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Matthew Minicucci is an award-winning author of four collections of poems including his most recent, Dual, published in 2023 by Acre Books. His poetry and essays have appeared widely in various publications, including American Poetry Review, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, the Kenyon Review, Poetry, and The Southern Review. His work has garnered numerous awards including the Stafford/Hall Oregon Book Award and the Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize, along with fellowships from organizations including the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the National Parks Service, and the James Merrill House, among others. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Blount Scholars Program at the University of Alabama.Brigit Pegeen Kelly was born in 1951 in Palo Alto, California. Her first book, To the Place of Trumpets, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize and was published in 1987. Her poems appeared in Best American Poetry, The Nation, The Yale Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, and others. She won awards and fellowships from the Poetry Society of America, the Whiting Foundation, and the Academy of American Poets. Her third book, The Orchard, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Kelly taught at the University of California-Irvine, Purdue University, Warren Wilson College, and the University of Illinois. She died in October of 2016, in Urbana, Illinois. Special thanks to Boa Editions, Ltd, for permission to record Brigit Pegeen Kelly's poem "Song," which appeared in her book Song, and "Brightness from the North," which was published in The Orchard. Links:Matthew MinicucciMatthew Minicucci's websiteBio and poems at The Poetry Foundation"Nostalgia" at poets.orgTwo poems in Poetry NorthwestBrigit Pegeen KellyBio and poems at The Poetry FoundationBio and poems at poets.org"Dead Doe" in The Kenyon ReviewReading at Breadloaf Writers' ConferenceMentioned in this episode:KnoxCountyLibrary.orgThank you for listening and sharing this podcast. Explore life-changing resources and events, sign up for newsletters, follow us on social media, and more through our website, www.knoxcountylibrary.org.Rate & review on Podchaser
Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant's Child,” which appears in The Common's spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by it, and how her literary writing intersects with her career as a neurologist. Pria also discusses her debut book, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, out this month from Simon & Schuster. The book explores how story and storytelling can illuminate the rich, complex gray areas within the science of the brain, weaving case study, history, fable, and memoir. Pria Anand is a neurologist and the author of The Mind Electric, out from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Little, Brown in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and she cares for patients at the Boston Medical Center. Read Prias's story “The Elephant's Child” in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-elephants-child. Order The Mind Electric in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mind-Electric/. Learn more about Pria at www.priaanand.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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. 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
Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant's Child,” which appears in The Common's spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by it, and how her literary writing intersects with her career as a neurologist. Pria also discusses her debut book, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, out this month from Simon & Schuster. The book explores how story and storytelling can illuminate the rich, complex gray areas within the science of the brain, weaving case study, history, fable, and memoir. Pria Anand is a neurologist and the author of The Mind Electric, out from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Little, Brown in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and she cares for patients at the Boston Medical Center. Read Prias's story “The Elephant's Child” in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-elephants-child. Order The Mind Electric in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mind-Electric/. Learn more about Pria at www.priaanand.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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies
Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant's Child,” which appears in The Common's spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by it, and how her literary writing intersects with her career as a neurologist. Pria also discusses her debut book, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, out this month from Simon & Schuster. The book explores how story and storytelling can illuminate the rich, complex gray areas within the science of the brain, weaving case study, history, fable, and memoir. Pria Anand is a neurologist and the author of The Mind Electric, out from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Little, Brown in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and she cares for patients at the Boston Medical Center. Read Prias's story “The Elephant's Child” in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-elephants-child. Order The Mind Electric in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mind-Electric/. Learn more about Pria at www.priaanand.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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Pria Anand speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “The Elephant's Child,” which appears in The Common's spring issue. The piece is a vivid retelling of a Hindu myth, the origin story of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. Pria talks about the process of writing and revising many versions of this ancient myth, why she felt inspired by it, and how her literary writing intersects with her career as a neurologist. Pria also discusses her debut book, The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains, out this month from Simon & Schuster. The book explores how story and storytelling can illuminate the rich, complex gray areas within the science of the brain, weaving case study, history, fable, and memoir. Pria Anand is a neurologist and the author of The Mind Electric, out from Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Little, Brown in the U.K. Her stories and essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Time Magazine, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Medical School, and she trained in neurology, neuro-infectious diseases, and neuroimmunology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Massachusetts General Hospital. She is now an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine, and she cares for patients at the Boston Medical Center. Read Prias's story “The Elephant's Child” in The Common at thecommononline.org/the-elephants-child. Order The Mind Electric in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Mind-Electric/. Learn more about Pria at www.priaanand.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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Day 11: Gabrielle Calvocoressi reads their poem, “Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you” originally published in Poetry (October 2021). Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University; a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer's Award; a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, TX; the Bernard F. Conners Prize from The Paris Review; and a residency from the Civitella di Ranieri Foundation, among others. Calvocoressi's poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled, The Year I Didn't Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi was the Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute for 2022 - 2023. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice. Their new collection of poetry, The New Economy, will be released from Copper Canyon in 2025. 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.
