wide range of roles in theater and television, on shows such as ER, Murphy Brown, Law and Order, Monk, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Sons of Anarchy. She lives in Los Angeles. 

Alena (Riverhead Books) In an inspired restaging of Daphne du Maurier's classic Rebecca, a young curator finds herself haunted by the legacy of her predecessor. At the Venice Biennale, an aspiring young curator is given the career break of a lifetime when she meets Bernard Augustin, the wealthy, enigmatic founder of the Nauk, a cutting-edge art museum on Cape Cod. Would she like to take the reins at the museum—a position that has remained vacant since the tragic death of the charismatic Alena, Augustin's childhood friend and muse? Shaking off her Midwestern past, our heroine—nameless, as is du Maurier's original—jumps at the chance, only to find herself well beyond her depths. Like du Maurier's Manderley, the Nauk echoes with phantoms of the past—a past obsessively preserved by the sinister, Mrs. Danvers-like business manager who was passionately devoted to Alena. The shadow of her predecessor hangs over the narrator as she tries to shift the Nauk away from the extreme art favored by Alena and to express her own sense of what art is. When new evidence calls into question the circumstances of Alena's death, however, her loyalties, integrity, and courage are put to the test and shattering secrets come to the surface. A delicious restaging of one of the most popular novels of the 20th century (later an Academy Award-winning Hitchcock film), Alena is also a stirring exploration of the role of beauty and the nature of originality. Rachel Pastan is the author of two previous novels, Lady of the Snakes and This Side of Married, and has won numerous prizes for her short fiction. A member of the core faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars, she is also Editor-at-Large for the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, where she writes the blog Miranda.

Students from the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work, joined by author and faculty member Dinah Lenney. Dinah Lenney is the author of Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published by the University of Nebraska in Tobias Wolff's American Lives Series. She co-authored Acting for Young Actors and her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Creative Nonfiction, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Dinah holds a BA from Yale, an MFA from Bennington, and a certificate from the Neighborhood Playhouse School where she studied with Sandy Meisner. She teaches nonfiction for the Rainier Writing Workshop, as well as in the Bennington Writing Seminars. A working actor, she recurred on NBC's critically acclaimed ER for 15 years, and has guest-starred in television series too numerous to mention.

Students from the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work, joined by author and faculty member Dinah Lenney. Dinah Lenney is the author of Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published by the University of Nebraska in Tobias Wolff's American Lives Series. She co-authored Acting for Young Actors and her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Creative Nonfiction, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Dinah holds a BA from Yale, an MFA from Bennington, and a certificate from the Neighborhood Playhouse School where she studied with Sandy Meisner. She teaches nonfiction for the Rainier Writing Workshop, as well as in the Bennington Writing Seminars. A working actor, she recurred on NBC's critically acclaimed ER for 15 years, and has guest-starred in television series too numerous to mention.

Misha Angrist, PhD Assistant Professor of the Practice Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy Here is a Human Being: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics Misha Angrist knows the field of personal genomics well. In April 2007, he became the fourth subject in Harvard geneticist George Church's Personal Genome Project. In 2009, he was among the first few people to have his entire genome sequenced. Dr. Angrist will share his experience as chronicled in is book, Here is a Human Being: At the Dawn of Personal Genomics, and present the pros, cons, and potential impact of personal genomics on human health and society. Misha Angrist holds a PhD degree in Genetics from Case Western Reserve University, and was formerly a board-eligible genetic counselor. He received his MFA in Writing and Literature from the Bennington Writing Seminars, is a past winner of the Brenda L. Smart Fiction Prize, and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Dr. Angrist was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. Don't miss this month's installment of Café Sci! Tim Palucka, Angela Stabryla and Linda Ortenzo, co-organizers Café Scientifique Pittsburgh Monday, June 6, 2011 at 7 pm Carnegie Science Center

Leslie McGrath’s poems have been widely published in the US, as well as in England, Ireland and Japan. She is the author of the collection Opulent Hunger, Opulent Rage (2009), and the chapbook Toward Anguish, which won the 2007 Philbrick Poetry Award. McGrath received her MFA in literature and poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars after receiving an MA in clinical psychology from Wesleyan University. Her poems have appeared frequently online and in print, and have been anthologized both in the US and India. McGrath was awarded a 2004 Nimrod/Hardman Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry, a 2007 Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism and has served on the judges’ panels for the Connecticut Book Award in Poetry, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Maine Arts Commission. Her literary interviews have been published frequently in The Writer's Chronicle and have also been aired on public radio.