Podcasts about millay colony

About the authorBarbara de la Cuesta has taught English literature and Spanish on the secondary and college levels. She is currently teaching English as a Second Language. She has a Master's Degree in Creative Non Fiction from Lesley College in Massachusetts, 1989.She has published stories in the California Quarterly, the Texas Review, and The New Ohio Review,. Her first novel, The Spanish Teacher, was winner of the Gival Press Fiction Prize in 2007. Rosa, a novel about a Honduran immigrant, was winner of the Driftless Series award from Brain Mill Press, The Mists, set in Central America, and My Name is Henrietta Rose, set in the basements of AA, were published by Finishing Line Press. Her latest works, published this year, are Adams Chair, a novel in verse about the City of Waltham, Massachusetts, site of historic immigration, as well as Life Drawing, a collection of stories about art and artists, published by Austin MacCauly. She has received fiction fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, and, more recently, from The New Jersey Council on the Arts. She has also received a Geraldine Dodge fellowship to the Virginia Center, and to the Millay Colony.For more info on the book click HERE

  Navigating Grief May collapse make us all kinder and kinned…. Caroline welcomes the return of Eiren Caffall, author of “the Mourner's Bestiary,” And now, her novel, “All the Water in the World,' “The World As it Was” “The World As It Is” And the World that is coming for all of us…. Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her work on loss, oceans, and extinction has appeared in Orion, Writer's Digest, Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV. Fire, (The Center for Humans and Nature, 2024). She received a 2023 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her books include her memoir The Mourner's Bestiary (Row House Publishing, 2024) and her novel All the Water in the World (St. Martin's Press, 2025).       *Woof*Woof*Wanna*Play?!?* · www.CoyoteNetworkNews.com · The Visionary Activist Show on Patreon The post The Visionary Activist Show – Navigating Grief appeared first on KPFA.

Eiren Caffall joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her generational experience of loss, coming out of the shadows about having an ill body, how polycystic kidney disease (PKD) has shaped her and her family's life, writing about the collapse of ecosystems in the Atlantic ocean, seamlessly weaving in narrative, historical, lyrical, scientific, and metaphorical threads, allowing our children to weigh in on stories that involve them, feeling all the places we're still wounded, depicting mother-daughter relationships with complexity, the umpteenth draft, form as key, holding two things in mind at once, reframing and understanding family dynamics, and her new memoir The Mourner's Bestiary.   Also in this episode: -remembering wonder and beauty in the face of destruction  -idosyncratic craft structures  -where we are in our stories   Books mentioned in this episode: -Shapes of Native Nonfiction Edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warbuton -Meander Spiral Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Allison -Landmarks by Robert Mcfarlane   Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician. Her award-winning memoir, The Mourner's Bestiary, will be published by Row House Publishing in October 2024. Her novel, All the Water in the World will be published by Saint Martin's Press in 2025. An excerpt of her memoir will appear in Elementals: Volume IV. Fire forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. Her work on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and three record albums. She received a Whiting Foundation Creative Nonfiction Grant in 2023 for The Mourner's Bestiary, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship in environmental journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, and a Frontline: Environmental Reportage residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. She has been awarded residencies at Millay Colony for the Arts, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. She has guest lectured at UCLA, University of Chicago, and other universities across America, taught creative writing for The Chicago Humanities Festival, taught a memoir body and place week-long masterclass for Story Studio in Chicago, and mentored graduate students at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been adapted into the award-winning short film Becoming Ocean, which screened at film festivals across the United States and in Amsterdam and Morocco.   Connect with Eiren: Website: www.eirencaffall.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eirencaffall/ X: www.x.com/eirencaffall Substack: https://eirencaffall.substack.com Ronit's Upcoming Online 10-week Memoir Course with the University of Washington: https://www.pce.uw.edu/courses/memoir-writing-finding-your-story   Ronit's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Iowa Review, Hippocampus, The Washington Post, Writer's Digest, American Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her memoir WHEN SHE COMES BACK about the loss of her mother to the guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and their eventual reconciliation was named Finalist in the 2021 Housatonic Awards Awards, the 2021 Indie Excellence Awards, and was a 2021 Book Riot Best True Crime Book. Her short story collection HOME IS A MADE-UP PLACE won Hidden River Arts' 2020 Eludia Award and the 2023 Page Turner Awards for Short Stories.  She earned an MFA in Nonfiction Writing at Pacific University, is Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, and 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

  The Art of Grief – Hope and wonder in the face of environmental collapse… PART 2: Grief Artfully Expressed becomes a Sacrament of Kinship  Caroline re-welcomes last week's guest Eiren Caffall, science writer with the soul of a poet, the author of “The Mourner's Bestiary” “Lyrical reports from the apocalypse” “The Mourner's Bestiary is a meditation on grief and survival told through the stories of animals in two collapsing marine ecosystems—the Gulf of Maine and the Long Island Sound—and the lives of a family facing a life-threatening illness on their shores. The Gulf of Maine is the world's fastest-warming marine ecosystem, and the Long Island Sound has been the site of conservation battles that predict the necessary dedications ahead for the Gulf. Eiren Caffall carries a family legacy of two hundred years of genetic kidney disease, raising a child who may also. The Mourner's Bestiary braids environmental research with a memoir of generational healing, and the work it takes to get there for the human and animal lives caught in tides of loss.”   Eiren Caffall is a writer and musician based in Chicago. Her writing on loss and nature, oceans and extinction has appeared in Guernica, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, and the anthology Elementals: Volume IV Fire, forthcoming in 2024 from The Center for Humans and Nature. She received a 2023 Whiting Award in Creative Nonfiction, a Social Justice News Nexus fellowship, and residencies at the Banff Centre, Millay Colony, MacDowell Colony (waitlisted), Hedgebrook, and Ragdale. Her novel, All the Water in the World, is slated for release by St. Martin's Press in early 2025. ErinCaffall.com Caroline W. Casey · www.CoyoteNetworkNews.com · Patreon The post The Visionary Activist Show – The Art of Grief appeared first on KPFA.

Sarah Brenneman (b.1975, Middletown, OH) lives and works in West Orange, New Jersey. She received her degrees in painting from Columbus College of Art (BFA) and Virginia Commonwealth University (MFA). She has had several solo shows including with Garvey|Simon at Artisan Lofts (New York, NY -  a two-person exhibition with Gary Petersen 2024); Gold Scopophilia (Montclair, NJ) in 2020 and with Jeff Bailey Gallery (New York, NY) in 2004, 2006 and 2011. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally most recently with La Grange Gallery, (Reims, France) in 2022. She has been awarded residencies with Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Millay Colony of the Arts, Chashama, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Liquitex-Just Imagine Residency and VCCA, Moulin à Nef, Auvillar France. Brenneman's paintings are included in many  private and corporate collections including The Aspen Contemporary Art Collection, Citigroup, Cleveland Clinic, Sprint and The Progressive Corporation. Sarah Brenneman,  Dove, 2024 Acrylic on Canvas 60.0h x 48.0w in. Sarah Brenneman Rust Register 2024, acrylic and watercolor on panel, 20 x 16 in Sarah Brenneman,  Open But Empty, 2023 watercolor on paper 9.0h x 6.0w in.  

Gail Spaien lives in South Portland, Maine. She earned her B.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine and her M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute. Spaien has received numerous fellowships including the Ucross Foundation; Varda Artist Residency Program; Millay Colony for the Arts; the Djerassi Foundation Resident Artists Program; and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Over four decades, Spaien's work has been exhibited nationwide and abroad, including Taymour Grahne Projects (London); Vardan Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum (Lincoln, MA); Provincetown Art Association and Museum (Provincetown, MA); Crocker Art Museum (Sacramento, CA); the Portland Museum of Art (Portland, ME); Ogunquit Museum of American Art (Ogunquit, ME); and Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville, Maine). After thirty years as faculty at the Maine College of Art and Design she is now full-time in the studio. Turquoise Window, 2024, acrylic on linen, 48 x 45 inches Pearl with Boots and Pheasants, 2024, acrylic on linen, 34 x 36 inches The Season Called Locking, 2024, acrylic on linen, 48 x 48 inches

So excited to share this fantastic interview with artist, Philemona Williamson! Find out more about Philemona's vibrant paintings that show twisting, gender-bending adolescents "up to stuff," and her fascinating ambiguous poetic sense of narrative (and also why I have appointed her an Honorary New Orleanian!). Philemona also grew up in a famous Art Deco building in NYC, and her childhood stories are not to be missed. Works mentioned: "Branching Eyes" 2023, "The Gathering" 2021, "Verbena Street 2" 2022, "Snow Interrupted" 2021 More info about Philemona Williamson: Philemona's website: https://www.philemonawilliamson.com/ Philemona on IG: https://www.instagram.com/philemona8/ Her MTA Fused Glass Panels at Livonia Ave, Queens (L train): https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/artwork_show?206 Current/Upcoming Exhibitions: June Kelly Gallery, NYC, Apr 18 - June 4, 2024: https://www.junekellygallery.com/williamson/index.html Passerelle, Centre d'art contemporain d'intérêt national, Brest, France, June-Aug 2024: https://www.cac-passerelle.com/expositions/en-cours/ In "Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM" Montclair Art Museum, NJ, Through July 7, 2024: https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/exhibition/century-100-years-black-art-mam Philemona Williamson has exhibited her work for over 25 years at the June Kelly Gallery in NYC and recently, at her mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in NJ. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock Krasner, National Endowment For The Arts, New York Foundation For The Arts and Millay Colony as well as serving on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education. Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions such as The Queens Museum of Art, Wisconsin's Kohler Art Center, The Sheldon Museum in Nebraska, The Bass Museum in Miami, The Mint Museum in North Carolina, The Forum of Contemporary Art in St. Louis, The International Bienal of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador and most recently at the Anna Zorina Gallery in NYC. She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including The Montclair Art Museum; The Kalamazoo Art Institute; The Mint Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Hampton University Museum; Sheldon Art Museum; Mott-Warsh Art Collection, and AT&T. Her public works includes fusedglass murals created for the MTA Arts in Transit Program at the Livonia Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, a poster for the MTA Poetry In Motion and — for the NYC School Authority — a mosaic mural in the Glenwood Campus School. She currently teaches painting at Pratt Institute and Hunter College in NYC. All music by Soundstripe ---------------------------- Pep Talks on IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@peptalksforartists⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Amy, your beloved host, on IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@talluts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Pep Talks on Art Spiel as written essays: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tinyurl.com/7k82vd8s⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BuyMeACoffee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Donations always appreciated! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/peptalksforartistspod/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/peptalksforartistspod/support

Originally from Honduras, Daniel Handal lives and works in New York City. He received his BS in Applied Sciences from Rutgers University and studied photography at the International Center of Photography. His work centers on portraiture and explores issues of gender, sexuality, identity, and community. He has had a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library (Flatbush Branch) and has been shown in group exhibitions at the New Mexico Museum of Art, FotoFest in Houston, and the Center for Photography in Woodstock, among others. His work has been exhibited internationally at the Australian Centre for Photography and MKII in London. Handal's photographs have been published in HuffPost, Slate, and Hyperallergic. He has been awarded residencies at The Millay Colony for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and VCAA—France. Handal currently serves on the board of directors of Baxter St at the Camera Club of New York. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Worcester Art Museum, 21c Museum and Hotels, Transformer Station Contemporary Art, Kala Art Institute, Kimmel Harding Center for the Arts, and more.   Here is a link to Daniel's exhibition where you will find the exhibition press release and more details. © Daniel Handal; “Tulip Thijs Boots (Misty Gray),” 2023; Pigment print on gesso-coated aluminum, painted museum box (Edition of 3 + 2 APs); 16 x 20 x 1.5 inches, Courtesy of CLAMP, New York. © Daniel Handal; “Red Hobbit Columbine (Rustic Wood),” 2023; Pigment print on gesso-coated aluminum, painted museum box (Edition of 3 + 2 APs); 16 x 12 x 1.5 inches; Courtesy of CLAMP, New York. © Daniel Handal; “Bunny Tails (Black Iron Silhouette,” 2022; Pigment print on gesso-coated aluminum, painted museum box (Edition of 3 + 2 APs); 13.5 x 9 x 1.5 inches, Courtesy of CLAMP, New York.