Like the movie of the same name, the poems we discuss here, Slushies, take on the cares of the world in an unrelenting torrent. In this episode, we discuss three poems by Harriet Levin which reference the Haitian writer and artist Frankétienne, Barcelona's as-yet unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral, and the constellation of Orion, (for starters). We think about how poems featuring babies can avoid the sentimental (as we ultimately decide these do). We end considering the picture book chaos found in Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are as a counterpoint to real-world displacement. At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Lisa Zerkle, Jodi Gahn, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer) With thanks to one of our sponsors, Wilbur Records, who kindly introduced us to the artist is A.M.Mills whose song “Spaghetti with Lorraine” opens our show. Harriet Levin is the author of three poetry books, The Christmas Show (Beacon Press, 1997), Girl in Cap and Gown (Mammoth Books, 2010), and My Oceanography (CavanKerry 2018). Her honors include the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, The Barnard New Women Poets Prize, Nimrod's Pablo Neruda/Hardiman Award, The Ellen LaForge Memorial Poetry Prize, and a PEW Fellowship in the Arts discipline award. Her debut novel, How Fast Can you Run, a novel based on the life of Lost Boy of Sudan Michael Majok Kuch, was excerpted in The Kenyon Review and chosen as a 2017 Charter for Compassion Global Read. A 2022-23 Stein Family Foundation Fellow, she holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and teaches writing at Drexel University. Website: harrietlevinmillan.org
May 2025 Dante's New SouthAlice Hong: Named one of CBC's 2018 “30 Hot Classical Musicians Under 30,” Alice is active globally as a violinist and a composer. She performs frequently with the Atlanta Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, and more, and next weekend you can hear a premiere of Alice's orchestral work Eden performed by the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra! Alice is passionate about revolutionizing the classical experience and making classical music more accessible and innovative. Classical Remix Music Festival is her biggest project yet, and she'd really love to see you at this inaugural season's concerts!Fun fact: During COVID, Alice lived in a film bubble for five weeks with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Gal Gadot, and Ryan Reynolds to film a scene in the Netflix movie Red Notice. Check it out - the movie remains in Netflix's Top 10 of All Time Movies list (although Alice isn't a huge fan of the movie herself).www.aliceyhong.comwww.experienceluxardo.com/buy-tickets/p/classical-remix-gala-concertKit Cummings launched the Power of Peace Project (POPP) in 2010 with a bold mission: to bring hope, healing, and transformation to some of the most dangerous and divided spaces in the world. With deep experience resolving conflict behind prison walls and in at-risk communities, Kit has become a powerful voice for nonviolence, second chances, and real change.On MLK Day 2020, the NAACP honored Kit with the Martin Luther King Jr. “Living the Dream” Award for his civil rights work, prison reform efforts, and impact on underserved youth. In 2021, he was appointed to the Georgia House of Representatives Study Committee on Youth Gangs and Violence Prevention, playing a pivotal role in the passage of HB750, a groundbreaking anti-gang bill.From juvenile prisons to war-torn neighborhoods, Kit has taken POPP across the globe—from Tijuana's La Mesa Prison to South African townships, from U.S. high schools to Eastern European rehab centers, and from urban courts to rural churches. His tools of change? Hope, humility, courage, and compassion.www.kitcummings.comwww.powerofpeaceproject.comDenton Loving lives on a farm near the historic Cumberland Gap, where Tennessee,Kentucky, and Virginia come together. He is the author of three poetry books including Tamp which was a finalist for the Weatherford Award and recipient of the inaugural Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. His fiction, poetry, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The Kenyon Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Iron Horse Literary Review and Ecotone. And he's a core staff member at Table Rock Writers Workshop. He has a new book of poems coming out in August from Mercer University Press. It's called Feller.www.dentonloving.comAdditional Music Provided by: Pat Metheny: www.patmetheny.comJustin Johnson: www.justinjohnsonlive.comOur Advertisers:Lucid House Press: www.lucidhousepublishing.comWhispers of the Flight: www.amazon.com/Whispers-Flight-Voyage-Cosmic-Unity-ebook/dp/B0DB3TLY43The Crown: www.thecrownbrasstown.comBright Hill Press: www.brighthillpress.orgWe Deeply Appreciate:UCLA Extension Writing Program: www.uclaextension.eduMercer University Press: www.mupress.orgAlain Johannes for the original score in this show: www.alainjohannes.comThe host, Clifford Brooks', The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics, Athena Departs, and Old Gods are available everywhere books are sold. Find them all here: www.cliffbrooks.com/how-to-orderCheck out his Teachable courses, The Working Writer and Adulting with Autism, here: brooks-sessions.teachable.com
Day 6: Gaia Rajan reads his poem “Essay on Class,” which originally appeared in Frontier Poetry (2023). Gaia Rajan is the author of the chapbooks Moth Funerals (Glass Poetry Press 2020) and Killing It (Black Lawrence Press 2022). His work is published in the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day, Best New Poets, the Best of the Net anthology, The Kenyon Review, THRUSH, Split Lip Magazine, diode, Palette Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and online at @gaiarajan on Twitter or Instagram. 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.
Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach.Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna's struggle to outrun her past. It's like she's stepped into the pages of a glittering new novel, but what will it cost her to play the part?Sparkling with intelligence and insight, All That Life Can Afford (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) peels back the glossy layers of class and privilege, exploring what it means to create a new life for yourself that still honors the one you've left behind. Emily Everett is an editor and writer from western Massachusetts. She is managing editor at The Common literary magazine, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Her short story “Solitária” was selected as a runner-up for the Kenyon Review's 2019 Short Fiction Contest, and appears in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue. Other short fiction appears in Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review, among others. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2020, and supported by the Vermont Studio Center. Recommended Books: Charlotte McConaughy, Migrations Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach.Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna's struggle to outrun her past. It's like she's stepped into the pages of a glittering new novel, but what will it cost her to play the part?Sparkling with intelligence and insight, All That Life Can Afford (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) peels back the glossy layers of class and privilege, exploring what it means to create a new life for yourself that still honors the one you've left behind. Emily Everett is an editor and writer from western Massachusetts. She is managing editor at The Common literary magazine, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Her short story “Solitária” was selected as a runner-up for the Kenyon Review's 2019 Short Fiction Contest, and appears in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue. Other short fiction appears in Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review, among others. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2020, and supported by the Vermont Studio Center. Recommended Books: Charlotte McConaughy, Migrations Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Anna first fell in love with London at her hometown library—its Jane Austen balls a far cry from her life of food stamps and hand-me-downs. But when she finally arrives after college, the real London is a moldy flat and the same paycheck-to-paycheck grind—that fairy-tale life still out of reach.Then Anna meets the Wilders, who fly her to Saint-Tropez to tutor their teenage daughter. Swept up by the sphinxlike elder sister, Anna soon finds herself plunged into a heady whirlpool of parties and excess, a place where confidence is a birthright. There she meets two handsome young men—one who wants to whisk her into his world in a chauffeured car, the other who sees through Anna's struggle to outrun her past. It's like she's stepped into the pages of a glittering new novel, but what will it cost her to play the part?Sparkling with intelligence and insight, All That Life Can Afford (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2025) peels back the glossy layers of class and privilege, exploring what it means to create a new life for yourself that still honors the one you've left behind. Emily Everett is an editor and writer from western Massachusetts. She is managing editor at The Common literary magazine, and a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Her short story “Solitária” was selected as a runner-up for the Kenyon Review's 2019 Short Fiction Contest, and appears in the Jan/Feb 2020 issue. Other short fiction appears in Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review, among others. Her work has been selected for Best Small Fictions 2020, and supported by the Vermont Studio Center. Recommended Books: Charlotte McConaughy, Migrations Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. 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
