Podcasts about mfa program

Discipline (Four Way Books, 2024), Debra Spark's latest novel was inspired by the life of Walt Kuhn, who introduced Americans to modern art, and also by an infamous east coast boarding school that was forcibly shut down in 2014. The novel twists and turns through the lives of an artist and his wife, a teenager forced to attend a horrifying boarding school, the artist and his wife's lonely daughter after their deaths, and a divorced art appraiser studying the works of the dead artist. Discipline addresses teenagers whose lives are molded by thoughtless adults and women who struggle with loneliness or are taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. It's a coming-of-age story, a mystery about an art theft, but this gorgeous novel is also about family, ambition, and suffering. DEBRA SPARK is the author of five novels, two collections of short stories, and two books of essays on fiction writing. Her most recent books are the novel Unknown Caller and the essay collection And Then Something Happened. With Deborah Joy Corey, she co-edited Breaking Bread, a book of food essays by Maine writers to raise funds for a hunger nonprofit. Her short work has appeared in Agni, AWP Writers' Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Cincinnati Review, the Chicago Tribune, Epoch, Esquire, Five Points, Food and Wine, Harvard Review, Huffington Post, Maine Magazine, Narrative, New England Travel and Life, the New England Review, the New York Times, Ploughshares, salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, Yankee, and Yale Alumni Quarterly, among other places. In addition to writing book reviews, fiction, articles, and essays, she spent a decade writing about home, art, and design for Maine Home+Design, Decor Maine, Down East, Dwell, Elysian, Interiors Boston, New England Home, and Yankee. She writes a monthly book review column of French books in English translation for Frenchly.us. She has been the recipient of several awards including Maine's 2017 READ ME series, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Bunting Institute fellowship from Radcliffe College, Wisconsin Institute Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, Michigan Literary Fiction Award, and John Zacharis/Ploughshares award for best first book. A graduate of Yale University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is a professor at Colby College and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. When she's not working, Spark exercises, studies French, spends time with friends and family, bakes gluten-free, and belongs to a cookbook book club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Discipline (Four Way Books, 2024), Debra Spark's latest novel was inspired by the life of Walt Kuhn, who introduced Americans to modern art, and also by an infamous east coast boarding school that was forcibly shut down in 2014. The novel twists and turns through the lives of an artist and his wife, a teenager forced to attend a horrifying boarding school, the artist and his wife's lonely daughter after their deaths, and a divorced art appraiser studying the works of the dead artist. Discipline addresses teenagers whose lives are molded by thoughtless adults and women who struggle with loneliness or are taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. It's a coming-of-age story, a mystery about an art theft, but this gorgeous novel is also about family, ambition, and suffering. DEBRA SPARK is the author of five novels, two collections of short stories, and two books of essays on fiction writing. Her most recent books are the novel Unknown Caller and the essay collection And Then Something Happened. With Deborah Joy Corey, she co-edited Breaking Bread, a book of food essays by Maine writers to raise funds for a hunger nonprofit. Her short work has appeared in Agni, AWP Writers' Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Cincinnati Review, the Chicago Tribune, Epoch, Esquire, Five Points, Food and Wine, Harvard Review, Huffington Post, Maine Magazine, Narrative, New England Travel and Life, the New England Review, the New York Times, Ploughshares, salon.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, Yankee, and Yale Alumni Quarterly, among other places. In addition to writing book reviews, fiction, articles, and essays, she spent a decade writing about home, art, and design for Maine Home+Design, Decor Maine, Down East, Dwell, Elysian, Interiors Boston, New England Home, and Yankee. She writes a monthly book review column of French books in English translation for Frenchly.us. She has been the recipient of several awards including Maine's 2017 READ ME series, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Bunting Institute fellowship from Radcliffe College, Wisconsin Institute Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, Michigan Literary Fiction Award, and John Zacharis/Ploughshares award for best first book. A graduate of Yale University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she is a professor at Colby College and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. When she's not working, Spark exercises, studies French, spends time with friends and family, bakes gluten-free, and belongs to a cookbook book club. 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

Paul Lisicky joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about how his appreciation for Joni Mitchell  and love of her work shaped his life as a musician and a writer, vulnerability and uncertainty on the page, falling outside the containers of what's expected, the singular and universal in our work, vulnerability and uncertainty in our creative process, corralling ourselves back to our 5 senses, feeling structure in our bodies, writing for the reader, developing ourselves as artists, being tenacious in pursuing our vision, writing about our idols, and his new book Song So Wild and Blue.   Also in this episode: -image-based writing -writing a proposal for the first time -how structure can help liberate our work   Books/Authors mentioned in this episode: Sigrid Nunez Elizabeth McCracken Sarah Manguso Mary Gaitskill  Joy Williams Barry Lopez Annie Liontis E.J. Koh All Fours by Miranda July   Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door: A Memoir of Friendship. A recipient of Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, he is a professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden. He lives in Brooklyn. Website: http://www.paullisicky.net/ Connect with Paul: https://bsky.app/profile/paullisicky.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paul_lisicky/ Get the book: https://bookshop.org/p/books/song-so-wild-and-blue-a-life-with-the-music-of-joni-mitchell-paul-lisicky/21517908?ean=9780063280373 – 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 teaches memoir through the University of Washington's Online Continuum Program and also independently. She launched Let's Talk Memoir in 2022, lives in Seattle with her family of people and dogs, and is at work 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://www.facebook.com/RonitPlank https://bsky.app/profile/ronitplank.bsky.social   Background photo credit: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash Headshot photo credit: Sarah Anne Photography Theme music: Isaac Joel, Dead Moll's Fingers

Paul Lisicky is the author of the memoir Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, available from HarperOne. Lisicky is the author of seven books, including Later: My Life at the Edge of the World, The Narrow Door, Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, The Cut, Fence,the New York Times, Ploughshares, and in many other publications. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the James Michener/Copernicus Society, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Rose Dorothea Award from the Provincetown Library. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Antioch University Los Angeles, Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of Texas at Austin and elsewhere. He is currently a Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University–Camden, where he is Editor of StoryQuarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Twitter Instagram  TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mai Der Vang is the author of Primordial, Yellow Rain, and Afterland. Her honors include th Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, an American Book Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets, among others. The recipient of a Guggenheim and Lannan Literary Fellowship, she teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Fresno State. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Follow the intellectual and emotional journey of a group of medical students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx in the new PBS documentary "The Calling: A Medical School Journey". Captured through verité scenes and personal video diaries, the film offers an inside look at America's healthcare system through the eyes of these aspiring practitioners as they learn what it takes to become a doctor in one of the country's most underserved communities. On this episode I speak with the filmmaker Asako Gladsjo and one of the medical students from her documentary, Shauna Phinazee. The film premieres on PBS Monday, March 17th. https://youtu.be/8tMGWx-8PIY From the DC/DOX film festival website: Asako Gladsjo is an award-winning documentary director, producer, and writer based in New York City. Her recent credits include the upcoming "Eyes on the Prize III" for HBO; "Rise and Rebuild: A Tale of Three Cities"; "Why We Hate" for Discovery; "(Un)Well" for Netflix; "By Whatever Means Necessary", for Epix; the PBS special "Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise"; Soundtracks: "Songs that Made History" for CNN; and "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross", which won Emmy, DuPont, Peabody, and NAACP Image awards. She has directed and written documentaries on society, culture, race, and immigration for international broadcasters including Arte, BBC, and France Télévision. She teaches directing in the School of Visual Art's MFA Program in Social Documentary.