Galen Cheney is a painter living and working in North Adams, Massachusetts. After receiving her undergraduate degree from MT. Holyoke College she lived in New York City and worked as a magazine editor. Realizing she was in the wrong profession, she left New York to attend graduate school at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. Thirty-plus years and many jobs later, she is still painting. Galen's work has been exhibited and collected in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and China. She has had residencies at the Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, MASS MoCA, and DaWang Culture Highland in Shenzhen, China. A residency at Pouch Cove, in Newfoundland is upcoming in 2024. Past shows include Mark Bettis Gallery (Asheville), David Richard Gallery (NYC), University of Maine at Augusta, Fleming Museum (VT), University of Dallas, The Painting Center (NYC), and Southern Vermont Arts Center, among many others. In 2023 she will be showing work at Art Palm Beach in January with Khawam Modern and Contemporary, at Lockwood Gallery in Kingston, NY in February, at Mark Bettis Gallery in Asheville, NC in April, and at Buffalo (NY) Arts Studio in July, following a residency at 321 Residence.   LINKS:  www.galencheney.com     Instagram: @galenwcheney   https://www.markbettisgallery.com/   https://khawamgallery.com/     I Like Your Work Links: Notions of Beauty Exhibition Join The Works Membership waitlist! https://theworksmembership.com/ Submit Your Work Check out our Catalogs! Exhibitions Studio Visit Artist Interviews I Like Your Work Podcast Say “hi” on Instagram

Julia Kunin (b. 1961) is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Her work explores themes including queerness, the body, and the natural world. She earned a B.A. from Wellesley College (Wellesley, MA) and an M.F.A. from The Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ). Recent solo exhibitions include Mechanical Ballet at Kate Werble Gallery (New York, NY) in 2021 and Rainbow Dream Machine at McClain Gallery (Houston, TX) in 2020-21. Recent group exhibitions include: Wild Chambers (two person show with Yevgeniya Baras) at Mother Gallery (New York, NY), Cosmic Geometries, curated by Hilma's Ghost, at EFA Gallery (New York, NY) in 2022, Fur Cup at Underdonk (Brooklyn, NY) in 2019, Raw Design at the Museum of Craft and Design (San Francisco, CA) in 2018, and Said by Her at Lesley Heller Gallery (New York, NY) in 2018. Kunin was a Fulbright Scholar to Hungary in 2013. In 2010 She received a Trust for Mutual Understanding Grant to Hungary. In 2008 she received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and a residency at Art Omi. In 2007 she received the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Artist Residency. Fellowships include those at The MacDowell Colony, The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation, CEC Artslink grant to The Republic of Georgia, an Artist Residency in Wiesbaden, Germany, Yaddo, The Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, The Core Program in Houston, TX, and Skowhegan. Julia Kunin currently has a series of ceramic lamps at Ralph Pucci International (New York, NY). In 2022 she contributed artist interviews to Two Coats of Paint. She is also a member of the board of FIRE, The LGBTQ Fire Island artist residency. Her work was recently acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LACMA. Julia Kunin Green Clock, 2015 Ceramic 12 x 9 x 2 1/2 in 30.5 x 22.9 x 6.3 cm Julia Kunin Chambered Rainbow, 2016 Ceramic 18 x 13 x 3 1/2 in 45.7 x 33 x 8.9 cm Julia Kunin Psychedelic Body, 2016 Ceramic 40 x 10 x 6 in 101.6 x 25.4 x 15.2 cm

Huidi Xiang (b. Chengdu, China) is an artist and researcher currently based in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She holds an MFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University (2021) and a BA in Architecture and Studio Art from Rice University (2018). In her practice, Huidi makes sculptural objects, installations, and systems to examine world-making processes and the coexistence of multiple contexts and narratives in late capitalism. Her current work explores the spatial and temporal effects of inhabiting both the virtual and physical worlds. Huidi's works have been exhibited internationally, including OCAT Biennale at OCT Art & Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China, Lydian Stater in Long Island City, NY, LATITUDE Gallery in New York, NY, Contemporary Calgary in Calgary, Canada, Hive Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China, and Miller ICA in Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Huidi has also participated in some artist residencies, including NARS Foundation International Residency Program(2022), ACRE Residency Program(2021), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2020), and Project Row Houses Summer Studios (2016). In the interview we discussed her show, "Neither Here Nor There" at Lydian Stater and also the Virtual Reality Gallery of "Neither Here Nor There." The book mentioned by artist during the conversation: The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Huidi Xiang, Playbour Objects (exhibition view at Lydian Stater Physical Gallery), 2022 Huidi Xiang, Playbour Objects (detail view), 2022 Huidi Xiang, Playbour Objects (exhibition view at Lydian Stater Virtual Reality Gallery), 2022

In this week's episode, we sit down with Huidi Xiang to talk about her work in our current exhibition “Neither Here Nor There” at Lydian Stater in addition to how gaming influences her work, the overlaps between digital gaming assets and NFTs, the ethics of underpaying oneself, the problems of underpaying others, repetition as a metaphor for labor, the tragedy of The Villager's Down Special Move in Super Smash Brothers, the importance of faux material in her sculptures, the impossibility of building the ideal IKEA product, and repetition as a metaphor for labor. Huidi Xiang (b. Chengdu, China) is an artist and researcher currently based in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She holds an MFA in Art from Carnegie Mellon University (2021) and a BA in Architecture and Studio Art from Rice University (2018). In her practice, Huidi makes sculptural objects, installations, and systems to examine the spatial and temporal effects of inhabiting both virtual and physical worlds in late capitalism. By reimagining and reconstructing elements from different contexts, including on- and off-line, she creates works to construct a realm situating in between, intending to articulate the emerging politics and critical issues associated with the ever-expansive merging between the physical and the virtual, the real and the simulated, and the fact and the fiction. Huidi's works have been exhibited internationally, including OCAT Biennale at OCT Art & Design Gallery, Shenzhen, China, LATITUDE Gallery in New York, USA, Contemporary Calgary in Calgary, Canada, Hive Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China, Miller ICA in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, Center for Architecture and Design in New Orleans, LA, USA, and South London Gallery in London, UK. Huidi has also completed some artist residencies, including ACRE Residency Program(2021), the Millay Colony for the Arts (2020), and Project Row Houses Summer Studios (2016). Links; see shovel saw NFT elephant slide NFT CHEESE COLUMN 10 yr old Huidi playing the Guzheng

Join Maya Marshall and special guests for a celebration of her new book All the Blood Involved in Love. All the Blood Involved in Love is an urgent and evocative collection—featuring complex and compelling poems about the choices we make surrounding home, freedom, healing, partnership, and family. In a moment of critical struggle for reproductive justice, Maya Marshall's haunting debut meditates on womanhood—with and without motherhood. Traversing familial mythography with an unflinching seriousness, Marshall moves deftly between contemporary politics, the stakes of race and interracial partnership, and the monetary, mental, and physical costs of adopting or birthing a Black child. Get All the Blood Involved in Love from Haymarket: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1884-all-the-blood-involved-in-love --------------------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Maya Marshall, a writer and editor, is cofounder of underbellymag.com, the journal on the practical magic of poetic revision. As an educator, Marshall has taught at Northwestern University and Loyola University Chicago. She holds fellowships from MacDowell, Vermont Studio Center, Callaloo, The Watering Hole, Community of Writers, and Cave Canem. She is the author of Secondhand (Dancing Girl Press, 2016). Her writing appears in Best New Poets 2019, Muzzle, RHINO, Potomac Review, Blackbird, and elsewhere. All the Blood Involved in Love is Marshall's debut poetry collection with Haymarket Books. Destiny O. Birdsong is a poet, novelist, and essayist whose work has appeared in the Paris Review Daily, African American Review, and Catapult, among other publications. Her debut poetry collection, Negotiations, was published in 2020 by Tin House and was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award. Her debut novel, Nobody's Magic, was published in February 2022 from Grand Central Publishing. Tarfia Faizullah was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Texas. She is the author of Registers of Illuminated Villages (Graywolf Press, 2018) and Seam (Southern Illinois University Press, 2014). She lives in Dallas, Texas. Aricka Foreman is an American poet and interdisciplinary writer from Detroit, MI. She is the author of the chapbook Dream with a Glass Chamber, and Salt Body Shimmer (YesYes Books) winner of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry. She has earned fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and the Millay Colony. Aricka lives in Chicago and works as a publicist at Haymarket Books. Nicole Homer is an Associate Professor of English at a community college in Central New Jersey. They are a poet, writer, and performer whose work can be found in the American Academy of Poets Poem-a-Day, Muzzle, The Offing, Rattle, The Collagist and elsewhere. A fellow of The Watering Hole, Callaloo and VONA, Nicole serves as a Contributing Editor at BlackNerdProblems writing pop culture critique through a POC lens. Their award-winning collection, Pecking Order (Write Bloody) is an unflinching look at how race and gender politics play out in the domestic sphere. Natasha Oladokun (she/her) is a poet and essayist. She holds fellowships from Cave Canem, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Jackson Center for Creative Writing, Twelve Literary Arts, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was the inaugural First Wave Poetry fellow. Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, The Academy of American Poets, Harvard Review Online, and Kenyon Review Online. You can read her column The PettyCoat Chronicles—on pop culture and period dramas—at Catapult. She is Associate Poetry Editor at storySouth, and currently lives in Madison, WI. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/qFVhGJYqI98 Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Galen Cheney is a painter living and working in North Adams, Massachusetts.  Galen received a BA from Mount Holyoke College and an MFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art.  She has had solo exhibitions at David Richard Gallery in NYC, the Aidron-Duckworth Museum in Berlin, NH, the University of Maine at Augusta, The Painting Center in NYC, Da Wang Culture Highland in Shenzhen, China, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, NH, and Galerie 1225 in Montreal among many others.  Her many group exhibitions include Mark Bettis Gallery in Asheville, Khawam Modern + Contemporary in West Palm Beach, Lockwood Gallery in Kingston, NY, Berkshire Art Museum in North Adams, MA, The Fleming Museum in Burlington, VT, SITE Gallery in Brooklyn, Greenville (SC) Center for the Arts, Gray Contemporary in Houston and the University of Dallas. She has received fellowships to attend residencies at the Millay Colony, Da Wang Culture Highland in China, and the Vermont Studio Center.  In 2020 she received a North Adams Project Grant and in 2019 attended the Studios at MASS MoCA. Her work has been collected widely and has been featured in many publications, including New American Paintings, Berkshire Magazine, Kolaj Magazine, Art New England, Studio Visit, Tupelo, Mud Season Review, Whitefish Review, and The Laurel of Asheville.  The many blogs that have featured her work include Art Spiel, I Like Your Work, The Weird Show, Design Milk, Artsy Forager The Periphery and Pattern Pulp.

On Tuesday, April 12, 2022, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring poets Victoria Chang and Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Hosted by Carolyn Forché. Introductions by Lannan Fellows Max Zhang and Hiruni Herat.  About Victoria ChangVictoria Chang's new book of poetry, The Trees Witness Everything is forthcoming (Copper Canyon Press and Corsair Books in the U.K.). Her nonfiction book, Dear Memory (Milkweed Editions), was published in 2021. OBIT (Copper Canyon Press, 2020), her most recent poetry book, was named a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Must-Read Book, and received the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award. It was also longlisted for a National Book Award and named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Griffin International Poetry Prize. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and lives in Los Angeles and is a Core Faculty member within Antioch's low-residency MFA Program.About Rachel Eliza GriffithsRachel Eliza Griffiths is a poet, visual artist, and novelist. Her hybrid collection of poetry and photography, Seeing the Body (W.W. Norton), was published in 2020. Other poetry collections by Griffiths include Lighting the Shadow (Four Way Books, 2015), The Requited Distance (Sheep Meadow Press, 2011), Mule & Pear (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2011), and Miracle Arrhythmia (Willow Books, 2010). Griffiths is a recipient of fellowships including Cave Canem, Kimbilio, Millay Colony, Vermont Studio Center, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and Yaddo. Her forthcoming debut novel, Promise, will be published by Random House.Music: Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.