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common's brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. Lucas talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the novel as a whole, which started over a decade ago as a series of linked short stories. Lucas also discusses how the novel's central mystery came together, what it was like writing with humor and in so many voices, and how his own experience at an Austin boxing gym inspired the story and its characters. Lucas Schaefer lives with his family in Austin. The Slip is his debut novel. His work has appeared in One Story, The Baffler, Slate and other publications. He holds an MFA from the New Writers Project at UT-Austin. Read Lucas's story “Tuesday” in The Common at thecommononline.org/Tuesday. Order The Slip in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Slip/Lucas-Schaefer/9781668030707. Learn more about Lucas at www.lucasschaefer.com. Follow Lucas on Instagram at @lucaseschaefer. 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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common's brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. Lucas talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the novel as a whole, which started over a decade ago as a series of linked short stories. Lucas also discusses how the novel's central mystery came together, what it was like writing with humor and in so many voices, and how his own experience at an Austin boxing gym inspired the story and its characters. Lucas Schaefer lives with his family in Austin. The Slip is his debut novel. His work has appeared in One Story, The Baffler, Slate and other publications. He holds an MFA from the New Writers Project at UT-Austin. Read Lucas's story “Tuesday” in The Common at thecommononline.org/Tuesday. Order The Slip in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Slip/Lucas-Schaefer/9781668030707. Learn more about Lucas at www.lucasschaefer.com. Follow Lucas on Instagram at @lucaseschaefer. 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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. 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
Lucas Schaefer speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his story “Tuesday,” which appears in The Common's brand new spring issue. “Tuesday” is an excerpt from his novel The Slip, out June 3 from Simon & Schuster; both center on a motley cast of characters at a boxing gym in Austin, Texas. Lucas talks about the process of writing and revising this story and the novel as a whole, which started over a decade ago as a series of linked short stories. Lucas also discusses how the novel's central mystery came together, what it was like writing with humor and in so many voices, and how his own experience at an Austin boxing gym inspired the story and its characters. Lucas Schaefer lives with his family in Austin. The Slip is his debut novel. His work has appeared in One Story, The Baffler, Slate and other publications. He holds an MFA from the New Writers Project at UT-Austin. Read Lucas's story “Tuesday” in The Common at thecommononline.org/Tuesday. Order The Slip in all formats via Simon & Schuster at simonandschuster.com/books/The-Slip/Lucas-Schaefer/9781668030707. Learn more about Lucas at www.lucasschaefer.com. Follow Lucas on Instagram at @lucaseschaefer. 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 Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. Her new debut novel All That Life Can Afford is the Reese's Book Club pick for April 2025. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode Lissa talks with author Rickey Fayne about deep philosophical questions inspired by his latest novel The Devil Three Times (Hachette Book Group, May 2025). Rickey Fayne is a fiction writer from rural West Tennessee whose work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Guernica, The Sewanee Review, and The Kenyon Review, among other magazines. He holds an MA in English from Northwestern University and an MFA in Fiction from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. His writing embodies his Black, Southern upbringing in order to reimagine and honor his ancestors' experiences. This episode was recorded at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis, MN. Visit www.BlackMarketReads.com Our production team for this episode includes co-producers Lissa Jones and Edie French, technical director Paul Auguston, the voice Yo Derek, and our artist of inspiration Ta-coumba T. Aiken. We thank Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota for supporting this series focusing on the intersection of health, race, and culture.
Rubén and Dion kick of the show by reading "Eating Together," by Li-Young Lee. Then they read from Rubén Quesada's new book, Brutal Campanion.Ruben Quesada, Ph.D is an award-winning poet and editor. He edited the groundbreaking anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, winner of the Gold Medal from the Independent Publisher Book Awards. His poetry and criticism appear in The New York Times Magazine, Best American Poetry, Ploughshares, Harvard Review, and American Poetry Review. He has served as poetry editor for AGNI, Poet Lore, Pleiades, Tab Journal, and as a poetry blogger for The Kenyon Review and Ploughshares. He currently teaches as Affiliate Faculty in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.Brutal Companion is a haunting and visceral collection of poems that explores themes of identity, sexuality, loss, and personal transformation. Drawing from his own experiences as a gay man, the poet delves unflinchingly into memories of desire, trauma, and self-discovery against the backdrop of an often unforgiving world. From intimate encounters and dreamlike visions to searing societal critiques, the poems paint a complex portrait of navigating life at the margins. Deeply sensory and evocative, Brutal Companion is a fierce meditation on survival and a testament to poetry's ability to wrest meaning and resilience from even the darkest places. We mention The Blessing by James Wright.
Our guest this episode is Tyler Mills, an instructor at Sarah Lawrence College's Writing Institute and an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in – among many other publications – The New Yorker, The Guardian, and The Kenyon Review. She joins us to discuss her new mixed-media memoir, The Bomb Cloud, published in 2024 by Unbound Editions Press. The book takes its title from an “unauthorized” photograph of the mushroom cloud spreading over Nagasaki after it was bombed in World War II, a photo Tyler found in an album belonging to her late grandfather, who served as a pilot during the war and who claimed to have been secretly involved with the mission to drop the bomb. Our interview covers a range of topics, including: how Tyler came to spend several years living and working in New Mexico, near the sites that constitute ground zero for the Atomic Age; the challenges of researching in an archive defined by secrecy and erasure; the ekphrastic nature of The Bomb Cloud, and Tyler's technique of collaging photos from the Trinity nuclear-test explosion to capture the violent “gaze of the perceiver who witnesses an act of harm and knowingly keeps those nearby away from this knowledge.” We also chat about how authoring this book changed Tyler's perception of what she can do as a writer; the differences between the “I” of lyric poetry and the “I” of memoir; the role of literary form and aesthetic beauty in the nuclear era; and how people living in “atomic communities” like Los Alamos – or like Amarillo, TX, located 20 miles from the nation's largest nuclear disassembly plant – can come to terms with the possibility of disaster and violence “so terrible, so deeply imprinted into our collective consciousness that we don't want to see it.” *** To read some of Tyler's poetry and essays – and to sign up for her monthly poetry prompt – you can visit her website, tylermills.com. You can also read some of her work at poetryfoundation.org.
