Podcasts about dirty laundry lit

In the epic conclusion to the award-winning Continuum Trilogy, Aero leads a group insurgents from the Second Continuum to overthrow his rival Supreme General Vinick and unite his space colony’s military forces, while Seeker takes on a secret mission back to her home colony to reinforce Earth's defenses and protect the First Continuum against an even greater threat. Meanwhile, Myra’s nightmares have become a reality as the Dark Thing hurtles toward Earth with designs on eradicating the planet’s fledgling populace. The only thing standing in the way are the three Carriers and those who would join them to fight against a second coming of the Doom. Praise for The United Continuums "Dystopian done right! Jennifer Brody takes readers on an incredible journey filled with new worlds, life altering decisions, and the human spirit's need to persevere. Fast paced and brilliantly written! Five stars!"—Kelly Anne Blount, USA Today bestselling author "Wow. Jennifer Brody has done it again, creating another spectacular read that had me on the edge of my seat—I simply couldn't turn the pages fast enough! The United Continuums is a breath-taking and satisfying conclusion to The Continuum Trilogy, packed to the brim with characters of great emotional depth, stunning world-building, and beautiful writing. A must-read for science fiction fans. Brody is now one of my auto-buy authors."—Madeline Dyer, author of the Untamed series "Jennifer Brody just keeps getting better and better! Packed with non-stop action and a sweeping, intricate world, The United Continuums delivers a satisfying conclusion to a sci-fi adventure that you don't want to miss."—Pintip Dunn, New York Times bestselling author of Forget Tomorrow Jennifer Brody’s award-winning novel The 13th Continuum sold in a 3-book deal and is being packaged into a feature film. The book is a Gold Medal Winner (Young Adult – Sci-Fi/Fantasy) from the Independent Publisher‘s Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards. Return of the Continuums and The United Continuums complete this epic trilogy. She is a graduate of Harvard University, a creative writing instructor at the Writing Pad, and a volunteer mentor for the Young Storytellers Foundation. After studying film at Harvard University, she began her career in Hollywood. Highlights include working on The Lord of the Rings films and The Golden Compass. Find her online at http://www.jenniferbrody.com/. Elizabeth Briggs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Future Shock trilogy and the Chasing The Dream series. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Sociology and has worked for an international law firm, mentored teens in writing, and volunteered with dog rescue groups. Now she's a full-time geek who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a pack of fluffy dogs. Find her online at www.elizabethbriggs.net. Xach Fromson is a Los Angeles native who has been obsessed with horror and dark fiction from a very young age. After a brief and ill-advised attempt at being a theater major, he received his BA in Creative Writing from California State University Northridge in 2009. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside’s Palm Desert program. He appeared on stage at Dirty Laundry Lit in February, 2013, and has a short story in the anthology Halloween Tales, out in 2014. He is currently in various stages of working on a ton of projects. Asking him his favorite book will earn you as blank a stare as asking him his favorite wine or whiskey. And once, he slew a dragon. Find him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter @_mythogenesis_. Event date:  Sunday, July 16, 2017 - 5:00pm

If You Are There (Counterpoint Press) Set in the early 1900s, If You Are There follows young Lucia Rutkowski who, thanks to the influence of her beloved grandmother, escapes the Warsaw ghetto to work as a kitchen maid in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the bustling city of Paris. Too talented for her lowly position, Lucia is thrown out on the street. Her only recourse is to take a job working for two disorganized, rather poor married scientists so distracted by their work that their house and young child are often neglected. Lucia soon bonds with her eccentric employers, watching as their work with radioactive materials grows increasing noticed by the world, then rising to fame as the great Marie and Pierre Curie.  Soon, all of Paris is alit with the news of an impending visit from Eusapia Palladino, the world's most famous medium. It is through her now famous employers that Lucia attends Eusapia's gatherings and eventually falls under the medium's spell, leaving the Curie household to travel with her to Italy. Ultimately, Lucia is placed directly in the crosshairs of faith versus science--what is more real, the glowing substances of the Curie laboratory or the glowing visions that surround the medium during her seance?  If You Are There is a thrilling, page-turning novel that draws upon real characters and events to detail its examination of a young woman torn between the beliefs she was born with and the scientific realities blooming all around her.  Praise for If You Are There “The fictional and historical mingle in Sherman's marvelous account of the lives of Marie and Pierre Curie. It is a rare book that is as scientific as it is magical and as magical as it is scientific. This is that book.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award "This splendid novel is about discovery, in its many forms: in science, in love, in ambition, in connection; it celebrates the intersection of the natural world and faith. Sherman explores all of her characters with precise, tender compassion and radiant insight; we move with them through beautifully described turn-of-the-century Europe, as they find their own understanding of love and loss and strength. You will love this unforgettable book." —Karen E. Bender, author of Refund, Finalist for the National Book Award   Susan Sherman is the author of The Little Russian. She is the former Chair of the Art Department of Whittier College and the co-creator of one of the most successful television shows for children in the history of the Disney Network. Learn more at susanshermanauthor.com. Natashia Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center US Emerging Voices Fellowship and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Bread Loaf, Dickinson House in Belgium, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Named one of 2013’s Most Fascinating People by LA Weekly, she has a MFA from UC Riverside and is the creator of the popular LA-based reading series, Dirty Laundry Lit. A practicing lawyer, she currently teaches law at Trinity Law School. Her debut novel, Grace, was published this past June by Counterpoint Press.

