Podcasts about helen zell writers' program

Day 3: Marcelo Hernandez Castillo reads his poem “Eclogue: A Field Guide and Cure.” The poem was published in the recent anthology Like A Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration (Haymarket Books, 2025). Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is the author of Children of the Land: a Memoir (Harper Collins); Cenzontle (BOA Editions), winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. prize; Dulce (Northwestern University Press), winner of the Drinking Gourd Prize; and, most recently, he is the co-editor of the anthology Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora (Harper Perennial). He is the 2025 guest editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review and has also curated the Academy of American Poet's Poem-A-Day Series. His work has been long listed for the California Book Award, the Foreword Indies Prize, and the Lambda Literary Award, among other recognitions. He was the first undocumented student to graduate from the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan and co-founded the Undocupoets, which eliminated citizenship requirements from all major poetry book prizes in the U.S., and for which he was recognized with the Barnes and Noble Writers for Writers award. Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Find books from participating poets in our library's catalog.  Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.  Queer Poem-a-Day is founded and co-directed by poet and professor Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Library and host of the Deerfield Public Library Podcast. Music for this fifth year of our series is “L'Ange Verrier” from Le Rossignol Éperdu by Reynaldo Hahn, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by generous donations from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library and the Deerfield Fine Arts Commission.

​Russell Brakefield is the author of FIELD RECORDINGS (Wayne State University Press, 2018). His writing has appeared in the Indiana Review, New Orleans Review, Poet Lore, Crab Orchard Review, Hobart, and elsewhere. He received his MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program. He has received fellowships from the University of Michigan Musical Society, the Vermont Studio Center, and the National Parks Department. He teaches writing at the University Writing Program at the University of Denver. Find more at: http://www.russellbrakefield.com/ As always, we'll also include live open lines for responses to our weekly prompt or any other poems you'd like to share. For details on how to participate, either via Skype or by phone, go to: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem about a tourist town during the off-season. Next Weeks' Prompt: Onomatopoeia is a figure of speech in which a word, when spoken, imitates the sound it describes; tick-tock, clang, or splash are examples of onomatopoeia. Write a poem that include one or more onomatopoeic words. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Periscope, then becomes an audio podcast.

How is the zombie of Haitian folklore a poetic metaphor for how society treats Blackness? Bryan Byrdlong of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan tells Jared about his project on the traditional and modern conceptualization of zombies, how poetry can transcend fake news, and how his MFA program gave him an inner editorial voice. Bryan Byrdlong is a Black poet from Chicago, Illinois. In high school, he was part of Chicago’s Louder than a Bomb poetry slam competition. He graduated from Vanderbilt University where he received an undergraduate English/Creative Writing degree and was the co-recipient of the Merrill Moore Award for Poetry upon graduation. He has been published in the Nashville Review, Heavy Feather Review, and Pleiades Magazine. Most recently, he received the Gregory Djanaikian Scholarship from The Adroit Journal. He is a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan and a current Zell Fellow. You can find him on Twitter @BByrdlong. MFA Writers is hosted by Jared McCormack and produced by Jared McCormack and Hanamori Skoblow. New episodes are released every two weeks. You can find more MFA Writers at MFAwriters.com. Twitter: @MFAwriterspod Instagram: @MFAwriterspodcast Facebook: MFA Writers Email: mfawriterspodcast@gmail.com

