Podcasts about Glimmer Train

Corey Flintoff reads his short story "Beulah Land" from our current Spring issue.Corey Flintoff is a former foreign correspondent for NPR. His fiction has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, and other journals.

William Luvaas has published four novels: The Seductions of Natalie Bach (Little, Brown) Going Under (Putnam), Beneath The Coyote Hills (Spuyten Duyvil), and Welcome To Saint Angel (Anaphora Lit. Press); and three story collections: A Working Man's Apocrypha (Univ. Okla. Press) Ashes Rain Down: A Story Cycle (Spuyten Duyvil), The Huffington Post's 2013 Book of the Year and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards – and his most recent, The Three Devils.  His new collection The Three Devils And Other Stories is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press at the Univ. of Wisconsin.  His honors include an NEA fellowship, first place in Glimmer Train's Fiction Open Contest, The Ledge Magazine's 2010 Fiction Awards Competition, and Fiction Network's Second National Fiction Competition.  Over one hundred of his stories, essays, and articles have appeared in many publications, including The Sun, North American Review, Epiphany, The Village Voice, The American Literary Review, Antioch Review, Cimarron Review, Short Story, and the American Fiction anthology.  He has taught creative writing at San Diego State University, U.C. Riverside, and The Writer's Voice in New York and has also worked as a carpenter, craftsman, community organizer, and freelance journalist.  He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Lucinda, an artist and filmmaker.

Host Jason Blitman talks to author Weike Wang (Rental House) about her dream vacation, the commonality of in-laws, and their mutual love of House Hunters. Jason is then joined by Guest Gay Reader, Joseph Lezza, who talks about what he's reading and shares insights about how he navigates grief during the holiday season. The Trouble with Friends Weike Wang is a graduate of Harvard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry and her doctorate in public health. She received her MFA from Boston University. Her fiction has been published in literary magazines, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, and Ploughshares, which also named Chemistry the winner of its John C. Zacharis Award. A “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation, Weike currently lives in New York City. Joseph Lezza is a writer in New York, NY. Holding an MFA in creative writing from The University of Texas at El Paso, he is a 2021 finalist for the Prize Americana in Prose. His work has been featured in, among others, Occulum, Variant Literature, The Hopper, Stoneboat Literary Journal, West Trade Review, and Santa Fe Writers Project. His debut memoir in essays, I'm Never Fine: Scenes and Spasms on Loss, is out February 2023 from Vine Leaves Press. BOOK CLUB!Use code GAYSREADING at checkout to get first book for only $4 + free shipping! Restrictions apply.http://aardvarkbookclub.comWATCH!https://youtube.com/@gaysreadingBOOKS!Check out the list of books discussed on each episode on our Bookshop page: https://bookshop.org/shop/gaysreading MERCH!Purchase your Gays Reading podcast merchandise HERE! https://gaysreading.myspreadshop.com/ FOLLOW!@gaysreading | @jasonblitman CONTACT!hello@gaysreading.com

Notes and Links to Maggie Sheffer's Work           Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer is a writer who lives in New Orleans. She is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University, where she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change. Formerly, she taught English at the East Oakland School of the Arts, Castlemont High School, Life Academy, and GW Carver High School.    Her debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, was selected by judge Jamil Jan Kochai for the Iowa Short Fiction Award, was published in Fall 2024.     Maggie is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit, a local writing collective, and the Nautilus and Wildcat Writing Groups. She received her MFA from Randolph College. She was a 2023 Veasna So Scholar in Fiction at The Adroit Journal, and was selected as a top-twenty-five finalist for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers.  Her story “Tiger on My Roof” was a finalist for the 2024 Chautauqua Janus Prize, which awards emerging writers' short fiction with “daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers' imaginations.”    Her position on semicolons (for) is noted in an Australian grammar textbook (pg. 16). Buy The Man in the Banana Trees     Maggie's Website   From LitHub: "Marguerite Sheffer on Crafting a Collection of Century-Spanning Speculative Fiction"   "Marguerite Sheffer: These Stories Are an Intimate Map of What Scares Me" from Writer's Digest At about 0:45, Maggie shares a fun story about being published with George Bernard Shaw At about 2:15, Maggie talks about her early reading life At about 3:20, The two reflect on the evolving reputation of Star Wars and Star Wars fans At about 4:45, Maggie shares how wine bottles led to writing an early and pivotal short story  At about 5:40, Maggie describes a gap in “actively writing” while teaching and interacting differently with writing At about 6:50, Maggie lists texts and writers that helped her “reorder [her] brain” At about 8:55, Pete and Maggie stan Tillie Olsen's “I Stand Here ironing”   At about 10:45, Pete recounts a story about how he happened upon the great story by Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” At about 11:30, Maggie responds to Pete asking about what drew and draws her to science and speculative fiction At about 12:30, Maggie highlights past guest Jamil Jan Kochai, Ken Liu, E. Lily Yu, Sofia Samatar, Clare Beams, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, the book The Safekeep, and others as contemporary writers who thrill and inspire At about 13:45, Pete asks Maggie how teaching has inspired her writing At about 15:25, Maggie cites Octavia Butler's and Sandra Cisneros' work and The Things They Carried and other texts that were favorites of her students  At about 16:50, The two discuss the epigraph and seeds for the short story collection  At about 18:30, The two discuss the collection's first story and connection to Tillie Olsen's idea of being “imprisoned in his own difference” and students being “othered” At about 22:40, Maggie reflects on an important truth of fiction At about 23:20, Maggie discusses famous unicorn tapestries that inspire a story of hers At about 24:40, Pete compliments Maggie's “delightfully weird” stories and “soft endings” and she responds to his questions about allegory/plot and “cool stories” At about 26:20, Maggie talks about realizing the throughlines in her collections At about 27:50, Maggie responds to Pete's questions about writing in Covid times At about 28:20, Pete cites examples of misogyny in the collection and asks about Joycleyn Bell and Maggie expands upon the story “The Observer's Cage”-its genesis and connections to Jocelyn Bell Burnell At about 31:00, Pete notes the use of animals as stand-ins for humanity and Maggie expands on deas of resistance as seen in the collection At about 32:00, The two discuss ideas of redress and reclaiming the past through stories in the collection, especially “The Observer's Cage” At about 34:40, the two discuss a story with ghosts and ideas of “unfinished business” and capturing past natural greatness At about 36:40, Maggie talks about sadly learning that an idea that she thought was original was not, as the two discuss a few stories about commercialism, dystopia, and climate change At about 40:20, the two discuss middens, and themes of reclaiming what has been lost  At about 42:30, Pete notes an interesting story that deals with memory and AI, and Maggie talks about writing from a interesting-placed narrator  At about 44:20, Pete draws connections between a title character, Miriam Ackerman, and Truman Capote's wonderful “A Christmas Memory”, while Maggie discusses the relationship between the title character and the narrator  At about 47:10, The two discuss violence and parental lack of control, especially in “Tiger on the Roof” and its memorable ending and creative plot  At about 50:25, Pete highlights the poignant and resonant closing line for the above story and connects the ending to Alice Elliott Dark's classic, “In the Gloaming” At about 52:00, The two discuss the collection's title story and Maggie discuses inspiration from Carmen Maria Machado At about 53:00, The two discuss the way the above story is “gutting” in its portrayal of the “banality of loss” At about 56:10, Maggie reminds that the book is not just a “downer!” At about 56:50, Maggie reads from “En Plein Aire” At about 1:00:30, Maggie gives information on places to buy her book and social media and contact information At about 1:01:20, Maggie shares information on some exciting new projects         You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch this and other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.       I am very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. A big thanks to Rachel León and Michael Welch at Chicago Review.     Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl      Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting my one-man show, my DIY podcast and my extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    This month's Patreon bonus episode features segments from conversations with Jeff Pearlman, Matt Bell, F. Douglas Brown, Jorge Lacera, Jean Guererro, Rachel Yoder, and more, as they reflect on chill-inducing writers who have inspired their own work.    I have added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show.    This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 265 with Carvell Wallace. He is a writer and podcaster who has contributed to GQ, New York Times Magazine, Pitchfork, MTV News, and Al Jazeera, among others. His debut memoir, Another Word For Love, is a 2024 Kirkus Finalist in Nonfiction, and one of Pete's all-time favorite memoirs.    The episode airs on December 10.    Lastly, please go to ceasefiretoday.com, which features 10+ actions to help bring about Ceasefire in Gaza.