Recorded live, April 14, 2025. In celebration of National Poetry Month, Denton Loving joined us for Lawson McGhee Library's monthly book discussion group, All Over the Page.Denton Loving is the author of the poetry collections Crimes Against Birds and Tamp, recipient of the inaugural Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. His fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The Kenyon Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and Ecotone. His third collection of poems, Feller, is forthcoming in 2025 from Mercer University Press.Links: Denton Loving's website"Loving Wins Tennessee Book Award," Lincoln Memorial University"The Secret Signal to Wake," an interview and poems at Salvation South"Two Poems by Denton Loving" at The Museum of Americana"Tamp--Denton Loving" at Griffinpoetry.comVideo: WANA (Writers Association of Northern Appalachia) Live! Reading Series featuring Denton Loving
Recorded live, April 14, 2025. In celebration of National Poetry Month, Denton Loving joined us for Lawson McGhee Library's monthly book discussion group, All Over the Page.Denton Loving is the author of the poetry collections Crimes Against Birds and Tamp, recipient of the inaugural Tennessee Book Award for Poetry. He is a co-founder and editor at EastOver Press and its literary journal Cutleaf. His fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including The Kenyon Review, Iron Horse Literary Review and Ecotone. His third collection of poems, Feller, is forthcoming in 2025 from Mercer University Press.Links: Denton Loving's website"Loving Wins Tennessee Book Award," Lincoln Memorial University""The Secret Signal to Wake," an interview and poems at Salvation South"Two Poems by Denton Loving" at The Museum of Americana: A Literary Review"Tamp--Denton Loving" at Griffinpoetry.comVideo: WANA (Writers Association of Northern Appalachia) Live! Reading Series featuring Denton Loving
Dr. T and Truth Fairy welcome Greg Wrenn, a former Alabama state representative and long-time health policy advocate, who shares insights into how he became interested in the therapeutic use of psychedelics through personal research and professional exposure. Greg recently wrote a book called “Mothership” about coral reef research, ecological crisis, and his personal PTSD healing journey with ayahuasca. He discusses portions of the book and his experiences with Truth and Dr. T. Greg explores the growing interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy, particularly its potential to help individuals who struggle with mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. He addresses the shift from viewing psychedelics as taboo to recognizing their potential under controlled, clinical settings. His personal stories, alongside those shared by Truth, highlight the positive impact psychedelic therapy can have and how his passion for the issue has been fueled. Truth Fairy, Dr. T, and Greg share concerns about the challenges of implementing beneficial psychedelic healing sessions, and they celebrate Greg's integration of tribal and liberating dance into the ayahuasca ceremony. They talk about the importance of regulation, ethical safeguards, and integration of Indigenous practices, and caution against the risks of commercialization. The episode is both vulnerable and informative, painting a hopeful picture of potential healing even in the face of difficult times.“You know, I'm no psychedelic evangelist. I don't think everyone should drink ayahuasca or work with psychedelics. I know I should, I know I need to. And so this is really important for my mission, which is to, I guess, spread a message of love and spread a message of the possibility of planetary healing, because planetary healing happens, at least with humanity, one brain at a time.” - Greg Wrenn__About Greg Wrenn:A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, GREG WRENN is the author of the ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and psychedelic plants to heal from childhood trauma, and Centaur (U of Wisconsin Press 2013), which National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes awarded the Brittingham Prize. Greg's work has appeared or is forthcoming in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, LitHub, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, the Poetry Society of America, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Spiro Arts Center. On his Mothership book tour, he spoke to audiences around the world, including at Yale School of Medicine, the University of Utah School of Medicine, Vancouver Island University, and the University of Virginia School of Nursing. Greg has also been on numerous podcasts, including Levi Chambers's PRIDE, and was recently interviewed by Emmy Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation and by Jane Garvey on Times Radio (UK). As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature and directs the JMU Creative Writing Minor. He also teaches in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis.Greg is currently at work on a follow-up book to Mothership and sending out Homesick, his second poetry collection. A student of ayahuasca since 2019, he is a trained yoga teacher and a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, having explored coral reefs around the world for over 25 years. He and his husband divide their time between the mountains of Virginia and Atlantic Beach, Florida.Website: GregWrenn.comBook: “Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis” by Greg Wrenn__Contact Punk Therapy:Patreon: Patreon.com/PunkTherapyWebsite: PunkTherapy.comEmail: info@punktherapy.com Contact Truth Fairy: Email: Truth@PunkTherapy.com
The Poetry Vlog (TPV): A Poetry, Arts, & Social Justice Teaching Channel
In this episode of The Poetry Vlog (TPV), author and artist Jessica Tanck reads from her book Winter Here (UGA Press, 2024) to lead a discussion on the beauty of contrast, the battle to resist conformity, and the importance of queer community.Jessica Tanck is the author of Winter Here (UGA Press, 2024), winner of the 2022 Georgia Poetry Prize. She holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she completed a B.A. in English Literature - Creative Writing and Comparative Literature and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing - Poetry. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Blackbird, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, The Los Angeles Review, Meridian, New England Review, New Ohio Review, Ninth Letter, Waxwing, and others. Jess was born in Chicago, IL, but grew up in Sheboygan, WI, on the shores of Lake Michigan. The recipient of a Vice Presidential Fellowship and a Clarence Snow Memorial Fellowship, Jess lives and writes in Salt Lake City, where she is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Utah. She served as the 2022-2023 Editor of Quarterly West, where she is currently guest-editing a special issue on “Extreme Environments”— a central concern of hers, as well as the focus of her doctoral dissertation and the reading for her qualifying exams.Learn more about Jess at:✔︎ https://www.jessicatanck.com/
Michael David Lukas speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “More to the Story,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Michael talks about his writing process for the essay, which began when a dark family mystery moved him to research a side of his family he'd never learned much about. He also discusses the revision stages of the piece, which included adding in details of the other side of the family—his mother's parents—who were Holocaust survivors. We also talk about his time as a nightshift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and the new novel project he's working on now. Michael David Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction in 2018, the Sami Rohr Prize, and France's best foreign novel prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University. Read “More to the Story” in The Common at thecommononline.org/more-to-the-story. Learn more about Michael and his work at michaeldavidlukas.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming April 1, 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. 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
Michael David Lukas speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “More to the Story,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Michael talks about his writing process for the essay, which began when a dark family mystery moved him to research a side of his family he'd never learned much about. He also discusses the revision stages of the piece, which included adding in details of the other side of the family—his mother's parents—who were Holocaust survivors. We also talk about his time as a nightshift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and the new novel project he's working on now. Michael David Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction in 2018, the Sami Rohr Prize, and France's best foreign novel prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University. Read “More to the Story” in The Common at thecommononline.org/more-to-the-story. Learn more about Michael and his work at michaeldavidlukas.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming April 1, 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Michael David Lukas speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about his essay “More to the Story,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Michael talks about his writing process for the essay, which began when a dark family mystery moved him to research a side of his family he'd never learned much about. He also discusses the revision stages of the piece, which included adding in details of the other side of the family—his mother's parents—who were Holocaust survivors. We also talk about his time as a nightshift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and the new novel project he's working on now. Michael David Lukas is the author of the international bestselling novel The Oracle of Stamboul, a finalist for the California Book Award, the NCIBA Book of the Year Award, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize. His second novel, The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, won the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction in 2018, the Sami Rohr Prize, and France's best foreign novel prize. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Slate, National Geographic Traveler, and Georgia Review. He lives in Oakland and teaches at San Francisco State University. Read “More to the Story” in The Common at thecommononline.org/more-to-the-story. Learn more about Michael and his work at michaeldavidlukas.