In this episode, we dive into a conversation with Brittany Rogers. Brittany is a poet, creator, educator, and proud native Detroiter. She is a fellow of VONA, The Watering Hole, Poetry Incubator, and Pink Door Writing Retreat. Her writing has been anthologized in The BreakBeat Poets: Black Girl Magic and Best of the Net. Brittany is also Editor-in-Chief for Muzzle Magazine, an M.F.A. candidate, and a Blackburn Fellow at Randolph College.  Together, we celebrate the work of Aricka Foreman. Aricka is an American poet and interdisciplinary writer from Detroit MI. Author of the chapbook Dream with a Glass Chamber, and Salt Body Shimmer (YesYes Books), she has earned fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She serves on the Board of Directors for The Offing, and spends her time in Chicago, IL engaging poetry with photography & video. We thread the needle between Foreman's practice of protective truth-telling with Roger's rituals of delight. Brittany also discusses how she exercises creative risk-taking by infusing a sense of wonder and delight.  In this episode, we talk about:  The Great Migration in the context of Detroit  Infusing honesty with a sense of protection & care  Creative Risk-taking  Resources:  Brittany Roger - IG: brittanyerogers Website: https://www.brittanyrogers.org/ Aricka Foreman IG : blkfemmepoetics Website: https://www.arickaforeman.com/  ◉ Get in Touch: Nourish.community  ◉ IG: @nourish____  ◉ Support this podcast at — https://nourish.community/donate/  ◉ Advertising Inquiries: hello@nourishevents.org

Stacy D. Flood is the author of the novella The Salt Fields, available from Lanternfish Press. Originally from Buffalo, and currently living in Seattle, Stacy's work has been published and performed nationally as well as in the Puget Sound Area. Having received his MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, he has also been an artist-in-residence at DISQUIET in Lisbon, as well as The Millay Colony of the Arts. In addition, he is the recipient of the Gregory Capasso Award in Fiction from the University at Buffalo, along with a Getty Fellowship to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Etc. Available where podcasts are available: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeart Radio, etc. Subscribe to Brad Listi's email newsletter. Support the show on Patreon Merch @otherppl Instagram  YouTube 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

Ashley Eliza Williams (she/her) is a painter, sculptor, and amateur ecologist exploring new ways of interacting with nature and with each other. She received a BA from UVA and an MFA from The University of Colorado, Boulder. She is a recent MASS MoCA North Adams Project grantee and has been a resident artist at Vermont Studio Center, Anderson Ranch, Millay Colony, Alte Schule Germany, the Shangyuan Art Museum in China, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally at museums, galleries, and scientific institutions. She is a member of the research-focused NYC art collective Sprechgesang Institute. Williams has taught painting, sculpture, and color theory for six years. She currently lives in Massachusetts. In this episode, Ashley and Brandi talk about the intersections of Nature + Communication, including: Anxiety, awkwardness, and “failed” communication attempts. The dialogue between plants, animals, and even celestial bodies. The “mutual aid” practices of nature, like lichen and trees. Why Ashley became an environmentalist at an early age. What lichen communicate to us about pollution. How our language about the natural world shapes our engagement with it. The Western perception of time as scarce. Ashley’s dad and his creative way of conjuring up original bedtime stories. Her fascination with magical beings and the history of monsters.

We are so excited to bring you our conversation with Emma Goldman-Sherman today! Emma Goldman-Sherman is a neurodivergent, genderqueer writer who believes in the power of theatre to confer healing and agency on audiences. Her plays have been produced on four continents and include Counting in Sha'ab, produced by Golden Thread and as a podcast at Playing On Air, and Abraham's Daughters. Her plays have finalized at BAPF, Bridge Initiative, Campfire, Cutting Ball, Henley Rose, and Unicorn. Emma earned an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she received three Norman Felton awards and the Richard Maibaum award for plays addressing social justice. Perfect Women, published and licensed by Next Stage Press, received the Jane Chambers Award. Emma has been a resident of the Millay Colony, Ragdale, and twice at WordBridge, where she also worked as a dramaturg. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, Honor Roll, LPTW, and LMDA. Emma runs the Brave New Workshop for new play development through Brave Space. More resources: Emma's Work on New Play Exchange Emma's Twitter Brave Space Counting in Sha'ab at Playing on Air This episode was produced on the unceded ancestral territory of the Kiikaapoi, Peoria, Bodéwadmiakiwen, and Miami. This episode was edited by Emery Lade, with original intro and outro music by Marc Young. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/prints-unedited/support

Self-Portrait Ian Weaver is an Artist and Professor at Saint Mary's College, South Bend, IN. His M.F.A. is from Washington University in St Louis (2008). He has exhibited at the South Bend Museum of Art; The Chicago Cultural Center; the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art; and Saint Louis Art Museum. His residencies include Bemis Center for the Contemporary Arts; Ox-Bow; the ISCP Residency, New York; and Yaddo and the Millay Colony, both in upstate NY. Awards include the Stone and DeGuire Contemporary Art Award; Artadia and the Joan Mitchell Foundation, both based in NY; and the Illinois Arts Council.

Nathan Hoks's most recent book, Nests in Air, was published in 2021 by Black Ocean Press. Previous books include Reveilles (winner of Salt Publishing's Crashaw Prize), The Narrow Circle (winner of the National Poetry Series), and the chapbook Moony Days of Being (winner of the Tomaž Šalamun Prize). He has also published translations of work by Vicente Huidobro, Christian Dotremont, and Henri Michaux. In 2018 Hoks was a poet-in-residence at the Tomaž Šalamun Poetry Center in Ljubljana, and he has also held residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Hoks occasionally works as an editor and letterpress printer for Convulsive Editions, and teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago and in the MFA in Writing program at the School of the Art Institute. Books mentioned in the interview:  Wuthering Heights and Will Alexander's Across the Vapor Gulf.

Have you ever considered looking into your ancestry wondering if you would stumble upon something interesting? This episode is about discovering family secrets, one that pushes you to re-examine your existence and experiences. I'm honored that this week's guest on "Happiness through Hardship" - The Podcast, Jane Fine, bravely shares hers and to a degree mine, because we're related.  My bright and bigger than life, (though shorter than most,) Aunt Jane is a highly acclaimed, award-winning painter and teacher. A wildly smart and passionate conversationalist, her abstract art focuses on social and political themes, which has been exhibited nationally and internationally for over 20-years. Today's episode showcases her backstory, one she didn't know and only discovered recently by taking a genealogy test. Jane re-tells the story, which led her down a path of reexamination of past experiences, relationships with family, as well as her own identity. During this episode, Jane not only shares the background, she also talks about how she has continually navigated. While her art and creative avenue has been a tremendous help with coping, we barely touched upon her elaborate career. Recognized globally, Jane is famous in the art world, having been reviewed frequently in The New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine and Art in America among other periodicals. She's also the recipient of several prestigious grants including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts and The National Endowment for the Arts. In addition, she has been awarded world-renown fellowships and has been resident at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Millay Colony, The Cité Internationale des Artes in Paris, The Golden Foundation and The Hermitage Artists Retreat. She is currently represented by Pierogi Gallery in New York City and collaborates with her husband, my uncle, artist James Esber, under the pseudonym "J. Fiber." SHOW NOTES 5:03 - Jane backstory before the backstory 6:03 - Jane's sister, Paula, has doubts about who her father is 9:07 - Jane's son, Abe, is interested in taking a DNA test 10:49 - Jane's moment of realization about her biological father 11:33 - Jane's initial denial 14:05 - The realization 15:19 - The phone call that felt like a movie 17:14 - Jane's son gives her helpful advice 19:11 - Jane now asks herself “Who am I?” and “Who is my biological father?” 19:42 - Jane's range of emotions after accepting the discovery 20:46 - How Jane researches who her father could be 28:39 - Jane's self-reflection 31:55 - Jane makes new family connections and finds new similarities 35:28 - How Jane finds peace and how others can, too 40:21 - The peace her son gives her 44:32 - Caryn and Jane play The Grateful Game CONNECT with Jane: Jane Fine website: https://www.janefine.net/about Jane Fine Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janemfine/ and https://www.instagram.com/grand.flag/ Jane Fine - represented by Pierogi: https://www.pierogi2000.com/artists/jane-fine/ Collaborative work with husband, Artist James Esber: https://www.pierogi2000.com/artists/j-fiber/ James Esber: https://www.jamesesber.com/ CONNECT with us: www.PrettyWellness.com/podcast - for more information on the podcast episodes 
www.PrettyWellness.com/cancer-resources - easily accessible cancer information
 www.Instagram.com/prettywellness - for daily wellness tips www.CarynSullivan.com - for more information on media, speaking engagements and book partnerships Our Social Media:
 www.Instagram.com/prettywellness www.Facebook.com/PrettyWellness www.Twitter.com/PrettyWellness To Buy the Book:
 Happiness through Hardship - The Book: amzn.to/39PAjuT

In this episode, Mychal talks to Carmen Maria Machado about the 2009 film Jennifer's Body, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama, and starring Megan Box, Adam Brody, and Amanda Seyfried. Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the award-winning short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, Harper's Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She lives in Philadelphia and is the Abrams Artist-in-Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nina talks with Claire Luchette about her new book!   Claire's work has appeared in VQR, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and Granta. A 2020 National Endowment for the Arts fellow, Luchette graduated from the University of Oregon MFA program and has received grants and scholarships from MacDowell, the Corporation of Yaddo, the Millay Colony, Lighthouse Works, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the James Merrill House. Agatha of Little Neon is Luchette's first novel.

Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, medical doctor, professor and author. She is director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative,  clinical assistant professor in Stanford University's Department of Medicine, and visiting professor at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA where she teaches crisis management and communications. Yasmin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news in 2017 with a team from The Dallas Morning News for coverage of a mass shooting. She is the recipient of two awards from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Her reporting appears in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, WIRED, Scientific American, and other outlets. She is a medical analyst for CNN and a correspondent for Conde Nast Entertainment. Yasmin is a fiction fellow of the Kundiman and Tin House writing workshops. Her poems and short stories have been published in literary magazines and anthologies including The BreakBeat Poets Vol 3: Halal If You Hear Me, New Moons: Contemporary Writing by North American Muslims, The Georgia Review, The Literary Review, Foundry, The Los Angeles Review, and others. Her writing has earned awards and residencies from the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Mid Atlantic Arts Council, Hedgebrook, and others. After training in medicine at the University of Cambridge, Yasmin served as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she investigated outbreaks in prisons, hospitals, reservations and other settings; principal investigator for a number of epidemiologic studies; and deployed as strategic advisor to foreign ministries of health. She trained in journalism at the University of Toronto and worked as a staff writer at The Dallas Morning News covering Ebola's arrival in Texas. Her scholarly work focuses on the spread of health misinformation and disinformation, the growth of medical and news deserts, and the impact on public health. She teaches creative nonfiction including health and science journalism, global health storytelling, practicing medicine with empathy and compassion, and advanced clinical communication skills. Her unique combination of expertise in epidemics, science communication and journalism has been called upon by the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the Aspen Ideas Festival and the Skoll World Forum.

In this week's episode, Kendra talks with Pik-Shuen Fung about her book, Ghost Forest, which out now from One World. Check out our Patreon page to learn more about our book club and other Patreon-exclusive goodies. Follow along over on Instagram, join the discussion in our Goodreads group, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for more new books and extra book reviews! Books MentionedGhost Forest by Pik-Shuen Fung Pick-Shuen Recommends A Feather on a Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa The Tenderness of Stones by Marion Fayolle Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi About the AuthorPik-Shuen Fung is a Canadian writer and artist living in New York City. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Kundiman, the Millay Colony, and Storyknife. She has an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts and a BA from Brown University. Ghost Forest is her first book. Website | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When her father dies after a drawn-out illness, the unnamed protagonist of Ghost Forest (One World, 2021) wonders how one grieves if a family never talks about feelings. The father is one of Hong Kong's ‘astronaut' fathers, who stays there to work after the rest of the family leave before the 1997 handover, when Britain returns the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. The protagonist turns to her mother and grandmother with questions about customs, religious traditions, and misunderstandings that occurred over the course of her life. Their answers, together with snippets of her own memories, help her understand her own actions. She also begins to understand her parents and why they made the decision to live a world apart for most of the year. And she realizes that even though they didn't talk about love, it was always there. Pik-Shuen Fung is a Canadian writer and artist living in New York City. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Kundiman, the Millay Colony, and Storyknife. She has an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts and a BA from Brown University. Ghost Forest is her first book. In her free time, she loves to cook, talk about food, and eat the delicious dishes cooked by her husband, who is a chef. I interview authors of beautifully written literary fiction and mysteries, and try to focus on independently published novels, especially by women and others whose voices deserve more attention. If your upcoming or recently published novel might be a candidate for a podcast, please contact me via my website, gpgottlieb dot com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