Three Angsty Poets, Rebecca Evans, Tomas Baiza, and Christian Winn, gathered together to chat initially about poetry, but the conversation turned, and they found themselves invigorated, inspired, and mostly miffed at the world, the gods, the past, the future. Here is the first in their series of angsty thoughts: My Angst on Your Perception, where they chat about audience and readers' assumptions pressed on the narrator, the speaker, the poet.  Rebecca Evans writes the difficult, the heart-full, the guidebooks for survivors. Her work has appeared in Narratively, The Rumpus, Brevity, and more. She's earned two MFAs, one in creative nonfiction, the other in poetry, University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. She's authored a full-length poetry collection, Tangled by Blood (Moon Tide Press, 2023), and has a second poetry book, Safe Handling, forthcoming (Moon Tide Press, 2024). She shares space with four Newfoundlands and her sons in a tiny Idaho town.  rebeccaevanswriter.com    Tomás Baiza is originally from San José, California, and now finds himself in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of the novel, Delivery: A Pocho's Accidental Guide to College, Love, and Pizza Delivery (Running Wild Press, 2023), and the mixed-genre collection A Purpose to Our Savagery (RIZE Press, 2023). Delivery was selected as the 2024 Treasure Valley Reads featured novel, and Tomás's writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net, and Best American Short Stories anthologies. Tomás has fenced in Italy, been rescued by helicopter from the Sierra Nevada, fended off wild dogs while hitchhiking in rural Morelos, México, and once delivered a dozen pizzas to a Klingon-themed orgy at a sci-fi convention. When he is not writing, Tomás is running trails or obsessing over bonsai trees.      Christian Winn is a fiction writer, poet, nonfiction writer, teacher of creative writing, and producer of literary and storytelling events based in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of two story collections, NAKED ME, and What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me, and the forthcoming novels, Crocodile, and My History With Careless People and Other Stories. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Ploughshares, The Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Journal, Glimmer Train, Joyland, ExPat Press, TriQuarterly, Gulf Coast, and many other fine magazines and journals. He was the Idaho Writer in Residence, the State's highest literary honor, from 2016-2019. Find out more about Winn's writings and work at christianwinn.com 

Even our podcast editor describes author Karen Outen as "a breath of fresh air." After twenty years of work, her book, Dixon Descending, features two brothers with a seemingly impossible goal: To be the first Black American men to summit Everest. We discuss how Karen learned to write realistic dialogue that jumps off the page, her publishing journey of more than 20 years, and how to pitch complicated ideas--and know when they're ready to send to agents. Karen Outen's fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, The North American Review, Essence, and elsewhere. She is a 2018 recipient of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award and has been a fellow at both the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan and the Pew Fellowships in the Arts. She received an MFA from the University of Michigan. She lives in Maryland. Transcript here: http://manuscriptacademy.com/podcast-karen-outen The journey to Everest (00:00:43) Karen discusses the audacious journey of Dixon and Nate to summit Mount Everest, the challenges they face, and the consequences of their actions. The fascination with Mount Everest (00:02:15) Karen and the unnamed guest discuss the allure of writing about Mount Everest and the unique experience of researching and writing about mountain climbing. The concept of "second-tier fun" (00:04:29) The guests delve into the concept of "second-tier fun," discussing the challenges and rewards of writing and mountain climbing, and the enjoyment found in retrospect. The mountain as a living force (00:05:39) Karen and the hosts explore the idea of Mount Everest as an embodied force, discussing the climbers' relationship with the mountain and its impact on their experiences. Karen's publishing journey (00:07:10) Karen shares her long journey to publishing her novel, including the challenges, rejections, and the support she received from the writing community. The importance of writer friends (00:10:04) The discussion revolves around the significance of having a supportive community of writer friends and the impact of their encouragement and guidance. Finding inspiration for the book (00:11:17) Karen reads the opening page of "Dixon Descending" and discusses the process of refining the first page and the structure of the novel. The journey of character development (00:13:24) Karen shares her process of discovering the central theme of the book and the challenges of structuring the narrative to balance the present and the past. Exploring consequences and character stakes (00:16:17) The conversation focuses on the development of character stakes, the consequences faced by Dixon, and the complexities of his relationships and responsibilities. The dynamics of dialogue (00:22:36) The discussion centers on the distinct and vivid dialogue in the book, and Karen shares insights and tips on writing compelling dialogue. Revision Process (00:31:28) Insights into the author's revision process, including techniques and the role of feedback from readers. Bravery in Publishing (00:34:30) The author's perseverance and challenges faced in the publishing journey. Pitching Complicated Work (00:46:18) Tips for summarizing complex stories and knowing when a manuscript is ready for submission. Efficiency and Core of the Story (00:47:24) Understanding the efficiency of storytelling and presenting the core of the narrative.

Today I talked to Katherine Vaz about her new novel Above the Salt (Flatiron Books, 2023). In 1843-1846, on the Portuguese island of Madeira, five-year-old John Alves lived in jail and starved alongside his heretic mother, who was condemned to death for converting to Protestantism from Catholicism. Finally freed, John befriends young Mary Freitas, the adopted daughter of a wonderful botanist. Both families are forced to flee, and they end up in southern Illinois. John teaches signing to deaf children and Mary works as a gardener for a wealthy man who falls in love with her. She's torn after she and John find each other again, but he's off to fight in the Civil War. A mean-spirited trick keeps them away from each other and Mary accepts her boss's marriage proposal. This is a rich and detailed love story based on the Portuguese community of Jacksonville, Illinois, historical characters, events, and flower cultivation, a courtship that took place in the home of rising politician Abraham Lincoln, and a sweeping view of 19th and early 20th century America. Katherine Vaz is an award-winning author, a Briggs-Copeland Fellow in Fiction at Harvard University (2003-09), and a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute (2006-7). Her novels include SAUDADE, (St. Martin's Press), was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and Marlee Matlin (Solo One Productions) optioned it. Her novel MARIANA has been printed in six languages and is currently optioned by Anne Harrison, with screenwriter Sandy Welch. Rizzoli Publishers picked it as one of their top three books of 1998, and the U.S. Library of Congress chose it as one of the Top Thirty International Books of 1998. Her collection FADO & OTHER STORIES won the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, and two of the stories won her a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. OUR LADY OF THE ARTICHOKES won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize, and the title story was the springboard for a one-page film idea that was one of eight national winners in the 2014 “Write Start” contest co-sponsored by the New York Film Academy. Her short fiction has appeared in dozens of magazines, including the Harvard Review, BOMB, Tin House, Glimmer Train, etc., and her children's stories have been included in anthologies by Simon & Schuster, Viking, and Penguin. She was a fiction editor for the Harvard Review and has lectured extensively on magical realism. Katherine Vaz is the first Portuguese American to have her work recorded for the archives of the Library of Congress, Hispanic Division, and she was on the six-person U.S. Presidential Delegation to open the American Pavilion at the World's Fair/Expo 98 in Lisbon. She teaches the “Writing the Luso Experience” workshop in the Disquiet International Literary program in Lisbon. A California native, she lives in New York City with her husband, Christopher Cerf, who hails from a publishing family (his father co-founded Random House) and has played creative and executive roles in children's television, most notably Sesame Street and Between the Lions. G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Welcome back to another episode of the True Fiction Project Podcast. This week we have Taylor Koekkoek on the show, who is the author of the short stories series, Thrillville USA. Taylor talks to us about the inspiration behind the short stories and how pieces of the stories are pulled from his life. He talks about how he included Oregon's opioid crisis into the story and why he felt it was relevant. Then we learn what is next for Taylor as far as future projects he is working on. At the end of the episode, he reads us an excerpt from the first story of the Thrillville USA series, where we follow a character finishing his shift at the amusement park and the scandalous scene he stumbles upon behind the back side of the Scrambler. IN THIS EPISODE:[3:18] What is Thrillville USA?[4:40] Why did Taylor decide to name his book series after Thrillville?[6:29] What was the inspiration behind Thrillville USA?[7:51] How Taylor tackles the subject of Oregon's opioid crisis and is it discussed in all the short stories?[11:12] Taylor tells us about the excerpt he is going to read to us.[13:28] What future works will we see from Taylor?[15:55] An excerpt from the first book of the Thrillville USA series by Taylor Koekkoek KEY TAKEAWAYS:[3:19] Thrillville used to be a little roadside amusement park outside of Oregon that felt like a little bit of a death trap with rides that bucked in ways that didn't seem natural. Many rumors about fatalities and bodily harm were told about the amusement park, but they are believed to be false. [6:29] Thrillville USA was inspired by an amusement park that Taylor and his brothers visited from time to time when they were younger. The characters are not based on people he knew directly during his childhood, but instead pieced together from stories he heard from other people that he met. [10:03] There is an unintentional metaphor between the amusement park and drug use, being a dangerous activity that is also ominous, fun and exciting. Check out HelloFresh and use my code 50truefictionproject for a great deal: https://www.hellofresh.com/Fiction Credits:Excerpt written by: Taylor Koekkoek Excerpt narrated by: Taylor Koekkoek BIO:Taylor Koekkoek received his MFA from Johns Hopkins University. His work has been supported by Oregon Literary Arts, the Breadloaf's Writer's Conference, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and has appeared in Paris Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, online at Tin House, and elsewhere. His short story collection, Thrillville, USA, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2023. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, Joselyn Takacs, also a writer.Facebook Personal PageTwitter Personal AccountInstagramThrillville USA SeriesOur Sponsors:* Check out HelloFresh and use my code 50truefictionproject for a great deal: https://www.hellofresh.com/Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In conversation with Nomi Eve ''Filled with so much universal experience, such haunting imagery, such urgent matters of life and death'' (The New York Times), Alice McDermott's bestselling novels include Someone; Charming Billy, winner of the 1998 National Book Award; That Night; At Weddings and Wakes; and After This, all of which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction, a collection of essays inspired from a lifetime of reading, writing, and teaching literature. For more than 20 years, McDermott was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and on the Sewanee Writers Conference faculty. She has contributed writing to The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Times, among many other periodicals. A meditative novel about grace, sacrifice, and forgiveness, Absolution is a decades-spanning account of two women's peripheral experience with the Vietnam War and its permanent consequences. The director of the creative writing MFA program at Drexel University, Nomi Eve is the author of the novels Henna House and the National Jewish Book Award-nominated The Family Orchard. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Conjunctions, and Glimmer Train, and she has published book reviews in The Village Voice and Newsday.  Because you love Author Events, please make a donation to keep our podcasts free for everyone. THANK YOU! (recorded 11/7/2023)

