Podcasts about Creative writing

This episode covers a new anthology from Wayne State University Press. Titled Black Summers: Growing Up in the Urban Outdoors, this vibrant collection invites readers to breathe deeply and return to that "carefree" season from an urban perspective. These emerging and award-winning creators of all ages recount the struggles and triumph of staking their claim to public spaces. Ranging from poetry to essay, creative nonfiction to comics, this collection blends nostalgia with struggle and resilience. DESIREE COOPERDesiree Cooper, the book's editor, was born in Japan as a military dependent and spent her adulthood in Detroit. She now lives in coastal Virginia where she is raising her grandchildren. She is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, and among her accolades are a 2017 Midland Authors Award Winner in Adult Fiction, a 2017 Michigan Notable Book, a 2016 Midwest Book Award Finalist, and inclusion in the Poets and Writers 5 Over 50.NANDI COMER Our next author is Nandi Comer, an award-winning poet and essayist. She served as the 2nd Poet Laureate of the state of Michigan 2023-2025, during which time she spearheaded Michigan Words and the video series Michigan in Verse. She is the author of the chapbook American Family: A Syndrome. Her debut poetry collection, Tapping Out, won the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award. Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poets, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, and others. She currently serves as the 2025-2026 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Creative Writing and co-director of Detroit Lit. ROCHELLE WILSON-ELLISNext we have, Rochelle Wilson-Ellis. She is a U.S. Navy veteran whose journey has been shaped by service, resilience, and care for others. Having served aboard the USS Ross and USS George Washington, Rochelle has carried that same spirit of dedication into every chapter of her life. A loving mother of two and a certified baker and pastry chef, she has also spent years working in healthcare. In 2021, Rochelle was trained as a citizen journalist through the Sarah E. Ray Project, helping preserve the oral histories of those who attended Detroit's legendary Action House in the 1970s and '80s. LILLEN WALLEROur final reader is Detroit native Lillien Waller, a poet and essayist. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets, and, in 2015, she received a Kresge Artist Fellowship in Poetry. In 2023, Lillien was awarded an Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Her essay “Listen Children, All Is Not Lost” appears in the anthology Black Summers: Growing Up in the Urban Outdoors. For more information on the book and the authors, please see the Wayne State University Press website. 

We can't stop thinking about our incredible chat with Grandpere's Ghost Swamp Author Rachel M. Marsh! We can't wait for you to tune in! But first, here's more about Rachel!Rachel M. Marsh grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where she took field trips to Alligator Bayou and assumed the entire United States celebrated Mardi Gras. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Tulane University in New Orleans, where she studied English and Psychology and minored in Spanish.After graduating, she moved to Boston where she earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Children from Simmons University. There, she studied under smart and supportive professors. She made a strong group of friends who continue to write together long after graduation. She had the opportunity to work in publishing and learn under the mentorship of editors at independent publishing houses. However, she missed her home. She missed her family and now-husband. She missed crawfish boils and thunderstorms and every get-together brewing a fresh pot of coffee. And did you know, winter in Boston lasts about half the year!?She's back in New Orleans now, where she eats the world's best food and stays busy with her almost-hundred-year-old house. She works for the New Orleans Public Library, and her writing is represented by Larissa Melo Pienkowski at Azantian Literary Agency.https://rachelmmarsh.com/about

Women who reinvent themselves|Joni Marie Iraci AuthorJoni Marie Iraci, author of the award-winning novel "Vatican Daughter," Joni Marie Iraci, author of the award-winning novel "Vatican Daughter," takes the reader behind the walls of the Vatican to expose corruption and the covered up scandal involving a fictional first American pope. It is also the story of a mother's relentless search for her child while coming head-to-head with the most powerful entity on earth. Read about the little known historical fact of the true papal kidnappings of Jewish children in this intriguing novel. "Vatican Daughter," transports the reader to Italy where the ambiance and landscape serve to give the reader a reprieve from the suspense.Links:https://www.jonimarieiraci.com/Tags:podcast for creatives,creative podcast,podcast creator interviews,professional podcast,creative podcasts,podcast host interviews,creative podcast ideas,Creative Writing,Female centric thrillers,Freelance Writer,Historical Fiction,Reinvention,Returning to college in your later years,Women Empowerment,Women's Issues,Writing A BookSupport PEG by checking out our Sponsors:Download and use Newsly for free now from www.newsly.me or from the link in the description, and use promo code “GHOST” and receive a 1-month free premium subscription.The best tool for getting podcast guests:https://podmatch.com/signup/phantomelectricghostSubscribe to our Instagram for exclusive content:https://www.instagram.com/expansive_sound_experiments/Subscribe to our YouTube https://youtube.com/@phantomelectricghost?si=rEyT56WQvDsAoRprRSShttps://anchor.fm/s/3b31908/podcast/rssSubstackhttps://substack.com/@phantomelectricghost?utm_source=edit-profile-page

The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed. William Gibson We need to talk about Big Tech, and particularly AI - it's ubiquitous, it's powerful, and currently, it's unconstrained and this is not an ideal combination if we live in the real world of mass extinction where human and more-than-human communities are being destroyed to serve the death cult of predatory capitalism at its most rapacious. The question is  - how do we shift the dial on the future when so many of those whose fortunes are sunk into Tech, and AI in particular, seem to be steeped in the Dark Triad of psychopathy, sadism and narcissism? Is there any sign of hope amidst all the chaos and the frozen despair that narratives of inevitability foster in us?We turn this week to long-time friend of the podcast, Nathalie Nahai. Nathalie is a celebrated author, keynote speaker and host of the glorious Nathalie Nahai in Conversation podcast which enquires into our relationship with one another, with technology and with the living world. She's author of the international best-seller Webs Of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion and, more recently, Business Unusual: Values, Uncertainty and the Psychology of Brand Resilience which has been described as “One of the defining business books of our times”. She's a consultant, artist and the founder of Flourishing Futures Salon, a project that offers curated gastronomical gatherings that explore how we can thrive in times of turbulence and change.LinksNathalie's website Nathalie's podcast BooksBusiness UnusualWebs of Influence Papal Encyclical on AINathalie's Resources of wonderful people already in this space PEOPLECarole Cadwalladr - https://broligarchy.substack.com/ Timnit Gebru - https://dair-institute.org/team/timnit-gebru/ Cory Doctorow - https://craphound.com/Gary Marcus - https://garymarcus.substack.com/ Carl Miller - DEMOS - https://demos.co.uk/people/carl-miller/ Karen Hao - https://karendhao.com/Dr Joy Buolamwini - https://www.poetofcode.com/Wakanyi Hoffman - https://hoffmanwakanyi.wixsite.com/wakanyihoffmanZak Stein - https://www.zakstein.org/ Tristan Harris & Ezra Raskin - https://www.humanetech.com/ EVENTSUN's AI for Good: Global Summit: https://aiforgood.itu.int/  BOOKSHyperscalers - Paris Marx End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World - Naomi Klein & Astra TaylorArtificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines - Sherry TurkleEmpire of AI - Karen HaoCareless People - Sarah Wynn WilliamsStories of Your Life and Others - Ted ChiangThe Future - Naomi AldermanEnshittification - Cory DoctorowORGANISATIONShttps://dair-institute.org/https://www.thenerve.news/https://rslmedia.org/https://airesistlist.org/https://www.lumiera.ai/ —About Accidental Gods—We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'BECOMING A GOOD ANCESTOR' which will run on Sunday 13th September 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along, but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are hereManda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is writing a book just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

Unraveling the history of the Jim Crow South, personal stories are interwoven with humor and heartbreak. Tayari Jones is an author and C.H. Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University. She joins host Krys Boyd to discuss her new novel, which follows two young Black women – both motherless and as close as sisters – navigating the era with different trajectories. The book is called “Kin.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation? That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).  The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing. Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a substitute for close reading but as an extension of it. In our conversation, we discussed some of Genesis's most familiar stories from unexpected angles. What if Eve's pursuit of knowledge is more complex than simple disobedience? Why does Noah never challenge God's decision to destroy the world? What happens when Hagar's perspective becomes central rather than peripheral? Why does Abraham argue for the people of Sodom but remain silent when Isaac is placed on the altar? And how does the Joseph narrative negotiate the relationship between divine providence and human responsibility? We also explore the broader methodological questions raised by the book. Does describing midrash as "fan fiction" make an ancient interpretive tradition more accessible, or does it risk misunderstanding it? How far can readers imaginatively expand biblical narratives while remaining faithful to the text? And what safeguards distinguish responsible interpretation from speculation? Whether you are interested in biblical studies, literary criticism, Jewish interpretation, or creative writing, our conversation offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancient texts continue to invite new readings. More than providing answers, Rosenson's book encourages readers to ask better questions and, in doing so, to discover that Genesis remains as intellectually and ethically challenging today as it has been for centuries. You can find more about Sarah and her work here. Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. 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

The trials, tribulations and beauty of possessing a body, featuring poems by Jane Ellen Glasser, Susan Okie, Don Thompson, Joyce LaMers, and Larnell Custis Butler.Support the show

Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation? That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).  The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing. Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a substitute for close reading but as an extension of it. In our conversation, we discussed some of Genesis's most familiar stories from unexpected angles. What if Eve's pursuit of knowledge is more complex than simple disobedience? Why does Noah never challenge God's decision to destroy the world? What happens when Hagar's perspective becomes central rather than peripheral? Why does Abraham argue for the people of Sodom but remain silent when Isaac is placed on the altar? And how does the Joseph narrative negotiate the relationship between divine providence and human responsibility? We also explore the broader methodological questions raised by the book. Does describing midrash as "fan fiction" make an ancient interpretive tradition more accessible, or does it risk misunderstanding it? How far can readers imaginatively expand biblical narratives while remaining faithful to the text? And what safeguards distinguish responsible interpretation from speculation? Whether you are interested in biblical studies, literary criticism, Jewish interpretation, or creative writing, our conversation offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancient texts continue to invite new readings. More than providing answers, Rosenson's book encourages readers to ask better questions and, in doing so, to discover that Genesis remains as intellectually and ethically challenging today as it has been for centuries. You can find more about Sarah and her work here. Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