When her father dies after a drawn-out illness, the unnamed protagonist of Ghost Forest (One World, 2021) wonders how one grieves if a family never talks about feelings. The father is one of Hong Kong's ‘astronaut' fathers, who stays there to work after the rest of the family leave before the 1997 handover, when Britain returns the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China. The protagonist turns to her mother and grandmother with questions about customs, religious traditions, and misunderstandings that occurred over the course of her life. Their answers, together with snippets of her own memories, help her understand her own actions. She also begins to understand her parents and why they made the decision to live a world apart for most of the year. And she realizes that even though they didn't talk about love, it was always there. Pik-Shuen Fung is a Canadian writer and artist living in New York City. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Kundiman, the Millay Colony, and Storyknife. She has an MFA in Fine Art from the School of Visual Arts and a BA from Brown University. Ghost Forest is her first book. In her free time, she loves to cook, talk about food, and eat the delicious dishes cooked by her husband, who is a chef. I interview authors of beautifully written literary fiction and mysteries, and try to focus on independently published novels, especially by women and others whose voices deserve more attention. If your upcoming or recently published novel might be a candidate for a podcast, please contact me via my website, gpgottlieb dot com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Mark Joshua Epstein is a gifted storyteller and artist. If you want a great evening, hang out with Mark and talk about what you are working on and be prepared to laugh and think differently about what you have created. Born in Rockville, Maryland, Mark spent his early school years at a conservative Jewish Day School and his summers at a progressive camp learning about Third Wave Feminism. This duality in his formative years hints at his later exploration for a new and alternative space in his work. Something that pushes back and asks why it must be one way or another, both or neither. He achieves this by stacking fiberglass shapes to create new forms that function as a shaped canvas but also protrude slightly to make you question if it is also a sculpture. What is the line? Is there a line and if so, should it be there?   This questioning also arises in the pattern that is applied to the work. Some of the pattern points to op-art while other areas remind us of the hand and tools making the piece. In Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing, Ink splotches are dripped onto the surface and encapsulated by a line forming a circle. This pattern radiates out and brings to mind cells in the body.  His knack for storytelling comes through in his titles such as Small Talk at the Salad Bar. These titles add another level to his work. The seemingly abstract pieces begin to shift just enough for us to see a figure, or what could be a stand in at least, challenging us to wonder, does the piece have to be either or?   Mark Joshua Epstein is an artist, educator and curator. He received an MFA from the Slade School of Fine Arts, University College London, and a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Epstein has had solo or two person shows at Ortega y Gasset Projects’ Skirt Space (Brooklyn, NY) SPRING/BREAK Art Show (NY, NY), Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca College (Ithaca, NY), NARS Foundation Project Space (Brooklyn, NY), Caustic Coastal (Salford, England) Vane Gallery (Newcastle, England), Demo Project (Springfield, IL), Biquini Wax Gallery (Mexico City, Mexico), Breve (Mexico City, Mexico) and Brian Morris Gallery (New York, NY).    Selected group shows include Arlington Arts Center (Arlington, VA), Des Moines Art Center (Des Moines, IA), Collar Works (Troy, NY), Good Children Gallery (New Orleans, LA), Monaco (St Louis, MO), DAAP Galleries at the University of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH), and Beverly’s (New York, NY).    Epstein has been a resident at Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony, Jentel Foundation, Macdowell Colony, KHN Center for the Arts, I-Park and Saltonstall Foundation amongst others. His work has appeared in publications such as New American Paintings, Art Maze Magazine and Dovetail. He works as a lecturer at the Penny Stamps School of Art and Design, at the University of Michigan.   “Reckoning with the change that accompanies a new studio and landscape, new shaped paintings, my largest to date, delve deeper into queer ornament and graphic excess, while limiting their color schemes. Taking inspiration from pattern and decoration, op art, and furniture design, these works continue the use of ornate patterning and overlapping panels that confound perception, while relishing in a new discomfort of compositional order. One painting’s title, Finding refuge in inefficiency (2021), nods to the pleasures found in the laborious and time-consuming nature of pattern-making exemplified in these recent works. And, as with earlier paintings, these works continue to challenge a viewer’s sense of taste and orientation.   Recent photographs, stemming from an interest in index and documentation, further emphasize my painting process. The images reproduce hand-made cut-outs, created from scraps of paper, which I often use to generate repetitive patterns within my paintings. Normally meant to deliver flatness and depth, shape and form to my fiberglass surfaces, the cut-outs in these photographs reframe the landscape immediately surrounding my studio.   My current work, both in painting and photography, refuses the either/or of binary polarities and opposing geographic pulls. All the while, by latticing together different planes, motifs, and marks, my work never forgets its own amusement.”-MJE   TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:   -Growing up with progressive summers and a conservative school year -Dealing with anxiety due to change -Moving to Canada to pursue a different major -Gap Year - “Leap and then Look” -Graduate School in London -Working in museum education -Interior Spaces and being inspired by his grandfather -Excubert rooms and wild interiors -Hustling in the art world -Making work that takes time -Bathroom colors -Leaving NYC -Leaving a little bit at a time -his current show -Staying open when curating a space   ARTIST SHOUTOUTS: Christian Maychack @cmaychack Yvette Molina @yvette_molina Adam Liam Rose @adamliamrose Zahar Vaks @zaharvaks Elizabeth McMahon @elizabethwmcmahon   LINKS:  Website: www.markjoshuaepstein.com Instagram: @markjoshuaepstein Current solo show at Ortega y Gasset: www.oygprojects.com/the-skirt-current Current group show at Arlington Arts Center: www.arlingtonartscenter.org/exhibits/2021/stretched/ Upcoming outdoor group show in New York: www.bravinlee.com/regrowth-riverside     I Like Your Work Links:   I Like Your Work Podcast Studio Planner Instagram Submit Work Observations on Applying to Juried Shows

Welcome to our first interview on Red Clay Plays with Dr. Lisa B. Thompson! In this episode we talk about Afrofuturism, mothers who make art, writing the comedy out of pain and, of course, being a Southern Black playwright.Lisa B. Thompson is an award winning playwright, scholar, and professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of three books, Beyond The Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (University of Illinois Press, 2009), Single Black Female (Samuel French Inc. 2012), and Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (Northwestern University Press, 2020).Thompson's plays, which have been produced off-Broadway, throughout the US and internationally, include Single Black Female (LA Weekly Theatre Award for Best Comedy nominee, Irma P. Hall Black Theatre Award Best Play winner), Underground, (Austin Critics Circle David Mark Cohen New Play Award winner, Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work nominee), Monroe (Austin Playhouse Festival of New Texas Plays winner), The Mamalogues (Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work winner), and Dinner (Crossroads Theatre Genesis New Play Festival).Thompson has received teaching awards from the Texas Exes and the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. Her scholarly and creative work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies; the University of Texas at Austin's Humanities Institute; the W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute at Harvard University; the Michele R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research; the Five Colleges, the University of California's Office of the President; Stanford University's Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity; Hedgebrook; the Millay Colony for the Arts; and MacDowell.You can find Dr. Lisa's work at:https://lisabthompson.comTwitter: @drlisabthompson Instagram: @drlisabthompsonLearn more about MOJOAA at:www.MOJOAA.orgFacebook: @MOJOAApacInstagram: @MOJOAApac

The meek shall inherit the Earth. Carmen Maria Machado and Sondra Fink tell us how the world ends. But every ending is also the beginning of something new. "The Hungry Earth" by Carmen Maria Machado, Read by Tony Perry Carmen Maria Machado is the author of the bestselling memoir In the Dream House and the short story collection Her Body and Other Parties. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. In 2018, the New York Times listed Her Body and Other Parties as a member of "The New Vanguard," one of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her essays, fiction, and criticism have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Granta, Vogue, This American Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Believer, Guernica, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has been awarded fellowships and residencies from the Guggenheim Foundation, Michener-Copernicus Foundation, Elizabeth George Foundation, CINTAS Foundation, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. She is the Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife. Tony Perry is an actor and singer-songwriter. He narrated the film Lost and Found, and the audio comic The Captain Punishment Adventure Hour. He has performed in English and Yiddish, and he’s happy to talk about all things Doctor Who. "The Verge of Utopia" by Sondra Fink, read by Lanna Joffrey Sondra Fink is a writer whose published work appears on posturemag.com and brooklynherborium.com. She is an organizing member of the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers and currently at work on a young-adult dystopian fantasy novel. “The Verge of Utopia” is her first published work of fiction. Lanna Joffrey is an actor, spoken-word performer and writer working in the United States and United Kingdom based in London. She has earned a New York Fringe, IRNE and Ovation Award in Performance. And her verbatim play of women’s war stories, "Valiant" has traveled the U.K. and U.S. to critical acclaim. lannajoffrey.com

Philemona Williamson is a narrative painter who has shown widely in the United States and abroad. Her work explores the tenuous bridge between adolescence and adulthood, encapsulating the intersection of innocence and experience at its most piercing and poignant moment. The lush color palette and dreamlike positioning of the figures ensures that their vulnerability - of age, of race, of sexual identity - is seen as strength and not as weakness. “My figures navigate a world of uncertainty as they search for understanding—both internally and in ever-shifting environments. I see the figures as vehicles to explore the existence of the most vulnerable adolescents, those evolving people of color, grappling with what will define and identify them. My paintings give voice and space to invisibility.” Williamson has exhibited her work for over 25 years at the June Kelly Gallery in NYC and recently, at her mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in NJ. She is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock Krasner, National Endowment For The Arts, New York Foundation For The Arts and Millay Colony as well as serving on the advisory board of the Getty Center for Education. Her work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions such as The Queens Museum of Art, Wisconsin's Kohler Art Center, The Sheldon Museum in Nebraska, The Bass Museum in Miami, The Mint Museum in North Carolina, The Forum of Contemporary Art in St. Louis, The International Bienal of Painting in Cuenca, Ecuador and most recently at the Anna Zorina Gallery in NYC. She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including The Montclair Art Museum; The Kalamazoo Art Institute; The Mint Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Hampton University Museum; Sheldon Art Museum; Mott-Warsh Art Collection, and AT&T. Her public works includes fusedglass murals created for the MTA Arts in Transit Program at the Livonia Avenue Subway Station in Brooklyn, a poster for the MTA Poetry In Motion and — for the NYC School Authority — a mosaic mural in the Glenwood Campus School. She currently teaches painting at Pratt Institute and Hunter College in NYC. For Philemona’s latest project, she created a series of paintings for the children’s book Lubaya’s Quiet Roar, just out from Penguin Random House. "The Gathering" 48" x 60 ” oil on canvas 2019 "Here I Hold Becoming” 48” x 60” oil on canvas 2020

In this episode, I speak with Marguerite Harrold, poet, spiritualist, and traveler extraordinaire, about her recent travels through ten countries, many of which are known for their spiritual teachings, and what it's like to travel solo as a Black woman. We have such a rollicking good time talking about her experiences (there might have been a few cackles) –from discovering what Black privilege feels like in Fiji to spiritual shifts clicking into place in India. She talks about the lessons we learn when we travel and how we can grow from them. So many great takeaways in this one! “Ask. Then, sit and listen. When we don't listen, the messages just get louder.”, “Writing is a way to scribe the way out”, “You have a responsibility to help your people.” * Today's poems: Hafiz's “There Could be Holy Fallout” and lucille clifton's “Blessing the Boats” * Where you can find Marguerite's work: https://thebluenib.com/poetry-by-marguerite-l-harrold/ * https://www.chicagoreview.org/62-463-12-web-companion/ * https://www.aseiarts.com/single-post/2019/02/03/What-inspires-you-A-dialogue-with-author-Marguerite-Harrold * https://vinylpoetryandprose.com/2019/03/marguerite-l-harrold/ * Healing the Decolonized Voice: a retreat for writers of color Aug 27-30 at Millay Colony in Upstate NY. More info and registration here: https:/suryagian.com/healing-the-decolonized-voice Deadline to sign up: Friday, August 14th @ 5pm * BIPOC-only yoga & meditation classes every Sunday @ 5:30pm in my zoom yoga room. Go here to sign up! https://suryagian.com/bipoc-class

Hafiz calls us to fill the wells of our hearts. And so what do I do? I try to teach you all the things. Haha! I think my subconscious said: okay, let's fill everyone's different wells with spiritual teachings and awareness practices. Of course, please know that these are gems to be considered over a period of time. Here's a quick run down: Representation matters. Intention matters. ~ The balance of our spiritual identity, our very essence, with our material, physical identity is something to hold in intention. ~ Operating from the heart, from our intuition can help us achieve this balance. ~ Pay attention to connections. ~ Writers offer their souls to the world, and like the lover in Hafiz's poem, use them –manifest as stories-- as a kind of protection, an act of service in love. Our writing bears witness and serves as a mirror; it's so important to see and to be seen. Our writing does this for others. ~ Fill our heart wells with rest and nourishment so that we are able to continue the work of telling our stories with vibrancy. ~ Continue to dismantle racism. ~ And: it's all about practice. Without judgment. // Today's poems: Hafiz's “Some Fill with Each Good Rain” and Rabia (of Rabia) “The Sky Gave Me Its Heart” * Healing the Decolonized Voice: a retreat for writers of color Aug 27-30 at Millay Colony in Upstate NY. More info and registration here: https:/suryagian.com/healing-the-decolonized-voice * BIPOC-only yoga & meditation classes every Sunday @ 5:30pm in my zoom yoga room. Go here to sign up! https://suryagian.com/bipoc-class

Episode Twenty-Seven features narrative painter Philemona Williamson. She’s exhibited her work for over 25 years at the June Kelly Gallery in NYC and recently, at her mid-career retrospective at the Montclair Art Museum in NJ. Her narrative paintings deal with gender, race and adolescence. Philemona is the recipient of numerous awards and residencies including the Joan Mitchell Foundation, Pollock Krasner, National Endowment For The Arts, New York Foundation For The Arts and Millay Colony. Her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the USA and abroad, She is represented in numerous private and public collections, including The Montclair Art Museum; The Kalamazoo Art Institute The Mint Museum of Art; Smith College Museum of Art; Hampton University Museum; Sheldon Art Museum; Mott-Warsh Art Collection, and AT&T. Her public work is part of the MTA Arts For Transit Program, the MTA Poetry In Motion and — for the NYC School Authority — a mosaic mural in the Glenwood Campus School. She currently teaches painting at Pratt Institute and Hunter College in NYC. Philemona also created a series of paintings for the children’s book “Lubaya’s Quiet Roar” coming out in October from Penguin Random House. Please review links below. https://www.philemonawilliamson.com/ http://www.junekellygallery.com/williamson/ http://origin.www.annazorinagallery.com/exhibitions/sit-still-self-portraits-in-the-age-of-distraction/slideshow?view=slider#26 https://www.montclairartmuseum.org/exhibition/philemona-williamson-metaphorical-narratives https://baristanet.com/2020/06/look-inside-the-artists-studio-as-montclair-art-museum-launches-mam-conversations-series/ http://web.mta.info/mta/aft/permanentart/permart.html?agency=nyct&line=L&artist=1&station=3

Laurel Farrin is a mixed-media artist and painter, and holds a BFA from Ohio University-Athens and an MFA from the University of Maryland. She was an artist-in-residence at the Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, NM; Yaddo, and the Millay Colony for the Arts, both in New York; and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Exhibitions include Lesley Heller Gallery; NY, NY; Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY; The Bronx River Art Center; The Albany International Airport; Carroll Square Gallery, Wash. DC; Roswell Museum and Art Center; the Des Moines (Iowa) Art Center; the Florida Center for Contemporary Art in Tampa; Spaces in Cleveland, Ohio; Anton Gallery; the Corcoran Gallery of Art and Washington Project for the Arts, in Washington, D.C.