Here's part two of my interview with Jane Roper, author of the novel “The Society of Shame,” which is a finalist for the Thurber Prize in American Humor, and a memoir, “Double Time: How I Survived and Mostly Thrived Through the First Three Years of Mothering Twins.” Today I'm talking with Jane about what I call inner stuff, the thoughts, ideas, and attitudes that affect your work. - How reading her own work used to be embarrassing, and how she got over it - Feeling like the worst person in the MFA program - When your inner critic tells you your work is shallow - The quotes she's written on Post-It notes that are hanging above her desk and help talk her through crises of confidence - Feeling like the silliest person in the room - Letting go of the idea that one day you'll “make it” and then everything will flow - Realizing there's no award for doing things perfectly and letting go of that drive to be a super-achiever - How letting go of some body issues also freed up her work self Connect with Jane at janeroper.com. For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com. Thank you for listening! And thanks to this week's sponsor, Air Doctor Pro. Visit airdoctorpro.com and use code KATE to save 30% off an amazing indoor air filter *and* receive a free three-year warranty (an $84 value). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Jason Blitman talks to Karissa Chen (Homeseeking) about musicals--particularly The Last Five Years' influence on her writing, dreams as well as idealism, the coincidence of reconnection, and the concept of seeking home. Jason is then joined by Guest Gay Reader Paul Lisicky (Song So Wild and Blue) and talk about all things Joni Mitchell. Homeseeking is the January 2025 Good Morning America Book Club selection. Karissa Chen is a Fulbright fellow, Kundiman Fiction fellow, and a VONA/Voices fellow whose fiction and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Eater, The Cut, NBC News THINK!, Longreads, PEN America, Catapult, Gulf Coast, and Guernica, among others. She was awarded an artist fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts as well as multiple writing residencies including at Millay Arts, where she was a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, among others. She was formerly a senior fiction editor at The Rumpus and currently serves as the editor-in-chief at Hyphen magazine. She received an MFA in fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between New Jersey and Taipei, Taiwan.Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Later: My Life at the Edge of the World (one of NPR's Best Books of 2020), as well as The Narrow Door (a New York Times Editors' Choice and a Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award), Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, The Cut, Fence, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Tin House, and in many other magazines and anthologies. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, and elsewhere. He is currently a Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden, where he is Editor of StoryQuarterly. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. BOOK CLUB!Use code GAYSREADING at checkout to get first book for only $4 + free shipping! Restrictions apply.http://aardvarkbookclub.comWATCH!https://youtube.com/@gaysreading FOLLOW!Instagram: @gaysreading | @jasonblitmanBluesky: @gaysreading | @jasonblitmanCONTACT!hello@gaysreading.com

As Nazi tanks roll toward Leningrad in August 1941, an unmarried nineteen-year-old ballerina gives birth to twin girls in the soon-to-be besieged city. Bereft of hope, the dancer—once a rising star at the Kirov—slashes her wrists, but her babies survive, rescued by the devoted friend who arrives just too late to save their mother. The friend, too, is a dancer with the Kirov, and her tutelage and self-sacrifice ensure that the girls, Maya and Natasha, become students at the Vaganova Academy after the Siege of Leningrad is broken. We meet the twins as they enter their senior year in 1958. At once inseparable and competitive, Maya and Natasha have developed quite different personalities, with Natasha the leader and future star, Maya her loyal follower. But as they turn seventeen, various factors pull them apart: boys; the changing climate of Khrushchev's USSR; and the approaching end to their schooling, which even in a state-run economy doesn't guarantee anyone a specific place in the world. But it's when the state declares that, in response to recent defections by artists to the West, only one member of any given family can join the Kirov Ballet that Maya and Natasha must confront the reality that one sister's success will come at the cost of the other's. How each of them responds to that challenge drives the rest of this thoroughly engrossing novel. And although neither girl really recognizes it until near the end of the book, the choices each makes are driven at least in part by their determination to fulfill the goals their mother never had the chance to achieve. Weaving together such disparate elements as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War competition that drove the exchange between the New York City Ballet's visit to Moscow and the Kirov's tour of the United States in 1962, the filming of Sergei Bondarchuk's monumental version of War and Peace, and the difficult yet rewarding training that produces elite dancers, Maya and Natasha (Mariner Books, 2025) explores the eternal bond between sisters while prompting readers to consider just how far they would go to achieve a cherished goal. Elyse Durham, a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, who is a Greek Orthodox priest. Maya & Natasha is her debut novel. 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

As Nazi tanks roll toward Leningrad in August 1941, an unmarried nineteen-year-old ballerina gives birth to twin girls in the soon-to-be besieged city. Bereft of hope, the dancer—once a rising star at the Kirov—slashes her wrists, but her babies survive, rescued by the devoted friend who arrives just too late to save their mother. The friend, too, is a dancer with the Kirov, and her tutelage and self-sacrifice ensure that the girls, Maya and Natasha, become students at the Vaganova Academy after the Siege of Leningrad is broken. We meet the twins as they enter their senior year in 1958. At once inseparable and competitive, Maya and Natasha have developed quite different personalities, with Natasha the leader and future star, Maya her loyal follower. But as they turn seventeen, various factors pull them apart: boys; the changing climate of Khrushchev's USSR; and the approaching end to their schooling, which even in a state-run economy doesn't guarantee anyone a specific place in the world. But it's when the state declares that, in response to recent defections by artists to the West, only one member of any given family can join the Kirov Ballet that Maya and Natasha must confront the reality that one sister's success will come at the cost of the other's. How each of them responds to that challenge drives the rest of this thoroughly engrossing novel. And although neither girl really recognizes it until near the end of the book, the choices each makes are driven at least in part by their determination to fulfill the goals their mother never had the chance to achieve. Weaving together such disparate elements as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War competition that drove the exchange between the New York City Ballet's visit to Moscow and the Kirov's tour of the United States in 1962, the filming of Sergei Bondarchuk's monumental version of War and Peace, and the difficult yet rewarding training that produces elite dancers, Maya and Natasha (Mariner Books, 2025) explores the eternal bond between sisters while prompting readers to consider just how far they would go to achieve a cherished goal. Elyse Durham, a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, who is a Greek Orthodox priest. Maya & Natasha is her debut novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

As Nazi tanks roll toward Leningrad in August 1941, an unmarried nineteen-year-old ballerina gives birth to twin girls in the soon-to-be besieged city. Bereft of hope, the dancer—once a rising star at the Kirov—slashes her wrists, but her babies survive, rescued by the devoted friend who arrives just too late to save their mother. The friend, too, is a dancer with the Kirov, and her tutelage and self-sacrifice ensure that the girls, Maya and Natasha, become students at the Vaganova Academy after the Siege of Leningrad is broken. We meet the twins as they enter their senior year in 1958. At once inseparable and competitive, Maya and Natasha have developed quite different personalities, with Natasha the leader and future star, Maya her loyal follower. But as they turn seventeen, various factors pull them apart: boys; the changing climate of Khrushchev's USSR; and the approaching end to their schooling, which even in a state-run economy doesn't guarantee anyone a specific place in the world. But it's when the state declares that, in response to recent defections by artists to the West, only one member of any given family can join the Kirov Ballet that Maya and Natasha must confront the reality that one sister's success will come at the cost of the other's. How each of them responds to that challenge drives the rest of this thoroughly engrossing novel. And although neither girl really recognizes it until near the end of the book, the choices each makes are driven at least in part by their determination to fulfill the goals their mother never had the chance to achieve. Weaving together such disparate elements as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War competition that drove the exchange between the New York City Ballet's visit to Moscow and the Kirov's tour of the United States in 1962, the filming of Sergei Bondarchuk's monumental version of War and Peace, and the difficult yet rewarding training that produces elite dancers, Maya and Natasha (Mariner Books, 2025) explores the eternal bond between sisters while prompting readers to consider just how far they would go to achieve a cherished goal. Elyse Durham, a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband, who is a Greek Orthodox priest. Maya & Natasha is her debut novel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/historical-fiction

Silas Munro is a designer, artist, writer, researcher, curator, and surfer. He founded the design studio Polymode, based in Los Angeles and Raleigh, that works with clients across cultural spheres. He's also curator and author of Strikethrough: Typographic Messages of Protest at Letterform Archive in 2022-2023 and contributor to W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America. He co-authored the first BIPOC-centered design history course, Black Design in America: African Americans and the African Diaspora in Graphic Design 19th-21st Century. Silas talks about the Academy Award Winning movie, Moonlight, discussing not only the Oscar blunder but also the movie's sights, sounds, actions, and emotions, from the use of lighting and music to the hero's journey. We see a young boy, Chiron, facing challenges and obstacles in school, mentored by Juan who takes the boy under his wings. Composed of multiple acts, we see Chiron grow into adulthood and reunite with his long lost love, Kevin.-Silas Munro, descendant of the Banyole people of Eastern Uganda, has had work recently exhibited at the Raizes Gallery at Lesley University, the LA Design Festival, and the Scottsdale Museum of Art, and it is included in the collections of Tufts University, Lesley University, and the Montalvo Arts Center. Upcoming exhibitions in 2025 include a solo show, How Does The Grid Deal with A Messy World? at The University of Hartford's Joseloff Gallery, and in the group show Data Consciousness: Reframing Blackness in Contemporary Print at Print Center New York, curated by Tiffany E. Barber. Munro is Founding Faculty, Chair Emeritus for the MFA Program in Graphic Design at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Find more of his courses such as Behind and Ahead of the Times: Histories and Futures of Black Futurity, Black Data: W.E.B. Du Bois and Data Visualization, Black Queer Stories in Print: 19th Century to the Harlem Renaissance, as well as Funk, Blaxploitation, & Hip Hop Aesthetics at BIPOC Design History's website.http://www.polymode.studio/https://www.bipocdesignhistory.com/ https://bipocdesignhistory.com/products/behind-and-ahead-of-the-times-histories-and-futures-of-black-futurity/https://bipocdesignhistory.com/products/black-data-w-e-b-du-bois-and-data-visualization/https://bipocdesignhistory.com/products/black-queer-stories-in-print-19th-century-to-the-harlem-renaissance/https://bipocdesignhistory.com/products/funk-blaxploitation-hip-hop-aesthetics/https://aadn.gsd.harvard.edu/2024/12/06/silas-munro-tobi-ashiru/https://raceremix.arts.arizona.edu/guest/silas-munro/-Moonlight (2016)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4975722/https://youtu.be/yiTAQjPe_LM?si=aGf2dLAAVeeMpQWK https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/theater/tarell-alvin-mccraney-geffen-playhouse.htmlhttps://shop.a24films.com/products/moonlight-book https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/video/2017/feb/28/who-had-the-card-jimmy-kimmel-explains-oscars-mix-up-videohttps://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/3/1/14777110/typography-oscars-2017-Other movies discussed, alphabetical listAnora (2024)Challengers (2024)