TEATIME WITH MISS LIZ SERVES: Terrance Niedziela Jr. July 14th | 7 PM EST Title:Tales of Aras: Creating Worlds That Inspire Courage & Imagination Tagline:Where imagination meets purpose, every story becomes an adventure worth living. Description: Join Miss Liz for an inspiring conversation with Terrance Niedziela Jr., award-winning speculative fiction author, educator, and creator of the Tales of Aras series. From writing his very first books in the fourth grade to earning degrees in Ancient Middle East History, Creative Writing, and English, Terrance has dedicated his life to the power of storytelling. His passion for history, faith, imagination, and education comes together in stories that encourage readers to explore courage, hope, and purpose through unforgettable adventures. As a middle school English teacher, Terrance believes stories have the power to ignite curiosity and transform lives—both inside and outside the classroom. Grab your favourite cup and join us as we explore the worlds we create, the lessons we learn, and the adventures that shape who we become. Opening: Welcome everyone to another inspiring edition of Teatime with Miss Liz, where every conversation is brewed with purpose, connection, and storytelling. Today we're excited to welcome Terrance Niedziela Jr., author of the Tales of Aras series, award-winning speculative fiction writer, educator, and lifelong creator. From writing stories as a child to becoming an accomplished author and English teacher, Terrance has spent his life encouraging others to imagine boldly, think deeply, and discover purpose through storytelling. Terrance, welcome to the Teatime table! Closing: Today's conversation reminded us that stories have the remarkable ability to shape lives, encourage hope, and awaken imagination. Terrance showed us that creativity isn't simply about escaping reality—it's about discovering truth, courage, and purpose within it. Whether through teaching or writing, he continues to inspire others to embrace their own creative journey. Thank you, Terrance, for sharing your passion, your wisdom, and your heart with us today. Terrance Niedziela Jr. is an award-winning speculative fiction author, educator, and creator of the Tales of Aras series. Holding degrees in Ancient Middle East History, Creative Writing, and English, he combines history, faith, imagination, and education to create meaningful stories that inspire courage, creativity, and hope. About Terrance:• Award-Winning Author• Creator of the Tales of Aras Series• English Teacher• Devotional Writer• Speculative Fiction Writer• Creative Storyteller Favourite Colours:Royal CrimsonImperial PurpleEmerald Green One Word That Describes Him:Creator Terrance's T-E-E:TenaciouslyEncouragingExpressiveness Three Words That Share His Story:• Imagination• Faith• Storytellinghttps://terranceniedzielajr.com/

Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation? That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).  The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing. Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a substitute for close reading but as an extension of it. In our conversation, we discussed some of Genesis's most familiar stories from unexpected angles. What if Eve's pursuit of knowledge is more complex than simple disobedience? Why does Noah never challenge God's decision to destroy the world? What happens when Hagar's perspective becomes central rather than peripheral? Why does Abraham argue for the people of Sodom but remain silent when Isaac is placed on the altar? And how does the Joseph narrative negotiate the relationship between divine providence and human responsibility? We also explore the broader methodological questions raised by the book. Does describing midrash as "fan fiction" make an ancient interpretive tradition more accessible, or does it risk misunderstanding it? How far can readers imaginatively expand biblical narratives while remaining faithful to the text? And what safeguards distinguish responsible interpretation from speculation? Whether you are interested in biblical studies, literary criticism, Jewish interpretation, or creative writing, our conversation offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancient texts continue to invite new readings. More than providing answers, Rosenson's book encourages readers to ask better questions and, in doing so, to discover that Genesis remains as intellectually and ethically challenging today as it has been for centuries. You can find more about Sarah and her work here. Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Can creative writing become a form of biblical interpretation? That is the provocative question at the heart of my conversation with Sarah Rosenson about her new book, Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis: A Guide to Close Reading of and Creative Writing on the Bible (Cherry Orchard Books, 2026).  The modern phenomenon of fan fiction involves readers writing creative pieces that answer questions left open in favorite works of literature. This also describes the ancient tradition of midrash, where readers write stories filling in gaps in the Bible. In Fan Fiction on the Book of Genesis Sarah Rosenson discusses the questions left open in the first book of the Bible, and every chapter includes questions for the characters in the stories, which can serve as prompts for conversations or creative writing. Rosenson argues that careful reading reveals narrative gaps: characters whose motivations remain unexplained, conversations that never occur, ethical dilemmas left unresolved, and emotions that are only implied. Drawing on the long tradition of Jewish midrash, she proposes that readers can engage these silences through disciplined creative writing, using imagination not as a substitute for close reading but as an extension of it. In our conversation, we discussed some of Genesis's most familiar stories from unexpected angles. What if Eve's pursuit of knowledge is more complex than simple disobedience? Why does Noah never challenge God's decision to destroy the world? What happens when Hagar's perspective becomes central rather than peripheral? Why does Abraham argue for the people of Sodom but remain silent when Isaac is placed on the altar? And how does the Joseph narrative negotiate the relationship between divine providence and human responsibility? We also explore the broader methodological questions raised by the book. Does describing midrash as "fan fiction" make an ancient interpretive tradition more accessible, or does it risk misunderstanding it? How far can readers imaginatively expand biblical narratives while remaining faithful to the text? And what safeguards distinguish responsible interpretation from speculation? Whether you are interested in biblical studies, literary criticism, Jewish interpretation, or creative writing, our conversation offers a thoughtful discussion of how ancient texts continue to invite new readings. More than providing answers, Rosenson's book encourages readers to ask better questions and, in doing so, to discover that Genesis remains as intellectually and ethically challenging today as it has been for centuries. You can find more about Sarah and her work here. Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her work explores the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, especially within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Art criticism is vanishing from mainstream media, but here's the uncomfortable question: does art and culture still need critics? Our host, Joana P. R. Neves, art curator and writer, examines why critics are leaving big outlets without being replaced—and what this means for art criticism, artistic quality assessment, curatorial etiquette, and the future of art evaluation itself. What is art criticism actually for? And where does Joana's feminist critique of critique lead to? And who decides what's good art now? Or, rather, is “good art” the yardstick by which art experiences should be measured?Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionistaJoana explores 3 questions in this episode: What is Art Criticism? Who reads it and who or what does art criticism serve? And finally, what is her own relation with it as someone who admittedly is not fond of the genre?Sign up for a tiered monthly support: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2624749/monetization/supporter_settings Your contribution keeps us going.Art Etiquette Segment guest: Elizabeth Botten, Reference Specialist at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art Art question: what can we do to accommodate visitors and make their exhibition experience enjoyable while preserving art etiquette?Soon: Bonus – full length Art Etiquette episodes.Segment: Brainstorm in a Teacup:Come for the art, stay for the creative writing segment, where Joana reads short texts from her notebooks exposing her inner thoughts and odd fictional flash writing.Jingle: "Wunder", experimental poem by Joana P. R. Neves.0:00: Intro: Where to continue your Exhibitionistas experience.2:27: Today's question: is art criticism still valid?4:56: Why are art critics vanishing? And how?7:05: 3 guiding questions of the episode: what is it, who does it serve and who is reading - or not8:46: What is art criticism? A scandal and a text.15:35: Genius, excellence, quality: are these outdated questions?24:35: Who is reading art criticism?27:12: Art Etiquette with Elizabeth Botten38:08: What does art criticism do, and what or who is it upholding?46:44: Joana's honest reckoning with art criticism54:14: Brainstorm in a Teacup (Creative Writing segment)Did the episode stir Art Wonderment memories? Share them via text or voice message.Support the showCreated & Hosted by Dr. Joana P. R. Neves, art curator and writer with over 20 years of experience in the contemporary art field. Artistic director of Drawing Now Paris since 2018, she has worked across the industry, from the art market to education. She co-launched the art residency and project space Worlding in 2020. Exhibitionistas' first year offered exhibition discussions with guest co-host Emily Harding; organically, it grew into a more experimental show exploring art topics, stories and interviews complemented by Joana's publication Art Thinkosaurus on Substack. She champions ‘Art Wonderment's' embrace of complexity against the lure of ready-made opinions. A polyglot, she grew up in Lisbon, studied and lived in Paris, to finally settle in London with her artist husband, four children and two cats. Find us:On Instagram – @exhibitionistas_podcastOn Substack (NEWSLETTER: sign up!): Art Thinkosaurus > Exhibitionistas FilesOnline: www.exhibitionistaspodcast.comDo you want to be a guest on Art Etiquette? Reach out: joana@exhibitionistaspodcast.comCopyright: Joana P. R. Neves, 2024.

In this episode, Soren speaks with Nadya Williams, author of Christians Reading Classics: An Introduction to Greco-Roman Classics from Homer to Boethius, about the importance of reading the pagan classics through a Christian lens. They explore how slow, attentive reading of ancient texts can shape moral imagination and civic virtue.Nadya is Books Editor at Mere Orthodoxy and Interim Director of the MFA in Creative Writing at Ashland University. Be sure to grab a copy of Christians Reading Classics wherever books are sold!

Serenity is the follow-on movie from Joss Whedon's series, Firefly. While the movie had a guaranteed audience, the story suffers because the main protagonist doesn't have a clear object of desire, however, the antagonist's OOD is super clear and it saves the movie. Valerie's exceptional study of the four types of protagonist moves up a notch again, as she explores the ‘lost soul' theory for the anti-hero. - M Submit your query letter and first 10 pages writing sample at storynerd.ca.For access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.To subscribe to Kat's Keynotes (Substack), click here.Watch us on YouTube!