Liz Tran is a color-loving, glitter-wielding, globe-trotting workaholic. An artist who studied printmaking and painting at Cornish College of the Arts. Public collections of Tran's work include the City of Seattle's Portable Works Collection, Capital One, Vulcan Inc., Baer Art Center, Camac Art Centre, The El Paso Children's Hospital, Harborview Medical Center, The King County Public Art Collection and The Child Center. Tran has completed multiple special projects and installations, including work for VH1Save the Music Foundation, The Upstream Music Fest, The Seattle Art Museum, The Brain Project Toronto, Public Art at The Aqua Art Fair Miami and Vulcan Inc. She has been awarded multiple fellowships and grants; including a Grant for Artist Projects (GAP) from Artist Trust, Clowes Fellowship for residency at the Vermont Studio Center, the Nellie Cornish Scholarship and residency at The Camac Art Centre in France, The Baer Art Center in Iceland, Jentel, Millay Colony for the Arts and The Center for Contemporary Printmaking. She resides in Seattle, WA. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/generalmutombo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/generalmutombo/support

Mia Kang. Photo by Tiona Nekkia McClodden. Mia Kang writes poems and other perversions. She is the author of City Poems (2020), a poetry pamphlet from ignitionpress. Mia was named the 2017 winner of Boston Review’s Annual Poetry Contest by Mónica de la Torre, and her writing has appeared in journals including POETRY, Washington Square Review, Narrative Magazine, and PEN America. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow, runner-up for the 2019 and 2017 Discovery Poetry Contests, and finalist for the 2019 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Mia is also a PhD student in the history of art at Yale University, where her research focuses on the contested rise of U.S. multiculturalism and its failures. Recent publications include contributions to The Life and Times of Alvin Baltrop (Skira, 2019), Sanford Biggers: Codeswitch (Yale University Press, 2020), Published by Lugemik: Printed Matter from 2010-2019 (Lugemik, 2019), and Plot magazine. Formerly a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, she teaches as a lecturer at Yale College and Hunter College, CUNY, her alma mater. City Poems (Oxford: ignitionpress, 2020) Theresa, I Miss You (Rest) performance at garden––pleasure closing exhibition, February 8, 2020, Yale School of Architecture Gallery. Photo by Bek Andersen.

Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, poet, medical doctor and author. Yasmin served as an officer in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she investigated disease outbreaks and was principal investigator on a number of CDC studies. Yasmin trained in journalism at the University of Toronto and in medicine at the University of Cambridge.Yasmin was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news in 2017 with a team from The Dallas Morning News and recipient of an Emmy for her reporting on neglected diseases. She received two grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. In 2017, Yasmin was a John S. Knight Fellow in Journalism at Stanford University investigating the spread of health misinformation and disinformation during epidemics. Previously she was a science correspondent at The Dallas Morning News, medical analyst for CNN, and professor of public health at the University of Texas at Dallas.Her writing has earned awards and residencies from the Mid Atlantic Arts Council, Hedgebrook, the Millay Colony for the Arts and others. Her first book, The Impatient Dr. Lange (Johns Hopkins University Press, July 2018) is the biography of an AIDS doctor killed on Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. Her second book, Debunked! Pseudoscience, Medical Myths and Why They Persist, is forthcoming in November 2019. A major title about women is forthcoming from HarperCollins in 2020.Yasmin's unique expertise in medicine, epidemics and journalism has been called upon by The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, the Aspen Institute, Skoll Foundation and others.

In this episode, which was recorded many months ago, Shira and I talk about what it means to not be able to “outrun” her Bipolar diagnosis and the long process of acceptance that followed this confronting reality. Shira shares about her early childhood growing up in Israel, noticing as a radical act, the mind as queer and a lot more. I am a such a fan of Shira’s book, her poetry and most recently I have taken such pleasure in watching her daily instagram stories in which she prepares iced coffee. Shira Erlichman is a poet, musician, and visual artist. She was born in Israel and immigrated to the US when she was six. Her poems explore recovery – of language, of home, of mind – and value the "scattered wholeness" of healing. She earned her BA at Hampshire College and has been awarded the James Merrill Fellowship by the Vermont Studio Center, the Visions of Wellbeing Focus Fellowship at AIR Serenbe, as well as a residency by the Millay Colony. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed Reader, The Rumpus, PBS NewsHour’s Poetry Series, The Huffington Post, The Seattle Times, and The New York Times, among others. Her debut poetry book, Odes to Lithium, came out in September 2019. She is also the author and illustrator of the picture book Be/Hold. When not on tour, she lives in Brooklyn where she teaches writing and creates. @sheer_awe and https://www.officialshira.com/in-surreal-life DISPATCHES FROM OUR QUEER BODIES IN PANDEMIC TIMES I hope everyone is finding ways to access ease and comfort in this pandemic time. If you haven’t already, there have been some beautiful mini episodes in the Living in our queer bodies in pandemic times series. Most recently, my friend Cassie shared what they learned in the process of recovering from Covid-19. If anyone would like to join this project, just record a one to two minute voice memo and email it to me at livinginthisqueerbody@gmail.com LITQB Podcast: This is a podcast about the barriers to embodiment and how our collective body stories can bring us back to ourselves. This is a podcast for people who identify as queer or for people who might think of their relationship between their body and confining social narratives as queer. This can feel like an isolating experience. Our wounded bodies need spaces to talk about struggles with nourishment/disordered eating, body image issues, dysphoria, racism, heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, substance use/abuse, chronic pain/disability, body changes in parenthood, intergenerational trauma, the medical/wellness/therapy industrial complex and its lack of inclusion of queer bodies and much more. Hopefully this podcast can illustrate the connections, and resonant pain points, that we have with one another. Livinginthisqueerbody.com @livinginthisqueerbody The Host: Asher Pandjiris Psychotherapist/ Podcaster/ Group Facilitator SUPPORT https://www.patreon.com/livinginthisqueerbody Music: Ethan Philbrick and Helen Messineo-Pandjiris --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/asher-pandjiris/message

photo by Taso Papadakis, from "This Dance is Stolen" Alexx Shilling is a Los Angeles-based choreographer, performer, filmmaker and teacher fully committed to the infinite investigation of movement and its potential to uncover alternative narratives and allow us to remember. Her original choreography and experimental films have been presented nationally and internationally, through residencies including Millay Colony, PAM, UCLA and Ebenbökhaus / Jewish Museum in Munich, and with generous support from institutions including Dance Films Association, Asylum Arts, Yiddishkayt, Center for Cultural Innovation, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, CHIME (with mentor Bob Een) and California Arts Council both as Artistic Director of alexx makes dances and ann and alexx make dances (2004-2010). She has collaborated as a performer most robustly with Victoria Marks and Richard Rivera/PHYSUAL, and recently in projects by Christine Suarez, Kevin Williamson and Nickels Sunshine. Alexx holds an MFA in Choreography from UCLA’s World Arts & Cultures/Dance Department and a degree in Dance from Skidmore College. She currently teaches at Loyola Marymount University and Cal State Long Beach, co-founded the performance platforms Hi, Solo and Gold Series and holds certifications in Pilates, Yoga, Open Source Forms and Fleming Technique. Absence a History,  photo by Taso PapadakisSarah Leddy, Nguyen Nguyen, Dorothy Dubrule and Carol McDowell in Absence: a HistoryAbsence was a suspicious attempt at constructing a past without proof; it was about creating testimony by first making fake family photographs and using them as movement language. For a change, the theatre space seemed like the perfect shadow box within which to investigate memory.Highways Performance Space, Los Angeles (2015)  Julie Troost in the opening scene of The Sun Is Over the Yardarm (2004-5) , Conceived and co-directed with Ann Robideaux taken aboard the Lightship "Frying Pan," Hudson River, photo by Bing Smith

MFA candidate Emily Goldsmith interviews Keith Wilson during their visit to the University of Kentucky. Affrilachian poet Keith S. Wilson is the author of Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love (Copper Canyon Press, 2019). His poetry and prose have appeared in Elle, Poetry magazine, the Kenyon Review, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Wilson's nonfiction has won an Indiana Review Nonfiction Prize and the Redivider Blurred Line Prize, and has been anthologized in the award-winning collection Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy. Wilson has received fellowships or grants from the NEA, Cave Canem, Bread Loaf, Tin House, the MacDowell Colony, Vermont Studio Center, UCross, the Millay Colony, and James Merrill House, among others. He was a Gregory Djanikian Scholar, and his poetry has won the Rumi Prize and been anthologized in Best New Poets and Best of the Net.

Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series. Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on June 11, 2019, with Kathleen Alcott (America Was Hard to Find), Ryan Chapman (Riots I Have Known), and Nick Mancusi (A Philosophy of Ruin). About the Readers: Born in 1988 in Northern California, Kathleen Alcott is the author of the novels Infinite Home and The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, ZYZZYVA, The Guardian, Tin House, The New York Times Magazine, the Bennington Review, and elsewhere. In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award; her short fiction has been translated into Korean and Dutch. She divides her time between New York City, where she teaches fiction at Columbia University, and Vermont, where she serves as a 2018-2019 visiting professor at Bennington College.  Ryan Chapman is a Sri Lankan-American writer originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has appeared online at The New Yorker, GQ, McSweeney’s, BookForum, BOMB, Guernica, and The Believer. A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and the Millay Colony for the Arts, he lives in Kingston, New York. Nicholas Mancusi’s writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Time magazine, The Daily Beast, NPR Books, and many other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Joyland. His debut novel, published by Hanover Square Press, is entitled A Philosophy of Ruin. He was raised in New York and lives in Brooklyn. * This event was made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series. Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on June 11, 2019, with Kathleen Alcott (America Was Hard to Find), Ryan Chapman (Riots I Have Known), and Nick Mancusi (A Philosophy of Ruin). Check back Thursday for the discussion! About the Readers: Born in 1988 in Northern California, Kathleen Alcott is the author of the novels Infinite Home and The Dangers of Proximal Alphabets. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, ZYZZYVA, The Guardian, Tin House, The New York Times Magazine, the Bennington Review, and elsewhere. In 2017, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award; her short fiction has been translated into Korean and Dutch. She divides her time between New York City, where she teaches fiction at Columbia University, and Vermont, where she serves as a 2018-2019 visiting professor at Bennington College.  Ryan Chapman is a Sri Lankan-American writer originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has appeared online at The New Yorker, GQ, McSweeney’s, BookForum, BOMB, Guernica, and The Believer. A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and the Millay Colony for the Arts, he lives in Kingston, New York. Nicholas Mancusi’s writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Time magazine, The Daily Beast, NPR Books, and many other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Joyland. His debut novel, published by Hanover Square Press, is entitled A Philosophy of Ruin. He was raised in New York and lives in Brooklyn. * This event was made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series. Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on December 12, 2017, with Abeer Hoque (Olive Witch), Sarah Perry (After the Eclipse), and Jason Tougaw (The One You Get). Listen to this week's reading here. Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer. She published a book of linked stories, poems, and photographs called The Lovers and the Leavers, and a monograph of travel photographs and poems called The Long Way Home. Her memoir, Olive Witch, was published by Harper360 in 2017. She is the recipient of a 2018 Queens Council for the Arts grant, a 2014 NYFA grant, a 2012 NEA Literature Fellowship, a 2007 Fulbright Scholarship, and the 2005 Tanenbaum Award, and has received writing fellowships to attend Sacatar, Saltonstall Arts Colony, SLS St. Petersburg, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Millay Colony, and the Albee Foundation. Sarah Perry holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University, where she served as publisher of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art and was a member of the journal’s nonfiction editorial board. She is the recipient of a Writers’ Fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and a Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education, and has attended residencies at Norton Island in Maine and PLAYA in Oregon. Perry’s prose has appeared in Blood & Thunder magazine, Bluestockings Literary Journal, Elle.com, and The Guardian. Her memoir After the Eclipse was published in Fall 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She lives in Brooklyn. Jason Tougaw is associate professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York. He is the author of The One You Get: Portrait of a Family Organism and Strange Cases: The Medical Case History and the British Novel. He blogs at californica.net. * This event was made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Where is all of the literary love for Queens? It’s right here at LIC Reading Series. Join them each week for stories, readings, and discussions with acclaimed writers, recorded with a live audience in the cozy carriage house of a classic pub in Long Island City, Queens, New York, and hosted by founder Catherine LaSota. This week, the podcast features the reading and panel discussion from the LIC Reading Series event on December 12, 2017, with Abeer Hoque (Olive Witch), Sarah Perry (After the Eclipse), and Jason Tougaw (The One You Get). Check back Thursday for the discussion! Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer. She published a book of linked stories, poems, and photographs called The Lovers and the Leavers, and a monograph of travel photographs and poems called The Long Way Home. Her memoir, Olive Witch, was published by Harper360 in 2017. She is the recipient of a 2018 Queens Council for the Arts grant, a 2014 NYFA grant, a 2012 NEA Literature Fellowship, a 2007 Fulbright Scholarship, and the 2005 Tanenbaum Award, and has received writing fellowships to attend Sacatar, Saltonstall Arts Colony, SLS St. Petersburg, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Millay Colony, and the Albee Foundation. Sarah Perry holds an M.F.A. in nonfiction from Columbia University, where she served as publisher of Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art and was a member of the journal’s nonfiction editorial board. She is the recipient of a Writers’ Fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and a Javits Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education, and has attended residencies at Norton Island in Maine and PLAYA in Oregon. Perry’s prose has appeared in Blood & Thunder magazine, Bluestockings Literary Journal, Elle.com, and The Guardian. Her memoir After the Eclipse was published in Fall 2017 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. She lives in Brooklyn. Jason Tougaw is associate professor of English at Queens College, City University of New York. He is the author of The One You Get: Portrait of a Family Organism and Strange Cases: The Medical Case History and the British Novel. He blogs at californica.net. * This event was made possible in part by the Queens Council on the Arts, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s 1937 and rural Tennessee is still recovering from the Great Depression. The construction of a huge dam brings job seekers, fortune hunters, and the promise of electricity to the area. Claire, a young mother of two, realizes her marriage is over when she wakes up with a sexually transmitted disease brought home by her husband. Nathan is an engineer with a shameful secret who changes his name to get work at the dam. Everyone in this colorful cast of dog-fighting neighbors, beer-guzzling ex-husbands, and power-hungry employers is trying to survive in the mosquito-infested heat of a southern summer. Mark Barr has been awarded fellowships from Blue Mountain Center, I-Park Artists Enclave, Jentel Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo. Favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, his debut novel, Watershed (Hub City, 2019), was featured in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s fall Okra list and Deep South Magazine's Fall/Winter Reading List, and named as one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "12 Southern Books You'll Want to Read This Fall" and one of Nashville Lifestyles Magazine’s "Four Fall Reads." Mark holds undergraduate degrees from Hendrix College and University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from Texas State University. He lives with his wife and sons in Arkansas, where he develops software and bakes bread. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books Network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s 1937 and rural Tennessee is still recovering from the Great Depression. The construction of a huge dam brings job seekers, fortune hunters, and the promise of electricity to the area. Claire, a young mother of two, realizes her marriage is over when she wakes up with a sexually transmitted disease brought home by her husband. Nathan is an engineer with a shameful secret who changes his name to get work at the dam. Everyone in this colorful cast of dog-fighting neighbors, beer-guzzling ex-husbands, and power-hungry employers is trying to survive in the mosquito-infested heat of a southern summer. Mark Barr has been awarded fellowships from Blue Mountain Center, I-Park Artists Enclave, Jentel Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo. Favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, his debut novel, Watershed (Hub City, 2019), was featured in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s fall Okra list and Deep South Magazine's Fall/Winter Reading List, and named as one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "12 Southern Books You'll Want to Read This Fall" and one of Nashville Lifestyles Magazine’s "Four Fall Reads." Mark holds undergraduate degrees from Hendrix College and University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from Texas State University. He lives with his wife and sons in Arkansas, where he develops software and bakes bread. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books Network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes.

It’s 1937 and rural Tennessee is still recovering from the Great Depression. The construction of a huge dam brings job seekers, fortune hunters, and the promise of electricity to the area. Claire, a young mother of two, realizes her marriage is over when she wakes up with a sexually transmitted disease brought home by her husband. Nathan is an engineer with a shameful secret who changes his name to get work at the dam. Everyone in this colorful cast of dog-fighting neighbors, beer-guzzling ex-husbands, and power-hungry employers is trying to survive in the mosquito-infested heat of a southern summer. Mark Barr has been awarded fellowships from Blue Mountain Center, I-Park Artists Enclave, Jentel Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Millay Colony, and Yaddo. Favorably reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, his debut novel, Watershed (Hub City, 2019), was featured in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s fall Okra list and Deep South Magazine's Fall/Winter Reading List, and named as one of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's "12 Southern Books You'll Want to Read This Fall" and one of Nashville Lifestyles Magazine’s "Four Fall Reads." Mark holds undergraduate degrees from Hendrix College and University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from Texas State University. He lives with his wife and sons in Arkansas, where he develops software and bakes bread. If you enjoyed today’s podcast and would like to discuss it further with me and other New Books Network listeners, please join us on Shuffle. Shuffle is an ad-free, invite-only network focused on the creativity community. As NBN listeners, you can get special access to conversations with a dynamic community of writers and literary enthusiasts. Sign up by going to www.shuffle.do/NBN/join G.P. Gottlieb is the author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery Series and a prolific baker of healthful breads and pastries. Please contact her through her website (GPGottlieb.com) if you wish to recommend an author (of a beautifully-written new novel) to interview, to listen to her previous podcast interviews, to read her mystery book reviews, or to check out some of her awesome recipes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scott Edward Anderson is the author of FALLING UP: A Memoir of Second Chances, DWELLING: an ecopoem, FALLOW FIELD, and WALKS IN NATURE’S EMPIRE. He has been a Concordia Fellow at the Millay Colony for the Arts and received the Nebraska Review Award. His poetry has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cimarron Review, The Cortland Review, The Wayfarer, and two anthologies. His essays and reviews have appeared in basalt, The Bloomsbury Review, Cleaver, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and elsewhere. For many years, he has worked in conservation, social enterprise, and clean energy consulting with such organizations as The Nature Conservancy, Ashoka, VerdeStrategy, and EY. In this conversation, we talk about his poetic influences, the importance of mentorship, and hear a variety of poems and essays from his works. You can follow Scott on Instagram @greenskeptic, and at www.scottedwardanderson.com. You can follow Good Poetry on Instagram, at @goodpoetrypodcast. You can also find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/goodpoetrypodcast.

I received my B.A., magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1980 in Visual and Environmental Studies and an M.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1983.  I am a recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The New York Foundation for the Arts and The National Endowment for the Arts, Individual Artist’s Fellowship program. I have been a resident at The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, The Millay Colony , The Cité Internationale des Artes in Paris, The Golden Foundation and The Hermitage Artists Retreat in Florida. My paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally for over twenty years, including solo shows in in Houston, Boston, Milan, Leipzig and San Francisco. In 2014 a five-year survey of my work was on exhibit at Colgate University. My most recent one-person show, Love, American Style, was in 2018 at Pierogi Gallery in the Lower East Side of New York. In addition to individual work I also make collaborative drawings with my husband, James Esber. This work, exhibited under the fairly transparent pseudonym “J. Fiber” has been included in numerous group shows in the United States. I have lived and worked in Williamsburg, Brooklyn since 1986. The books mentioned in the interview is by Dani Shapiro, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love. Rise Up, 2018, 78” x 64”, acrylic on canvas Make Love Not War, 2018, acrylic on wood, 8” x 10" Collaboration, by J. Fiber (aka Jane Fine & James Esber), Front and Back, 2019, acrylic and ink on paper, 30” x 22”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Johanna Stoberock is the author of the novels Pigs (Forthcoming, Red Hen Press, September 2019) and City of Ghosts (W.W. Norton). Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Better: Culture & Lit, The Wilson Quarterly, Copper Nickel, Front Porch, and the 2014 Best of the Net Anthology. A 2012 Jack Straw Fellow and 2013 Artist Trust GAP awardee, Johanna has received residencies from the Corporation of Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Millay Colony. She lives in Walla Walla, Washington with her husband and two children. ABOUT THE BOOK In her exquisite new novel, PIGS by Johanna Stoberock (Red Hen Press, October 1, 2019, Paperback Original), a fable for adults, readers visit a desert island populated by giant pigs, parentless children and a few villainous and greedy adults, exploring what happens when the systems in place to dispose of the things we throw away break down.  Four children sort all the world's trash that washes ashore and feed it to the pigs, but when a barrel arrives with a boy inside, the children must decide whether he is more of the world's detritus, meant to be fed to the pigs, or whether he is one of them. Examining questions about community, environmental responsibility, and the possibility of innocence, PIGS asks us to look at the trash we create, the things we throw away without thinking, and how to dispose of it all in a time when the world's recycling programs are being threatened, refugees are turned away at borders, and climate change is inevitable.

This week on the Maris Review, Maris talks to Ryan Chapman, the author of Riots I Have Known. The two discuss the influences on the book, writing from a transgressive voice and the fictive distance between the author and satire, the privatization of prisons, and exciting literary voices coming from Sri Lanka.  Ryan Chapman is a Sri Lankan American novelist originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has written online and in print for The New Yorker, GQ, Longreads, Guernica, Bookforum, BOMB, and The Believer, and received residency fellowships from The Millay Colony and Vermont Studio Center. He lives in Kingston, New York. Recommended Books: Money by Martin Amis The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack by Mark Leyner The Loser by Thomas Bernhard Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal The Heart Is a Muscle The Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa On Sal Mal Lane by Ru Freeman Music: Billie Eilish The Magnetic Fields Maris’s MP3 Blog Playlist Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah McColl is the guest. Her debut memoir, Joy Enough, is available now from Liveright Publishing. McColl's essays have appeared in Paris Review, McSweeney's, StoryQuarterly, and elsewhere. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, where she was named the 2017 Mary Carswell Fellow, the Millay Colony for the Arts, Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Wrangell Mountains Center.  Before receiving her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College, she was the founding editor in chief of Yahoo Food. Her food writing has been featured in print and online for Bon Appétit, House Beautiful, The Guardian, Modern Farmer, Extra Crispy and others. She teaches creative writing and is based in Los Angeles, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The realization that distance will always be present in even the most connected of people is one of the recurring themes in Rita Bullwinkel's spectacular debut story collection, BELLY UP (out now from A STRANGE OBJECT). Rita and James talk about spanning the real and the unreal, finding balance in sequencing, and loving stories where characters have tools to leave their bodies. Plus Dick Scanlan on RENASCENCE, the new musical featuring the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay.  -   Rita Bullwinkel: http://ritabullwinkel.com/ Rita and James discuss: Jill Meyers  A STRANGE OBJECT  AMERICAN SHORT FICTION  Vanderbilt University  Kelly Link  Diane Williams  ALTMANN'S TONGUE by Brian Evenson EVERYTHING RAVAGED, EVERYTHING BURNED by Wells Tower  COAST OF CHICAGO by Stuart Dybek Mills College  Center for New Music  PURE HOLLYWOOD by Christine Schutt  Blair School of Music  Mark Jarman  Michael Alec Rose  Ben Marcus  "Slatland" by Rebecca Lee  NEW AMERICAN SHORT STORIES  STORIES ON STAGE  - Dick Scanlon: http://www.playbill.com/production/renascence-abrons-arts-center-2018-2019 Dick and James discuss: MOTOWN: THE MUSICAL  Berry Gordy  EVERYDAY RAPTURE  Carmel Dean William Finn  Edna St. Vincent Millay  THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE  Steepletop  The Millay Colony  Edna St. Vincent Millay Society Holly Peppe  Danny Kornfeld  Kathleen Millay  Caroline B. Dow  Mikaela Bennett Norma Millay  Eugen Jan Bossevain  Elaine Ralli  Vassar  Donald Webber Jr.  Brett Banakis   - http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/