Joseph Millar is the author of six books of poetry, including Dark Harvest: New & Selected Poems. His latest collection, Shine, was published in October of 2024. Millar grew up in Pennsylvania and attended Johns Hopkins University before spending 30 years in the San Francisco Bay area working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. He has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in such magazines as DoubleTake, TriQuarterly, The Southern Review, APR, and Ploughshares. Millar teaches in Pacific University's low-residency MFA Program. Find more here: https://www.josephmillar.org/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Pick a photographic portrait featuring someone you don't know personally, and write a short poem that explores their story. Next Week's Prompt: Write a braid poem in which three or more stories are woven together. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

Send us a textIt's an especially exciting episode this week as we welcome an author who is local to us, here in Colorado, and we'll be welcoming her to our local book club meeting next month.Lara's book, The Table: Seasons on a Colorado Ranch, was the result of completing her MFA at Western State University and submitting it for consideration for publication by the University's press. It was selected and Lara was surprised and incredibly grateful.It was a process of taking a series of personal essays and turning them into a full-length memoir. Her memoir shows her grit and gratitude for the seasons of life and reflections on the golden moments to embrace when navigating through difficult times. It's a memoir about her life on her family's ranch where they raise Hereford cows and gather thousands upon thousands of bales of hay each summer. What you'll discover as you read is it's not just the stories of her family's experiences, but an invitation to walk in her shoes and understand the experience of ranchers in our area in Colorado. You'll learn about the challenges being faced by ranchers as developers moving into the area are offering attractive sums of money to acquire land for multi-family housing developments. There's insight into cattle ranching and the meaning of its impact on our environment.She was fortunate to have the support of her family who gave her space to write her book, but there were still struggles with staying focused. You'll be interested to listen and learn about a special visitor to one of her writing spaces. Lara masterfully weaves together various threads of her life story to connect the pieces that have contributed to her family's success in their ranching business and in their lives. It hasn't always been easy, but there's a true sense of gratitude and fortitude in the work being done.There's a discussion of the editing process and how even with a publisher you can find errors after a book has been printed, but you can reach out and make sure any changes are made before future books are printed. You'll appreciate it when she talks about getting distracted and how easy it can be to be pulled away from your work. We've all been there. It's why finding a place that's not in your own backyard can be beneficial to your writing process. It can be too easy to decide to do the laundry, mow the lawn, or any other number of house chores. We invite you, like Lara does in her memoir, to join her at The Table: Seasons on a Colorado Ranch. If you've written personal essays, you're sure to find inspiration for turning your stories into a full-length memoir.  Who is Lara Richardson?A former white-water rafting guide on the Arkansas River, LARA RICHARDSON lives with her husband and five kids on their family ranch in Salida, Colorado, where they raise over 300 Hereford mother cows and calves and grow over 30,000 bales of hay each summer. A voice for land stewardship, sustainable beef production,and the family farm, she is a 2021 graduate of Western Colorado University's MFA Program in Nature Writing. The Table is her first published work.Find Lara online:Lara Richardson WebsiteLara on IGLara Richardson on FacebookWe invite you to subscribe to our email list to be the first to know about our weekly podcast episodes and upcoming group programs for writers! If you prefer video versions of the podcast or want to leave a comment on this specific episode, you can find all of them on our YouTube channel.

Brooke Champagne joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about rejecting and accepting identity, growing up in New Orleans and feeling bifurcated by race, language, and class, knowing you're a writer, humor on the page, selecting work for a collection, why we write, watching ourselves continue to make the same mistakes, deciding what stories are ours, how much permission we ask, preparing for editorial work on our projects, keeping the bigger picture in mind, the many different versions of ourselves, seeing yourself as a persona, and her new book Nola Face: A Latina's Life in the Big Easy.   Also in this episode: -writing about trauma -Proust -the nature of art and truth   Books mentioned in this episode: The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick The Lifespan of a Fact by John Degoda Hell if We Don't Change Our Ways by Brittany Means   Brooke Champagne is the author of Nola Face: A Latina's Life in the Big Easy, published with the Crux Series in Literary Nonfiction at the University of Georgia Press. Nola Face has received starred reviews from Kirkus and Independent Book Review. Champagne's work has been selected as Notable in several editions of the Best American Essays anthology series, and she is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Prose. She lives with her husband and children in Tuscaloosa, where she is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA Program at the University of Alabama.   Connect with Brooke: Website: https://www.brookechampagne.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BuggyGirl Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/champagne_brooke/ x: https://x.com/brchampagne Get Nola Face: https://ugapress.org/book/9780820366531/nola-face/   – Ronit's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, 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 memoir workshops and is working on her next book. More about Ronit: https://ronitplank.com   Sign up for monthly podcast and writing updates: https://bit.ly/33nyTKd Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Newsletter sign-up: https://ronitplank.com/#signup   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

In this episode of the Watchung Booksellers Podcast, book critics Kate Tuttle and Mark Rotella discuss the process and importance of reviewing books. Kate Tuttle is a book critic, essayist, and editor. A past president of the National Book Critics Circle and judge for the National Book Award, she edits the books pages of the Boston Globe. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere. A Kansas native, she now lives in New Jersey after stints in Boston and Atlanta.Mark Rotella is the Director of the Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Montclair State University. In addition, he serves as thesis advisor in the MFA Program at Columbia University.Formerly, Rotella was the Senior Editor at Publishers Weekly and Board Member at National Books Critics Circle. He is the author of several books, including Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria and Amore: The Story of Italian American Song. He has been featured in The New York Times, NYT Book Review, The L.A. Times, Washington Post, and more, and has appeared on outlets including National Public Radio, Entertainment Tonight, and ABC News.Resources:What the Ocean Holds (The New York Review)National Book Critics CirclePublishers WeeklyThe Boston GlobeKirkus ReviewsLibrary JournalTLSNY TimesNew York Review of BooksLA TimesWashington PostWall Street JournalVanity FairBrooklyn Book FestivBooks:A full list of the books and authors mentioned in this episode is available here. Register for Upcoming Events.The Watchung Booksellers Podcast is produced by Kathryn Counsell and Marni Jessup and is recorded at Silver Stream Studio in Montclair, NJ. The show is edited by Kathryn Counsell and Bree Testa. Special thanks to Timmy Kellenyi and Derek Mattheiss. Original music is composed and performed by Violet Mujica. Art & design and social media by Evelyn Moulton. Research and show notes by Caroline Shurtleff. Thanks to all the staff at Watchung Booksellers and The Kids' Room! If you liked our episode please like, follow, and share! Stay in touch!Email: wbpodcast@watchungbooksellers.comSocial: @watchungbooksellersSign up for our newsletter to get the latest on our shows, events, and book recommendations!