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming April 1, 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak, and responsibility. Balancing the joys and frustrations of single fatherhood, his studies, and ceaseless shifts at the hospital as he becomes closer than he ever imagined to his father, Joseph tries to articulate vernacular understandings of the sociopolitical struggles he recounts as participant-observer at home, against the assumptions of his friends and colleagues. GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a powerful examination of every day black life—of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics Joseph Earl Thomas is the author of Sink, a memoir, longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and shortlisted for the Patrick Saroyan International Writing Prize; the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; and the forthcoming story collection Leviathan Beach. His prose and poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vanity Fair, The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Dilettante Army. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame's MFA program in prose, he earned his PhD in English from The University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, and teaches courses in Black Studies, Poetics, Video Games, Queer Theory and more at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Recommended Books: Nell Irving Painter, Old in Art School Yoko Towada, Scattered All Over the Earth Alison Mills Newman, Francisco Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak, and responsibility. Balancing the joys and frustrations of single fatherhood, his studies, and ceaseless shifts at the hospital as he becomes closer than he ever imagined to his father, Joseph tries to articulate vernacular understandings of the sociopolitical struggles he recounts as participant-observer at home, against the assumptions of his friends and colleagues. GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a powerful examination of every day black life—of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics Joseph Earl Thomas is the author of Sink, a memoir, longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, and shortlisted for the Patrick Saroyan International Writing Prize; the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Literary Excellence, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize; and the forthcoming story collection Leviathan Beach. His prose and poetry has been published or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, Vanity Fair, The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Dilettante Army. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame's MFA program in prose, he earned his PhD in English from The University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the writing faculty at Sarah Lawrence College, and teaches courses in Black Studies, Poetics, Video Games, Queer Theory and more at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Recommended Books: Nell Irving Painter, Old in Art School Yoko Towada, Scattered All Over the Earth Alison Mills Newman, Francisco Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. 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
Poet Gray Davidson Carroll speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about their poem “Silent Spring,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Gray talks about poetry as a way to witness and observe the world and how we experience it, and how it's changing. Gray also discusses how they started writing poetry, how they approach drafting and revision, and how their work in public health fits with and complements their work in poetry. We also hear a reading of Gray's first poem in The Common, “November 19, 2022,” about the Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs. Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Waterfall of Thanks (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and their work has further appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, ONLY POEMS, Frontiers in Medicine and elsewhere. They have received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Columbia University and are currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at NYU. Read Gray's poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/gray-davidson-carroll/ Learn more about Gray and their work at graydavidsoncarroll.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. 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
Poet Gray Davidson Carroll speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about their poem “Silent Spring,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Gray talks about poetry as a way to witness and observe the world and how we experience it, and how it's changing. Gray also discusses how they started writing poetry, how they approach drafting and revision, and how their work in public health fits with and complements their work in poetry. We also hear a reading of Gray's first poem in The Common, “November 19, 2022,” about the Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs. Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Waterfall of Thanks (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and their work has further appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, ONLY POEMS, Frontiers in Medicine and elsewhere. They have received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Columbia University and are currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at NYU. Read Gray's poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/gray-davidson-carroll/ Learn more about Gray and their work at graydavidsoncarroll.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Poet Gray Davidson Carroll speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about their poem “Silent Spring,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Gray talks about poetry as a way to witness and observe the world and how we experience it, and how it's changing. Gray also discusses how they started writing poetry, how they approach drafting and revision, and how their work in public health fits with and complements their work in poetry. We also hear a reading of Gray's first poem in The Common, “November 19, 2022,” about the Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs. Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Waterfall of Thanks (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and their work has further appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, ONLY POEMS, Frontiers in Medicine and elsewhere. They have received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Columbia University and are currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at NYU. Read Gray's poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/gray-davidson-carroll/ Learn more about Gray and their work at graydavidsoncarroll.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry
Poet Gray Davidson Carroll speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about their poem “Silent Spring,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. Gray talks about poetry as a way to witness and observe the world and how we experience it, and how it's changing. Gray also discusses how they started writing poetry, how they approach drafting and revision, and how their work in public health fits with and complements their work in poetry. We also hear a reading of Gray's first poem in The Common, “November 19, 2022,” about the Club Q nightclub shooting in Colorado Springs. Gray Davidson Carroll is a white, transfemme writer, dancer, singer, cold water plunger and (self-proclaimed) hot chocolate alchemist hailing from Brooklyn by way of western Massachusetts and other strange and forgotten places. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Waterfall of Thanks (Bottlecap Press, 2023), and their work has further appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, ONLY POEMS, Frontiers in Medicine and elsewhere. They have received fellowships from Brooklyn Poets and Columbia University and are currently pursuing an MFA in poetry at NYU. Read Gray's poems in The Common at thecommononline.org/tag/gray-davidson-carroll/ Learn more about Gray and their work at graydavidsoncarroll.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Meghan O'Rourke is a writer, poet, and editor. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (2022); the bestselling memoir The Long Goodbye (2011); and the poetry collections Sun In Days (2017), which was named a New York Times Best Poetry Book of the Year; Once (2011); and Halflife (2007), which was a finalist for the Patterson Poetry Prize and Britain's Forward First Book Prize. O'Rourke is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, a Whiting Nonfiction Award, the May Sarton Poetry Prize, the Union League Prize for Poetry from the Poetry Foundation, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and two Pushcart Prizes. Currently the editor of The Yale Review, she began her career as a fiction and nonfiction editor at The New Yorker. Since then, she has served as culture editor and literary critic for Slate as well as poetry editor and advisory editor for The Paris Review. Her essays, criticism, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, and Best American Poetry, among others. She is a graduate of Yale University, where she also teaches. Hosted by Merve Emre • Edited by Michele Moses • Music by Dani Lencioni • Art by Leanne Shapton • Sponsored by Alfred A. Knopf The Critic and Her Publics is a co-production between the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University, New York Review of Books, and Lit Hub.