It’s not every day we chat with someone the New York Times has listed as part of “the new vanguard” in fiction. But today’s our day: Carmen Maria Machado is live on NYG! We sit down with the badass author, National Book Award finalist, and fellow Philly resident for a conversation about writing, working retail, believing in your own work, craving the company of other women, and so much more. > The art of non-dominant groups can be trendy, but we think of men and whiteness and straightness as, like, eternal… And of course that’s fake, right? Like, that’s not real: men, and white, and straight, and cis, and all those things… are not neutral, but we think of them as neutral. > —Carmen Maria Machado, author, Her Body and Other Parties Here’s what we cover: The “fat women with fat minds” of Carmen’s “The Trash Heap Has Spoken” essay in Guernica How a retreat at the Millay Colony for the Arts kickstarted her writing career The wild popularity of “The Husband Stitch,” Carmen’s story in Granta (which, like, just read it already) What it’s like to go from working at the mall to full-fledged famous author in a few short years The exploitative mess of the adjunct teaching market Carmen’s review of Danielle Lazarin’s new book, Backtalk, and how women internalize the “slow, invisible grind” of misogyny Why Claire Vaye Watkins’ essay “On Pandering” and Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” struck such a nerve Craving the company of women in a culture full of far too much bullshit Finding the confidence to divest from sexist culture, take up space, and acknowledge your talents out loud Plus: why city snobbery is bullshit, the incredible joys and health benefits of naps (seriously, just thinking about a nap can even lower your blood pressure)—and why y’all should just visit Philly already. Sponsors This episode of NYG is brought to you by: Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers to see what they’re talking about. WordPress—the place to build your personal blog, business site, or anything else you want on the web. WordPress helps others find you, remember you, and connect with you. _ _ Transcript Katel LeDû [Ad spot] Shopify is leveling the playing field for entrepreneurs with software that helps anyone with a great idea build a successful business. More than 50 percent of the business owners they power are women—across 175 countries. And they’re growing their world-class team to define the future of entrepreneurship. Visit shopify.com/careers to find out how they work [music fades in, ramps up, plays alone for ten seconds.] Jenn Lukas Hi! And welcome to No, You Go, the show about being ambitious—and sticking together. I’m Jenn Lukas. KL I’m Katel LeDû. Sara Wachter-Boettcher And I’m Sara Wachter-Boettcher. Today on No, You Go we’re talking with one of my favorite authors, Carmen Maria Machado. This first book of stories, Her Body and Other Parties, was just listed as one of 15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century by the New York Times. Like, seriously. Carmen’s also a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, which means she lives right here in Philly. And that got me thinking a lot about place. You know, like in a lot of industries we sort of expect people who are ambitious to live in a specific location. Like, you’re a writer, gotta move to New York! Oh you’re in tech? Well why aren’t you in San Francisco? But, like, Philly is great. There’s so much amazing stuff happening here, and I wish more people knew that. JL Ugh! I love Philadelphia. You should see the Philadelphia tattoo I have across my abs. Just kidding [all laughing]. KL I was like, “What?!? Show me!!!” SWB My god. JL But I do in spirit. In spirit it’s there. Just, uh, just Ben Franklin hanging out [KL chuckles] eating a—Ben Franklin eating a pretzel right on my bicep. KL Love it. Very on brand [laughs]. SWB Can we all get like matching Ben Franklin eating a pretzel tattoos? KL Or just like a Liberty Bell? Something small, tasteful. SWB What do you love so much about Philly, Jenn? JL Ugh. I’ve been in Philadelphia for… woah. 18 years? SWB Wow! KL Woah! JL How’d that happen? [2:04] SWB Like your whole adult life! JL Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. And at first I didn’t love Philadelphia. I came here from Boston and I was just like, “Why—what am I doing still in the cold?” I guess is what I was thinking. And, I don’t know, I felt like there’s just something that wasn’t great and then within like two years it just grew on me. I loved that it’s flat, it’s cheap, and it’s got a lot of great people, and so much good food. But it’s got that—Philadelphia has this interesting thing in that uh it has like, people will say like this inferiority complex of a city of where, you know, we’re between DC, New York, Boston, and always something to prove. I feel like there’s a lot of that which I think has led to a lot of great innovation. A lot of people just like building lots of stuff to be like, “No, look! Look at all this amazing things that like that we have here.” I had the chance once to work for visitphilly.com website, which was probably one of the best projects I ever worked on because there was just having a chance every day to come in and work on something that showcased our fine city. And I think it’s so important to have pride in where you live, because it’s where you [chuckles] spend your time. KL I feel like—I lived in New York for five years of my life, like my late twenties, and I loved it, it was great. And coming from DC it was sort of like I got the sense that people were kind of like, “Oh, you finally moved to like a real city,” which totally felt like not at all. And then when I got back to DC after living in New York, people were kind of like, “Why would you ever leave New York?” And there are, you know, personally a lot—a million reasons why I left New York. I feel like it’s odd to get that reaction depending on where you live. And when I was in DC for that second time, I was working at National Geographic. So when I told people where I worked they were like, “Oh! Well that’s amazing.” And I’m like, “Yeah. That’s where HQ is. It’s in DC.” Like— SWB I think one of the things that’s so frustrating to me about talking places is that—is that kind of reaction that you’re talking about, that like, “Oh! You live there!?” I remember this one time I was having brunch with a friend of a friend in New York, we were in Brooklyn, and she—this woman, I didn’t know her very well, she asked me where I lived, and I said I lived in Philly, and she goes, “Oh Philly? Well, it’s a good starter city for New York.” And I looked at her and I was just like, I just like dead-eyed her, and I was like, “Or it’s a place that people live by choice?” It was so—it was just like one of those throwaway comments for her, because in her head, her assumption was like basically everybody was just trying to move to New York, and, like, you would only live somewhere else if you like couldn’t make it in New York or whatever. And I’m like, “I don’t want to live in New York.” I like New York. It’s fine. But I—what I think is—is important to remember and I think about this a lot for the podcast is like there are people doing awesome shit literally everywhere, and one of the things that we can do is do a better job of seeking that out. You know? Finding folks in all kinds of places. Like, way back I think in our second episode we talked to Eileen Webb who lives in northern New Hampshire and is doing all of this awesome work on accessibility, and strategy, and the web, and like… she lives on a farm. And like why not? Why the hell not? Why can’t we look at people doing great stuff everywhere. [5:25] SWB [Continued] So that brings me back to something that I loved about talking with Carmen, who is doing this amazing work as an author and becoming like straight up a famous writer. And she’s right here in Philly! And I suspect in like all kinds of cities out there you would find people who are just like top of their game in their fields, working from all kinds of unexpected places. JL And not just cities. I mean more rural areas, towns, I think one of the things that we always have to keep in mind that we do here is that there’s things about Philly that I love, obviously, and then there’s things about Philly that I don’t like, and that’s true of any place. And so I think the trick is finding that balance of someplace that you really like to be that helps you be the best you. KL Thinking about the idea of a “starter city” assumes that, you know, everyone has the same resources or lifestyle that would allow you to just like move wherever you want to go and move to, you know, a really potentially expensive city or place that, you know, you might just not have the resources that kind of work in that area that you can—that you can really have access to. So, I don’t know, I think it’s—I want to pay more attention to, like Sara said, you know, the work that people are doing that aren’t on the coasts or aren’t, in the places that we know are networks and all of our friends are. I think it’s kinda cool that we start looking at that. SWB Well, with that, can we go ahead and get to the interview because I am super hyped to have everybody listen to this interview with Carmen. KL Agh! I can’t wait [music fades in, ramps up, plays alone for four seconds, ramps down]. KL [Ad spot] We want to be able to share our voices our way through our website, and we use WordPress to help us do that because it gives us freedom and flexibility. Make your site your own when you build it with WordPress. They offer powerful ecommerce options from a simple yet effective buy button to a complete online store, and WordPress customer support is there for you 24/7 to help you get your site working smoothly. Plans start at just four dollars per month, so start building your website today. Go to wordpress.com/noyougo for 15 percent off any new plan purchase. That’s wordpress.com/noyougo for 15 percent off your brand new website [music fades in, ramps up, plays alone for four seconds, fades out]. SWB Over a year ago I read this amazing essay in Guernica called “The Trash Heap Has Spoken” about women refuse to apologize for taking up space. “Fat woman with fat minds”, as the author, Carmen Maria Machado, put it. It was a gorgeous essay and it’s one that I actually still think about all the time. So when her book came out last year I devoured it immediately. Fast forward just a few months and Her Body and Other Parties, a book of stories that defy genre, that are fantastical, and erotic, and queer, and just were really captivating to me, has been awarded about a zillion prizes. It’s been a bestseller, it was a finalist for the National Book Award, and somehow, despite all of that huge success, we still managed to get Carmen Maria Machado here to be interviewed on No, You Go. And literally she is here today. She is in our studio, also known as my office in south Philadelphia, and I am extremely excited to chat with her and also a little bit nervous [laughter]. Carmen, welcome to No, You Go. [8:33] Carmen Maria Machado Thank you for having me. SWB So, first up, ok, after I read that essay in Guernica I found out that you went to college with a friend of the show, Lara Hogan. And she said that you did photography together. So, first up, like when did you start pursuing writing as a career, and sort of what was that path for you? CMM Yeah! Well, I’ve always sort of—I’ve been a writer or a person who writes, or sort of organizes her mind around writing, for my entire life. I’ve been that way since I was a kid. Um and when I got to college I thought to my—like I wanted to be a journalist, that was sort of my way out. Like, “Oh, I’ll have health insurance and also, you know, have a job, and like be a writer.” And of course this was like 2004, I got to school, I started journalism classes and I did not like them. I was like, “This is not me, I don’t like—I do not have a nose for news. I don’t like hunting news stories. I don’t like talking to people on the phone.” Like all of these things that would be required of me as a journalist are things that just bore me or make me too anxious, and I don’t want to do it, even though I like writing. So I sort of moved around, I switched majors a few times. I was like lit for a hot second, and then I switched to something else, and then finally I took a photography class and I absolutely loved, and so I ended up getting like an independent study major where I sort of combined a lot of things including writing and photography and fine arts, where I met Lara. And so, yeah, so then like I had this idea of like being a photographer [smacks lips] that did not last for long [laughs] but I’ve never supported myself doing it. I worked all kinds of jobs [chuckles] um it’s just never been a thing that really like worked out for me. So I have a really nice Instagram account. That’s like the way that my student loans that I’m still paying off [laughing] that’s what they’re still going towards is a really well curated Instagram account and that’s about it. And then after school I was living in California, just sort of working some random jobs, and it wasn’t until I went to grad school which would’ve been in 2010 that I really started thinking about writing as a career, and as a thing that I could pursue sort of more professionally. SWB And you were in grad school in Iowa, right? [10:30] CMM Yes. Mm hmm. SWB What was that experience because it’s a pretty intense program, right? CMM Yeah I mean it’s the—so it’s the oldest program in the country which is sort of where it gets its reputation from. Um, you know, there’s a lot of really wonderful who’ve gone there. Uh I had a really good time. It was really nice to be able to go to a program that was funded, that I was able to just like write, and like not have to worry about work, and not have to worry about anything else. Like I was just—I had to do a little bit of teaching which also was nice because then I discovered that I really liked teaching um which before I did not realize. SWB Speaking of teaching [mm hmm], I saw that after grad school you had ended up kind of back in the Philly area, adjuncting uh while also working at the mall, and—and I’m curious like when do you feel like it all started to come together for you, career wise? CMM That’s a really good question. I mean it sort of happened in stages. So while I was in grad school, I— through a friend I met my now wife and we were dating long distance and decided after I was finished that we wanted to move in together wherever we would live. So she was living in Boston at the time, I was living in Iowa City, and we decided to do—to come to Philadelphia because it was like an affordable city we could live in and we had both—she had lived here before, I had never had but I grew up in Allentown. So not too far away. So yeah so we got here and in the beginning I mean, yeah, I was really struggling. Like she was working full-time and was more or less supporting us. I was, you know, adjuncting and working a retail job, and making like barely anything. I was really struggling. Yeah, I was going to King of Prussia mall… I was driving back and forth every week. And it was horrible. And I was very stressed out and sad and was, you know, sort of plugging away at some work, and was just writing some stories and, I don’t know, feeling like maybe I had made a mistake, or maybe like writing wasn’t in the cards for me professionally. And… it was really hard to write because I was physically exhausted all the time, just from the—from standing like teaching, you know, it is exhausting in its own way but like with working at the mall, I was just like on my feet all day, I was driving really really far back and forth and I was exhausted. So um at some point I applied for a writing residency at the Millay Colony for the Arts which is up in upstate New York and I got in for a session. So I quit my job, went there for a month, and like wrote a bunch of stuff. And that actually got me [smacks lips] back in this really nice headspace where I suddenly found myself able to be like, “I have