Tyranny comes in many forms. But Leah Umansky uses her art—poetry—to remind us that whether the tyrant is personal, societal, or political—resistance is possible.   Leah Umansky is a poet, writer, artist and writing coach. She has been an educator for over 15 years and teaches 8th and 10th grade English at a private school in New York. She is also the author of three collections of poetry: “OF TYRANT,” “The Barbarous Century,” “Domestic Uncertainties,” and two chapbooks, “Straight Away the Emptied World” and the Mad-Men inspired “Don Dreams and I Dream.” She is also the creator of “STAY BRAVE,” a monthly newsletter for women-identifying creatives on bravery in the creative life. Her writing has been widely published in such places as The New York Times, The Academy of American Poets' Poem-A Day, USA Today, POETRY, Guernica and American Poetry Review.  She has also been the host and curator of the NYC-based poetry series. “COUPLET,” since 2011 and is a graduate of the MFA Program in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Jason McCall interviews Brooke Champagne.Brooke Champagne is the author of Nola Face:  A Latina's Life in the Big Easy.  Her writing appears widely in literary journals and has received various awards, including the inaugural William Bradley Prize for the Essay for her work “Exercises.”  Her essays have been selected as Notables in several editions of Best American Essays.  She is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Prose. She lives with her husband and children in Tuscaloosa, where she is an Assistant Professor of English in the MFA Program in creative writing at the University of Alabama.Jason McCall is the author of the essay collection Razed by TV Sets (Autofocus, 2024) and the poetry collections What Shot Did You Ever Take (co-written with Brian Oliu); A Man Ain't Nothin'; Two-Face God; Mother, Less Child (co-winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize); Dear Hero, (winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and co-winner of the 2013 Etchings Press Whirling Prize); I Can Explain; and Silver. He and P.J. Williams are the editors of It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami. He is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, and he currently teaches at the University of North Alabama.____________Conversation topics include:-- finding time-- 20+ years of teaching-- reading turning into writing-- Nola Face: A Latina's Life in the Big Easy-- trying to quit writing-- putting together an essay collection-- time's role in craft-- approaching the page in different stages of life-- sports and new projects_______________Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

In this episode of "The Truth In This Art," host Rob Lee welcomes filmmaker and conceptual artist Nia Hampton from Baltimore. They discuss the significance of glasses in their lives, reflecting on how COVID-19 has influenced health trends. Nia shares her journey, including her MFA program and the founding of the Black Film Supremacy festival, inspired by her friends and speculative fiction writers. She talks about her film "My Mother the Clown," a social realist comedy based on personal experiences. The conversation covers the collaborative nature of filmmaking, the importance of storytelling, and Nia's personal interests in reality TV and astrology.Episode Highlight:Glasses Trend (00:00:33) Rob and Nia discuss the trend of glasses and how it relates to disability markers becoming cool post-COVID.Introducing Oneself as an Artist (00:03:16) Nia Hampton discusses the challenges of writing artist statements and introduces herself as a conceptual artist.Becoming an Artist (00:07:36) Nia explains how being born into an artistic family influenced her journey to becoming an artist and finding her voice.The Artist's Way of Life (00:13:06) Nia discusses the essence of being an artist as a way of life, regardless of productivity or wealth.Founding Black Film Supremacy (00:17:45) Nia Hampton explains the founding of Black Film Supremacy in 2018, the inspiration behind it, and its impact on the local film perspective in Baltimore.Challenges of Filmmaking Collaboration (00:24:02) Nia Hampton shares insights into the collaborative aspect of filmmaking, discussing challenges, learning opportunities, and the importance of trust and respect in working with a team.Interpersonal Dynamics in Filmmaking (00:29:33) Nia and Rob discuss the interpersonal aspects of filmmaking, likening it to dating and emphasizing the importance of trust and communication in working with others.My Mother the Clown (00:33:13) This part is when they talk about the description and motivation behind the film "My Mother the Clown," including its storyline and its relevance in reflecting current societal challenges.Art, Taste, and Communication (00:44:53) Exploration of the political nature of taste in art, the influence of personal backgrounds on perceptions of good and bad art, and the essence of art as a form of communication.Key Takeaways:1. Embrace Vulnerability: Sharing your personal stories and experiences in your art can create powerful connections with your audience.2. Draw from Personal History: Use your memories and personal history as a foundation for your creative work to add unique perspectives and emotional depth.3. Identify Gaps: Look for gaps in your industry or community and create platforms to address them, fostering meaningful and impactful projects.4. Cultivate Trust: Building trust and respect among your team members is essential for successful collaboration in any creative endeavor.Socials:X: @_NIAnderthalInstagram: niand3rthal LinkedIn: Nia Hampton

Ayana Mathis is the author of the novel The Unsettled, now available in trade paperback from Vintage. Mathis's first novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was a New York Times best seller, an NPR Best Book of 2013, the second selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. and has been translated into sixteen languages. Her nonfiction has been published in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, Guernica, and RollingStone. Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. She was born in Philadelphia, and currently lives in New York City where she teaches writing in Hunter College's MFA Program. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch Twitter Instagram  TikTok Bluesky Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roxana Robinson is the author of eleven books—seven novels, three collections of short stories, and the biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Four of these were chosen as New York Times Notable Books, two as New York Times Editors' Choices. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, Best American Short Stories, The Southampton Review, Ep!phany and elsewhere. Her work has been widely anthologized and broadcast on NPR. Her books have been published in England, France, Germany, Holland and Spain. Roxana Robinson has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the MacDowell Colony, and she was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. Robinson has served on the Boards of PEN and the Authors Guild, and was the president of the Authors Guild. She has received the Barnes and Noble “Writers for Writers Award,” given by Poets and Writers, and the Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community from the Authors Guild. She teaches in the MFA Program at Hunter College. Her latest novel is Leaving. Roxana Robinson joins Barbara DeMarco-Barrett to discuss beginnings and endings, backstory, animal companions as characters, love scenes, theme, opera, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and extra writing perks, visit our Patreon page. To listen to past interviews, visit our website. Support the show by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. We've stocked it with titles from our guests, as well as some of our personal favorites. You'll support independent bookstores and our show by purchasing through the store. Finally, on Spotify listen to an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. Look for the artist, Just My Type. Email the show at writersonwritingpodcast@gmail.com. We love to hear from our listeners. (Recorded on May 8, 2024)  Host: Barbara DeMarco-BarrettHost: Marrie StoneMusic and sound editing: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)

We kick off this episode with some riffing on Hallmark movies and a suspension of Jason's voting rights. No worries, though! The two poems under discussion are by a former student of Jason's and it comes clear pretty quickly that we're all fans. Don't listen to this episode for the suspense, but for the delicious delve into narrative possibility and how poetry is wonderfully suited to keeping the door open long after a poem ends. Indented lineation and how it can affect a poem's pacing gets some attention, as does the sensory tease of wonderfully selected symbolism and imagery. We also touch on the implication of the reader in a poem where the speaker is still working things out. In this film-tinged discussion, Kathy reminds us that a sweet ending can hit the spot, Sam confesses to thinking a lot about “Baby Boom”, Dagne owns up to seeing Raiders of the Lost Art eleven times when it was first released, Jason pays homage to Diane Keaton and Liza Minelli, and Isabel poses a question that underscores our theme of narrative possibility.   Some links we think you'll like: Whisky & Rum in Raiders of the Lost Ark, ThirstMag.com How Baby Boom Set the Template for Future Movies About Working Mothers, Vulture   At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Jason Schneiderman, Samantha Neugebauer, Isabel Petry, Dagne Forrest     Georgia M. Brodsky is a recent graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She lives south of Boston, near the ocean, with her partner and their daughter.   The Tavern   After I cracked the 6-ball off the table, he offered to teach me to drive stick in the parking lot.   Before: whiskey in no-one's-joking-sized shot glasses, the kind   the cool girl in Indiana Jones throws back then stacks like a champ while men fall off their stools   around her. Heavy glasses. No windows. Just the door to the lot, to the harbor   eventually, where earlier that day I'd seen a girl my age with a pocketknife, cleaning a fish.   She'd plucked the eyes out, let them sit on the ground staring up   like a figment in Charlie Kaufman's dreams. Every story is a version of something else.   I followed him to his car. I didn't. I laughed and touched his arm. I balled my hands into fists. My body   felt something was wrong. I felt nothing. It always turns out alright in the end. It never does.   I'm the girl who climbed into the truck and the one who got home safe. I taught myself   how to drive stick and how to run the table. I'm the girl in the harbor. All eyes.   At the Raw Bar, Housing Three Dozen Oysters for our Eighth Anniversary   We're not in it for the sex, if that's what you're thinking. And besides, I'm not the kind of person who shucks and tells. That was a joke. But it's exactly what I'm talking about. I'm the kind who makes jokes when something matters too much.   We're not in it for the sex. It's more about what happens after the shell unlatches: brine, salt, alive, pulling us in by the shirt, shaking us and putting us down as if tentacles had launched out from under the ice.   That wasn't a metaphor for our relationship. I'm honest to God talking about oysters: the knock-back, the vinegar zip, extra lemon on the side. A feeling like our bodies could turn back into fish. A speedboat revving from zero to sixty, that's how it felt to throw down my first Mookie Blue after nine pregnant months. Forget forks or sauce or napkins. If every drop of oyster liquor doesn't make it to your mouth, you shouldn't even be here, and by here, I mean sitting across the bar, gaping at us, saying, wow, that's a lot of oysters, or standing on the shores of an oyster farm, complaining that the wind's too cold.   Am I getting any closer to explaining myself? When we first met, he traced his finger along the coves of Maine's coast, a chart of waterways and kayak routes, I swear, the only freshman with a map of water pinned to his dorm room wall, and that was fourteen years ago, but in that moment, I loved him. We toast with a click of our shells— he lifts one to his lips.