In an oppressive and hateful society, joy is an audacious form of resistance. Today on the show, we're celebrating Pride in July. Host Ali Muldrow is joined by two guests in the studio, Alexandria Delcourt and Sean O'Brien. They tell stories about LGBTQ Wisconsin, what's hopeful and harmful in our political moment, and how not to let fascism rain on your Pride parade. They reflect on Pride events last month, including the state's first two spirit pow wow that Delacourt profiled for Our Lives magazine. O'Brien says that he's seen a growth in Pride festivals in small towns all over Wisconsin, debunking the idea that queer folks aren't welcome except in metropolitan areas. Meanwhile, policies related to healthcare and education make it hard for people just to be people in Wisconsin. Some hospitals aren't providing gender affirming care right now, due to a Trump administration change in funding. Just this spring, the Watertown school board canceled a student performance of “A Mother of a Revolution,” an instrumental song that pays tribute to trans activist Marsha P. Johnson. A lack of education and understanding drives hate, and the antidote is advocacy and representation. There are three LGBTQ+ candidates running for state office this season. Alexandria Delcourt is a writer and editor based in Madison. She earned her MFA in fiction in 2014, taught English and Creative Writing at UW-Whitewater, co-produced the Moth StorySLAM, and now works as an editor for Our Lives. Sean O'Brien is the Policy and Advocacy Director at Fair Wisconsin, the state's only LGBTQ+ civil rights and political advocacy organization. He is also serving his first term on the Madison Common Council. Featured image of a Pride memorial outside The Stonewall Inn Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post We're Celebrating Pride All Year appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

A thoughtful meditation on sliced bread, featuring poems by Lynn Wood Dizard, Madelyn Garner, and Patricia Bollin.Support the show

Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir; The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller, Editor's Pick, and a finalist for the PEN-USA Award; Sanctuary, a New York Times Editor's Pick; and Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg. Emily Rapp Black has received awards and fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation; the Jentel Arts Foundation; the Corporation of Yaddo; the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where she was a winter writing fellow among other awards. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California-Riverside, where she also teaches in the School of Medicine. Her new nonfiction book is called I Would Die If I Were You: Notes on Art and Truthtelling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's the key to choosing comp (comparative) titles that pique an agent's curiosity? Should you use films or tv shows? What about huge bestsellers — would those make good comps, and if so, in which circumstances? In today's episode, Kathleen and I discuss an upmarket speculative thriller and discuss comp title choices, killer opening lines and, you guessed it ... exposition! And if you want to read the query letters and first 10 pages writing samples we discuss in these Hook Your Reader episodes, be sure to subscribe to my mailing list. -V. Submit your query letter and first 10 pages writing sample at storynerd.ca.For access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.To subscribe to Kat's Keynotes (Substack), click here.Watch us on YouTube!

Professor Megan Mayhew Bergman is an award-winning fiction writer, conservation journalist, filmmaker, and cultural critic. She serves as Director of Creative Writing at Middlebury College and Director of the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference. She is the author of four books and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Harper's Bazaar, and elsewhere.See more of Megan's work here: https://www.mayhewbergman.com

New York Times bestselling author and Shakespeare Professor Emeritus, Eloisa James, spoke with us about balancing literary scholarship with romance writing, leaving academia to write full-time, and her new “gothic adjacent” novel, THE LAST LADY B. Eloisa James is a New York Times bestselling author who has lead a “double life” as both Mary Bly—a Harvard, Oxford, and Yale-educated Shakespeare professor—and Eloisa James—a powerhouse of historical romance (recognized for her Regency and Georgian-era romances). Eloisa, called “a reigning queen of romance” by CBS Sunday Morning and a newly retired Shakespeare professor, continues to reinvent herself with her latest novel. THE LAST LADY B is a sharp, contemporary take on historical romance and her first foray into near-gothic storytelling—described as Jane Austen meets The White Lotus in the Scottish Highlands. Publishers Weekly said of the book in a starred review, "As the intrigue ramps up—complete with death, scandalous revelations, criminal allegations, and the potential for supernatural interference—sparks fly …" Eloisa James inherited a fascination with literature from her father, American Book Award-winning poet Robert Bly; her mother, short story author Carol Bly; and her godfather, Pulitzer Prize winner James Wright. [Discover The Writer Files Extra: Get 'The Writer Files' Podcast Delivered Straight to Your Inbox at writerfiles.fm] [If you're a fan of The Writer Files, please click FOLLOW to automatically see new interviews. And drop us a rating or a review wherever you listen] In this file Eloisa James, Milena, and I discussed: The burnout she experienced as a professor and former head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University Why she decided to break the fourth wall and write her latest in first person What the romance genre offers writers in creative freedom and experimentation Her Popular course on writing genre fiction “Dragons, Daggers, and Dukes” How she collaborated with co-author Julia Quinn And a lot more! Show Notes: ElevenReader is a new, award-winning audio app for iOS, Android, Web Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/files! #squarepod eloisajames.com  The Last Lady B: A Novel By Eloisa James (Author) Eloisa James on Facebook Eloisa James on TikTok Eloisa James on Instagram Milena Gonzalez | Writer | Reader | Book Reviewer diary_of_a_book_babe on Instagram Kelton Reid Instagram Kelton Reid on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you create an emotional connection between a reader and an unlikeable character? That's one of the most common questions we get as editors. The answer lies in understanding the anti-hero protagonist and Birds of Prey offers up a whole group of them to study. And where there are multiple protagonists, there are multiple plotlines. And each of those plotlines needs its own premise statement. It's a full episode this week! Enjoy! -V. Submit your query letter and first 10 pages writing sample at storynerd.ca.For access to writing templates and worksheets, and more than 70 hours of training (all for free), subscribe to Valerie's Inner Circle.To learn to read like a writer, visit Melanie's website.To subscribe to Kat's Keynotes (Substack), click here.Watch us on YouTube!

Fluent Fiction - Spanish: Overcoming Stage Fright: Mateo's Moment of Brilliance Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/es/episode/2026-07-01-22-34-02-es Story Transcript:Es: En el corazón de una antigua villa española, donde las paredes contaban historias de tiempos pasados y las brisas invernales agitaban tenuemente las camelias, tres amigos se preparaban para el gran espectáculo de la escuela.En: In the heart of an ancient villa in Spain, where the walls told stories of times gone by and the winter breezes gently stirred the camellias, three friends were preparing for the big school show.Es: Mateo, un chico tímido pero lleno de creatividad, miraba el escenario.En: Mateo, a shy boy but full of creativity, looked at the stage.Es: Había diseñado el decorado para la obra, pero ahora le tocaba presentar sus ideas ante toda la clase, y eso lo tenía muy nervioso.En: He had designed the set for the play, but now it was his turn to present his ideas to the entire class, and that made him very nervous.Es: Valentina, siempre segura de sí misma, practicaba su guion en voz alta.En: Valentina, always confident, practiced her script out loud.Es: "Mateo, estas palmas parecen un poco apagadas", comentó rápidamente, sin darse cuenta de cómo sus palabras afectaban a su amigo.En: "Mateo, these palms look a bit dull," she commented quickly, without realizing how her words affected her friend.Es: Ella quería que la obra fuera perfecta, pero en su entusiasmo, a veces olvidaba la importancia del trabajo de los demás.En: She wanted the play to be perfect, but in her enthusiasm, she sometimes forgot the importance of others' work.Es: Afortunadamente, Mateo no estaba solo.En: Fortunately, Mateo was not alone.Es: Lucía, su amiga de confianza, siempre estaba a su lado.En: Lucía, his trusted friend, was always by his side.Es: "No te preocupes, Mateo.En: "Don't worry, Mateo.Es: Ensayaremos juntos", le dijo con una sonrisa cálida.En: We'll rehearse together," she said with a warm smile.Es: "Tienes talento, y es hora de que los demás lo vean".En: "You have talent, and it's time for others to see it."Es: Pasaron horas en la vieja villa, cada rincón de este lugar único sirviendo como un recordatorio de la belleza del teatro.En: They spent hours in the old villa, every corner of this unique place serving as a reminder of the beauty of theater.Es: Inspirados por los arcos altos y el eco de la historia, Lucía ayudó a Mateo a preparar un plan diferente.En: Inspired by the high arches and the echo of history, Lucía helped Mateo prepare a different plan.Es: Mateo decidió que mostraría algunos de sus puntos a través de una pequeña actuación con las maquetas.En: Mateo decided he would showcase some of his points through a small performance with the models.Es: Así, podría vencer un poco de su ansiedad.En: That way, he could overcome some of his anxiety.Es: Llegó el día de la presentación.En: The day of the presentation arrived.Es: Mateo se subió al escenario y sintió que todos sus miedos volvían a él.En: Mateo stepped onto the stage and felt all his fears returning to him.Es: Comenzó a hablar, al principio vacilante y luego, casi sin darse cuenta, todos los decorados se vinieron abajo con un pequeño golpe.En: He began to speak, initially hesitantly, and then, almost without realizing it, all the set pieces came crashing down with a small bump.Es: El silencio era total.En: The silence was total.Es: Pero Mateo, en un instante de inspiración, improvisó.En: But Mateo, in a moment of inspiration, improvised.Es: Con sus manos dibujó en el aire cómo debía verse la puesta en escena, usando los fragmentos del decorado para ilustrar su visión magnífica.En: With his hands, he drew in the air how the staging should look, using the fragments of the set to illustrate his magnificent vision.Es: Todos quedaron maravillados.En: Everyone was amazed.Es: Los ojos de Valentina se iluminaron, dándose cuenta de lo valioso que era Mateo para la obra.En: Valentina's eyes lit up, realizing how valuable Mateo was to the play.Es: "Eres increíble, Mateo", le dijo una vez que terminó.En: "You're amazing, Mateo," she told him once he finished.Es: La clase aplaudió con entusiasmo, y Lucía lo abrazó con orgullo.En: The class applauded enthusiastically, and Lucía hugged him proudly.Es: Mateo había logrado superar su miedo.En: Mateo had managed to overcome his fear.Es: Se dio cuenta de que podía comunicar sus ideas y enfrentar sus temores con un solo paso a la vez, siempre que tuviera a amigos como Lucía a su lado.En: He realized he could communicate his ideas and face his fears one step at a time, as long as he had friends like Lucía by his side.Es: Observó cómo el viento levantaba las últimas flores del jardín, llevándolas a lo lejos, nuevas ideas ya florecían en su mente.En: He watched as the wind lifted the last flowers from the garden, carrying them away, new ideas already blooming in his mind.Es: Había encontrado su voz en aquel antiguo escenario, y estaba listo para usarla.En: He had found his voice on that ancient stage, and he was ready to use it. Vocabulary Words:the heart: el corazónthe villa: la villathe breeze: la brisathe camellia: la cameliathe play: la obrathe stage: el escenariothe set design: el decoradothe script: el guionthe enthusiasm: el entusiasmothe talent: el talentothe corner: el rincónthe reminder: el recordatoriothe arch: el arcothe echo: el ecothe plan: el planthe model: la maquetathe anxiety: la ansiedadthe fear: el miedothe silence: el silenciothe inspiration: la inspiraciónthe fragment: el fragmentothe vision: la visiónthe applause: el aplausothe garden: el jardínthe flower: la florthe idea: la ideathe stage: el escenariothe performance: la puesta en escenathe confidence: la confianzathe friend: el amigo/la amiga