Notes and Links to Alejandro Heredia's Work Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro-Dominican writer from The Bronx. His debut novel LOCA is out today (February 11) from Simon and Schuster. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, the Dominican Studies Institute, Kenyon Review, and Trinity College. In 2019, he was selected by Myriam Gurba as the winner of the Gold Line Press Fiction Chapbook Contest. His chapbook of short stories, You're the Only Friend I Need (2021), explores themes of queer transnationalism, friendship, and (un)belonging in the African Diaspora. Heredia's work has been featured in Teen Vogue, Lambda Literary Review, The Offing, and elsewhere. He received an MFA in fiction from Hunter College. Heredia currently serves as Black Mountain Institute's Shearing Fellow at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Buy Loca Alejandro Heredia's Website Book Review for Loca At about 2:40, Alejandro shares his feelings as the book's Pub Day approaches, as well as feedback that he hasn't gotten on the novel At about 4:40, Alejandro talks about his bilingualism, growing up in The Bronx and The Dominican Republic, and what led him towards writing At about 7:10, Alejandro talks about how being bilingual helps him to become a better writer/thinker and how his Spanglish has developed At about 9:25, Alejandro gives some background on a specific Dominican word At about 10:25, Alejandro responds to Pete's questions about what he was reading that served as foundational for him and he expands upon “writing across difference” At about 13:10, Alejandro cites contemporary fiction that inspires and challenges, including Gina Chung's work At about 14:10, Alejandro outlines ideas of how he sees the use of the word “queer” At about 16:00, Alejandro expands upon seeds and stimulating ideas for his book, especially wth regard to the “Author's Note” At about 19:10, Alejandro expands on his Author's Note reference to fiction's “capaciousness” and how fiction's constructs helped him write about loss and grief in Loca At about 21:10, Alejandro talks about the significance of his two epigraphs and ideas of “home” and friendship At about 23:40, Pete and Alejandro talks about the book's exposition and an early inciting incident At about 24:30, Pete asks Alejandro about main character Charo's domesticity and her visceral negative reaction At about 26:05, The two discuss ideas of community and Y2K and the importance of the “queer space” at The Shade Room in a Dominican and Puerto Rican community At about 28:20, Alejandro talks about intersectionality and his qualms about its usage in early reviews of the novel At about 30:55, Pete and Alejandro discuss Vance and Sal's first meeting and budding relationship and ideas of “identity politics and language” At about 32:25, The two discuss important familial and friend characters At about 33:55, Yadiel is discussed as a proud queer character and Aljandrro expands upon a moment in which Sal and Yadiel At about 36:15, Alejandro responds to Pete's questions about a “moment in time” and a “utpian moment,” and expands upon the good and bad of life “at the margins” At about 39:35, Alejandro replies to Pete's question about the ways in which he deals wth sexual abuse and its effects and the abuse as “foundational” and “inform[ing]” Sal's adolescence and beyond At about 42:45, Vance and his likability and Ren are described At about 43:55, Anacaona and her history are discussed in connection to an important flashback in the book At about 46:00, Alejandro expands upon ideas of “erasing Blackness” that come as unintentional (?) effects of the portrayal of the Taino peoples At about 49:15, Robert and his sympathetic nature and his usage of a homophobic slur are discussed, as Alejandro discusses the “reclaiming” of the word in the queer Dominican community At about 50:40, Don Julio, Sal's roommate, and his emblematic background are discussed, along with the benefits and drawbacks of “normalizing” a reclaimed word At about 53:00, Alejandro talks about being a “writer of images” after Pete compliments one of many resonant scenes At about 54:55, Pete and Alejandro tiptoe around any spoilers At about 55:50, Sal and Kiko and their minor triumphs and Sal's success as a teacher are discussed At about 57:00, Pete wonders about Lena, an eccentric character in the book, and Alejandro talks about some ambiguities At about 59:00, Robert and Charo's relationship and ideas of repression, personal choice, and guilt throughout the book are discussed At about 1:03:25, Pete and Alejandro discuss generational differences in the ways in which Sal and Vance interact and see progressive movements At about 1:07:40, Alejandro discusses social media contact info and points listeners towards his upcoming tour dates 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 Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode. Pete is 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. This week, his conversation with previous guest Carvell Wallace will be up on the website. 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 Pete's one-man show, his DIY podcast and his extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content! This month's Patreon bonus episode will feature an exploration of the wonderful poetry of Khalil Gibran. I have added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show. This is a passion project of Pete's, a DIY operation, and he'd love for your help in promoting what he's 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 272 with Lamya H. Lamya is a queer Muslim writer and organizer living in New York City whose 2023 memoir HIJAB BUTCH BLUES won the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize and a Stonewall Non-fiction Book Award, and was also a finalist for Lambda Literary and Publishing Triangle Awards. Lamya's organizing work centers around creating spaces for LGBTQ+ Muslims, fighting Islamophobia, Palestine, and prison abolition. The episode airs on February 18.
WVBR News Director Jack Donnellan sat down for a second time with author, editor, and publisher Mark Wish. Mark and his wife founded an annual short story anthology, Coolest American Stories, which pushes its contributors to make their fiction as compelling as possible, reminding them that readers crave “unputdownable” storytelling. Mark also served as the Fiction Editor of California Quarterly, was the founding Fiction Editor of New York Stories and a Contributing Editor for Pushcart, and has long been known as the freelance editor who has revised the fiction of once-struggling writers, leading it to land numerous book deals as well as publication in dozens of venues including The Atlantic Monthly, The Kenyon Review, Tin House, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Hudson Review, and Best American Short Stories. His first novel, Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman, compared favorably with Huckleberry Finn by the Los Angeles Times back in 1997, went to a second printing one month after publication. Watch Me Go, his third novel, was published by Putnam and praised by Rebecca Makkai, Daniel Woodrell, Ben Fountain, and Salman Rushdie. More than 125 of Mark's short stories have appeared in print venues such as Best American Short Stories, The Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, American Short Fiction, The Antioch Review, Crazyhorse, The Gettysburg Review, Fiction, The Southern Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, Barrelhouse, The Yale Review, The Sun, Paris Transcontinental, and Fiction International, and have won distinctions such as the Tobias Wolff Award, the Kay Cattarulla Award, an Isherwood Fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize. The interview aired live on Talk of the Town on WVBR 93.5 FM on Saturday, January 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM. Catch the full Talk of the Town radio show on Saturdays at 3p on WVBR 93.5 FM or at wvbr.com. Follow us on social media! @WVBRFMNews on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. wvbr.com/afterhours
Our new book... STORY QUESTIONS: How To Unlock Your Story One Question At A Time https://payhip.com/b/ZTvq9 Watch the video version of this podcast here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gugpMuxCT4 MORE FULL FILM COURAGE INTERVIEWS https://tinyurl.com/mr42eye2 BUY THE BOOK - THE USUAL UNCERTAINTIES: STORIES - https://amzn.to/3WO36cw BUY THE BOOK - LAST WORD - https://amzn.to/3Cflf9u MORE VIDEOS WITH JONATHAN BLUM https://buff.ly/43NxPc9 Jonathan Blum grew up in Miami and graduated from UCLA and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is the author of two books of fiction: The Usual Uncertainties (Rescue Press, 2019), a story collection, and Last Word (Rescue Press, 2013), a novella. Both were named one of the best books of the year by Iowa Public Radio, and The Usual Uncertainties was named one of the 15 Best Short Story Collections of 2019 by Electric Literature. Blum has twice appeared on KCRW's Bookworm. His short stories have been published in Gulf Coast, Kenyon Review, Northwest Review, Playboy, and Shanxi Literature, among others. His short story, "The White Spot," which was published in Electric Literature with an introduction by Deborah Eisenberg, appears in the award-winning anthology The Best Peace Fiction (University of New Mexico Press, 2021). He has taught fiction writing at The University of Iowa, Drew University, and the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and is the recipient of a Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, a Hawthornden Fellowship in Scotland, and a grant from the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. He has also been a guest writer at the Tianjin Binhai New Area International Writing Program in China. He lives in Los Angeles. WRITING CLASSES WITH JONATHAN BLUM https://jonathanblumwriter.com/classes CONNECT WITH JONATHAN BLUM https://jonathanblumwriter.com VIEWERS ALSO WATCHED 3 Ways To Open A Story - https://youtu.be/3no2un4Elik If You Can't Answer This Question Don't Write The Story - https://youtu.be/PGbNlKVU7Ok Don't Get It Right, Get It Written! - https://youtu.be/V6Yql0jrjow This Is Why It Doesn't Matter If Every Story Has Been Told - https://youtu.be/xaBsNggof68 Write Your Life And Become A Better Storyteller - https://youtu.be/xFK5Ih3CPFc CONNECT WITH FILM COURAGE http://www.FilmCourage.com http://twitter.com/#!/FilmCourage https://www.facebook.com/filmcourage https://www.instagram.com/filmcourage http://filmcourage.tumblr.com http://pinterest.com/filmcourage SUBSCRIBE TO THE FILM COURAGE YOUTUBE CHANNEL http://bit.ly/18DPN37 SUPPORT FILM COURAGE BY BECOMING A MEMBER https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs8o1mdWAfefJkdBg632_tg/join SUPPORT FILM COURAGE BY BECOMING A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/filmcourage LISTEN TO THE FILM COURAGE PODCAST https://soundcloud.com/filmcourage-com (Affiliates) SAVE $15 ON YOUTUBE TV - LIMITED TIME OFFER https://tv.youtube.com/referral/r0847ysqgrrqgp ►WE USE THIS CAMERA (B&H) – https://buff.ly/3rWqrra ►WE USE THIS SOUND RECORDER (AMAZON) – http://amzn.to/2tbFlM9 Stuff we use: LENS - Most people ask us what camera we use, no one ever asks about the lens which filmmakers always tell us is more important. This lens was a big investment for us and one we wish we could have made sooner. Started using this lens at the end of 2013 - http://amzn.to/2tbtmOq AUDIO Rode VideoMic Pro - The Rode mic helps us capture our backup audio. It also helps us sync up our audio in post https://amzn.to/425k5rG Audio Recorder - If we had to do it all over again, this is probably the first item we would have bought - https://amzn.to/3WEuz0k LIGHTS - Although we like to use as much natural light as we can, we often enhance the lighting with this small portable light. We have two of them and they have saved us a number of times - http://amzn.to/2u5UnHv *These are affiliate links, by using them you can help support this channel.