Hey everybody! Episode 133 of the show is out. In this episode, I spoke with Greg Wrenn. Greg reached out to me as he's just published his book, Mothership. It was a pleasure to have Greg on and share about his book, his background, his working with and overcoming PTSD, how he found healing with ayahuasca, and his connection to nature, especially the coral reefs. Greg has a beautiful story and we had a really good conversation about these topics. I trust you all will gain a lot from this episode. As always, to support this podcast, get early access to shows, bonus material, and Q&As, check out my Patreon page below. Enjoy!“A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of the forthcoming Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis (Regalo Press 2024), an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and ayahuasca 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.​As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis.Greg is currently 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 live in the mountains of Virginia, the ancestral land of the Manahoac and Monacan people.”To learn more about or contact Greg, including his book, visit his website at: https://www.gregwrenn.comIf you enjoy the show, it's a big help if you can share it via social media or word of mouth. And please Subscribe or Follow and if you can go on Apple Podcasts and leave a starred-rating and a short review. This is super helpful with the algorithms and getting this show out to more people. Thank you in advance!For more information about me and my upcoming plant medicine retreats with my colleague Merav Artzi, visit my site at: https://www.NicotianaRustica.orgTo book an integration call with me, visit: https://jasongrechanik.setmore.comSupport this podcast on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/UniverseWithinDonate directly with PayPal:https://www.paypal.me/jasongrechanikMusic courtesy of: Nuno Moreno (end song). Visit: https://m.soundcloud.com/groove_a_zen_sound and https://nahira-ziwa.bandcamp.com/ And Stefan Kasapovski's Santero Project (intro song). Visit: https://spoti.fi/3y5Rd4Hhttps://www.facebook.com/UniverseWithinPodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/UniverseWithinPodcast

Interview begins @ 5:18 In this episode, we dive into the compelling journey of Greg Wrenn, author of the ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership. Greg begins by sharing a poignant excerpt from his book that ties back to an early memory of his mother, illustrating the profound impact of growing up with an emotionally dysregulated parent. His memoir not only explores personal trauma but also the psychodynamics that have shaped his life. Greg, a former Stegner Fellow and an associate professor at James Madison University, discusses the transformative nature of poetry, suggesting that a poem is not merely read but experienced. This belief mirrors his view on life's most impactful experiences—they may not always be pleasant, but they are transformative. A central theme of our conversation is the role of psychedelics, particularly ayahuasca, in personal healing and growth. Greg offers insights into current research, highlighting how psychedelics can reopen critical developmental periods, fostering integration, trauma recovery, and creativity. He emphasizes the importance of being mindful about what we "feed" our brain during these malleable times, as the experiences can deeply sculpt our mind and consciousness. We also critique the modern education system's focus on outcomes over experiences, discussing how this emphasis can hinder deep, meaningful engagement with learning processes. Greg shares how his healing was profoundly influenced by his connections with nature and his experiences with ayahuasca, drawing a powerful link between ecological awareness and personal well-being. Bio: A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis (Regalo Press 2024), an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and plant medicines 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. As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis. Greg is currently 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 live in the mountains of Virginia, the ancestral land of the Manahoac and Monacan people. www.gregwrenn.com Website for The Sacred Speaks: http://www.thesacredspeaks.com WATCH: YouTube for The Sacred Speaks https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOAuksnpfht1udHWUVEO7Rg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesacredspeaks/ @thesacredspeaks Twitter: https://twitter.com/thesacredspeaks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesacredspeaks/ Brought to you by: https://www.thecenterforhas.com Theme music provided by: http://www.modernnationsmusic.com

Episode 54: Cathy shares all about her first year teaching in the Visual Narrative MFA program at Boston University! She talks about her new higher ed teaching experiences, how the program is structured, and personal observations of teaching K-12 vs. higher ed. A good listen for current MFA students or people considering it!For episode citation: https://comicarted.com/blog/2024/5/3/drawing-a-dialogue-episode-54Contact: Email, Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky

We speak with Boston University set to become the school's first Masters of Fine Arts graduates in visual narrative.

My guest today on the Online for Authors podcast is Editor Megan Turner here to talk with me about the editing process. Megan is a graduate of the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her work has appeared in Witness, Atticus Review, Rio Grande Review, Fiction International, and others. She currently serves as a developmental editor at Atmosphere Press and as an instructor for UC Berkeley Extension. She lives and works in Portland, Maine. Megan and I met almost three years ago through Atmosphere Press, and she was instrumental in helping me bring Sunflowers Beneath the Snow to publication. Since then, she has been my editor for An Enemy Like Me and Daughters of Green Mountain Gap. Each time, she has helped take my story to the next level. You can follow editor and writer Megan Turner at her website: www.meganrturner.com or through Atmosphere Press: www.atmospherepress.com   Teri M Brown, Author and Podcast Host: https://www.terimbrown.com FB: @TeriMBrownAuthor IG: @terimbrown_author X: @terimbrown1   #meganturner #editing #editingprocess #developmentaleditor #terimbrownauthor #authorpodcast #onlineforauthors #characterdriven #researchjunkie #awardwinningauthor #podcasthost #podcast #readerpodcast #bookpodcast #writerpodcast #author #books #goodreads #bookclub #fiction #writer #bookreview

Debra Spark is the award-winning author of five novels, including Unknown Caller, which was picked for Maine's statewide summer READ ME program.  She has also published two collections of short stories; and two books of essays on fiction writing called And Then Something Happened and Curious Attractions.   Her book reviews, short fiction, articles, op-eds, and essays have appeared in Agni, American Scholar, AWP Writers' Chronicle, and the Boston Globe among others.  Her new novel is Discipline.  She is the Zacamy Professor of English at Colby College and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. We talked about the value of art, if beauty can save people, the real and fictional boarding school in Maine that used abusive techniques on teenagers, the role of women in the art world usually being in service to men, parenting, and creating parallel lines in a narrative piece of creative writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you the woman that is expected to hold it together, where all of your energy is consumed in the everyday? The type of woman who has wild dreams, but your obligations are overpowering, and those beautiful dreams stay on the backburner of your heart's greatest longings? If so, this episode is for you! In one of my MOST cherished conversations on the podcast, New York Times bestselling author Lauren Grodstein joins me for an intimate and heartwarming discussion about living as a woman in what is still a Virginia Woolf world, indoctrinated as "women of labor" and the demands of life as the oldest daughter of her family. In this conversation, we also speak to how womanhood poses challenges as a Jewish woman specifically, in light of the tragic events on and following October 7th, and how her latest book release We Must Not Think of Ourselves was unintentionally a timely message sharing the stories of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 and keeping their stories alive.  We are once again living in a time when no choice feels like a good choice, but Lauren does an impressive job depicting this in her novel, and in real life on this podcast. She truly has a way with words that awakens your senses to truly see + feel as if you are there, and encompassing all emotions. Be sure to stay tuned till the end, where she graciously also shares with us secrets of the publishing process and how to make writing your book easier - bye bye Writer's Block, hello Paris? About Lauren: Lauren Grodstein is the author of five novels, including the Read with Jenna selection and national bestseller We Must Not Think of Ourselves, New York Times bestseller A Friend of the Family and the Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything. Lauren's work has been translated into French, Turkish, German, Hebrew, and other languages, and her essays and reviews have been widely published.  She teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden and lives in New Jersey with her husband and children. Connect with Lauren:Website: www.laurengrodstein.comSupport the showConnect with me: Peek at the Live Vibrant Sisterhood + join the waiting list for the next round! - DM me for deets! I'm on the Gram! Find me on Instagram @mozen_wellness, click here to DM! Would love to hear how you're experiencing this episode + the pod. Come ALIVE with me - click here to see what's new: https://bio.site/mozenwellness Support the show + help us continue healing mental health through this podcast!