Connecticut author J. Kevin Shushtari is a practicing physician, but when it comes to his fiction, it's not the world of medicine that interests him. His stories are inspired by the unique worlds and colorful characters known to him from his Iranian father's and Irish Catholic mother's families. We read his award-winning story "The Vast Garden of Strangers," which was published in Glimmer Train.Support the show

Episode 107: Using fiction as a way to educate, heal and connect This is an interview on using fiction as a way to educate, heal and connect. I absolutely loved recording this episode and I hope you love the stories that Jolene shares with us.  From Jolene: In my stories I've focused on the effects of fertility on women, the men who care for them, and small town culture around issues of fertility. In my stories, I've chosen to use specific and medical jargon and terms relating to, specifically, women's health issues to bring awareness. I've written stories about infertility, miscarriage, pregnancy, high-risk pregnancy, pre-term labor, endometriosis, mental health issues, PTSD, post-natal PTSD. I've written at least one story (“You Four Are the One”) using a technique in therapy treatment for people with PTSD called RECON (reconsolidation therapy) by Courtney Armstrong. I'm hoping our talk will inspire others to write their own fictional (or nonfiction) stories of fertility and women's health issues. I'm hoping they'll buy SIDLE CREEK and they'll find they're not alone. Jolene McIlwain's work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in numerous online and print literary journals including West Branch, Florida Review, Cincinnati Review, CRAFT, Smokelong Quarterly, New Orleans Review, LITRO, and more.   Her work was included in 2019's Best Small Fictions Anthology and named finalist for 2018's Best of the Net, Glimmer Train's and River Styx's contests, and semifinalist in Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter Prize and two American Short Fictions contests. She's received a Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council grant, the Georgia Court Chautauqua faculty scholarship, and Tinker Mountain's merit scholarship.    She's taught literary theory/analysis at Duquesne and Chatham Universities, and she worked as a radiologic technologist before attending college (BS English, minor in sculpture, MA Literature). She was born, raised, and currently lives in a small town in the Appalachian plateau of Western Pennsylvania.    Her debut, SIDLE CREEK, out with Melville House this spring, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and Shelf Awareness calls it a “riveting debut collection” and “a rare gem, a compelling blend of nature and humanity perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Daisy Johnson's Fen." Connect with Jolene and buy Sidle Creek www.jolenemcilwain.com   Twitter @jolene_mcilwain  IG @jolenemcilwain  FB @JoleneMcIlwain   Trigger warning, this book includes short stories on stillbirth, miscarriage, fetal abduction and true crime.   For mind-body fertility freebies sign up at www.embracefertility.co.uk and follow me on Instagram @embracefertility for inspiration.

This week, contributing authors Jac Jemc, Juan Martinez, Joe Meno, and Luis Alberto Urrea discuss their work in the collection Small Odysseys: Selected Shorts Presents 35 New Short Stories. This conversation originally took place May 15, 2022 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About Small Odysseys: A must-have for any lover of literature, Small Odysseys sweeps the reader into the landscape of the contemporary short story, featuring never-before-published works by many of our most preeminent authors as well as up-and-coming superstars. On their journey through the book, readers will encounter long-ago movie stars, a town full of dandelions, and math lessons from Siri. They will attend karaoke night, hear a twenty-something slacker's breathless report of his failed recruiting by the FBI, and travel with a father and son as they channel grief into running a neigh­borhood bakery truck. They will watch the Greek goddess Persephone encounter the end of the world, and witness another apocalypse through a series of advertise­ments for a touchless bidet. And finally, they will meet an aging loner who finds courage and resilience hidden in the most unexpected of places—the next generation. Published in partnership with beloved literary radio program and live show Selected Shorts in honor of its thirty-fifth anniversary, this collection of thirty-five stories captures its spirit in print for the first time. About the authors: Jac Jemc is the author of the novels Total Work of Art; My Only Wife, winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award; The Grip of It; and the short-story collections A Different Bed Every Time and False Bingo, winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction and finalist for the Story Prize. Jemc currently teaches creative writing at UC–San Diego. Juan Martinez is the author of the short-story collection Best Worst American, winner of the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award. His work has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, TriQuarterly, Conjunctions, Norton's Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America, and The Perpetual Engine of Hope: Stories Inspired by Iconic Vegas Photographs. Joe Meno is the author of seven novels: Marvel and a Wonder, Office Girl, The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, Hairstyles of the Damned, How the Hula Girl Sings, and Tender as Hellfire. His short story collections are Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir and Demons in the Spring. His short fiction has been published in McSweeney's, One Story, Swink, LIT, TriQuarterly, Other Voices, and Gulf Coast, and have been broadcast on NPR. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonfiction The Devil's Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea is the bestselling author of the novels The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North, Queen of America, and most recently, The House of Broken Angels, as well as the story collection The Water Museum, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. He has won the Lannan Literary Award, an Edgar Award, and a 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among many other honors.

Who's the bravest, strongest, upstandingest, possibly boringest man in the world? Possibly the answer is Kiryu. Can our gifts enrich his life?