At some point in your business, you hit a moment where the project you thought you were doing turns out to be something much, much bigger. For me, that moment happened this year. I committed to doing a website rewrite after not touching my own website for years. What it actually turned into was  analyzing and tearing apart almost 10 years of offers, sitting with some pretty vulnerable business questions, and figuring out what I actually want the next chapter of my business to look like.Today I'm sharing all of it on Talk Copy to Me: Why the podcast went quiet for a bit, what an offer audit really looks like when you're doing it for yourself, and two new ways to work with me this summer if your website is the project you've been putting off._____________________________________________ EPISODE 189.Read the show notes and view the full transcript here: Coming soon!______________________________________________Here's the info on your host, Erin OllilaErin Ollila believes in the power of words and how a message can inform – and even transform – its intended audience. She graduated from Fairfield University with an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and went on to co-found Spry, an award-winning online literary journal.When Erin's not helping her clients understand their website data or improve their website copy, you can catch her hosting the Talk Copy to Me podcast and guesting on shows such as Profit is a Choice, Mindful Marketing, The Power in Purpose, and Business-First Creatives.Stay in touch with Erin Ollila, SEO website copywriter:• Learn more about my intensive options or just book a strategy session to get started right away• Visit my website to learn more about my business, services, and products

Celebrating America's 250th birthday, featuring work by Dan Shiffman, Will Reger, Keli Osborn and Anne Sheldon.Support the show

Adam Scheffler is the author of two books of poems: Heartworm, which won the 2021 Moon City Press Prize, and A Dog's Life, which won the 2016 Jacar Press Book Contest. He is also the author of a book of literary criticism, So This Is What It Feels Like: Empathy in the Poetry of James Wright (LSU Press, 2026). He grew up in Berkeley, California, received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and his PhD in English from Harvard. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Wichita State University and a member of their MFA Faculty in Poetry. Find more here: https://adamscheffler.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. Submit your poems through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/page/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem so light that it may even float! Next Week's Prompt: Think of the moment in your life that you most wish you had a photo of but don't. Make it come to life in your sensory-rich poem. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Latest up from Spoken Label (Author / Artist Podcast) features the return of our friend K. Scott Fuchs. K. Scott Fuchs is a novelist, poet, spoken-word performer, actor, and performer originally from New York, now based in North West England.A PhD graduate in Creative Writing and Victorian Literature, he is the author of six novels, five poetry collections, and a short-story publication. He is the author of The Miss Temperance Lee Series withhis fourth and final instalment Lilac and Lightning releasedin 2026.His first novel Time and Temperance was released in 2023. His books are all available on Amazon.

Fluent Fiction - Italian: Finding Inspiration in the Heart of the Amazon Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/it/episode/2026-06-29-07-38-20-it Story Transcript:It: Giovanni chiuse il suo taccuino con un sospiro.En: Giovanni closed his notebook with a sigh.It: La pagina era ancora vuota.En: The page was still blank.It: Il rumore della pioggia che cadeva sui grandi alberi dell'Amazzonia riempiva l'aria.En: The sound of rain falling on the large trees of the Amazzonia filled the air.It: Luca, il suo amico, rideva: "Ancora nessuna idea?"En: Luca, his friend, laughed: "Still no idea?"It: Giovanni aveva deciso di lasciare la città caotica dell'Italia per trovare ispirazione nella foresta pluviale.En: Giovanni had decided to leave the chaotic city of Italia to find inspiration in the rainforest.It: Cercava un nuovo inizio, un'idea fresca per il suo prossimo romanzo.En: He was looking for a new start, a fresh idea for his next novel.It: Un'eco-tour guidata sembrava perfetta.En: A guided eco-tour seemed perfect.It: Marta, la guida, era lì per aiutare.En: Marta, the guide, was there to help.It: Esperta e appassionata, conosceva ogni angolo nascosto della foresta.En: Expert and passionate, she knew every hidden corner of the forest.It: All'inizio, Marta era scettica.En: At first, Marta was skeptical.It: Per lei, i turisti spesso erano interessati solo a scattare foto e andarsene.En: To her, tourists were often interested only in taking photos and leaving.It: "Cosa cerca davvero Giovanni?"En: "What is Giovanni really looking for?"It: si chiedeva mentre lo osservava con attenzione.En: she wondered as she watched him closely.It: Ma Giovanni non era un turista qualunque.En: But Giovanni wasn't just any tourist.It: Voleva capire davvero, immergersi nell'ambiente e nella comunità locale.En: He truly wanted to understand, to immerse himself in the environment and the local community.It: Durante una pausa nel tour, Marta e Giovanni sedettero vicino a un maestoso ceibo.En: During a break in the tour, Marta and Giovanni sat near a majestic ceibo tree.It: "Perché sei qui?"En: "Why are you here?"It: chiese Marta.En: asked Marta.It: Giovanni rifletté prima di rispondere: "Voglio vedere oltre la superficie, capisci?"En: Giovanni reflected before answering: "I want to see beyond the surface, you know?"It: Marta sorrise appena.En: Marta barely smiled.It: "Allora devi guardare con il cuore, non solo con gli occhi."En: "Then you must look with your heart, not just your eyes."It: Man mano che la settimana avanzava, Giovanni ascoltava attentamente le storie della tribù indigena locale.En: As the week went on, Giovanni listened carefully to the stories of the local indigenous tribe.It: Comprendeva le loro tradizioni e le difficoltà che affrontavano per proteggere la loro terra.En: He understood their traditions and the difficulties they faced in protecting their land.It: Un giorno, durante un'escursione, accadde una cosa straordinaria.En: One day, during a hike, something extraordinary happened.It: Un tappeto di farfalle si sollevò come un'onda leggera, riempiendo l'aria di colore.En: A carpet of butterflies rose like a gentle wave, filling the air with color.It: Giovanni e Marta si fermarono, increduli e meravigliati.En: Giovanni and Marta stopped, incredulous and amazed.It: In quel momento, Marta condivise i suoi sogni e le sue paure.En: In that moment, Marta shared her dreams and fears.It: Giovanni ascoltò, lasciandosi ispirare dalla sincerità della ragazza.En: Giovanni listened, allowing himself to be inspired by the girl's sincerity.It: "Trovare un equilibrio con la natura è il nostro obiettivo," disse Marta.En: "Finding a balance with nature is our goal," said Marta.It: Giovanni capì che questo era il messaggio che cercava per il suo libro.En: Giovanni realized that this was the message he was seeking for his book.It: Non si trattava solo di storie, ma di vita e connessioni genuine.En: It was not just about stories, but about life and genuine connections.It: Quando il tour giunse al termine, Giovanni aveva trovato la sua ispirazione.En: When the tour came to an end, Giovanni had found his inspiration.It: Decise di scrivere una storia che avrebbe parlato di connessione e di rispetto per la terra.En: He decided to write a story that would speak of connection and respect for the land.It: Mentre si salutavano, Marta e Giovanni sapevano che la loro avventura non finiva lì.En: As they said their goodbyes, Marta and Giovanni knew that their adventure didn't end there.It: Decisero di mantenere il contatto, nonostante la distanza.En: They decided to keep in touch despite the distance.It: Avrebbero coltivato quell'amicizia nata dalla reciproca comprensione.En: They would nurture that friendship born from mutual understanding.It: Tornato in Italia, Giovanni iniziò a scrivere con nuova energia.En: Back in Italia, Giovanni began to write with new energy.It: Aveva trovato la sua voce, ispirato dalla foresta e dalla persona speciale che aveva incontrato.En: He had found his voice, inspired by the forest and the special person he had met.It: Grazie a Marta e all'Amazzonia, era cambiato: più consapevole e grato per la bellezza del mondo.En: Thanks to Marta and the Amazzonia, he was changed: more aware and grateful for the world's beauty. Vocabulary Words:the rainforest: la foresta pluvialethe notebook: il taccuinothe sigh: il sospirothe page: la paginathe sound: il rumorethe guide: la guidathe corner: l'angoloskeptical: scetticathe eyes: gli occhithe heart: il cuorethe stories: le storiethe tribe: la tribùthe traditions: le tradizionithe difficulties: le difficoltàthe hike: l'escursioneextraordinary: straordinariathe butterflies: le farfallethe wave: l'ondaamazed: meravigliatithe dreams: i sognithe fears: le pauregenuine: genuinethe connection: la connessioneto nurture: coltivarethe friendship: l'amiciziathe adventure: l'avventurathe understanding: la comprensioneenergy: energiaaware: consapevolegrateful: grato