Listen to Joesph Earl Thomas talk with host Matt Sawyer about his award-winning book, God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer. Joseph Earl Thomas - Joseph Earl Thomas is an American writer and educator known for his memoir "Sink", which was longlisted for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His work has appeared in publications such as The Kenyon Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Dilettante Army, and The New York Times Book Review.Matt Sawyer: Matt is an educator, podcaster, writer, and hip-hop artist based in Macon County, North Carolina. He is the creator of the Story Made Project, an exploration for and of stories that make a difference in our world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Translator Julia Sanches speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about translating “The Advice,” a story by Irene Pujadas, which appears in The Common's fall issue in a portfolio of writing by contemporary Catalan women. Julia talks about her translation process, and the importance of capturing the tone and style of a piece, like the understated absurdist humor in “The Advice.” Julia also discusses how she approaches collaboration with other translators, how she chooses the books and stories she wants to translate, and how starting her career at a literary agency gave her a crash course in the behind-the-scenes of publishing. Julia Sanches has translated close to thirty books from Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan into English, including works by Susana Moreira Marques, Munir Hachemi, and Eva Baltasar. She served as a judge for the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature, and was recently named an NEA Translation Fellow. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Read Julia's translations from Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese in The Common here. Learn more about Julia and her work at juliasanches.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. 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
Translator Julia Sanches speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about translating “The Advice,” a story by Irene Pujadas, which appears in The Common's fall issue in a portfolio of writing by contemporary Catalan women. Julia talks about her translation process, and the importance of capturing the tone and style of a piece, like the understated absurdist humor in “The Advice.” Julia also discusses how she approaches collaboration with other translators, how she chooses the books and stories she wants to translate, and how starting her career at a literary agency gave her a crash course in the behind-the-scenes of publishing. Julia Sanches has translated close to thirty books from Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan into English, including works by Susana Moreira Marques, Munir Hachemi, and Eva Baltasar. She served as a judge for the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature, and was recently named an NEA Translation Fellow. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Read Julia's translations from Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese in The Common here. Learn more about Julia and her work at juliasanches.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Translator Julia Sanches speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about translating “The Advice,” a story by Irene Pujadas, which appears in The Common's fall issue in a portfolio of writing by contemporary Catalan women. Julia talks about her translation process, and the importance of capturing the tone and style of a piece, like the understated absurdist humor in “The Advice.” Julia also discusses how she approaches collaboration with other translators, how she chooses the books and stories she wants to translate, and how starting her career at a literary agency gave her a crash course in the behind-the-scenes of publishing. Julia Sanches has translated close to thirty books from Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan into English, including works by Susana Moreira Marques, Munir Hachemi, and Eva Baltasar. She served as a judge for the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature, and was recently named an NEA Translation Fellow. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Read Julia's translations from Catalan, Spanish, and Portuguese in The Common here. Learn more about Julia and her work at juliasanches.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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. 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 hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality clashes with the social rigidity of her small town. In richly layered poems with settings that range from football games to Chuck E. Cheese to the bathroom of a Motel 6, Helen enters adulthood as a disaffected homemaker grasping for agency. She marries the wrong man, gives birth to a child she is not ready to parent, and embarks on an affair that throws her life into chaos. But she never surrenders ownership of her story or her choices, insisting to the reader: "if you never owned a bone-sharp biography... / i don't want to hear it. i want you silent. / i want you listening to me." Blurring the line between mythology and modernity, Helen of Troy, 1993 is an unforgettable collection that shows the Homeric Helen like she's never been seen before. Maria Zoccola is a queer Southern writer and educator from Memphis, Tennessee. Maria has worked and written for nonprofits both big and small, and from 2017-2021 managed Deep Center's Young Author Project in Savannah, Georgia, a program embedding creative writing workshops within the Savannah–Chatham County Public School System and serving 400 young people annually. Maria's fiction and poetry can be found in such venues as Ploughshares, Fantasy Magazine, the Kenyon Review, ZYZZYVA, Electric Literature's The Commuter, and elsewhere. Her work has been nominated Best Small Fictions and Best New Poets, has been a finalist for Best of the Net, and has received a special mention for the Pushcart Prize. Recommended Books: Alice Oswald, Memorial Rita Dove, Motherlove Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Associate Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry
Rebecca Gayle Howell is a writer, translator, and editor of place-based literature. Howell's work has received critical acclaim from outlets such as The Los Angeles Times, Poetry London (U.K.), The Courier-Journal, Asymptote, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Millions, Arts ATL, MINT (India), and The Kenyon Review. Her genre-bending work is often underpinned by extensive documentary research, merging fiction, verse, and realism, gaining support from agencies like the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Foundation for Deep Ecology. She translated El interior de la ballena / The Belly of the whale (Texas Tech University Press, 2024) by Claudia Prado. Alice Bank interviews her with a beautiful conversation. *** Rebecca Gayle Howell es escritora, traductora y editora de literatura basada en el lugar. El trabajo de Howell ha recibido elogios de la crítica en medios como The Los Angeles Times, Poetry London (Reino Unido), The Courier-Journal, Asymptote, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Millions, Arts ATL, MINT (India) y The Kenyon Review. Su obra, que desafía los géneros convencionales, a menudo se sustenta en una extensa investigación documental, fusionando ficción, verso y realismo. Ha contado con el apoyo de instituciones como el National Endowment for the Arts, el United States Holocaust Memorial Museum y la Foundation for Deep Ecology. Tradujo El interior de la ballena / The Belly of the Whale (Texas Tech University Press, 2024) de Claudia Prado. Alice Bank la entrevista en una hermosa conversación.