Our guest co-host. Arianna Reiche, is a Bay Area-born writer based in London. She is the author of the two-story chapbook Warden / Star (Tangerine Press), and At The End Of Every Day (Artia Books/Simon & Schuster). She was also nominated for the 2020 Bridport Prize and the 2020 PANK Magazine Book Contest. She won first prize in Glimmer Train's 2017 Fiction Open and Tupelo Quarterly's 2021 Prose Prize. Her stories have appeared in Ambit Magazine, Joyland, The Mechanics' Institute Review, Berlin's SAND Journal, Feels Blind Literary, Lighthouse Press, and Popshot. Her features have appeared in Art News, The Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, USA Today, The London Fashion Week Daily, Fest Magazine, Vogue International, and Vice. She also researches and lectures in interactive narrative and metafiction at City, University of London.     In Episode 7, Arianna Reiche joins us for a conversation about Place, Peculiarity, & Persistence. We discuss ways we are able to write about place and how that may challenge common conceptions, embracing strange and peculiar perspectives, persisting through life changes, and bearing the brutal bruises of editing.    Questions 1. Place has a lot to do with my fiction - I just wrote a whole novel about the grounds of a theme park, and my next book is set in Berlin - but I often struggle with feeling that I've earned the right to write intimately about any given place. I find that I often sidestep writing about towns/cities/countries with real earnestness because of that, and instead adopt a lens of irony or eeriness. Or I just end up writing about the Bay Area, where I grew up, more than I probably truly want to, because no one can challenge me on my connection to it! Have you ever felt that conflict before? And more generally, how do you approach geography in your work   2. What does writing in earnest and with authenticity-one's OWN sense of what is authentic-look like? How do you capture it on the page to honor our own telling or to honor our truth and perspective? And how, if it all, does that challenge and expand the narratives we see present in certain spaces or among certain people?   3. How do you deal with feeling repelled by your own work during the editing process? It's something I've heard almost every writer I know talk about; I describe the feeling of opening the laptop for your third round of manuscript edits as poking a bruise. How do you stay enthusiastic about your own work when you're frankly just sick of looking at it?     Show Notes 1. At the End of Every Day by Arianna Reiche https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/At-the-End-of-Every-Day/Arianna-Reiche/9781668007945 2. Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez https://bookshop.org/p/books/our-share-of-night-mariana-enriquez/18486460  3. The Age of Magic by Ben Okri https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-age-of-magic-ben-okri/20082895?ean=9781635422689  4. The Ben Okri story about Istanbul is called “Dreaming of Byzantium” found in Prayer for the Living, https://bookshop.org/p/books/prayer-for-the-living-ben-okri/13693373?ean=9781617758638  5. Irenosen Okojie, https://www.irenosenokojie.com/ 6. Helen Oyeyemi, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/59813/helen-oyeyemi/  7. CA Conrad - Poetry Rituals https://somaticpoetryexercises.blogspot.com/2018/08/somatic-poetry-rituals-basics-in-3-parts.html 8. Raymond Queneau, was part of the Oulipo group, a collection of writers and mathematicians who imposed rules on writing to increase creativity. More here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/oulipo#:~:text=An%20acronym%20for%20Ouvroir%20de,and%20mathematician%20Fran%C3%A7ois%20Le%20Lionnais. 9. Kathy Winograd - https://kathrynwinograd.com/about/ 10. La Maison Baldwin, https://www.lamaisonbaldwin.fr/   

Jamel Brinkley is the author of a new short story collection called Witness and previously published the short story collection  A Lucky Man which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Story Prize, the John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and winner of a PEN Oakland Award and the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His writing has appeared in A Public Space, Ploughshares, The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, Guernica, Glimmer Train,The Best American Short Stories, and many more. He was raised in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and now teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.We talk to Jamel about his upcoming collection, Witness, and about what attracts him to short stories as a form. Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben ThorpYou can learn more about Jamel Brinkley here.Visit our website: Originstory.showFollow us on Twitter @originstory_Do you have feedback or questions for us? Email us theoriginstorypod@gmail.comCover art and website design by Melody HirschOrigin Story original score by Ryan Hopper

This week, a panel of authors and educators from StoryStudio Chicago discuss the process of writing from multiple identities, often marginalized ones, and inspiring young people to do the same. The writers include Dionna Griffin-Irons, Jac Jemc, Juan Martinez and Frances de Pontes Peebles. The following conversation originally took place May 15, 2022 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. About the panelists: DIONNA GRIFFIN-IRONS is a writer, producer and Director of Talent Diversity and Development for The Second City U.S. and Canada. A Second City Detroit alumnus with 18+ years of experience as a performer, producer and facilitator, Dionna has taught 200+ workshops at colleges, corporate boardrooms, women's shelters and worked with the United States Embassy in Norway and Latvia introducing improv as a tool for social change. Griffin-Irons's outreach work has appeared in Diversity Journal publication, on NPR, ABC, NBC and numerous academic posts including her 2015 TEDx Talk at the University of Chicago. Producer credits include 20+ "Urban Twist" revues, Second City Southside, R.E.A.C.H. (Risky, Eclectic Artists Comedy Hour), Second City Black History Month Show, and Second City & NBC Break Out Comedy Festival. Her 2014 published work can be found in Rowan/Littlefield's anthology Women, Writing and Prison. She is currently writing a memoir on the intersection of comedy, diversity and women in prison. JAC JEMC is the author of the novels Empty Theatre; My Only Wife, winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award; The Grip of It; and the short-story collections A Different Bed Every Time and False Bingo, winner of the Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction and finalist for the Story Prize. Jemc currently teaches creative writing at UC–San Diego. JUAN MARTINEZ is the author of the short-story collection Best Worst American, winner of the Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award. His work has appeared in various literary journals and anthologies, including Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, TriQuarterly, Conjunctions, Norton's Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories from the United States and Latin America, and The Perpetual Engine of Hope: Stories Inspired by Iconic Vegas Photographs. FRANCES DE PONTES PEEBLES is the author of the novels The Seamstress and The Air You Breathe. She is a Creative Writing Fellow in Literature for 2020 from The National Endowment for the Arts. Her books have been translated into ten languages and won the Elle Grand Prix for fiction, the Friends of American Writers Award, and the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Fellowship. Her second no

Today, Lori is interviewing Jolene Mcilwain. They'll be talking about Sidle Creek and centering a short story collection around a place. Jolene McIlwain's fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and appears in West Branch, Florida Review, Cincinnati Review, New Orleans Review, Northern Appalachia Review, and 2019's Best Small Fictions Anthology. Her work was named finalist for 2018's Best of the Net, Glimmer Train's and River Styx's contests, and semifinalist in Nimrod's Katherine Anne Porter Prize and two American Short Fiction's contests. She's received a Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council grant, the Georgia Court Chautauqua faculty scholarship, and Tinker Mountain's merit scholarship. She taught literary theory/analysis at Duquesne and Chatham Universities and she worked as a radiologic technologist before attending college (BS English, minor in sculpture, MA Literature). She was born, raised, and currently lives in a small town in the Appalachian plateau of Western Pennsylvania. You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.   In this episode Jolene Mcilwain and Lori discuss: Why the length of a story doesn't equate its emotional impact. How to center a collection around a place and add enough grounding details. Taking on stereotypes and going deeper in your writing.   Plus, her #1 tip for writers. For more info and show notes: diymfa.com/462

Tammy Euliano's writing is inspired by her day job as a physician, researcher, and educator at the University of Florida. She's received numerous teaching awards, ~100,000 views of her YouTube teaching videos, and was featured in a calendar of women inventors. Her debut medical thriller, Fatal Intent, was published by Oceanview in 2021. She shares her journey of pivoting from a career in medicine to writing and publishing her own books. She took classes, attended retreats, and wrote short stories to gain traction. After a chance meeting with a physician-turned-publisher, she went from manuscript to publishing offer within a couple of months. She also discussed the challenges of writing believable medical scenes for her books. Kathy Reichs of Bones fame called Fatal Intent “Medical suspense as sharp as it gets.” The sequel, Misfire, came out in January. Michael Connelly, best-selling author of the Bosch series called it “a first-rate medical thriller.” Euliano's short fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train, Bards & Sages, Flame Tree Press, and others. Topics include: How she became an author in her 50s and the transition from a busy physician climbing the academic ladder to a newbie fiction author Dealing with rejections and her experience with a small press has been amazing Talking about the humorous errors in medical scenes written by non-medical people The doctor is in for a fun conversation. Check in! Connect: www.teuliano.com * https://www.facebook.com/teuliano * https://www.instagram.com/teuliano/ Buy the books here. Visit Alex Greenwood's website: JAlexanderGreenwood.com. For show notes and more, visit the show website at MGOPod.com. Follow him on Twitter:  @A_Greenwood This Mysterious Goings On Podcast episode was recorded and mixed at Green Shebeen Studios in beautiful Kansas City, Missouri. Copyright 2023, all rights reserved. No reproduction, excerpting, or other use without written permission. We are an Amazon Associates seller, and some of our links may earn us a commission. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/j-alexander-greenwood/message