Night of Silenced Voices: A Banned Books Week Celebration Join us as we—together with the Banned Books Week Coalition and partner bookstores around the country—celebrate banned books, with a special focus on diversity.  Join the Skylight staff, as well as special guests, forBanned Books Week Open Mic, take part in our Blind Date with A Banned Book sale (15% off) and keep an eye out for Skylight Books Banned Books shelftalkers highlighting some of the most regularly banned/challenged books. The Banned Books Week Coalition is a national alliance of like minded organizations joined by a commitment to increase awareness of the annual celebration of the freedom to read. The Coalition seeks to engage various communities and inspire participation in Banned Books Week through education, advocacy, and the creation of programming about the problem of book censorship. Our Banned Books Week event on Tuesday, September 27th will be held in conjunction with other similar events hosted at partner bookstores across the country, including Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (NYC),  Book Cellar (Chicago), Politics & Prose (DC), Tattered Cover Book Store (Denver), Powell's Books (PDX), and Books & Books (Miami). Steph Cha is the author of Follow Her Home, Beware Beware, and Dead Soon Enough. She's the noir editor for the L.A. Review of Books and a regular contributor to the L.A. Times and USA Today. She lives in her native city of Los Angeles with her husband and basset hound. Natashia Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center US Emerging Voices Fellowship and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Bread Loaf, Dickinson House in Belgium, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Named one of 2013’s Most Fascinating People by LA Weekly, she has a MFA from UC Riverside and is the creator of the popular LA-based reading series, Dirty Laundry Lit. A practicing lawyer, she currently teaches law at Trinity Law School. Her debut novel, Grace, was published this past June by Counterpoint Press. Chris L. Terry’s debut novel Zero Fade (Curbside Splendor) was on the Best of 2013 lists by Kirkus Reviews, Slate Magazine, and the American Library Association. He has taught creative writing everywhere from grade schools to prisons to senior centers, and is currently working on a novel about a mixed-race punk bassist with a black imaginary friend.