AI is forcing us to define what being human is. So, did our host, an art curator and writer, dare to create a Manifesto? Awkward? Or are we not used to women proclaiming things? How can art–seemingly at the brink of commodification–bear new forms of being human? Or is does it spotlight you, art wanderer? The self-help book "Tiny Experiments " by Anne-Laure Le Cunff sparked this art question: why did it excite such a meditative exploration of the role of art, and its urgent proclamation? Tune in to find out.Did you enjoy the episode? Think about supporting Exhibitionistas by leaving a small donation: https://buymeacoffee.com/exhibitionistaWhat else to do when we live in a society of images, but don't know what they are? In Joana's words: "Art Wonderment is me, howling, in recognition, in celebration, in fear, in respect, in defiance." Read the rest of her text here because a podcast episode is not the same beast as a text. The complete experience combines the two.Sign up for a tiered monthly support: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2624749/monetization/supporter_settings Your contribution keeps us going.With the wonderful Catalan artist Susanna INGLADA; the timeless wisdom of LAO TZU's Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula K. LE GUIN–, the most innovative Portuguese poet, Fernando PESSOA and his mind blowing creation of more than 100 heteronyms (poets he invented with a persona, a life, and their own authored poetry), amongst which the most extreme of them all, Alberto Caeiro.Art Etiquette Segment guest: Spencer Moore, Creator and host of The Hairy Chin PodcastArt question: why is contemporary art not considered art?Soon: Bonus – full length Art Etiquette episodes.Come for the art, stay for the creative writing–segment, Brainstorm in a Teacup, where Joana reads short texts from her notebooks exposing her inner thoughts and strange fictional flash writing.Jingle: "Wunder", experimental poem by Joana P. R. Neves.00:00:00 - Intro: A Different Start + Featured Artist Susanna Inglada00:02:06 - The Self-Help trap00:13:36 - Art Wonderment Manifesto00:19:26 - Art Etiquette with S. Moore: why is contemporary art not considered art?00:28:25 - Art Wonderment Manifesto – Holding the paradox wit artist Susanna Inglada00:33:07 - The mysterious life of Portugal's most intriguing poet, Fernando Pessoa00:42:06 - Brainstorm in a Teacup00:43:55 - A message, a rant, a call for voice notes, a see you soonDid the episode stir Art Wonderment memories? Share them via text or voice message.Support the showCreated & Hosted by Dr. Joana P. R. Neves, art curator and writer with over 20 years of experience in the contemporary art field. Artistic director of Drawing Now Paris since 2018, she has worked across the industry, from the art market to education. She co-launched the art residency and project space Worlding in 2020. Exhibitionistas' first year offered exhibition discussions with guest co-host Emily Harding; organically, it grew into a more experimental show exploring art topics, stories and interviews complemented by Joana's publication Art Thinkosaurus on Substack. She champions ‘Art Wonderment's' embrace of complexity against the lure of ready-made opinions. A polyglot, she grew up in Lisbon, studied and lived in Paris, to finally settle in London with her artist husband, four children and two cats. Find us:On Instagram – @exhibitionistas_podcastOn Substack (NEWSLETTER: sign up!): Art Thinkosaurus > Exhibitionistas FilesOnline: www.exhibitionistaspodcast.comDo you want to be a guest on Art Etiquette? Reach out: joana@exhibitionistaspodcast.comCopyright: Joana P. R. Neves, 2024.

Fluent Fiction - French: Café Secrets: A Parisian Puzzle of Love and Dreams Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.com/fr/episode/2026-06-29-07-38-19-fr Story Transcript:Fr: Le soleil d'été se couchait lentement sur Montmartre, enveloppant le charmant café d'une douce lumière dorée.En: The summer sun was setting slowly over Montmartre, enveloping the charming café in a soft golden light.Fr: Des rires flottaient dans l'air, mêlés aux arômes de café fraîchement moulu et de baguettes croustillantes.En: Laughter floated through the air, mingling with the aromas of freshly ground coffee and crispy baguettes.Fr: Élodie, une artiste aux yeux pétillants, souriait en sirotant son café.En: Élodie, an artist with sparkling eyes, smiled while sipping her coffee.Fr: Elle aimait cet endroit, perché au sommet d'une rue pavée, offrant une vue enchanteresse sur Paris.En: She loved this place, perched atop a cobblestone street, offering an enchanting view of Paris.Fr: Sa table préférée, près de la fenêtre, lui permettait de rêver tout en observant les passants.En: Her favorite table, near the window, allowed her to dream while observing the passersby.Fr: Ce jour-là, Thibaut, le barista au doux regard, lui servit son café.En: That day, Thibaut, the barista with gentle eyes, served her coffee.Fr: Mascara en main, il rêvait d'écrire un livre un jour.En: Mascara in hand, he dreamed of writing a book one day.Fr: Sa voix était pleine d'espoir : « Élodie, tu devrais lire ça.En: His voice was full of hope: "Élodie, you should read this."Fr: » Il pointa le dessous de sa tasse où se trouvait un petit papier.En: He pointed to the underside of her cup where a small piece of paper was located.Fr: Curieuse, Élodie le prit.En: Curious, Élodie took it.Fr: Le papier était couvert de symboles étranges, une énigme à résoudre.En: The paper was covered with strange symbols, a puzzle to solve.Fr: « C'est un code, non ?En: "It's a code, isn't it?"Fr: » demanda Thibaut en s'asseyant à sa table.En: Thibaut asked as he sat down at her table.Fr: Élodie acquiesça avec un sourire complice.En: Élodie nodded with a knowing smile.Fr: Elle aimait les mystères, et celui-ci promettait d'être fascinant.En: She loved mysteries, and this one promised to be fascinating.Fr: Le temps pressait, car le café allait bientôt fermer.En: Time was pressing, as the café would soon close.Fr: Ils devaient agir vite.En: They had to act quickly.Fr: Élodie et Thibaut se plongèrent dans le déchiffrage du code.En: Élodie and Thibaut immersed themselves in deciphering the code.Fr: Leurs têtes rapprochées au-dessus du papier, ils discutaient, riaient, débattaient.En: Their heads close together over the paper, they discussed, laughed, and debated.Fr: « Peut-être que cela signifie ça... » proposa Thibaut.En: "Maybe it means this..." suggested Thibaut.Fr: Progressivement, les symboles cédèrent leurs secrets.En: Gradually, the symbols revealed their secrets.Fr: Le message les dirigeait vers un compartiment caché sous leur table.En: The message directed them to a hidden compartment beneath their table.Fr: Le cœur battant, ils soulevèrent prudemment la nappe.En: With hearts pounding, they carefully lifted the tablecloth.Fr: Là, une trappe dissimulée apparut.En: There, a concealed trapdoor appeared.Fr: Thibaut ouvrit soigneusement le compartiment, révélant une antique chaîne avec un médaillon.En: Thibaut gently opened the compartment, revealing an antique chain with a locket.Fr: Étonnés, ils découvrirent à l'intérieur du médaillon une photographie ancienne du café, prise plusieurs décennies auparavant.En: Astonished, they discovered inside the locket an old photograph of the café, taken several decades before.Fr: Une inscription mystérieuse bordait le cliché : "Amour et rêves traversent le temps."En: A mysterious inscription bordered the photo: "Love and dreams transcend time."Fr: Élodie et Thibaut échangèrent un regard ému.En: Élodie and Thibaut exchanged an emotional glance.Fr: Cette découverte lia Élodie et Thibaut dans une nouvelle amitié.En: This discovery bound Élodie and Thibaut in a new friendship.Fr: Élodie avait trouvé une aventure et peut-être l'inspiration pour ses peintures, tandis que Thibaut avait enfin une histoire digne d'être écrite.En: Élodie had found an adventure and perhaps inspiration for her paintings, while Thibaut finally had a story worthy of being written.Fr: Le café, avec sa chaleur et ses secrets, avait joué un rôle magique dans leurs vies.En: The café, with its warmth and secrets, had played a magical role in their lives.Fr: Montmartre était plein de surprises, et ce jour d'été en fut la preuve éclatante.En: Montmartre was full of surprises, and that summer day was shining proof. Vocabulary Words:the sunset: le coucher du soleilto envelop: envelopperthe aroma: l'arômeto perch: percherthe cobblestone: le pavéthe barista: le baristathe mascara: le mascarathe symbol: le symbolethe puzzle: l'énigmethe trapdoor: la trappethe compartment: le compartimentto conceal: dissimulerthe locket: le médaillonthe photograph: la photographiethe inscription: l'inscriptionthe glance: le regardthe mystery: le mystèrethe hope: l'espoirthe secret: le secretto astonish: étonnerthe discovery: la découvertethe friendship: l'amitiéto dream: rêverthe inspiration: l'inspirationto laugh: rirethe chain: la chaînethe charm: le charmeto decipher: déchiffrerto nod: acquiescerto reveal: révéler

The Page One Podcast, produced and hosted by author Holly Lynn Payne, celebrates the craft that goes into writing the first sentence, first paragraph and first page of your favorite books. The first page is often the most rewritten page of any book because it has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. We interview master storytellers on the struggles and stories behind the first page of their books. Follow me @hollylynnpayne on Instagram and Twitter to stay in touch and get updates.  About the guest author: Shelley Read is a fifth generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope. She was a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and Honors, and was a founder of the Environment & Sustainability major and a support program for first-generation and at-risk students. Shelley holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing. She is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal, and has written for the Denver Post and a variety of publications. You can find her at shellyread.com and on Instagram @shelleyread.author. About the host: Holly Lynn Payne is an award-winning novelist and writing coach, and the former CEO and founder of Booxby, a startup built to help authors succeed. She is an internationally published author of four historical fiction novels. Her debut, The Virgin's Knot, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book. She recently finished her first YA crossover novel inspired by her nephew with Down syndrome. She lives in Marin County with her daughter and enjoys mountain biking, surfing and hiking with her dog. To learn more about her books and private writing coaching services, please visit hollylynnpayne.com or find her at Instagram and Twitter @hollylynnpayne. If you have a first page you'd like to submit to the Page One Podcast, please do so here. As an author and writing coach, I know that the first page of any book has to work so hard to do so much—hook the reader. So I thought to ask your favorite master storytellers how they do their magic to hook YOU.  After the first few episodes, it occurred to me that maybe someone listening might be curious how their first page sits with an audience, so I'm opening up Page One to any writer who wants to submit the first page of a book they're currently writing.  If your page is chosen, you'll be invited onto the show to read it and get live feedback from one of Page One's master storytellers. Page One exists to inspire, celebrate and promote the work of both well-known and unknown creative talent.   You can listen to Page One on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher and all your favorite podcast players.  Hear past episodes. If you're interested in getting writing tips and the latest podcast episode updates with the world's beloved master storytellers, please sign up for my very short monthly newsletter at hollylynnpayne.comand follow me @hollylynnpayne on Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and Facebook. Your email address is always private and you can always unsubscribe anytime.  The Page One Podcast is created at the foot of a mountain in Marin County, California, and is a labor of love in service to writers and book lovers. My intention is to inspire, educate and celebrate. Thank you for being a part of my creative community!  Be well and keep reading. ~Holly~   Thank you for listening to the Page One Podcast!  I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I loved hosting, producing, and editing it. If you liked it too, here are three ways to share the love: Please share it on social and tag @hollylynnpayne. Leave a review on your favorite podcast players. Tell your friends. Please keep in touch by signing up to receive my Substack newsletter   with the latest episodes each month. Delivered to your inbox with a smile. You can contact me at @hollylynnpayne on IG or send me a message on my website, hollylynnpayne.com. For the love of books and writers, Holly Lynn Payne @hollylynnpayne host, author, writing coach www.hollylynnpayne.com Thank you for listening to the Page One Podcast! I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I loved hosting, producing, and editing it. If you liked it too, here are three ways to share the love:Please share it on social and tag @hollylynnpayne.Leave a review on your favorite podcast players. Tell your friends. Please keep in touch by signing up to receive my Substack newsletter with the latest episodes each month. Delivered to your inbox with a smile. You can contact me at @hollylynnpayne on IG or send me a message on my website, hollylynnpayne.com.For the love of books and writers,Holly Lynn Payne@hollylynnpaynehost, author, writing coachwww.hollylynnpayne.com