What We Talk About When We Talk About The Flood was published as part of the short story collection After the Flood, which was released by CCLaP in 2014. The collection represents Part Three of the linked short story collection UPSTATE re-released in 2020 by Tortoise Books (and originally released under the title The New York Stories by CCLaP in 2015). What We Talk About When We Talk About The Flood is read by Christian Winn (BIO below). INTRO/OUTRO music is Drinking of Me and was generously provided by Monkey Wrench. READER BIOChristian Winn is a fiction writer, poet, teacher of creative writing, and literary event producer living and working in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of the story collections NAKED ME and What's Wrong With You is What's Wrong With Me, and has two novel manuscripts and a collection ready to roll out into the world in 2023. He is the cofounder and Director of Storyfort and Story Forward and served as the State of Idaho's Writer in Residence from 2016 - 2019. His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Ploughshares, The Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Journal, Glimmer Train, Joyland, and elsewhere. Find out more about things Christian Winn at christainwinn.com. https://www.tanzerben.com/blog/upstate-the-podcast

In the 1940s, Singapore was controlled by the British occupied by the Japanese and comprised of rubber plantations and decrepit fishing villages. A timid little boy is the only one who can help his father, a fisherman, find a string of mysterious islands surrounded by teeming ocean life that will change the fortune of his family and neighbors. While his older brother fishes with their father, Ah Boon gets to go to school, where he meets his first friend, the beautiful Siok Mei. As they grow up, Siok Mei becomes entranced with improving the country through communism while Ah Boon focuses on his own livelihood. The British finally leave, the communists are banished, and the new rulers continue to rule Singapore with punishing vigor of previous colonizers. Ah Boon works with the new rulers to modernize the country, replace swamps with buildings and roads, and improve living conditions, but not everyone accepts the changes. The Great Reclamation (Riverhead Books, 2023) is a both a personal tale and a sweeping story of political and historical upheaval in 20th century Singapore. Rachel Heng is the author of the novel Suicide Club, translated into ten languages. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the National Arts Council of Singapore, among others. Heng, who was born and raised in Singapore, is currently an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University. G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com). 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

In the 1940s, Singapore was controlled by the British occupied by the Japanese and comprised of rubber plantations and decrepit fishing villages. A timid little boy is the only one who can help his father, a fisherman, find a string of mysterious islands surrounded by teeming ocean life that will change the fortune of his family and neighbors. While his older brother fishes with their father, Ah Boon gets to go to school, where he meets his first friend, the beautiful Siok Mei. As they grow up, Siok Mei becomes entranced with improving the country through communism while Ah Boon focuses on his own livelihood. The British finally leave, the communists are banished, and the new rulers continue to rule Singapore with punishing vigor of previous colonizers. Ah Boon works with the new rulers to modernize the country, replace swamps with buildings and roads, and improve living conditions, but not everyone accepts the changes. The Great Reclamation (Riverhead Books, 2023) is a both a personal tale and a sweeping story of political and historical upheaval in 20th century Singapore. Rachel Heng is the author of the novel Suicide Club, translated into ten languages. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers and has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the National Arts Council of Singapore, among others. Heng, who was born and raised in Singapore, is currently an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University. G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Latest up from Spoken Label (Spoken Word / Author Chat Podcast) features the wonderful Douglas Weissman. Douglas writes " stories of friendship, of finding beauty in the grotesque, of finding magic in the mundane; stories about building bridges, about burning bridges, about growing trees, about turning trees into bridges, and the ways strangers find common ground. " He advises his young adult series "and and New Adult novel were released by Epic Press in Fall 2016. " His short stories have been published in 3 Elements Review, Wild Musette, Kingdoms in the Wild, Lamplit Underground, and I Must Be Off and was shortlisted in Glimmer Train's "Family Matters" writing contest in 2015.  He is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco and lives in Los Angeles with his wife, fun-loving daughter, anxious dog, and indifferent cat. His website is: https://www.douglasweissman.com/

Transracial adoptee Matthew shares how he's found clarity and resolved confusion about who he is to find peace. There are insights aplenty on shame, feeling different and a host of other issues that can plague transracial adoptees.Here's the book I mention https://www.amazon.com/Power-vs-Force-Dr-David-R-Hawkins-audiobook/dp/B000KZRMCOMATTHEW SALESSES is the author of eight books, including The Sense of Wonder, which comes out in January 2023 from Little, Brown. Most recent are the national bestseller Craft in the Real World (a Best Book of 2021 at NPR, Esquire, Library Journal, Independent Book Review, Chicago Tribune, Electric Literature, and others) and the PEN/Faulkner Finalist and Dublin Literary Award longlisted novel Disappear Doppelgänger Disappear. He also wrote The Hundred-Year Flood; I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying; Different Racisms: On Stereotypes, the Individual, and Asian American Masculinity; The Last Repatriate; and Our Island of Epidemics (out of print). Also forthcoming is a memoir-in-essays, To Grieve Is to Carry Another Time.Matthew was adopted from Korea. In 2015 Buzzfeed named him one of 32 Essential Asian American Writers. His essays can be found in Best American Essays 2020, NPR Code Switch,The New York Times Motherlode, The Guardian, VICE.com, and other venues. His short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, PEN/Guernica, and Witness, among others. He has received awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf, Glimmer Train, Mid-American Review, [PANK], HTMLGIANT, IMPAC, Inprint, and elsewhere.Matthew is an Assistant Professor of Writing at Columbia University. He earned a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Emerson College. He serves on the editorial boards of Green Mountains Review and Machete (an imprint of The Ohio State University Press), and has held editorial positions at Pleiades, The Good Men Project, Gulf Coast, and Redivider. He has read and lectured widely at conferences and universities and on TV and radio, including PBS, NPR, Al Jazeera America, various MFA programs, and the Tin House, Kundiman, and One Story writing conferences.https://matthewsalesses.com/https://www.instagram.com/m.salesses

Sindya Bhanoo speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Tsunami Bride,” which appears in The Common's new fall issue. Sindya talks about her experience reporting from India after the 2004 tsunami, and how that experience eventually became a story about a journalist in the same position, told from a local's perspective. She also discusses how the training and techniques she developed as a journalist have shaped her drafting and revision process for fiction, how food often makes its way into her stories, and how her 2022 story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere came together. Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. A longtime newspaper reporter, she has worked for The New York Times and The Washington Post. She teaches at Oregon State University. Read Sindya's story in The Common at thecommononline.org/tsunami-bride. Read more from Sindya at sindyabhanoo.com. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She is a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily. 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