Natashia Deón is a wonder. When Julia Callahan gave her incredible ability to build networks and community back in Episode 10, I was impressed. But in reading her book, Grace, and speaking with her, I am now in love. Natashia is a novelist, criminal defense lawyer, law professor, and a mom. How does she do all these things? Even she doesn't know. If you've ever wondered how it feels to "make it" in writing- to publish a book, win a prestigious fellowship, and get a glowing New York Times Review, this conversation is for you. From the writing process to community to fears around writing and what it feels like to get your published book in your hands for the first time, we covered it all. I just know you'll love her as much as I do.   Show Notes for Episode 17 with Natashia Deón: Finding time to write (2:00) Mythbusting the writing retreat (3:45) The structure of Grace (4:45) Getting into criminal defense (7:15) Pen Emerging Voices Fellowship (9:45) The MFA (10:45) How long it took to write a book (11:45) Dirty Laundry Lit (12:30) Curating Dirty Laundry (15:45) Building literary community and giving back (16:00)  How writing benefits everyone (18:20)  When do I get to say I'm a writer? (19:15)  Why are we so hard on ourselves as creatives? (21:00) Going from writer to "author" (22:30) Never get the galley in public (23:15) On writing a tough subject (25:30) Taking real life work into fiction (26:45)  Writing about history so it feels alive in the present (29:30) The impact of slavery on our current reality (30:00) How we can look at contemporary issues as related to history (32:00) The importance of language in our society (33:30) International viewpoints on freedom and where we're trapped (34:45) How the nation is losing its voice and the two party system (37:30) The difficulty of "we" (38:45) Can I be a writer like this? (39:00) The next project & being open (41:30) The New York Times Review experience (42:00) On the critical self and perpetually moving the bar (44:00) Deserving vs. begin grateful (45:30) What Natashia is reading now (47:45)  Sponsored by Muse Monthly See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Grace (Counterpoint Press) For a runaway slave in the 1840s south, life on the run can be just as dangerous as life under a sadistic Massa. That’s what fifteen-year-old Naomi learns after she escapes the brutal confines of life on an Alabama plantation. In Natashia Deón’s debut Grace: A Novel Naomi must leave behind her beloved Momma and sister Hazel and take refuge in a Georgia brothel run by a freewheeling, gun-toting Jewish madam named Cynthia. There, amidst a revolving door of gamblers, prostitutes, and drunks, Naomi falls into a star-crossed love affair with a smooth-talking white man named Jeremy who frequents the brothel’s dice tables too often. The product of Naomi and Jeremy’s union is Josey, whose white skin and blonde hair mark her as different from the other slave children on the plantation. Having been taken in as an infant by a free slave named Charles, Josey has never known her mother, who was murdered at her birth. Josey soon becomes caught in the tide of history when news of the Emancipation Proclamation reaches the declining estate and a day of supposed freedom quickly turns into a day of unfathomable violence that will define Josey—and her lost mother—for years to come. Deftly weaving together the stories of Josey and Naomi—who narrates the entire novel unable to leave her daughter alone in the land of the living—Grace is a sweeping, intergenerational saga featuring a group of outcast women during one of the most compelling eras in American history.  It is a universal story of freedom, love, and motherhood, told in a dazzling and original voice set against a rich and transporting historical backdrop. Praise for Grace “Deón’s powerful debut is a moving, mystical family saga . . . The book provides penetrating insight into how confusing, violent, and treacherous life remained in the South after the Emancipation Proclamation, and how little life improved for freed slaves, even after the war. The omnipresences of Naomi’s ghost renders the story wide-angled, vast, and magical. Deón is a writer of great talent, using lyrical language and convincing, unobtrusive dialect to build portraits of each tragic individual as the sprawling story moves to its redemptive end.”—Publishers Weekly Starred Review “[T]his is a brave story, necessary and poignant; it is a story that demands to be heard. This is the violent, terrifying world of the antebellum South, where African-American women were prey and their babies sold like livestock. This is the story of mothers and daughters—of violence, absence, love, and legacies. Deón's vivid imagery, deft characterization, and spellbinding language carry the reader through this suspenseful tale. A haunting, visceral novel that heralds the birth of a powerful new voice in American fiction.” —Kirkus Starred Review  “In her gripping debut novel, Deón, awarded a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship, among other honors, dramatizes alliances formed by women in a violent place and time with adroit characterizations, a powerful narrative voice, and the propulsive plotting of a suspense novel… Deón stays in control of her complex material, from its clever parallel structure to the women’s psychological reactions to relentless tension. Readers will ache for these strong characters and yearn for them to find freedom and peace.” —Booklist Starred Review “There are moments of love in this harsh, affecting first novel, but the story mostly conveys the taking of personal freedom and human dignity. The presence of the apparition is fanciful, but it works well in bringing resolution to an imbalanced set of happenings.”—Library Journal “One of those rare novels so assured, so beautiful and so singular in voice that it almost seems besides the point to say it's a debut (and yet it is). Natashia Deón's Grace is a powerfully telling tale of two generations of women and those in their lives over a nation-defining period of American history. This is when slavery was fought for and ended on this very ground. This is also when tribulation and hardship did not just end because slavery finally did. The sparks of determination, resilience, aspiration, hope, and, grace (yes), all burn, even against great odds, helping light the way. Set 150 years and more ago, Grace carries resonance and meaning for us today. I can't wait to put this in readers' hands.”—Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company  “Natashia Deón’s gorgeous debut is not only a piercing and unwavering exploration of slavery and its legacy, but also a fierce insistence that we honor and acknowledge the ghosts that haunt our America today. Like all important, classic books, Grace makes a story we think we know, the story of our country and its people, dazzling and new. This is not a book anyone is going to be able to put down—or forget.” —Dana Johnson, author ofElsewhere, California, nominee for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award "The ghost narrator in Grace articulates how she feels when she falls in love: filled. It is precisely how this flawlessly constructed novel will leave you. With muscular prose whose poetry is unforced, Deón lights a fire under the feet of her characters, women and men consumed by their fidelity to each other and untamed by their circumstances, who charge through history at the speed of thought. Deón makes the case anew that the facts of the past can only be understood by training an unflinching gaze upon the human beings who survived its horrors and proves on every page that only a consummate writer is equal to the task." —Ru Freeman, author of A Disobedient Girl and On Sal Mal Lane “Natashia Deón’s superlative, gorgeously written debut grips you by the throat, exploring a teeming, post-Civil War world where the emancipation of slaves can be anything but freedom, violence is as casual as a cough, and love between a mother and a daughter can transcend even death. Scorchingly brilliant, this is one novel that already feels like a classic.” —Caroline Leavitt, New York Times Bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You “People will compare this book to Twelve Years a Slave, Cold Mountain, andBeloved, and those are fair comparisons for the kind of time and place here, and the evocation of the south 150 years ago. But reading it, I thought of murder ballads, those songs of melancholy and injustice. Natashia Deón’s genius lies, in part, in writing a book that sustains a murder ballad’s intensity for hundreds of pages and gets into your bones like a song.”—Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me and The Faraway Nearby Natashia Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center US Emerging Voices Fellowship and has been awarded fellowships and residencies at Yale, Bread Loaf, Dickinson House in Belgium, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Named one of 2013’s Most Fascinating People by LA Weekly, she has a MFA from UC Riverside and is the creator of the popular LA-based reading series, Dirty Laundry Lit. A practicing lawyer, she currently teaches law at Trinity Law School and Mount Saint Mary’s College. David L. Ulin is the author or editor of eight previous books, including The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time and the Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he is book critic of the Los Angeles Times.