Cynthia Sylvester's The Half-White Album (University of New Mexico Press 2023) is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poems revolving around the journey of a travelling band, The Covers. The stories are songs on the album, beginning with “Live at the House of Towers,” about a woman's memories of her mother and home. The story of Shima (and her husband Claude) begins with all of her six daughters being taken by missionaries. The 10-year-old youngest, whom she calls The Last One, and the missionaries call Ruth, keeps running away. Shima is afraid because the missionaries will teach them to forget the songs and stories of their people. In Live at the House at the Edge of the World, Ruth is grown and eating dinner with Albert. We meet Margarita, who was born with cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair and a parade of other characters who struggle to love, live, and survive in a harsh world. These are stories of hope and despair, family and banishment, based out west in what was once the wide-ranging country of native American tribes. Cynthia Sylvester is born into the Kiyaa'áanii Clan for the Bilagáana Clan and is an enrolled member of the Diné. She is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines. She received the Native Writer Award at the Taos Writer's Conference. She graduated from the University of New Mexico and received her MFA in creative writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Cynthia hosts Albuquerque DimeStories—3-minute stories written and read by the author. Hosting DimeStories is a way to give back and foster a writing community. A community of writers is at the core of what she attributes to her success, endurance, and joy in writing. Writing is a solitary endeavor. “So much of what we writers write never sees the light of day.” A DimeStorie, fiction or non-fiction, is a way to have an achievable goal each month (about 500 words) and provides a venue to read the work to a receptive audience. Having a community of writers is important because Cynthia, like many writers, works a “9 to 5.” Her profession for over thirty years has been physical therapy. She comes from a line of “medicine women.” Her mother and aunts were nurses, and she and her sister have health professions. Cynthia's career in medicine is often reflected in her work as a writer. When not working as a writer or a PT, Cynthia loves to box, take walks with her wife and their dog, Zeus, hang out with friends and family and talk about writing, TV shows, movies, books, sports, what happened last week or last year, whatever if there is a story involved, Cynthia is in her happy place. 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

Cynthia Sylvester's The Half-White Album (University of New Mexico Press 2023) is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poems revolving around the journey of a travelling band, The Covers. The stories are songs on the album, beginning with “Live at the House of Towers,” about a woman's memories of her mother and home. The story of Shima (and her husband Claude) begins with all of her six daughters being taken by missionaries. The 10-year-old youngest, whom she calls The Last One, and the missionaries call Ruth, keeps running away. Shima is afraid because the missionaries will teach them to forget the songs and stories of their people. In Live at the House at the Edge of the World, Ruth is grown and eating dinner with Albert. We meet Margarita, who was born with cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair and a parade of other characters who struggle to love, live, and survive in a harsh world. These are stories of hope and despair, family and banishment, based out west in what was once the wide-ranging country of native American tribes. Cynthia Sylvester is born into the Kiyaa'áanii Clan for the Bilagáana Clan and is an enrolled member of the Diné. She is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines. She received the Native Writer Award at the Taos Writer's Conference. She graduated from the University of New Mexico and received her MFA in creative writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Cynthia hosts Albuquerque DimeStories—3-minute stories written and read by the author. Hosting DimeStories is a way to give back and foster a writing community. A community of writers is at the core of what she attributes to her success, endurance, and joy in writing. Writing is a solitary endeavor. “So much of what we writers write never sees the light of day.” A DimeStorie, fiction or non-fiction, is a way to have an achievable goal each month (about 500 words) and provides a venue to read the work to a receptive audience. Having a community of writers is important because Cynthia, like many writers, works a “9 to 5.” Her profession for over thirty years has been physical therapy. She comes from a line of “medicine women.” Her mother and aunts were nurses, and she and her sister have health professions. Cynthia's career in medicine is often reflected in her work as a writer. When not working as a writer or a PT, Cynthia loves to box, take walks with her wife and their dog, Zeus, hang out with friends and family and talk about writing, TV shows, movies, books, sports, what happened last week or last year, whatever if there is a story involved, Cynthia is in her happy place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/native-american-studies

Cynthia Sylvester's The Half-White Album (University of New Mexico Press 2023) is a collection of stories, flash fiction, and poems revolving around the journey of a travelling band, The Covers. The stories are songs on the album, beginning with “Live at the House of Towers,” about a woman's memories of her mother and home. The story of Shima (and her husband Claude) begins with all of her six daughters being taken by missionaries. The 10-year-old youngest, whom she calls The Last One, and the missionaries call Ruth, keeps running away. Shima is afraid because the missionaries will teach them to forget the songs and stories of their people. In Live at the House at the Edge of the World, Ruth is grown and eating dinner with Albert. We meet Margarita, who was born with cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair and a parade of other characters who struggle to love, live, and survive in a harsh world. These are stories of hope and despair, family and banishment, based out west in what was once the wide-ranging country of native American tribes. Cynthia Sylvester is born into the Kiyaa'áanii Clan for the Bilagáana Clan and is an enrolled member of the Diné. She is a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work has appeared in numerous literary magazines. She received the Native Writer Award at the Taos Writer's Conference. She graduated from the University of New Mexico and received her MFA in creative writing from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Cynthia hosts Albuquerque DimeStories—3-minute stories written and read by the author. Hosting DimeStories is a way to give back and foster a writing community. A community of writers is at the core of what she attributes to her success, endurance, and joy in writing. Writing is a solitary endeavor. “So much of what we writers write never sees the light of day.” A DimeStorie, fiction or non-fiction, is a way to have an achievable goal each month (about 500 words) and provides a venue to read the work to a receptive audience. Having a community of writers is important because Cynthia, like many writers, works a “9 to 5.” Her profession for over thirty years has been physical therapy. She comes from a line of “medicine women.” Her mother and aunts were nurses, and she and her sister have health professions. Cynthia's career in medicine is often reflected in her work as a writer. When not working as a writer or a PT, Cynthia loves to box, take walks with her wife and their dog, Zeus, hang out with friends and family and talk about writing, TV shows, movies, books, sports, what happened last week or last year, whatever if there is a story involved, Cynthia is in her happy place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

January 2024 Dante's Old South Stuart Dischell is the author of Good Hope Road (Viking), a National Poetry Series Selection, Evenings & Avenues (Penguin), Dig Safe (Penguin), Backwards Days (Penguin), Standing on Z (Unicorn), Children with Enemies (Chicago), and The Lookout Man (Chicago). His newest work is Andalusian Visions (Unicorn), a book of poetry, photography, and music with international collaborators Cyril Caine and Laurent Estoppey. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Agni, The New Republic, Slate, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and numerous national and international anthologies, such as Best American Poetry, Good Poems, and the Pushcart Prize. He is the recipient of awards from the NEA, the North Carolina Arts Council, the Ledig-Rowohlt Foundation. and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, he teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.  www.stuartdischellpoetry.com Rissi Palmer's gift lies in reaching across all musical boundaries. While she made her mark in Country Music, she is equally at home in R&B music, bringing the entire spectrum of popular music to bear on music she calls “Southern Soul.” The daughter of Georgia natives, Rissi was born near Pittsburgh, PA and spent her adolescent years in St. Louis, Missouri. Raised in a musical family that loved both country and R&B, Rissi was part of a singing and dancing troupe sponsored by a local television station at age 16, and by the time she was 19 years old, she had already been offered her first publishing and label deal. A few highlights throughout her musical career include performances at The White House, New York's Lincoln Center and multiple appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. She has toured extensively across the country and has made numerous national appearances on Oprah & Friends, CMT Insider, CNN, CBS This Morning, GMA, Entertainment Tonight, and FOX Soul's "The Book of Sean" and has been featured in Associated Press, Ebony, Essence, Huffington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, NPR's "All Things Considered", PEOPLE, Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. www.RissiPalmerMusic.com. Justin Hamm's most recent book is Drinking Guinness with the Dead: Poems 2007-2021 (Spartan Press 2022). He is the Executive Editor of the Museum of Americana and the creator of Poet Baseball Cards. His poems, photos, stories, and reviews appear in numerous journals. He is a 2022 Woody Guthrie Poet and a recipient of the Stanley Hanks Memorial Poetry Prize.  www.justinhamm.net Heather Hartley is the author of Adult Swim and Knock Knock both from Carnegie Mellon University Press. She was the long-time Paris editor at Tin House magazine. Her short fiction, essays, poems and interviews have appeared in or on PBS Newshour, The Guardian, The Literary Review, Slice and other venues. She has presented writers at Shakespeare and Company Bookshop in Paris and has taught creative writing at the American University of Paris and the University of Texas El Paso MFA Online program. She teaches in the Master's program at the University of Kent (UK) Paris School of Arts and Culture.  www.heatherhartleyink.com Additional Music by: Wilder Adkins https://wilderadkins.com/ https://wilderadkins.bandcamp.com/ Special Thanks Goes to: Lucid House Press: www.lucidhousepublishing.com UCLA Extension Writing Program: www.uclaextension.edu The Crown: www.thecrownbrasstown.com Mercer University Press: www.mupress.org The Red Phone Booth: www.redphonebooth.com The host, Clifford Brooks', The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics, Athena Departs, and Old Gods are available everywhere books are sold. His chapbook, Exiles of Eden, is only available through his website: www.cliffbrooks.com/how-to-order Check out his Teachable courses on thriving with autism and creative writing as a profession here: brooks-sessions.teachable.com/p/the-working-writer