Sindya Bhanoo speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Tsunami Bride,” which appears in The Common's new fall issue. Sindya talks about her experience reporting from India after the 2004 tsunami, and how that experience eventually became a story about a journalist in the same position, told from a local's perspective. She also discusses how the training and techniques she developed as a journalist have shaped her drafting and revision process for fiction, how food often makes its way into her stories, and how her 2022 story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere came together. Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. A longtime newspaper reporter, she has worked for The New York Times and The Washington Post. She teaches at Oregon State University. Read Sindya's story in The Common at thecommononline.org/tsunami-bride. Read more from Sindya at sindyabhanoo.com. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She is a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Sindya Bhanoo speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Tsunami Bride,” which appears in The Common's new fall issue. Sindya talks about her experience reporting from India after the 2004 tsunami, and how that experience eventually became a story about a journalist in the same position, told from a local's perspective. She also discusses how the training and techniques she developed as a journalist have shaped her drafting and revision process for fiction, how food often makes its way into her stories, and how her 2022 story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere came together. Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. A longtime newspaper reporter, she has worked for The New York Times and The Washington Post. She teaches at Oregon State University. Read Sindya's story in The Common at thecommononline.org/tsunami-bride. Read more from Sindya at sindyabhanoo.com. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She is a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Sindya Bhanoo speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Tsunami Bride,” which appears in The Common's new fall issue. Sindya talks about her experience reporting from India after the 2004 tsunami, and how that experience eventually became a story about a journalist in the same position, told from a local's perspective. She also discusses how the training and techniques she developed as a journalist have shaped her drafting and revision process for fiction, how food often makes its way into her stories, and how her 2022 story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere came together. Sindya Bhanoo is the author of the story collection Seeking Fortune Elsewhere. She is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, New England Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. A longtime newspaper reporter, she has worked for The New York Times and The Washington Post. She teaches at Oregon State University. Read Sindya's story in The Common at thecommononline.org/tsunami-bride. Read more from Sindya at sindyabhanoo.com. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her debut novel is forthcoming from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She is a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Babysitter was published as part of the short story collection Repetition Patterns, which was released by CCLaP in 2008. The collection represents Part One of the linked short story collection UPSTATE re-released in 2020 by Tortoise Books (and originally released under the title The New York Stories released by CCLaP in 2015). The Babysitter is read by Cyn Vargas (BIO below). INTRO/OUTRO music is Drinking of Me and was generously provided by Monkey Wrench. READER BIO Cyn Vargas is the author of the short story collection On the Way, which made Newcity Lit's Top 5 Fiction Books by Chicago Authors, Chicago Book Review's Favorite Books of 2015, Bustle's 11 Short Story Collections Your Book Club Will Love, and Chicago Writers Association 2015 Book of the Year, Honorable Mention. Her prose and essays have been published in the Chicago Reader, Word Riot, Split Lip Magazine, Hypertext Magazine, Midnight Breakfast, Bird's Thumb, among others. She received a Top 25 Finalist and Honorable Mention in two of Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers Contests, is the recipient of the Guild Literary Complex Prose Award in Fiction, is a Core Faculty Member in Short Fiction and voted 2022 Instructor of the Year at StoryStudio Chicago, Curatorial Board Member for the Ragdale Foundation, on the Board of Directors for Hypertext Studio, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago. Recently, her story, Myrna's Dad, was selected by Symphony Space Selected Shorts to be performed on stage. www.cynvargas.com https://www.tanzerben.com/blog/upstate-the-podcast

Gene and cohost Tim Swartz introduce Shane Cashman, host of the paranormal podcast Tales From the Inverted World, which investigates the mysteries that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. Shane searches for answers concerning UFO encounters, cryptids, ghosts, inter-dimensional beings, secret government experiments — just to name a few topics. This episode will focus on his 2021 book, "Tales From the Inverted World: Close Contact with Ghosts, UFOs Serial Killers and Simulation Theory Volume 1," released in 2021. His stories have appeared in The Atlantic, BBC Travel, Atlas Obscura, Narratively, VICE, Salon, The Los Angeles Review of Books Blog, and elsewhere. In 2015, he received first place in the PEN Center USA 500-word short story contest. He is a Glimmer Train short fiction finalist, and his nonfiction has been featured as an Editor's Pick at Longreads.com.

Hi Everyone, "Let's Deconstruct a Story" is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author. Today I'll be talking about the short story "Chance" with the author, Peter Ho Davies. ***Content warning: This episode deals with pregnancy/childbirth, miscarriages/abortion*** Please read the story first and then listen to the podcast, available on Spotify, Apple, Amazon Music, Anchor, as well as several other platforms. "Chance" was first published in Glimmer Train and then later in Catamaran and Drum. It's also the first chapter in his 2021 novel, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself. I'm excited about this episode because after we delved into the creation of the story, Peter shared some insights into how a story morphs into a novel. As usual, if you have any suggestions about writers/stories/people to feature on this podcast, please let me know! I'd love to hear your comments about the discussions as well. If you would like a written transcript of this podcast, please contact me at www.kellyfordon.com Enjoy! Kelly Please find a link to the story at www.kellyfordon.com

Michael Poore is author of the book Reincarnation Blues, the story of Milo, the oldest and wisest soul on Earth. He also wrote, Up Jumps the Devil, the story of John Scratch, who is really the Devil, and who has been bumming around Earth since he got kicked out of heaven. The New York Review of Books called this book, “an elegiac masterpiece.” Poore's most recent book, Two Girls, a Clock and a Crooked House, published in 2019 is his first for young readers. His short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Southern Review, and Asimov's. And his story “The Street of the House of the Sun” was selected for The Year's Best Nonrequired Reading in 2012. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/cutting-for-sign/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cutting-for-sign/support

Today we chat with Yara Zgheib. Yara is a reader, writer, traveler, lover of art and jazz. She was born in Beirut and has pieces of her heart in Paris, London, Boston, and one particularly beautiful, one-road Tuscan village. She is the author of The Girls at 17 Swann Street (St. Martin's Press, 2019), which was a People Pick for Best New Books, a Barnes and Noble pick for Best Books of 2019, and a BookMovement Group read. Her second novel, No Land to Light On (Atria Books, January 2022), a Simon and Schuster pick and Indie Book read, has been called a “masterful story of tragedy and redemption” written in “soul-searing prose,” and has been featured in The Washington Post, The L.A. Times, and Newsweek as one of the top books of 2022. Her essays and stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, The Huffington Post, The Four Seasons Magazine, HOLIDAY Magazine, The European, and others. Also, every Thursday, she publishes an essay on The non-Utilitarian: thoughts on life, art, and things neither practical nor useful, like love and fresh water, for example. To be notified, every Thursday morning, when a new essay is published, please subscribe to the newsletter. Yara is represented by Ms. Janet Silver at Aevitas Creative Management. You can also find her at: http://www.instagram.com/yarazgheibofficial We hope you enjoyed the show. Please like and subscribe for more awesome content. ♥️ Jenny Link to our socials: https://linktr.ee/miamilit #miamilitpodcast #booktube #author #authortube #immigrantstories --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/miami-lit-podcast/support

Michael talks with Jennifer Wortman about reading as a disaffected teen, becoming a fiction writer, her story collection THIS. THIS. THIS. IS. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE., self-conscious narrators, theme appearing without seeing it, the question of God, a novel-in-stories-in-progress, where strangeness in a story comes from, and more.Jennifer Wortman is the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love. (Split/Lip Press, 2019). She's been a recipient of NEA and MacDowell fellowships, and her work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Hayden's Ferry Review, Glimmer Train, Electric Literature, Brevity, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and elsewhere.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Rosaleen Bertolino was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and is currently living in Mexico. She received her B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz and her M.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her awards include a Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grant and an Honorable Mention for the James D. Phelan Award. She has twice been a finalist for Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Award, and has been a writer in residence at the Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, during 2008, 2007, and 2006. She is co-founder and host of the reading series Prose Cafe, based in San Miquel de Allende, Mexico, and the winner of the 2019 Many Voices Project Prose competition. Her debut collection, "The Paper Demon and Other Stories," was released New Rivers Press in the fall of 2021 and was a handpicked book at Small Press Distribution.

Carrie Knowles is an author, journalist, artist, and speaker. She is the author of 8 books; four novels and four nonfiction. She also pens a regular column for Psychology Today called "Shifting Forward: A Wanderer's Musings". Carrie was named the Piedmont Laureate for Short Fiction in 2014. Her short stories have won more than 25 awards, including the Village Advocate Fiction Contest, the Blumenthal Writers & Readers Series, the North Carolina Writers Network Fiction Syndication and Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Competition. She has been named a finalist in Glimmer Train competitions six times and was also a finalist in the Doris Betts Fiction Contest and received an honorable mention in the National Literary Awards. She has also traveled all of the world with her family, balancing exploration, motherhood, and writing. Want to learn more about Carrie? Carrie's Website Carrie's Facebook If you enjoyed today's episode and had a takeaway moment to share, be sure to take a screenshot and tag me (@thetravelshifters) on Instagram and let us know what it was! We love connecting with you. Also, I invite you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify. See you in the next episode! Links and Resources Join Remote Work and How to Find it Waitlist Want a resume audit? Visit my website Follow me on Instagram Follow me on TikTok Join my Facebook Group Leave a Podcast Review or Rating