Season 6, Episode 761: Embracing the Forbidden, Dark Desires, & Creative Freedom with Author A.A. Powers with a dark spicy romance book excerpt at the end of the author interview!  Discussion Topics:  Dark Romance, Paranormal Romance, Spicy Romance, Author Interview, Book Series, The Devious Bonds Series, Character Development, Writing Process, Fantasy Fiction, Self-Acceptance, Emotional Healing, Storytelling, Indie Authors, Reader Engagement, Sex Positivity, Creative Writing, Women authors who write romance, spice, and smutty fiction, Minnesota Authors, Book Marketing, Writing Community, Self-Publishing Be sure to listen to Season 6, Episode 760 to get right into the excerpt: A Devious Awakening, A Dark Paranormal Demon Romance Excerpt from a spicy fiction novel written by A.A. Powers, book excerpt narrated by podcast host Ruan Willow. Listen to the author interview with A.A. Powers coming Friday, June 26, 26. A Devious Awakening, get the book (affiliate link) https://amzn.to/4akQnpM Author bio:  A.A. Powers is the author of The Devious Bonds series, a dark paranormal romance series that explores love, obsession, power, redemption, and the complexities of human desire through fantasy. By day, she works as a procurement analyst and lives in rural Minnesota with her family. By night, she writes stories filled with demons, fated mates, found family, and morally complicated characters. As both a reader and author of dark romance, Ashley is fascinated by the intersection of fantasy, shame, self-acceptance, and the ways fiction allows readers to safely explore parts of themselves that are often misunderstood or judged. Learn more about Author A.A. Powers: https://aapowersauthor.com/ Ruan's New Release, a Dark Romance Suspense Thriller with erotic storytelling: Ruan's New Novel One of Ruan's fave brands of adult pleasure toys: Affiliate link Pearl Toys from Kiiroo: Get 10% OFF ENTIRE ORDER (min. purchase $69, no usage limits) with affiliate code RUANWILLOW10 on pleasure sex toys at https://www.kiiroo.com/ https://offers.feeliate.com/to92wTJh Support the show Newsletters https://subscribepage.io/ruanwillow https://linktr.ee/RuanWillow Minnesota Book Fair for Grownups hosted by Inbound Brewing, Minnesota State Fair Grand Stand July 11, 2026. Use discount code RUAN202 for 50% off. Get tickets: buy tickets to the book fair PodNation Podcast Affiliate link, Get 15% OFF with code podna15 on Ryze Coffee at ⁠https://www.ryzesuperfoods.com/ Neighborhood Sex Secrets novel: https://books.ruanwillowauthor.com/neighborhoodsexsecrets Copyright 2026 Pink Infinity Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

A. Frances Johnson is an award-winning writer, artist and recovering academic. Her most recent poetry collection is Controlled Burn (Puncher and Wattmann, 2025). She has published four collections of poetry, a novel and a monograph, Australian Fiction as Archival Salvage (Brill, 2015). In 2020, she won the International ABR Peter Porter Poetry Prize. Other awards include the Griffith University–Josephine Ulrick Prize (2016) and the Michel Wesley Wright Prize (2012). In 2018, her collection Rendition for Harp and Kalashnikov was shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize for Literature Best New Writing Award. She is Honorary Principal Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. Controlled Burn is available here: https://puncherandwattmann.com/authors/a-frances-johnson Produced and Presented by Tina Giannoukos

Celebrating Mel Brooks' birthday with pieces by Jo Miles, Richard Moore, and Maryhelen Snyder. Support the show

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Sondos Sabra is a Palestinian writer from Gaza and co-author of Voices of Resistance, currently pursuing a master's degree in Creative Writing in the UK. She joins us to discuss her experience of the genocide, the harsh reality of the famine she endured, the loss of several of her family and the heartache of planning for a future when everything is stuck in a worsening present. Paul Murphy wants to go into Government podcast:https://www.patreon.com/tortoiseshack/posts/patron-exclusive-160886543

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Sondos Sabra is a Palestinian writer from Gaza and co-author of Voices of Resistance, currently pursuing a master's degree in Creative Writing in the UK. She joins us to discuss her experience of the genocide, the harsh reality of the famine she endured, the loss of several of her family and the heartache of planning for a future when everything is stuck in a worsening present. Paul Murphy wants to go into Government podcast:https://www.patreon.com/tortoiseshack/posts/patron-exclusive-160886543

Juliet talks to poet and writer Lotte L.S. about Red Herring Press, which Lotte set up in 2020 to print, publish and distribute local writing in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. They discuss what Red Herring Press does; how it grew out of the COVID-19 lockdown; Lotte's idea of ‘amateurising professionalism' and the advantages of working outside a literary market; how cheap commercial rents and lack of affordable housing shape the Press, and the town's arts scene more broadly; the Press' Creative Writing workshops and publications; their membership model and how other local groups use their space; the town's relationship with Norwich, a designated UNESCO City of Literature with the National Centre for Writing and the famous Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia; Great Yarmouth's past as a fishing town, its recent history of deindustrialisation and migration, and how their publications draw on this; and Lotte's long essay An Economy of Starlings (2024), responding to the election of Rupert Lowe as a Reform MP in 2024, and foundation of the far-right Restore Britain. To subscribe to Red Herring Press and/or buy their publications, go to https://www.redherringpress.org/ A full list of references is available to Suite (212) subscribers. To support us on Patreon for as little as £3 per month, please go to https://www.patreon.com/c/suite212.

In this episode of The Archive Project, we feature a discussion on late writer Ursula K. Le Guin's legacy of pacifism and environmentalism. Our moderator is Theo Downes-Le Guin, Ursula's son and literary executor. Theo is in conversation with Oregon-based writers Juhea Kim, author of the novel Beasts of a Little Land, a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Michelle Ruiz Keil, author most recently of the young adult novel Summer in the City of Roses, which was a finalist for the inaugural Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. In her speech at the 2014 National Book Awards, accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Ursula said: “Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.” Juhea Kim and Michelle Ruiz Keil are two of those voices that we need now. In this conversation, Juhea and Michelle discuss how they came—and returned—to Le Guin's work, her influence on their writing, and how they are carrying her legacy forward, including the responsibility of the artist as a humanitarian. This conversation was recorded in front of a live audience at Literary Arts on July 15, 2022. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes 23 novels, 12 volumes of short stories, 11 volumes of poetry, 13 children's books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA's Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America. Michelle Ruiz Keil is an author, playwright, and tarot reader with an eye for the enchanted and way with animals. She is the author of the critically acclaimed young adult novels All of Us With Wings and Summer In The City of Roses. Her writing for adults can be found most recently in Bitch, Cosmonauts Avenue, and the anthology Dispatches From Anarres: Tales in Tribute to Ursula K. Le Guin. She is a 2021 Tin House Scholar and the recipient of residencies from Hedgebrook, The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and the Bloedel Reserve. Born in San Francisco, Michelle has lived in Portland, Oregon for many years where she curates the fairytale reading series All Kinds of Fur and lives with her family in a cottage where the forest meets the city. Juhea Kim is a writer, artist, and advocate based in Portland, Oregon. Her bestselling debut novel Beasts of a Little Land was named a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and a Best Book of 2021 by Harper’s Bazaar, Real Simple, Ms., and Portland Monthly. Her writing has been published in Granta, Slice, The Massachusetts Review, Zyzzyva, Guernica, Catapult, Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, Sierra Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the founder and editor ofPeaceful Dumpling, an online magazine at the intersection of sustainable lifestyle and ecological literature. She has received fellowship support from the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, the Regional Arts & Culture Council, and Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. She earned her BA in Art and Archaeology from Princeton University.