This week on Black and Published, Nikesha speaks with Dolen Perkins-Valdez, the New York Times bestselling author of  Take My Hand. The novel was awarded a 2023 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, and Fiction Award from Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Dolen, who is an Associate Professor in the MFA Program at American University in Washington, D.C.,  is widely considered a pre-eminent chronicler of American historical life. In our conversation, Dolen discusses why telling the hard truths of history in a way that is easy for readers to stomach is her gift. How her love of archival research lays the foundation for her work as a historical fiction novelist. And the reason she believes she doesn't get enough credit for the doors she opened in historical Black writing. Support the showFollow the Show: IG: @blkandpublished Twitter: @BLKandPublished Follow Me:IG: @nikesha_elise Twitter: @Nikesha_Elise Website: www.newwrites.com

Debra Marquart is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University, as well as the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at University of Southern Maine. Marquart serves as Iowa's Poet Laureate and the Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. The author of seven books―including The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and Small Buried Things: Poems―Marquart has been featured on NPR and the BBC and has received over 50 grants and awards including an NEA Fellowship, a PEN USA Award, a New York Times Editors' Choice commendation, and Elle Magazine's Elle Lettres Award. In 2021, Marquart was awarded a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book is Gratitude with Dogs: New and Collected. For more information: debramarquart.com Review the Rattlecast on iTunes! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rattle-poetry/id1477377214 As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a poem that includes multiple lists. Next Week's Prompt: Look at an old family photograph, and find an object in the background that you hadn't noticed before. Write a poem about it. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

EPISODE 1874 : In this KEEN ON show, Andrew talks to Lauren Grodstein, author of WE MUST NOT THINK OF OURSELVES, about why she changed her mind about writing a novel about the HolocaustLauren Grodstein is the author of five novels, including the New York Times bestseller A Friend of the Family and the Washington Post Book of the Year The Explanation for Everything. Her forthcoming novel We Must Not Think of Ourselves will be published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in November, 2023. Lauren's work has been translated into French, Turkish, German, Hebrew, and other languages, and her essays and reviews have been widely published. She teaches in the MFA Program at Rutgers University-Camden and lives in New Jersey with her husband and children. Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

Ayana Mathis's first novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, was a New York Times Bestseller, second selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0, a 2013 New York Times Notable Book, NPR Best Book of 2013, and was long listed for the Dublin Literary Award and nominated for Hurston/Wright Foundation's Legacy Award. Mathis's nonfiction has been published in the The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Financial Times, Rolling Stone, Guernica and Glamour. She currently teaches at Hunter College's MFA Program.  Her new novel is The Unsettled. We talked about the title, her main character's agency, her focus on character and story, and myth among other topics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ruba Ahmed joins Julie Murphy to read "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski and talks about his imperative to see the beauty in the world that lies right beside the horrors. She also reads from her new book Bring Now the Angels and shares her struggle in coming to forgiveness and grief and joy. Ruba also shares some great insights on the power of repetition as well as the importance of Keat's concept of negative capability. Dilruba Ahmed is the author of Bring Now the Angels (Pittsburg Poetry). Her debut book, Dhaka Dust (Graywolf Press), won the Bakeless Prize. Her poems have appeared in New England Review, New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She has taught with Swarthmore College, Chatham University's MFA Program, Hugo House in Seattle, and Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers. Find her classes & consultations on her website. She's also on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Roxi Power talks with Brenda Hillman, winner this month of the Northern California Book Reviewers' Fred Cody Award  for Lifetime Achievement, about her 11th book of poetry with Wesleyan University Press, In a Few Minutes Before Later.   We discuss her new trans-genre tetralogy about time: how to find calm during the Anthropocene by being in time in multiple ways: sinking into the micro-minutes; performing micro-activism; and celebrating the microbiome. We explore her influences–from Blake to Bergson, Clare to Baudelaire, as well as the less celebrated moss, owls, and wood rats that appear frequently in her eco-poetry.  Alive with humor, witness, creative design and punctuation–what Forrest Gander calls “typographical expressionism”--Hillman's poetry teaches us how to abide in crisis from Covid to California fires, living in paradox as a way to transcend despair. Brenda Hillman shares the Fred Cody Lifetime Achievement Award with with Isabel Allende, Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Pollan, Ishmael Reed, Gary Snyder, Robert Duncan, Alice Walker and others. Winner of the William Carlos Williams Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the International Griffin Poetry Prize (for Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, 2013), the Northern California Book Award (for Extra Hidden Life, among the Days, 2018) and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Academy of American Poets, Brenda Hillman was born in Tucson, Arizona and has been an active part of the Bay Area literary community since 1975.   She has edited an edition of Emily Dickinson's poems for Shambhala Press, and co-edited and co-translated several books.  She is director of the Poetry Program at the Community of Writers in Olympic Valley and is on the regular poetry staff ad Napa Valley Writers Conference. Hillman just retired from teaching in the MFA Program at St. Mary's College in Moraga, CA.  She has worked as an activist for social and environmental justice. She is a mother, grandmother, and is married to poet, Robert Hass.  Photograph by Robert Hass.

Poets Jason Schneiderman, Cate Marvin, R. A. Villanueva, Lynn Xu and Rachel Zucker consider the pleasures, challenges, eccentricities and value of live, in-person poetry readings. These musings are followed by excerpts of the June 6, 2023 reading in Bryant Park (hosted by Jason and featuring Cate, Ron, Lynn and Rachel) and comments from the audience. PODCAST: PLAY IN NEW WINDOW | TRANSCRIPT SUBSCRIBE:APPLE PODCASTS | GOOGLE PODCASTS | AMAZON PODCASTSSUPPORT: PATREON | VENMO: @Rachel_ZuckerLinks, Bios, & Support InfoBryant Park Reading SeriesUniversity of MarylandLibrary of CongressWilliam MeredithKim NovakBMCCKGB reading seriesDavid LehmanStar BlackPaul RomeroSonia SanchezAllen Ginsberg's “Sunflower Sutra”Phllyis Levin Matt YeagerDavid LehmanWill Harris's Brother PoemJosé Oliverez's Promises of GoldMartha Graham CrackerJustin Vivian BondPatty LuPoneBridget EverettKGB Bar ReadingRichard McCann Kinokuniya BookstoreWillam Blake's “Ah! Sun-flower” June Jordan's “Sunflower Sonnet Number 1"June Jordan's “Sunflower Sonnet Number 2"Bios, in order of appearance:Jason Schneiderman is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Hold Me Tight (Red Hen, 2020). He is Professor of English at CUNY's BMCC and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. His next collection, Self Portrait of Icarus as a Country on Fire, will be published by Red Hen Press in 2024. Cate Marvin's latest book of poems is Event Horizon (Copper Canyon Press, 2022). She teaches at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York and resides in Southern Maine. Her poems have recently appeared in The Kenyon Review.R. A. Villanueva is the author of Reliquaria, winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize. New work has been featured by the Academy of American Poets, Ploughshares, Poetry, and National Public Radio—and his writing appears widely in international publications such as Poetry London and The Poetry Review. His honors include commendations from the Forward Prizes and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and Kundiman. Born in New Jersey, he lives in Brooklyn.Born in Shanghai, Lynn Xu is the author of And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight (Wave, 2022) and Debts & Lessons (Omnidawn, 2013) and the chapbooks: June (Corollary Press, 2006) and Tournesol (Compline, 2021). She has performed cross-disciplinary works at the MOCA Tucson, Guggenheim Museum, The Renaissance Society, Rising Tide Projects, and 300 S. Kelly Street. She teaches at Columbia University, coedits Canarium Books, and lives with her family in New York City and West Texas. Rachel Zucker is the author of a bunch of books, including, most recently, The Poetics of Wrongness. She is the founder and host of Commonplace and directrix of the Commonplace School of Embodied Poetics. She lives in Washington Heights, NY and Scarborough, ME and is mother to three sons.Please support Commonplace by becoming a patron here!Sign up for “Reading with Rachel,” the newest course in The Commonplace School for Embodied Poetics.