Franny Choi’s book-length collection of poetry, Soft Science (Alice James Books 2019), explores queer, Asian American femininity through the lens of robots, cyborgs, and artificial intelligence. As she notes in this interview, “this book is a study of softness,” exploring feeling, vulnerability, and desire. How can you be tender and still survive in a hard and violent world? What does it mean to have desire when you yourself are made into an object of desire? What does it mean to have a body that bears the weight of history? Choi’s poetry contemplates such questions through the technology of poetic form. “Once, an animal with hands like mine learned to break a seed with two stones – one hard and one soft. Once, a scientist in Britain asked: Can machines think? He built a machine, taught it to read ghosts, and a new kind of ghost was born. At Disneyland, I watched a robot dance the macarena. Everyone clapped, and the clapping, too, was a technology. I once made my mouth a technology of softness. I listened carefully as I drank. I made the tools fuck in my mouth – okay, we can say pickle if it’s easier to hear – until they birthed new ones. What I mean is, I learned.” — from “A Brief History of Cyborgs” by Franny Choi Franny Choi is the author of two poetry collections, Soft Science (from Alice James Books) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing), as well as a chapbook, Death by Sex Machine (Sibling Rivalry Press). She is a Kundiman Fellow, a 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, and a graduate of the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers Program. She is a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow at Williams College and co-hosts the podcast VS alongside fellow Dark Noise Collective member Danez Smith. Andrea Blythe is a cohost of the New Books in Poetry podcast. She is the author of Your Molten Heart / A Seed to Hatch (2018) a collection of erasure poems, and coauthor of Every Girl Becomes the Wolf (Finishing Line Press, 2018), a collaborative chapbook written with Laura Madeline Wiseman. She is a cohost of the New Books in Poetry podcast and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association and the Horror Writers Association. Find her online at andreablythe.com or on Twitter and Instagram @AndreaBlythe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Franny Choi’s book-length collection of poetry, Soft Science (Alice James Books 2019), explores queer, Asian American femininity through the lens of robots, cyborgs, and artificial intelligence. As she notes in this interview, “this book is a study of softness,” exploring feeling, vulnerability, and desire. How can you be tender and still survive in a hard and violent world? What does it mean to have desire when you yourself are made into an object of desire? What does it mean to have a body that bears the weight of history? Choi’s poetry contemplates such questions through the technology of poetic form. “Once, an animal with hands like mine learned to break a seed with two stones – one hard and one soft. Once, a scientist in Britain asked: Can machines think? He built a machine, taught it to read ghosts, and a new kind of ghost was born. At Disneyland, I watched a robot dance the macarena. Everyone clapped, and the clapping, too, was a technology. I once made my mouth a technology of softness. I listened carefully as I drank. I made the tools fuck in my mouth – okay, we can say pickle if it’s easier to hear – until they birthed new ones. What I mean is, I learned.” — from “A Brief History of Cyborgs” by Franny Choi Franny Choi is the author of two poetry collections, Soft Science (from Alice James Books) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing), as well as a chapbook, Death by Sex Machine (Sibling Rivalry Press). She is a Kundiman Fellow, a 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow, and a graduate of the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers Program. She is a Gaius Charles Bolin Fellow at Williams College and co-hosts the podcast VS alongside fellow Dark Noise Collective member Danez Smith. Andrea Blythe is a cohost of the New Books in Poetry podcast. She is the author of Your Molten Heart / A Seed to Hatch (2018) a collection of erasure poems, and coauthor of Every Girl Becomes the Wolf (Finishing Line Press, 2018), a collaborative chapbook written with Laura Madeline Wiseman. She is a cohost of the New Books in Poetry podcast and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association and the Horror Writers Association. Find her online at andreablythe.com or on Twitter and Instagram @AndreaBlythe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we’re bringing you an interview with writer and editor Julie Buntin, the author of a great friendship novel, Marlena, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including the Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. Y’all, it’s really good. Julie is from northern Michigan, and her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Vogue, the New York Times Book Review, Guernica, and other publications. She has taught creative writing at New York University, Columbia University, and the Yale Writers’ Workshop, and is incoming asst prof in the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan, and a recent Ellen Levine Fund for Writers Award winner for her current novel-in-progress, and is editor-at-large for Catapult. You can find her at juliebuntin.com and on Twitter @juliebuntin. We cover a lot of ground, serious and not-so-serious. From the impact of friendships and loss, to Golden Girls, Judy Blume, and Nicholas Cage, to the algorithm and how to run a writing workshop. We loved talking to Julie, and hope you enjoy listening. As always, we'd love for you to take a minute to rate and review us in your podcast app, as this helps other listeners find the show.  Visit our website, marginallypodcast.com, for complete show notes and to get in touch. Find us on Instagram @marginallypodcast. Meghan's occasionally on Twitter @meghanembee, and Olivia’s @roamingolivia Theme music is "It's Time" by Scaricá Ricascá 

Our favorite co-hosts Zoey Reynolds and Caitlin Dillon are back to discuss a few of their favorite things. Today on The Mochila Chat we talk about the struggle of finding who we are as individuals and as writers. We hear Zamarit Ortiz’s short story, “The End of Ignacio” from our Spring 2017 issue of the […]

Recorded Live at Literati: Cody Walker reads from his timely chapbook The Trumpiad, Helen Zell Writers' Program graduate Katie Willingham reads from her forthcoming debut collection Unlikely Designs; author Jospeh Scapellato reads from his short story collection Big Lonesome, and discusses it with Claire Vaye Watkins; Raymond McDaniel reads some of his favorite poems; Yale Younger winner Dee Matthews reads from her collection Simulacra. Also, Sam talks with bookseller and Literati Poetry Book Club host and curator Bennet S. Johnson. Shelf Talking Produced by: Mike & Hilary Gustafson, and John Ganiard Theme Music: “Orange and Red” by Pity Sex (2016, Run for Cover Records)

Claire Vaye Watkins is the author of Gold Fame Citrus and the multiple-prize-winning Battleborn. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and on the faculty at the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan, at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and at the Mojave School. Derek Palacio is the author of The Mortifications and How to Shake the Other Man, and teaches in Ann Arbor Michican, as well as at the Institute for Indian American Arts, and at the Mojave School.

Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, THE FORTUNES by Peter Ho Davies recasts American history through the lives of four Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience. Spinning fiction around fact, Davies uses stories—three inspired by real historical characters—to examine the process of becoming not only Chinese American, but American. Released just this fall, THE FORTUNES has garnered swift and widespread critical acclaim. Davies, who is also faculty in the University of Michigan’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program, will read from his novel and discuss the challenges of writing fiction inspired by real people and how his own experience of becoming American since immigrating 25 years ago informed the book. PETER HO DAVIES is the author of two novels, THE FORTUNES and THE WELSH GIRL (long-listed for the Man Booker Prize), and two short story collections, THE UGLIEST HOUSE IN THE WORLD (winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize) and EQUAL LOVE (A New York Times Notable Book). His work has appeared in HARPERS, THE ATLANTIC, THE PARIS REVIEW, THE GUARDIAN, AND THE WASHINGTON POST among others, and has been widely anthologized, including selections for PRIZE STORIES: THE O. HENRY AWARDS and BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES. In 2003 GRANTA magazine named him among its Best of Young British Novelists. Davies is also a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a winner of the PEN/Malamud Award. Born in Britain to Welsh and Chinese parents, he now makes his home in the US. He has taught at the University of Oregon and Emory University, and is currently on the faculty of the Helen Zell MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. This series is presented in partnership with: African & African Diaspora Studies at Calvin College Ambrose @ WMCAT The Asian Studies Program at Calvin College Brazos Press The Calvin Center for Community Engagement & Global Learning The Calvin College Campus Store The Calvin College Associate Dean for Diversity & Inclusion The Calvin College History Department The Calvin College Office of the Provost The Calvin College Department of Sociology & Social Work Heyns Fund The Calvin College Student Life Division The Calvin Theater Company The Christian Reformed Church’s Office of Social Justice Event and Tech Services at Calvin College The Paul B. Henry Institute at Calvin College Schuler Books and Music