Send us Fan MailThis week Bette A stops by the show to discuss her book Slow Stories which she collaborated with legendary musician, Brian Eno. We also talk about art and creating as well as AI. One of the other major topics we cover is her charity work to help empower woman and help the world. *****As artist/writer BETTE A. explains: “As I developed these stories during two decades, rewriting them from memory, they grew shorter. Strange details persisted and gained significance, while what once seemed like a central plot line or meaning disappeared. I ended up with stories that feel deeper than my ideas - simpler, more layered, and more surprising.”The book inspired an expansion of the stories with a multimedia collaboration with BRIAN ENO, centered on the concept of slowness.Brian Eno's ambient compositions cradle Bette A.'s voice as she tells two stories of the stories included in her upcoming story collection, “The Endless House” and “The Other Village.” The calm pace of the story is a deliberate choice: “When a story is told slowly, every sentence becomes more vital,” explains Bette.“Usually when we hear stories read, we expect the pace of the reading to be fairly even,” adds Brian, whose only instruction to Bette as she recorded her short stories was: “Slow, slower, even slower, yes, more slow'.”For both artists, slowness functions not only as a stylistic decision but as an act of resistance. Giving thirty minutes of your attention to something that is not urgent, not loud, and not passive, is rare. Putting on a record is a physical gesture to enter that mode, engage with art and, maybe, your inner world.“My stories take place in strange and imaginary towns and villages from pasts that never happened and futures that will never occur," explains Bette. "These worlds exist without an elaborate background description, like islands in a misty sea."“What we discovered when we were making these stories is that leaving longer spaces gives your mind a chance to imagine the detail that is hinted at in the story,” explains Brian. “The music creates a suggestive atmosphere which supports you in doing that. You don't want a lot of action in the music: what you want is to create an evocative space that leaves you, the listener, in a creative frame of mind.”Bette notes, "When everything is fast, fragmented and designed to grasp your attention, attuning to one very slow story can be a radical act. This record is a guided daydream, a space for rest and imagination."The hand-painted artworks accompanying Slow Stories art bundle extend this collaboration into a shared visual world. The paintings by Bette and Brian depict immersive, dreamlike terrains - birch forests with graffiti, lunar mountain ranges, floating eggs, geometric color fields. Like the stories, the paintings leave room for the viewer to enter and make the work their own.The artist's proceeds of the sale of the bundle will go to their charities; The Heroines! Movement, a global storytelling movement around women role models, co-founded by Bette, and Earth Percent, a charity that channels funds from the music industry to organizations that do the most impactful work around the climate emergency, co-founded by Brian.About Bette A Bette A. is an artist, born in Amsterdam. As a child, she liked to write plays and her primary school teachers allowed her to practise them in the gymnasium. She joined a youth theatre group in her hometown. Bette continued to study Image and Language at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy of Amsterdam, where she learned to follow wild ideas. After doing a Master in Creative Writing at Oxford University, she started writing in both English and Dutch, and published her novels Rus Like Everyone Else and What's Mine. Aside from writing novels, Bette makes short stories and drawings, and teaches in art schools. In 2019 Bette co-founded TRQSE- a network of artists and scientists who work together on social projects.****If you would like to contact the show Dauna@betertopodcast.comFollow us on Social MediaYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0ETs2wpOHbCuhUNr0XFTw?view_as=subscriberInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_d.m.needom/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bettertopodcastwithdmneedom©2026 Better To...Podcast with D. M.NeedomSupport the showSupport the show

On this On Air Artist Spotlight episode we welcome local actor, playwright, singer, and fight director, Sean Fletcher Griffin.  As a child, Sean grew up in a family of Southern Pentecostal church musicians. He attended Florida State University where he double majored in Theatre and Creative Writing. He moved to New York City in 2011 where he started working with a small theatre company in Brooklyn called Phillstock, with whom he wrote, directed, and acted in several shows.  As a member of UnkleDave's Fight-House, a company of fight directors founded by Dave Anzuelo, he has worked on numerous off-Broadway, regional and Broadway productions as a fight and intimacy director, including Appropriate, Merrily We Roll Along, Uncle Vanya, and The Great Society, and the upcoming Death of a Salesman and The Fear of 13.

Award-winning Author and Researcher John Kachuba joins me to discuss his book Shapshifters: A History. This book is fascinating and incredibly informative for all those have interest in history, folklore and mythology. The shapeshifter is a prominent character throughout all these areas and continues to fascinate and mesmerize our minds and imaginations. You know I'm all in on this one! We cover werewolves, vampires and the difference between the physical and the psychological aspects of shapeshifting and how can we know if it is based on anything that really happened. John's perspective is both informative and entertaining and I know you're going to love our chat. You can find his website here: http://johnkachuba.com/books/ John Kachuba is the award-winning author of twelve books and numerous articles, short stories and poems. John holds advanced degrees in Creative Writing and teaches that subject through Ohio University and the Gotham Writers Workshop. He is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Horror Writers Association. You can find more on my stand-up schedule, short films and more at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ryansingercomedy.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Commercial Free episodes here!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SpectreVision Radio is a bespoke podcast network at the intersection between the arts and the uncanny, featuring a tapestry of shows exploring creativity, the esoteric, and the unknown. We're a community for creators and fans vibrating around common curiosities, shared interests and persistent passions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Embrace your weird! Literary tastemaker and Debutiful founder Adam Vitcavage talks about championing debut authors and working to demystify the cloak and daggers publishing ecosystem. Listen in as we juggle topics like dealing with the pressures of early pitching cycles, the importance of independent booksellers, and the rise of influencer culture. As we hustle for connection in an attention-fractured culture competing with streaming, games, and AI, reading remains a vital art form for making people feel seen. Debutiful Website: https://debutiful.net/ Adam's Website: https://vitcavage.com/ Social: @debutiful Good Story Company: If you have a story in your head, we're here to help you get it out into the world. We help writers of all skill sets, all genres, and all categories, at all stages of the writing process. Need a hand with brainstorming? Want to find a critique partner? Looking for an editor to help polish up your pitch, your idea, or your entire manuscript? We have all of it and more in our community. If you're ready to take the next step (or the first step) on your writing journey, we're here to help you. Website: https://www.goodstorycompany.com Membership: https://www.goodstorycompany.com/membership Writing Workshop: https://www.storymastermind.com Mary Kole: Former literary agent Mary Kole founded Good Story Company as an educational, editorial, and community resource for writers. She provides consulting and developmental editing services to writers of all categories and genres, working on children's book projects from picture book to young adult, and all kinds of trade market literature, including fantasy, sci-fi, romance, and memoir. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and has worked at Chronicle Books, the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, and Movable Type Management. She has been blogging at Kidlit.com since 2009. Her book, Writing Irresistible Kidlit, a writing reference guide for middle grade and young adult writers, is available from Writer's Digest Books. Manuscript Submission Blueprint: https://bit.ly/kolesubWriting Irresistible Kidlit: http://bit.ly/kolekidlitIrresistible Query Letters: https://amzn.to/3yg511KWriting Irresistible Picture Books: https://amzn.to/3SrApRUHow to Write a Book Now: https://BookHip.com/ZHXAAKQWriting Interiority: Crafting Irresistible Characters: https://amzn.to/4evsX0BWriting Irresistible First Pages: https://amzn.to/4gxgslqNEW! Show and Tell: https://amzn.to/4kCc4no Follow us on social: YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/goodstory Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodstory.bsky.social Instagram: https://instagram.com/goodstorycompany TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@goodstoryco Facebook: https://facebook.com/goodstoryco Substack: https://goodstoryco.substack.com/

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Jesse Graves joined us at Lawson McGhee Library for a reading of his work. Jesse Graves is the author of five poetry collections, including Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pine, Basin Ghosts, Specter Mountain, Merciful Days, the forthcoming A Little Light in the Grave, and a book of prose, Said-Songs: Essays on Poetry and Place. His work received the James Still Award for Writing about the Appalachian South from the Fellowship of Southern Writers and the Philip H. Freund Prize for Creative Writing from Cornell University, as well as two Weatherford Awards in Poetry from Berea College and the Appalachian Studies Association. Graves has served as co-editor for several collections of poetry and scholarship, including four volumes of The Southern Poetry Anthology and The Complete Poetry of James Agee. He teaches at East Tennessee State University, where he is Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English.Links:Jesse Grave's website"Jesse Graves and the Cosmic Appalachian Boogie," in Salvation SouthSix Poems by Jesse Graves in Porchlight: A Journal of Southern Literature"Two Stones" in New Verse Review"Above Johnson City" in As the Crow FliesThree poems in Cutleaf

How do voice-driven writers find their characters? Austin Tucker tells Jared how he uses collage and research into his characters' life histories to craft voices that are often “on the edge of collapse.” Plus, Austin discusses the pros and cons of a small program with 6-8 students in each poetry workshop, healthcare access as a PhD student, and opportunities to design and teach composition, workshop, and survey classes.Austin Tucker is a poet and fiction writer who received his MFA from the University of Rutgers-Camden and is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Ohio University. He is the current editor of Quarter After Eight and his poetry was selected for The Southeast Review's 2024 Gearhart Prize by Kareena McGlynn, and has appeared in Pleiades, Frontier, and Four Chambers, among other places. His fiction won the 2024 Masters Review Flash Fiction contest and was a semifinalist for the 2018 Halifax Ranch Prize. He's also a two-time finalist for The DISQUIET International Literary Prize in Poetry. Find him at r.austin.tucker [at] gmail [dot] com or via the Quarter After Eight IG (@qaejournal). He is represented by Julia Eagleton with Janklow and Nesbit.MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com.BE PART OF THE SHOW— Donate to the show at Buy Me a Coffee.— Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.— Submit an episode request. If there's a program you'd like to learn more about, contact us and we'll do our very best to find a guest who can speak to their experience.— Apply to be a guest on the show by filling out our application.STAY CONNECTEDTwitter: @MFAwriterspodInstagram: @MFAwriterspodcastFacebook: MFA WritersEmail: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Celebrating Paul McCartney's 84th birthday with poems by Penny Altman, Michele Wolf, Tracy K. Lewis, and Henry Morgenthau III.Support the show