In this episode A Musical Affair, divorce, deception, love affairs, expensive secrets, long overdue forgiveness, the power of beautiful music, and $300,000: The Inevitable Past, Black-tie Optional, the Lost Childhood, a Garden Wall in Province, Ashoan's Rug… the mind of an author, the heart and compassion of a woman. Stay tuned, we're going to have a conversation with Carrie Knowles who's creativity has no boundaries and her dreams no fences. I'm your host Michael Herst in this is That Thing About The Free Range Writer My guest in this episode is Carrie Knowles is the author of 8 books - four novels and four nonfiction. She also pens a regular column for Psychology Today called "Shifting Forward: A Wanderer's Musings". Carrie was named the Piedmont Laureate for Short Fiction in 2014. Her short stories have won more than 25 awards, including the Village Advocate Fiction Contest, the Blumenthal Writers & Readers Series, the North Carolina Writers Network Fiction Syndication and Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Competition. She has been named a finalist in Glimmer Train competitions six times and was also a finalist in the Doris Betts Fiction Contest and received an honorable mention in the National Literary Awards. Find out more at https://beforeyougopodcast.com This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy

Tammy Euliano writes medical thrillers. She's inspired by her day job as a physician, researcher and medical educator. She is a tenured professor at the University of Florida, where she's been honored with numerous teaching awards, nearly 100,000 views of her YouTube teaching videos, and was featured in a calendar of women inventors (copies available wherever you buy your out-of-date calendars). Her debut novel, Fatal Intent, will be published by Oceanview in March, 2021. Her short fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train, Bards & Sages, Flame Tree Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Crime Bake, and the Faulkner Society, among others. https://www.teuliano.com/

Tammy Euliano writes medical thrillers. She's inspired by her day job as a physician, researcher and medical educator. She is a tenured professor at the University of Florida, where she's been honored with numerous teaching awards, nearly 100,000 views of her YouTube teaching videos, and was featured in a calendar of women inventors (copies available wherever you buy your out-of-date calendars). Her debut novel, Fatal Intent, will be published by Oceanview in March, 2021. Her short fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train, Bards & Sages, Flame Tree Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Crime Bake, and the Faulkner Society, among others. https://www.teuliano.com/

Tammy Euliano writes medical thrillers. She's inspired by her day job as a physician, researcher and medical educator. She is a tenured professor at the University of Florida, where she's been honored with numerous teaching awards, nearly 100,000 views of her YouTube teaching videos, and was featured in a calendar of women inventors (copies available wherever you buy your out-of-date calendars). Her debut novel, Fatal Intent, will be published by Oceanview in March, 2021. Her short fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train, Bards & Sages, Flame Tree Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Crime Bake, and the Faulkner Society, among others. https://www.teuliano.com/

Tammy Euliano writes medical thrillers. She's inspired by her day job as a physician, researcher and medical educator. She is a tenured professor at the University of Florida, where she's been honored with numerous teaching awards, nearly 100,000 views of her YouTube teaching videos, and was featured in a calendar of women inventors (copies available wherever you buy your out-of-date calendars). Her debut novel, Fatal Intent, will be published by Oceanview in March, 2021. Her short fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train, Bards & Sages, Flame Tree Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, Crime Bake, and the Faulkner Society, among others. https://www.teuliano.com/

How did a self-described nervous kid from New Jersey become a colossal force as a speaker, and author of the new groundbreaking book Unfollow Your Passion: How to Create a Life That Matters to You ( Altra Books/Simon & Schuster).  Terri Trespicio is a writer, speaker, and brand advisor who works with individuals and groups to change the way they think about, talk about, and position what they do. She teaches her clients a masterclass in the alchemy of words.  In this interview, she shares her journey - from her first job writing press releases for a publisher in the back of his home office to her current work helping corporations and business owners write the words that matter to their missions. Terri earned her BA in English from Boston College and an MFA in Creative Writing in 2002 from Emerson College, where her thesis, a collection of poetry, won the Graduate Dean Award. A finalist for the Iowa Award and Glimmer Train, her literary work has appeared in The Greensboro Review, New Millennium Writings, and The Baltimore Review, where she won first place in their 2016 creative nonfiction contest.A former magazine editor and radio host at Martha Stewart, she has appeared on the Today Show, Dr. Oz, The Early Show, The Martha Stewart Show and The Anderson Cooper Show. Her work has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, Prevention, Business Insider, Forbes.com, and Inc.com. Certified in the Gateless Method for capturing creative genius, she leads workshops and retreats all over the country to help professionals of all stripes take their stories and ideas from page to stage and beyond. An in-demand speaker who presents at conferences across the country, she was rated the #1 speaker at Barron's Top Independent Women Advisors Summit and How Design Live. On the heels of her first TEDx talk, she was invited to give a second, “It's About Time We Rethink Happily Ever After.” Terri is also a stand-up comic and has performed at famous Manhattan venues including Caroline's, Dangerfield's, Gotham, and New York Comedy Club, and was a quarter-finalist in the She Devil Comedy Competition. We warmly welcome Terri to this episode of Intrinsic Drive™.Intrinsic Drive™ is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton. Special thanks to Andrew Hollingworth, our sound engineer and technical editor.  For more information on this and other episodes visit us at www.whartonhealth.com/intrinsicdrive. Follow us on socials (links below) including Instagram  @intrinsicdrivelive  

Julian Zabalbeascoa speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Igerilara,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. In this conversation from San Sebastián, Julian talks about writing stories set in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and the Basque Conflict. He also discusses his love of travel and his experiences running study abroad programs for college students, and what it's like to teach The Common in his classes at UMass Lowell. Julian Zabalbeascoa's stories have been published or will appear in American Short Fiction, Copper Nickel, Electric Literature's The Commuter, The Gettysburg Review, Glimmer Train, Ploughshares, Ploughshares Solos, Shenandoah, and other publications. He is a visiting professor in the Honors College at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and lives in Boston. Read his story in The Common at thecommononline.org/igerilaria. Read more about Julian and his work at julianzabalbeascoa.com. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine at thecommononline.org, and follow us on Twitter @CommonMag. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She holds an MA in literature from Queen Mary University of London, and a BA from Smith College. Say hello on Twitter @Public_Emily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 78 Notes and Links to Adam O'Fallon Price's Work         On Episode 78 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes master of narrative and integrating multiple voices, Adam O'Fallon Price. Adam and Pete discuss, among other topics, his unique path to professional writerdom, “ ‘Eureka' ” moments on the way, his interesting take on “sentence writers” versus “paragraph writers,” and the skillful ways in which Adam built in slow dread and pathos into his award-winning The Hotel Neversink.           Adam O'Fallon Price is the author of two novels, The Grand Tour (Doubleday, 2016) and The Hotel Neversink (Tin House Books, 2019). His short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, VICE, The Kenyon Review Online, Glimmer Train, Narrative, EPOCH, The Iowa Review, and many other places. His essay and criticism have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Ploughshares, Electric Literature, and The Millions, where he is a staff writer.   Buy The Hotel Neversink   Adam O'Fallon Price's Website   An Interview with Adam O'Fallon Price   About 3:00, Adam talks about his North Carolina allegiance and the die-hard basketball fans of the state   About 6:00, Adam talks about his relationship with the written word and his circuitous route through music to writing screenplays, which helped him improve his narrative style before getting into the creative writing    About 8:15, Adam talks about the idea of “transportive” literature, especially experienced in childhood   About 9:30, Adam talks about the interesting idea of “sentence writers and readers” and “paragraph readers and writers,” fleshed out in group chats with fellow writers   About 12:20, Pete asks Adam about how seeing himself as a “paragraph writer” affects his editing process   At about 14:05, Pete asks Adam how the screenwriter student in him comes out in his fiction   At about 17:15, Pete and Adam discuss the cliched On The Road, referencing Adam's appearance on the great I'm a Writer But   At about 18:35, Adam compares and contrasts music and writing, taking into consideration his many years of band experience   At about 19:25, Adam discusses a “ ‘Eureka' moment” involving a short story that he felt was complete and gave him a sense of accomplishment   At about 21:55, Pete wonders if Adam can trace an evolution/change from his early writing to his current writing   At about 23:55, Adam reflects on his initial thoughts on early publishing and the subjective nature of publishing    At about 26:10, Adam speaks about “seeking out stories”   At about 29:00, Adam responds to Pete's question about which writing/writers his college students respond to, including Erin Somers, Brandon Taylor, and other great work from Joyland Magazine   At about 33:05, Adam talks about ideas of art versus commercialism and failure as themes in his 2016 book, The Grand Tour   At about 34:30, Adam juxtaposes the euphoria of publishing his first book versus the anxiety that comes with the book being out in the world   At about 37:10, Adam responds to questions about The Hotel Neversink and how the award-winning book doesn't fit a horror genre and the seeds of the book and how he started it   At about 42:00, Pete highlights some understated dynamite lines from Adam's book   At about 43:15, Pete asks Adam about the genesis of the family arc as a story of a Jewish family   At about 46:35, Pete and Adam discuss the basis of success hardened by hardship and sin as a major theme of the book   At about 49:15, Pete describes Adam's skill with taking on different voices for the book, and Adam discusses how he unified the book with all of the voices, including some fun comedy   At about 52:20, Pete asks Adam about the ease of writing a dark text that touched upon horror, and how his agent asked him to make a collection of linked stories into a novel   At about 56:55, the two discuss the saying “It's always scarier before the monster shows up” in relation to the novel, and how Adam looks to create a “slow sense of dread”   At about 58:35, Pete recommends a movie poster possibility for The Hotel Neversink   At about 59:05, Pete connects the sense of dread from Adam's novel to the classic story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?”   At about 1:01:00, Pete and Adam discuss the ending as possibly a happy one   At about 1:02:55, Pete talks about a crazy connection to flashlights and the novel   At about 1:03:35, Adam talks about upcoming projects, including a “more conventional mystery” novel   At about 1:04:50, Adam discusses his penchant for silence when he writes    You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.  This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form. The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.