Nadia Colburn joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about by tuning into our bodies to discover what we need to say, creating different cultural conversations about surviving trauma, tapping into our subconscious, coming out of secrets, how poetry can help us access material, not needing to share work until we're ready, what we learn from being in community with other writers, and her signature online course Align Your Story for Women. Also in this episode: -mitigating shame -how our bodies remember -meditation and dreamwork Books mentioned in this episode: -The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank -The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk -Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman -Educated by Tara Westover -Nothing Holds Back the Night by Delphine de Vigan -The work of Annie Ernaux Nadia Colburn is the author of the poetry books "I Say the Sky" and "The High Shelf", and her poetry and prose have appeared in more than eighty publications, including The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion's Roar, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Yale Review. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University, is a yoga teacher and serious student of Thich Nhat Hanh and is the founder of Align Your Story Writing School, which brings traditional literary and creative writing studies together with mindfulness, embodied practices, and social and environmental engagement. The school has a community of over 30,000 mindful writers. Nadia is passionate about helping her students reclaim their stories, come out of secrets, listen to their bodies, and embrace and step into their full creative voices, on and off the page. Nadia lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and two children. She is currently at work on a full-length memoir on pregnancy and early motherhood. Find her at nadiacolburn.com, where she offers meditations and free resources for writers. Connect with Nadia: Website: https://nadiacolburn.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alignyourstory Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nadia.colburn/ Free 5-Day Meditation & Writing Challenge: https://nadiacolburn.com/free-mindful-writing-challenge/ Free Resource Library for Writers: https://nadiacolburn.com/free-resources/ "I Say the Sky" on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Say-Sky-Poems-Contemporary-Poetry/dp/081319864X "I Say the Sky" from Kentucky Press: https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813198637/i-say-the-sky/ 7-Day "I Say the Sky" Companion Meditation and Writing Challenge (free with book order -- just input book order number): https://nadiacolburn.com/7-day-new-year-practice/ Align Your Story for Women (Nadia's signature online course): https://nadiacolburn.com/align-your-story/ – Ronit's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories. She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and lives in Seattle with her family where she teaches and edits memoir and is working on her next book. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com Subscribe to Ronit's Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Follow Ronit: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ https://twitter.com/RonitPlank https://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers
On this month's episode, host Nicole Flattery is joined by writer Mary O'Donoghue to read and discuss Colm O'Shea's story, ‘Feeling Gravity's Pull', originally published as part of the Online Fiction series on The Stinging Fly website in October 2023. Mary O'Donoghue is the author of The Hour After Happy Hour (Stinging Fly Press, 2023). Her short stories have appeared in Granta, The Kenyon Review, The Stinging Fly, The Dublin Review, Banshee, The Georgia Review, Subtropics, The Common, and elsewhere. She has published poetry collections with Salmon Poetry and Dedalus Press and translations in dual language volumes from Cló Iar-Chonnacht, Bloodaxe Books, and Yale University Press. Her novel Before the House Burns was published by Lilliput Press in 2010. She is senior fiction editor at the literary magazine AGNI. From County Clare, she lives in Alabama. Colm O'Shea's work has appeared in gorse, The Vigilantia Anthology (Chroma Editions), Winter Papers, Sublunary Editions (Firmament), 3AM Magazine, The Tangerine, Fallow Mediaand others. He has also been broadcast on RTÉ radio (Keywords). He was a winner of the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair in 2012, and won The Aleph Writing Prize in 2019. His debut work of experimental nonfiction is scheduled to be published by LJMcD Communications in 2024. Nicole Flattery is a writer and critic. Her story collection Show Them A Good Time, was published by The Stinging Fly and Bloomsbury in 2019. Her first novel, Nothing Special, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023. The Stinging Fly Podcast invites writers to choose a story from the Stinging Fly archive to read and discuss. Previous episodes of the podcast can be found here. The podcast's theme music is ‘Sale of Lakes', by Divan. All of the Stinging Fly archive is available to subscribers. Nicole Flattery is a writer and critic. Her story collection Show Them A Good Time, was published by The Stinging Fly and Bloomsbury in 2019. Her first novel, Nothing Special, was published by Bloomsbury in 2023. The Stinging Fly Podcast invites writers to choose a story from the Stinging Fly archive to read and discuss. Previous episodes of the podcast can be found here. The podcast's theme music is ‘Sale of Lakes', by Divan. All of the Stinging Fly archive is available to subscribers.
Megan Tennant speaks to managing editor Emily Everett about her story “Little Women,” which appears in The Common's brand new fall issue. Megan talks about the process of writing and revising this story, which explores the complex dynamics between two sisters in a religious family in South Africa after one sister gets engaged. Megan also discusses how she layered the beauty, atmosphere, and complicated history of South Africa's Wild Coast into the story, and how she worked to balance subtlety and clarity when bringing together the story's many threads. Megan Tennant is a writer based in Cape Town, South Africa. She holds master's degrees in creative writing from the University of Cape Town and in London studies from Queen Mary University of London. Read Megan's story “Little Women” in The Common at thecommononline.org/little-women/. 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 All That Life Can Afford is forthcoming in April 2025 from Putnam Books. Her stories appear in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House Online, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature
Luke and Dion read some Larry Levis and then take a deep dive into Luke's latest book. Luke Johnson is the author of Quiver (Texas Review Press), a finalist for the Jake Adam York Prize, the Vassar Miller Award, The Levis Prize and the Bittingham. It was recently named a finalist for the California Book Award, winner announced in May. His second full length Distributary is forthcoming Fall 2025 from Texas Review Press. You can find more of his work at Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere.
On how to quit imposter syndrome (yes, it's doable!) and on giving voice to the inanimate - you'll love this episode! Lynne Thompson served as Los Angeles' fourth Poet Laureate, 2021-2022. Thompson is the author of four collections of poetry, Beg No Pardon, Start With A Small Guitar, Fretwork, and most recently, Blue on a Blue Palette. She serves on the Boards of Cave Canem, Poetry Foundation, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Scripps College which she lead as Board Chair, 2018-2022. Her work can be found in the Kenyon Review, Colorado Review, and Pleiades, among others.
My guest this week is Dr. Nadia Colburn, a poet and author of a new book of poetry entitled I Say the Sky (affiliate link). Topics we discussed included: Developing greater interest in poetry later in life Turning to poetry as a spiritual or devotional practice The ability of poetry to express or point to things that are difficult to capture The emotional connection that poetry can inspire Presence that exists outside of traditional narrative Readings from Nadia's books Wanting to live and yet forgetting we're alive right here and now Mistaking the world for a task Making the body more spacious so it can contain more The ongoing life of the past into the present The dialogue between writing and meditation Letting go of the desire to show that we're good and acceptable Nadia's description and evocation of the experience of anxiety in her poem “Anxiety” The missingness of poetry, according to Kieran Setiya Nadia Colburn, PhD, is also the author of The High Shelf. Her poetry and prose have appeared in more than 80 publications, including the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Spirituality & Health, Lion's Roar, and the Yale Review. Nadia holds a PhD in English from Columbia University. She is the founder of Align Your Story writing school, which brings traditional literary and creative writing studies together with mindfulness, embodied practices, and social and environmental engagement. Learn more about Nadia at her website, where you can also find meditations and other free resources.