YA masters Krystal Sutherland (The Invocations), Joanna Nadin (author of 90+ books for children and adults) and Moira Buffini (Songlight) on hooking teen readers from the very first page, plotting methods that tame a whole novel, and why stories matter so much to young people. You'll learn What sparks the magic system of a supernatural thriller. What it means to find your writing home, and how to know when you've arrived. Why readers decide within the first ten pages, and how visceral detail keeps them hooked. A pantser's case for careful plotting when you're juggling multiple points of view. The most common mistake adults make when writing for young readers. What screenwriters know about tight writing, and what teen TV can teach you about voice. Why treating writing as a job, not a calling, makes rejection survivable. Whether writers should think about their audience. How writing toward a feeling, not a plan, creates cliffhangers you don't see coming. Episode Links #105: Krystal Sutherland #61: Joanna Nadin #179: Moira Buffini About the Guests Krystal Sutherland is the New York Times and indie bestselling author of House of Hollow, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares and Our Chemical Hearts, which was adapted into a film by Amazon Studios. Her books have been published in more than twenty countries and nominated for the Carnegie Medal and YA Book Prize, among others. Her latest YA novel, The Invocations — the centerpiece of this conversation — won the 2025 Prime Minister's Literary Award for young adult literature. Originally from Australia, she has lived on four continents and currently calls London home. Joanna Nadin has written more than 90 books for children and adults, including the Rachel Riley series, the Penny Dreadful series, and the Sunday Times bestselling Worst Class in the World series. She holds a doctorate in adolescent identity and YA literature and is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Bristol. Her books have garnered a number of prizes including the Fantastic Book Award and the Surrey Book Award, and she has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Booktrust Best Book Award, the Telegraph Sports Book of the Year, the Hearst Big Book Awards, and Queen of Teen. She has been nominated six times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, including for Everybody Hurts and for Joe All Alone, which was made into a BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated BBC drama series. Moira Buffini is an Olivier Award–winning UK playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter, writing many plays for the National Theatre and the West End. Films include Tamara Drewe, Jane Eyre, Byzantium, and The Dig. She cocreated and was showrunner of Hulu's Harlots. Her YA debut Songlight — the first in The Torch Trilogy — won the 2025 YA Book Prize, and its sequel Torchfire is out now. She lives in London. For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.com.For free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com.*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

We're at a pivotal moment in world geopolitics. Increasingly the masks and the gloves are both off - but it's not a binary choice any more between two sets of suits in slightly different coloured ties: now we have the right showing its true colours  - and a chance for the progressive majority in this country to find its feet and lead us towards a genuinely thoughtful, emotionally literate, high-bandwidth politics that ditches the toxic tribalism and instead lays the ground for a future that could actually work. We're joined this week by Neal Lawson, co-founder and Executive Director of the progressive pressure group, Compass; and Rupert Read, Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project. Neal is a member of the Labour Party, and Rupert of the Green party and we came together to discuss the forthcoming by-election in Makerfield, where Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester is standing as a candidate, with a view to standing for leadership of the Labour Party if he wins.  His main challenger is the Reform party led by Nigel Farage.  The Greens are newly invigorated after their recent win in the Gorton and Denton by-election in Manchester, so there has been a lot of conversation in progressive circles as to whether the Greens should step away to give Burnham a clear run. This seemed a good moment to have a vigorous conversation - to explore the possibilities and potential and the routes forward should Burnham win. CompassThe Climate Majority ProjectAndy Burnham in the Observer committing to PR Jamie Driscoll's post in The Canary - There's Nothing Pragmatic About Centrism The Fraud by Paul Holden —About Accidental Gods—We offer three strands all rooted in the same soil, drawing from the same river: Accidental Gods, Dreaming Awake and the Thrutopia Writing Masterclass Our next Open Gathering offered as part of our Accidental Gods Programme is 'WALKING THE PATH OF THE INNER WARRIOR' which will run on Sunday 28th June 2026 from 16:00 - 20:00 GMT - details are here. You don't have to be a member of Accidental Gods to come along - but if you are, all Gatherings are half price.If you'd like to join us at Accidental Gods, this is the membership where we endeavour to help you to connect fully with the living web of life. If you'd like to train more deeply in the contemporary shamanic work at Dreaming Awake, you'll find us here. If you'd like to explore the recordings from our last Thrutopia Writing Masterclass, the details are hereManda and Louise both offer one-to-one Mentoring Calls.  Manda is fully booked just now, but if you'd like to contact Louise, details are here.

The queens shine a rainbow spotlight on some fabulous, emerging queer poets.Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.  Notes:Xavier Searle is a poet and educator. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets University & College Prize, their work has appeared in The Broken Plate, Stone of Madness, and the anthology Broken Olive Branches. They hold an MFA from North Carolina State University. Read their poem "Elegy." Deon Robinson (he/him) is a Queer Afro-Latino poet born-and-raised in The Bronx. He received his B.A. in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University, where he was a two-time recipient of the Janet C. Weis Prize for Literary Excellence. Currently, he is a first year MFA Candidate in Poetry at the University of Urbana-Champaign where he is a recipient of a Graduate College Master's Fellowship and selected by Adrian Matejka for the 2022 Hobart L. and Mary Kay Peer Memorial Award. Read Deon Robinson's "(Pleasure-Knowledge) (Knowledge-Pain)" from The Adroit Journal. Visit his website: https://djrthepoet.weebly.com Kaitlin Hsu 徐欣 (she/她) is a queer Taiwanese poet, translator and editor from the Bay Area. Her work can be found in A Public Space, Poet Lore, Peach Mag and elsewhere. She is a 2024 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and works at Kaya Press as an associate editor. Hsu was also a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. Check out Hsu's website at https://myrefoli.github.io and read her poem "As a Child, I Pretended to Be a Tree" here.Stefania Gomez is a 2025 Luminarts Fellow in Poetry and a 2023 Fulbright Research Award Grantee, and a finalist for the 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship and 2023-2024 Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship Semifinalist. She has received additional fellowships from the Dirt Palace, Sewanee Writers Workshop, Lambda Literary, and the International Quilt Museum. She received her MFA in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently a PhD candidate in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches Creative Writing at The Chicago High School for the Arts, Chicago's first public arts high school. Read her poem "Wreck" here and check out her website here. Another Gomez poem worth your time is "At the New York City AIDS Memorial"John Bonanni founded and edits the Cape Cod Review. His poems have appeared in North American Review, Foglifter, Black Warrior Review, Washington Square Review, Florida Review, and Gulf Coast, and his literary criticism has been featured in DIAGRAM, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, and The Kenyon Review. He teaches on Cape Cod. Visit his website and read "Elegy for Gaeton Dugas" here. Bonnani's book Retrovirology, won the Donald Hall Prize (judged by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers) and will be available in September from the Pitt Poetry Series. Alec Hershman is the author of the chapbooks Permanent and Wonderful Storage  (2019) and The Egg Goes Under (2017), both from Seven Kitchens Press. He lives in Michigan where he teaches literature and writing to college students. His poetry appears widely in literary journals and magazines such as Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, The Journal, Sycamore Review, DIAGRAM, Columbia, The National Poetry Review, and Harpur Palate. You can find links to his work online at https://alechershmanpoetry.com. Read Hershman's "Mercury Fields." Denice Frohman is a poet and performer from New York City. She has received support from The Pew Center for the Arts, Baldwin for the Arts, CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poem-A-Day, The BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, The Rumpus and elsewhere. A former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she's featured on hundreds of stages from The Apollo to The White House. Currently, she is developing her one-woman show, Esto No Tiene Nombre, which centers the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Read or listen to Frohman's poem "Lady Jordan" here and check her website out here: https://www.denicefrohman.comZachary Scalzo (he/they) is a queer writer, translator, and theatremaker. They can be found at azachofalltrades.com and on Instagram at @zjscalzo. Their poetry has appeared in journals including Dear Poetry, Ghost City Review, and &Change. Read their poem “Sometimes—there's God—so quickly.” Journalist Randy Shilts popularized the concept of "Patient Zero" in his 1987 book, And the Band Played On. By 1987, however, it was known that an infected individual might not display symptoms for several years, and that the study on which Shilts based his assumption was unlikely to have revealed a network of infection. Still, Shilts uncritically spread the story of the Los Angeles cluster study and its ‘Patient 0,' with long-standing consequences. For more about this, read here.Director Laurie Lynd released a documentary in 2019, Killing Patient Zero, which delves more into Gaeton Dugas's life. Read more about the documentary here.

This week we are joined by Catherine Kurtz! Catherine Kurtz is a painter and writer whose debut novel FEAST published in June 2026 (Hachette UK, Penguin USA). As a painter she is represented by The Redfern Gallery in London. She is a member of The Guild of Food Writers, Grand Jury Member of The International Chocolate Awards, and co-author of Sex & Drugs & Sausage Rolls. Her journalism has appeared in publications including The Spectator's Scoff, ckbk and Celebrated Living. In her fiction she explores the female experience, her mixed-race heritage, and the power of creativity. She has an MA in Creative Writing from West Dean College. In this episode, Catherine Kurtz shares her journey as a creative, discussing her experiences as a mixed-race individual and how it has shaped her identity. She delves into her passion for food, art, and writing, highlighting her unique perspective as a food writer and chocolate connoisseur. Give this episode a listen!   Recommendations From This Episode:  Both Not Half America's Culinary Cup Martyr!   Follow Catherine: @catherinekurtzart Follow Carly: @carlyjmontag Follow Emily: @thefunnywalsh Follow the podcast: @aloneatlunchpod Please rate and review the podcast! Spread the word! Tell your friends!  Email us: aloneatlunch@gmail.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All Home Care Matters and our host, Lance A. Slatton were honored to welcome Cory Fosco as guest to the show.   About Cory Fosco: Cory Fosco is the author of The Question of When: A Practical Guide to Knowing When It's Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Skilled Nursing. Cory has spent 34 years in long-term care, beginning in social work and admissions and now working in healthcare technology. He is also the author of the chapbook Empty Streets (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), which contains a Pushcart Prize-nominated story, and his short work has appeared in Superstition Review, Hippocampus, and other publications. Cory holds an MA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University and a BA in Creative Writing from Loyola University Chicago. Cory lives in Chicago with his wife Cyndi.

On today's episode, Lawfare Managing Editor Tyler McBrien sits down with Emily Bazelon, a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School, and the co-host of Slate's weekly podcast, “Political Gabfest.” They discuss three stories Bazelon and her colleagues recently published in the New York Times Magazine. For this trilogy of oral histories, they spoke with dozens of current and former government employees at the Department of Justice (“The Unraveling of the Justice Department”), FBI (“A Year Inside Kash Patel's F.B.I.”), and Department of Homeland Security (“The View From Inside Trump's D.H.S.”) about their experiences navigating the upheaval of the second Trump administration from the inside.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.