Thriller Author Tammy Euliano joins Queries, Qualms, & Quirks this week to discuss putting yourself out there, getting killer author blurbs, the way writing is harder than being a doctor, the exercise that gets her unstuck, and the importance of writing community. ✦ Tammy's writing is inspired by her day job as a physician, researcher and educator at the University of Florida. Her short fiction has been recognized by Glimmer Train, Flame Tree Press, Flash Fiction Magazine, and others. Her debut medical thriller, Fatal Intent, was published by Oceanview in March, 2021. ✦ Tammy: Query Text | Website | Facebook | Instagram | Goodreads | Bookshop | IndieBound | Libro.fm | Amazon ✦ QQQ Home Base | Support on Patreon ✦ If links aren't clickable, find them here: https://bit.ly/qqqtammy

Cynthia Gregory, MFA, is an award-winning author of short stories. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including The Sun, Glimmer Train, the Briar Cliff Review, Santa Barbara Review, The Ear, and Central PA. She took second place in Writers Digest annual fiction contest, first place in the Glimmer Train Family Matters short story competition, and first place in the Mark Twain Short Fiction Prize. Her nonfiction book, Journaling As Sacred Practice: An Act of Extreme Bravery was published in 2016 under the Green Tara Press imprint. Her new book, What is Possible From Here will be released in 2021. Cynthia coaches would-be authors through the exciting and terrifying process of writing and producing the book of their dreams through 1:1 coaching, online workshops, and group coaching. She lives in California's Sonoma Valley with her rescue pups, Winston the Wonder Dog, and the fabulous Mr. Blue. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lucia-matuonto/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lucia-matuonto/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kelly Fordon and Susan Perabo discuss Susan's story, This is Not That Story. The story is available in The Sun Magazine and linked on Kelly Fordon's blog. Bio: Susan Perabo's most recent books are The Fall of Lisa Bellow (2017) and Why They Run the Way They Do (2016), both from Simon & Schuster. Her fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories, andNew Stories from the South, and her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, including One Story, Glimmer Train, Story, The New York Times, The Sun, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her work has been featured on the podcasts Modern Love and Selected Shorts. She is a professor creative writing at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. Why They Run the Way They Do: Stories and The Fall of Lisa Bellow are available at Bookshop and Amazon. Kelly Fordon's latest short story collection I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020) was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind, (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House, (Kattywompus Press, 2019) was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist and was adapted into a play, written by Robin Martin, which was published in The Kenyon Review Online. She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts and The InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, as well as online, where she also runs a monthly poetry and fiction blog. www.kellyfordon.com

Cynthia Gregory, MFA, is an award-winning author of short stories. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including The Sun, Glimmer Train, the Briar Cliff Review, Santa Barbara Review, The Ear, and Central PA. She took second place in Writers Digest annual fiction contest, first place in the Glimmer Train Family Matters short story competition, and first place in the Mark Twain Short Fiction Prize. Her nonfiction book, Journaling As Sacred Practice: An Act of Extreme Bravery was published in 2016 under the Green Tara Press imprint. Her new book, What is Possible From Here will be released in 2021. Cynthia coaches would-be authors through the exciting and terrifying process of writing and producing the book of their dreams through 1:1 coaching, online workshops, and group coaching. She lives in California's Sonoma Valley with her rescue pups, Winston the Wonder Dog, and the fabulous Mr. Blue. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/lucia-matuonto/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lucia-matuonto/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Charlesworth's first novel, The Patricide of George Benjamin Hill, was published in 2019. His writing has appeared in Natural Bridge and was awarded finalist status in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers. He was also the recipient of a Martin Dibner Fellowship. James grew up eighty miles east of Pittsburgh, attended Penn State University, and received an MFA from Emerson College in Boston, where he currently lives.

Brinton Woodall sits down with debut Author Nick Olson where they discuss his book Here's Waldo. Spanning the late 90s to the 2010s, HERE'S WALDO is a sprawling, tragicomic novel that tracks the story of Waldo Collins, a nerdy kid born in a torn-up town in the shadow of Chicago-unincorporated Des Plaines, IL. It's a story about what it was like to come of age as the new millennium dawned with all its irrevocable changes. A story about the family bonds we're born with and those we create along the way, and about using humor to find light in the dark. About generational trauma and the continuation (or completion) of cycles of violence. It's here we follow Waldo from age eight to twenty-four as he figures out his place in the world, leaves his hometown to become a writer, and ultimately comes back to face everything (and everyone) he left behind. Here's a story of loss, love, grief, guilt, and a search for meaning. Here's Waldo. Outside of talking about one another's books they discuss their love for screenwriting and talk about each other writing process. As Nick talks about his Journey to get his book out and his journey to be the published Author that he is. Nick Olson is an author and editor from Chicagoland now living in North Carolina. He was a finalist for Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Award, and he's been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, Hobart, decomP, and other fine places. When he's not writing his own work, he's sharing the wonderful work of others over at (mac)ro(mic) Nick Olson: https://nickolsonbooks.com/ Brinton Woodall: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=brinton+woodall&i=digital-text&crid=TFPI413N7WFF&sprefix=Brinton+%2Cdigital-text%2C160&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_8IG: @Americanaquill IG@Brintonwoodall IG@AmericanaQuill --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brinton-woodall/support

Welcome to The Academic Life. You are smart and capable, but you aren't an island, and neither are we. So we reached across our mentor network to bring you podcasts on everything from how to finish that project, to how to take care of your beautiful mind. Wish we'd bring in an expert about something? Email us at cgessler@gmail.com or dr.danamalone@gmail.com. Find us on Twitter : The Academic Life @AcademicLifeNBN. In this episode you'll hear: about putting your personal story onto the page, choosing between fiction and memoir to find your story's true voice, getting an MFA, the importance of having a good mentor, navigating the stories of others that intersect yours, creating beauty out of trauma, grief, BLM, and a discussion of the book The Names of All the Flowers. Our guest is: Melissa Valentine, author of The Names of All the Flowers. She is a writer from Oakland, CA. She earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA in creative writing from Mills College. She has been a fellow at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, and her work has appeared in Jezebel, Guernica, Apogee Journal, and others. Her writing has received honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and the Ardella Mills Non-fiction Award. She works as an editor, and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Your host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women, gender, and sexuality. Listeners to this episode might be interested in: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates Create Dangerously by Edwidge Danticat The Purpose of Power by Alicia Garza Dust Tracks On a Road by Zora Neale Hurston Soldier by June Jordan Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde The Source of Self-Regard by Toni Morrison Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward "How Racism Makes Us Sick" [TedTalk] "How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across A Lifetime" [TedTalk] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/academic-life