Natashia Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices fellowship and her debut novel, Grace, is debuted June 2016 with Counterpoint Press. An attorney, writer, law professor, and creator of the popular L.A.-based reading series Dirty Laundry Lit, Deón was recently named one of L.A.'s "Most Fascinating People" by L.A. Weekly.

Writer Amanda Fletcher is more than just a sober warrior. A breast cancer survivor who also manages to remain cheerful about having broken her neck and worn a cervical halo for four months, Fletcher is a brilliant and hilarious writer who has also been a crucial part of the AfterParty editorial team. In addition to being a 2012 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow, Fletcher is a breathwork practitioner who teaches writing in the recovery community, was a flash fiction finalist for the Orlando Prize and has performed for Tongue and Groove, the Dirty Laundry Lit and Roar Shack reading series. Sorry, not done here. Her writing has appeared in The Writer's Tribe Review and The Orange County Register as well as on this very site. And hey—as part of a new format we're trying out for the podcast, our last guest, fellow AfterParty writer Tracy Chabala, joined us for a three-way conversation. In this episode, we discuss being hung over from nights of over sharing, getting hooked on meth and whether or not we all get what we deserve, among many other topics. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or listen to it on Soundcloud or Stitcher. Find Amanda Fletcher on Facebook and Twitter

Brad T Gottfred, playwright and director of the romantic comedy Women are Crazy Because Men are A**holes is interviewed about the critically acclaimed west coast premiere of the production at the Macha Theatre in West Hollywood, CA. Actor Blake Boyd, one of the stars of Women are Crazy... talks about his association with the show since its world premiere in Chicago during 2011. The Live Arts Calendar features a review of Dirty Laundry Lit at The Virgil in Silver Lake (Hollywood), CA. Gottfred and Boyd share awkward performance memories. Sponsored by Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownexpress.com/)

Brad T Gottfred, playwright and director of the romantic comedy Women are Crazy Because Men are A**holes is interviewed about the critically acclaimed west coast premiere of the production at the Macha Theatre in West Hollywood, CA. Actor Blake Boyd, one of the stars of Women are Crazy... talks about his association with the show since its world premiere in Chicago during 2011. The Live Arts Calendar features a review of Dirty Laundry Lit at The Virgil in Silver Lake (Hollywood), CA. Gottfred and Boyd share awkward performance memories. Sponsored by Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownexpress.com/)

LA Attorney Natashia Deon, named one of LA Weekly Magazine’s Most Fascinating People 2013, talks about her life as creator of Dirty Laundry Lit, an evening of stories and essays read allowed by a variety of guest readers at the Virgil cocktail bar in Silverlake (Hollywood), CA. The Live Arts Calendar features the Actors’ Gang adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: The Superhero Edition (favorite superheroes who play out the classic love triangle) at the Actors’ Gang Theatre in Culver City, CA. Celebrated comedy writer Jeff Eyres (Saturday Night Live, CNN Headline News, HBO’s New Performer Series) interfaces with Deon as host of Dirty Laundry Lit, and talks about his passion for writing all things dastardly and inappropriate, and the making of horror films. Eyres and Deon share embarrassing career moments. Sponsored by Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownexpress.com/)

LA Attorney Natashia Deon, named one of LA Weekly Magazine’s Most Fascinating People 2013, talks about her life as creator of Dirty Laundry Lit, an evening of stories and essays read allowed by a variety of guest readers at the Virgil cocktail bar in Silverlake (Hollywood), CA. The Live Arts Calendar features the Actors’ Gang adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night: The Superhero Edition (favorite superheroes who play out the classic love triangle) at the Actors’ Gang Theatre in Culver City, CA. Celebrated comedy writer Jeff Eyres (Saturday Night Live, CNN Headline News, HBO’s New Performer Series) interfaces with Deon as host of Dirty Laundry Lit, and talks about his passion for writing all things dastardly and inappropriate, and the making of horror films. Eyres and Deon share embarrassing career moments. Sponsored by Breakdown Services (http://www.breakdownexpress.com/)