In today's flashback, an outtake from Episode 257, my conversation with Natalie Baszile, author of the novel Queen Sugar (Penguin Books). This episode first aired on March 5, 2014. Baszile is the author of the novel Queen Sugar, which was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2014, longlisted for the Crooks Corner Southern Book Prize, nominated for an NAACP Image Award, and adapted for television by writer/director Ava DuVernay and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey for OWN. Baszile holds a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA and is a graduate of Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers. She lives in San Francisco. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  YouTube TikTok Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when science, spirituality and poetry weave together? We speak with heralded poet David Keplinger about his newest poetry collection, Ice, which he playfully describes as “poetry via the Pleistocene.” The book, and our conversation, explores emergence–the emergence of Ice Age animals once preserved in ice and the emergence of feelings and old versions of the self as the heart melts with age and self-compassion. We talk about how creative practice can help us move from “stuckness to spontaneity” and how it is creativity helps us “remember we are here.”David Keplinger is the director of the MFA Program at American University, recipient of two NEA fellowships, the Colorado Book Award, the TS Eliot Award (selected by Mary Oliver), the Cavafy Prize (selected by Ilya Kaminsky), the Rilke Prize, and the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America. He's a longtime translator of Büchner Preis winning German poet Jan Wagner. His new poetry book is called Ice, which combines a concern for climate change with a metaphor for inner light. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of Get Lit Minute, we spotlight the accomplished writer and poet, Rigoberto González. Rigoberto González was born in Bakersfield, California and raised in Michoacán, Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from University of California, Davis and Arizona State University. He is the author of several poetry books, including The Book of Ruin (2019); Unpeopled Eden (2013), winner of a Lambda Literary Award; and So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks (1999), a National Poetry Series selection. He has also written two bilingual children's books, Antonio's Card (2005) and Soledad Sigh-Sighs (2003); the novel Crossing Vines (2003), winner of ForeWord Magazine's Fiction Book of the Year Award; a memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (2006), which received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation; and the book of stories Men without Bliss (2008). He has also written for The National Book Critics Circle's blog, Critical Mass; and the Poetry Foundation's blog Harriet. The recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Publishing Triangle, and the PEN/Voelcker Award, González writes a Latino book column for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is contributing editor for Poets & Writers, on the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist writers.  González is a professor of English and director of the MFA Program in creative writing at Rutgers University–Newark. He lives in New York City. SourceThis episode includes a reading of his poem, “Birthright”  featured in our 2022/23 Get Lit Anthology."Birthright"in the villageof your birthcuts a wallbleeds a border in the heatyou cannot swimin the rainyou cannot climb in the northyou cannot becuts a papercuts a law cuts a fingerfinger bleedsbaby hungersbaby feeds baby needsyou cannot goyou cannot buyyou cannot bring baby growsbaby knowsbordercrossingseasons bring winter bordersummer borderfalls a borderborder springSupport the showSupport the show

The riddles of desire, youth, old age, poverty, and wealth are laid bare in this radiant collection from a master of the form. From inner-city pawnshops to high-powered law firms, from the desert of California to the coast of France, The Flounder (Blackwater Press, 2023) paints a vivid portrait of how complex and poignant everyday life can be. Told in vibrant, incantatory prose, these moving, lyrical, and surprising stories teeter between desperation and hope, with Fulton showing us what lasts in an impermanent world. John Fulton is the author of four books of fiction, including Retribution, which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book. His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, twice cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing. And his most recent book of stories is The Flounder. Recommended Books: Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez Colin Barrett, Young Skins Natalia Ginsberg, Family William Trevor, Collected Stories  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 as World Literature, is under contract 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

The riddles of desire, youth, old age, poverty, and wealth are laid bare in this radiant collection from a master of the form. From inner-city pawnshops to high-powered law firms, from the desert of California to the coast of France, The Flounder (Blackwater Press, 2023) paints a vivid portrait of how complex and poignant everyday life can be. Told in vibrant, incantatory prose, these moving, lyrical, and surprising stories teeter between desperation and hope, with Fulton showing us what lasts in an impermanent world. John Fulton is the author of four books of fiction, including Retribution, which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book. His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, twice cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing. And his most recent book of stories is The Flounder. Recommended Books: Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez Colin Barrett, Young Skins Natalia Ginsberg, Family William Trevor, Collected Stories  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 as World Literature, is under contract 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

The riddles of desire, youth, old age, poverty, and wealth are laid bare in this radiant collection from a master of the form. From inner-city pawnshops to high-powered law firms, from the desert of California to the coast of France, The Flounder (Blackwater Press, 2023) paints a vivid portrait of how complex and poignant everyday life can be. Told in vibrant, incantatory prose, these moving, lyrical, and surprising stories teeter between desperation and hope, with Fulton showing us what lasts in an impermanent world. John Fulton is the author of four books of fiction, including Retribution, which won the Southern Review Short Fiction Award in 2001, the novel More Than Enough, which was a finalist for the Midland Society of Authors Award, and The Animal Girl, a collection of two novellas and three stories, which was a Story Prize Notable Book. His short fiction has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, twice cited for distinction in the Best American Short Stories, short-listed for the O. Henry Award, and published in numerous journals, including Zoetrope, Oxford American, and The Southern Review. He currently lives with his wife and daughter in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, and is a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, where he directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing. And his most recent book of stories is The Flounder. Recommended Books: Morgan Talty, Night of the Living Rez Colin Barrett, Young Skins Natalia Ginsberg, Family William Trevor, Collected Stories  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 as World Literature, is under contract 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

Revision Path is all about inspiring Black designers, and my conversation with Ashley Fletcher is a brilliant example of why that inspiration matters. Ashley drops some serious knowledge on finding your creative community, pushing boundaries, but also the importance of taking care of your well-being.Ashley talked about her current work, including her business Goods Made By Digitrillnana, and she shared how her educational journey helped her growth in understanding design. We also talked shop on a few topics, including the role of design organizations in 2023, AI and intellectual property, and more.Ashley's story will leave you feeling inspired and ready to take your design career to new heights!LinksAshley Fletcher's WebsiteAshley Fletcher on InstagramAshley Fletcher on TikTokAshley Fletcher on TwitterGoods Made By DigitrillnanaFor a full transcript of this interview, visit revisionpath.com.==========Donate to Revision PathFor 10 years, Revision Path has been dedicated to showcasing Black designers and creatives from all over the world. In order to keep bringing you the content that you love, we need your support now more than ever.Click or tap here to make either a one-time or monthly donation to help keep Revision Path running strong.Thank you for your support!==========Follow and SubscribeLike this episode? Then subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Follow us, and leave us a 5-star rating and a review!You can also follow Revision Path on Instagram and Twitter.==========CreditsRevision Path is brought to you by Lunch, a multidisciplinary creative studio in Atlanta, GA.Executive Producer and Host: Maurice CherryEditor and Audio Engineer: RJ BasilioIntro Voiceover: Music Man DreIntro and Outro Music: Yellow SpeakerTranscripts are provided courtesy of Brevity and Wit.☎️ Call ‪626-603-0310 and leave us a message with your comments on this episode!Thank you for listening!==========Sponsored by Brevity & WitBrevity & Wit is a strategy and design firm committed to designing a more inclusive and equitable world. They are always looking to expand their roster of freelance design consultants in the U.S., particularly brand strategists, copywriters, graphic designers and Web developers.If you know how to deliver excellent creative work reliably, and enjoy the autonomy of a virtual-based, freelance life (with no non-competes), check them out at brevityandwit.com.Brevity & Wit — creative excellence without the grind.

Today's poem is by James Raymond Daniels (born 1956 in Detroit, Michigan), an American poet and writer. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, the writer Kristin Kovacic. Daniels was on the faculty of the creative writing program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1981-2021, where he was the Thomas Stockham BakerUniversity Professor of English. He taught in the low-residency MFA Program from 2007-2021. He currently teaches in the Alma College low-residency MFA Program.The majority of Daniels' papers are held in Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections.Daniels' literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.[2] He won the inaugural Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 1985 from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was educated at Alma College and Bowling Green State University.Bio via Wikipedia. Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

We are in the final weeks as On Being evolves to its next chapter — in a world that is evolving, each of us changed in myriad ways we've only begun to process and fathom. So it felt right to listen again to one of our most beloved shows of this post-2020 world. In fact, Krista interviewed the wise and wonderful Ocean Vuong right on the cusp of that turning, in March 2020, in a joyful and crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. Yet what's most stunning is how presciently and exquisitely Ocean spoke, and continues to speak, to the world we have since come to inhabit — its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for loss and for finding new life.--LISTENING TO OUR LISTENERS - Please take our short (but important) survey! This summer, we're entering creative recharge and learning mode. Would you visit onbeing.org/survey and answer a few questions about who you are and how On Being can accompany you in the time ahead? We would be so grateful

We are in the final weeks as On Being evolves to its next chapter — in a world that is evolving, each of us changed in myriad ways we've only begun to process and fathom. So it felt right to listen again to one of our most beloved shows of this post-2020 world. In fact, Krista interviewed the wise and wonderful Ocean Vuong right on the cusp of that turning, in March 2020, in a joyful and crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. Yet what's most stunning is how presciently and exquisitely Ocean spoke, and continues to speak, to the world we have since come to inhabit — its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for loss and for finding new life.--LISTENING TO OUR LISTENERS - Please take our short (but important) survey! This summer, we're entering creative recharge and learning mode. Would you visit onbeing.org/survey and answer a few questions about who you are and how On Being can accompany you in the time ahead? We would be so grateful