a whole book here, and I can just kind of get it all pulled together.” And so I had written this story called “The Husband Stitch,” which is probably my most famous short story. I have a friend—someone has called it my hit single [laughter and laughing:] Like it is kind of like my hit single. It’s like the story people usually know of mine and so, yeah, and I had an agent at this point, and I sent it to him, and he submitted it to magazines and Granta ended up picking it up. And putting it on their website. And so that became—that was sort of like the trying point for me because that story did really well, people really responded to it, because it was online people were able to share it, and there was like a lot of sort of movement around that story. And, in fact, I believe last year they told me it was still their most read story at their website. But even though it’s three years old. Like it’s been out for three years but like, they were like, “Oh yeah, no, like there’s just a ton of traffic to that story. It’s like—it’s like a really highly trafficked page on the site.” So um so yeah so that was sort of the moment, like once I had that, and then I started putting together this collection and then, yeah, in about a year. So that would’ve been in 2014, so then I sold the book in 2015. Like in the fall. [14:03] CMM [Continued] So yeah and then once that happened and then I started—and then got like this offer at Penn where I’m now the Writer in Residence. So I suddenly had a teaching job where I had like health insurance. And like [laughs] a living salary [laughs], and like all these other things. Um and that was pretty awesome. So… so yeah. So that’s—it just ended up sort of working out nicely where that became like the place where my career sort of turned, and people started to pay attention, and sort of knew who I was, and everything has sort of followed from there. SWB And I think for listeners who don’t know about the adjunct teaching market, it’s a, I don’t know, exploitative nightmare. I would say [chuckles]. So like if you’re curious what the difference is between adjuncting and having a fellowship at Penn where you have benefits, it’s like night and day. A lot of adjuncts are contingent faculty and it’s like a couple thousand dollars a semester to teach a course, and you end up making, I don’t know, probably less than minimum wage at a lot of places? CMM Oh—oh absolutely! Absolutely you’re making less than that, because like you usually have office hours, and all the grading, everything you do outside of class, and prepping for class. Yeah, no, it’s actually really bad. And it’s funny because I think sometimes students—I’ll ask occasionally like see if students have a sense of what adjuncts—like who they are or what their situation is, and even now they really don’t. And, you know, when I was in college I also did not understand what adjuncts were. Like I had adjuncts and I didn’t realize it because like to a student it’s like, “Oh you’re my teacher! Like what’s the difference?” Well it’s like, oh the difference is huge. Like adjuncts are, you know, often like broke as hell, like they’re getting food stamps and they can like barely make ends meet. So, yeah, it’s like really—it’s one of those—you know it’s a labor issue that’s like getting a lot of traction and like in Philadelphia they’re actually like the—there’s an adjunct union that’s been um unionizing various schools and they’ve been actually pretty successful which is pretty awesome but, yeah, it’s a bad situation for sure. SWB And I’m curious like you mentioned that you really loved teaching and was it difficult to balance out this feeling of like loving teaching but knowing that you’re doing it in this like kind of exploitative environment where you—you can’t actually make a living off of it? [15:58] CMM Yeah, I mean I think the hardest thing for me was that I couldn’t be there for my students in the way I wanted to be because I was just—it was just unpaid labor. So like… you know like I would grade, and I would do workshops, and I would prep lectures, and I would all this stuff, but then like if a student wanted like more feedback on something, like I wasn’t getting paid for that, you know? And so I had to say no to things. And the students didn’t understand, and some of them would be like, “Well, why can’t you do that thing for me? Like you’re my teacher.” And I was like, “Well, in normal circumstances, yes, certainly, like you know?” Yes, as a teacher, like for example if a student come to you for like a letter of recommendation or something like that—that’s part of the process, right? Of being a teacher. Is being like, “Yes, like I am at least open to the idea of writing a letter of recommendation,” for example. Um or like, “Talking to you, you know, within the semester about certain things.” Um but when you’re an adjunct like all bets are off because you’re not making any—You’re making, yeah, 3,000 dollars a class. Right? So it’s like what are you supposed to do? Like how are you supposed to like value and manage your time? That part is really, really hard and—and when students don’t understand that—and you can’t just say like, “Oh, by the way, like I’m an adjunct. Like your school does not care enough to like pay me a living wage and you need to take that up with them. It has nothing to do with me.” You know? Um so I think it’s a combination of like just because students don’t know um and then yeah, and then just like trying to decide like where do you value your time, you know, if you’re a good teacher like you want to be there for your students. Like you want to be able to help them during the semester in the way that you can but yeah like when you’re not making money or—I’m just giving them free time. Like I’m not… you know I’m not doing—So yeah it’s a bad, it’s a really bad situation. SWB Well, so your situation has changed pretty [chuckles][yeah] dramatically since then and I would like to talk about that. So, in addition to be being a National Book Award Finalist which I like to say over and over again because I think it’s fucking awesome [laughter]. Um you were just called part of “the New Vanguard” by the New York Times… uh what’s—what’s that like? CMM [Chuckles] That—well that was shock—that I was—I mean nothing that’s happened to me have I—have I expected any of it. Like if you told me like, “Oh, your weird, genre-bending short story collection that’s going to be out from an independent press is going to like do just crazily well in every respect.” I would’ve never ever ever, in a million years, I would’ve been like, “You’re crazy. That’s ridiculous. There’s no way.” Um but yeah everything that’s been happening and then, yeah, that New York Times piece where they were sort of talking about like women writers of the 21st century who have like—who are sort of showing us how we read and write—like and that my book being one of those 15 books is just completely unbelievable [chuckles]. Um— SWB So, I mean when that happens, I assume you also have a lot of sudden like demands on your time and attention. How do you negotiate that? Like how do you figure out what you’re gonna say yes to? [18:41] CMM Oh, that’s a really good question. I mean you have to, like I’m learning to be more protective of my time. The thing is that what’s weird in the beginning was that, you know, I wasn’t sure how the book was gonna do and so I said yes to everything. And then at some point you have to—right, decided like I’m not going to do this, or I’m not going to do this. And I was lucky that my wife is actually very—she’s brilliant. And very, very good at knowing all my weak spots. So, for example, this spring, she made me build in three weekends where like I was not allowed to schedule anything and it was just weekends that I have off. And at the time, I was like very grouchy about that. I was like, “Oh I don’t want to do that.” But I’m so grateful that she did that because now there are weekends where I’m like, “I don’t have do anything. I can just— I can just relax. I can do laundry!” Right. I can just like do what I have to do. SWB You can have a weekend. CMM I can have a weekend! SWB That’s called a weekend. CMM Right, yeah, it’s called a weekend. Right [laughter], where I’m not traveling. But I’ve been traveling. Except for those weekends, I’ve traveled every single weekend for the last like six months. Like I’ve just been—you know, so it’s—it’s—it’s hard. And I think it’s also like remembering, right? Like it’s ok that right now I’m doing that, but then like knowing that this summer I’m going to a residency and I’m gonna go back to working because like I haven’t been writing and that’s been making me really sad. So like knowing that I have that on the horizon, you know, saying no to things. Like saying, you know, and like I sort of have a set of criteria so if I get asked to do something. It’s like, you know, do I know the person whose asking me? Is it something that I really want to do? Like I’m like, “Oh I want to be with that publication, or I want to—” You know there’s like a reason. Sometimes I think it’s just—it fun. Where it’s like, “Ooh that sounds really cool. Yeah I do want to try that.” Um so right now I’m judging this cookbook contest for Food52 and they like asked me to do it and I was like, “That’s so weird! Yes! I do want to do that!” [Laughter] Because like [laughs] I love cooking, and like they’re like, “We’ll send you these cookbooks and you can cook from them.” And there’s like a tournament—it’s like a tournament of cookbooks or whatever. And I was like, “Yeah! Yeah I do want to do that. That’s so weird.” So like I’ll say yes to that sort of thing. So it just becomes a matter of like figuring out what my priorities are, like, you know, so I sort of run every opportunity through like a little set of filters where I’m like, “Does it have this? Does it have this? Does it have this?” And I’ll say yes or no. SWB Yes I’ve had those periods. I mean I travel a lot for work things and conferences and book things and it’s like… I’m mostly pretty good at it, and then I realize, I’m like, “Oh no. I have limits.” And like I need to remember them. I used to do things like book those like multi-stop trips. Like [yeah] three stops [yeah yeah yeah] and then I realized like, I’m fucking miserable every time I do it and it was like, “What if you just didn’t do that anymore?” [Right, right] “What if you just said no to things that would require that?” And I found that—that was like when you talk about finding criteria and stuff it’s like, oh, notice those patterns. Like, “what are the patterns that are making you unhappy?” and getting rid of them. [21:19] CMM Yeah, or like I had someone once tell me like, “You should never do anything where the amount of money you’re being paid to do it, you’re not excited to go.” So like if you are like—if you’re like, “I don’t want to get on a plane, go to this place, do all this work, get uh go on a plane back, lose a weekend, and it’s for like 500 bucks or whatever.” Like you know like learning what is it that you actually want. Um what is worth it to you to like get out of the house or like and like leave your loved ones, and like get a on a fucking airplane which is like it’s fucking hell, [laughter and laughing] you know? SWB Yeah, I mean I also feel like um I definitely will say yes to things sometimes. I—I don’t do this anymore, but I used to have this problem where I would say yes to something and like, as I was writing the email saying yes, I had that like tight knot in my stomach— CMM Yeah, you’re like, “I don’t want to do this.” SWB Where yeah, like deep down [yeah] I didn’t actually want to say yes. And so now I try to be way more aware and like also let those emails sit a little longer. CMM Yes! Yeah this is also a thing I’ve noticed is, right, if I like—if I like don’t answer it right away, and also like it—I sort of went through this phase where I felt a little guilty about this but I said yes to some things and then I actually thought about it and then I wrote them back and I’d write them back and I’d be like, “You know I’m so sorry. Like I know I agreed to do this yesterday but I’ve been thinking about it more and I think I actually don’t have the time.” And I did that—I did that earlier this year and I was so—I almost like cried from relief and she was—and the person was super nice about it. They were like, “Don’t even worry about it. Like you’re obviously so busy. It’s totally fine.” And then I was like so happy, I was like [cries out], “Oh I’m free! Free!” Like I could’ve been stressing about this for two weeks and instead I just like said, “Nope, actually I can’t do it. Sorry.” Uh— KL And that feeling of relief is such a huge [chuckles][right! Right!] And it’s not like—it’s not like you’re waiting until the day before this thing [right, right, exactly, exactly] is going on, it’s like you are, you know, you’re—you’re paying attention to it and you’re like, “Ok, I need to just take this—remove this from my plate and my future for, you know, whatever reasons. And that’s ok.” [23:10] SWB There’s also like just the incredible unmatched joy of canceling plans [laughter]. So good. But yeah so I read a book review the other day of yours for Danielle Lazarin’s Backtalk [mm hmm] and I would love to talk about it a little bit because in there you know you talk about how it explores the “exhausting, slow poison of masculine power, the grind of the patriarchy on even the most privileged of women,” and you pose kind of a question in there, like, “How do writers divest themselves from the pressures of the dominant culture while also addressing the burdensome weight of that dominant culture?” And I think that piece and your—your Guernica essay last year, all of those things are sort of like attempting to wrangle with internalized misogyny, on some level, um and that’s something I feel like is sort of cropping up a—a good bit among feminist writers. So I’m wondering if you could talk more about that. Like, I feel like in that article you started to… you started to answer that question a little bit of like, “How do we divest ourselves of” that internalized misogyny is like… “Don’t be pleasant or easy to teach. Look mean for the camera. Just get up and go.” What does that look like? Like how do you get up and go? CMM Ugh! That’s a really huge question. I mean I think [sighs] this is the—it’s so funny I feel like there’s this, right? This idea about like you become more conservative as you get older. And I think that’s a really weird idea because I feel like every woman I know gets more and more radical the older they get because it’s like the world—the bullshit of being a woman in today’s culture, or in any culture, or any time, or whatever, is so awful that like just the longer you’re alive, the more radical you become. So I feel like I’m way more radical in terms of like my thoughts about gender than I was like ten years ago which is amazing to me, and I think is sort of the opposite of what most people would expect. Yeah so I mean I think—yeah I think right now this topic of internalized misogyny and like I—I talk about in that essay like Claire Vaye Watkins essay “On Pandering,” and I also talk about “Cat Person” the—that story in The New Yorker. All of which also deal with concept of like internalized misogyny. So like I think what’s really interesting is that right now I have a lot of thoughts about like Hillary Clinton—like I feel—I feel like there’s like a lot of… what’s in the air right now is—is like post this election and like regardless of how you feel about… Bernie Sanders or Hillary specifically, I think we can all agree like the way that misogyny played out on this really massive scale during the election was like really traumatic for women. And I think we actually have not fully addressed that trauma and I think we just went to pure panic mode because, like Trump is president and suddenly like, you know, we just gotta get past it. But like I think there’s something about… like people talk about like women—like white women voting for Trump and I think it—that is interesting not just because obviously like it’s this way in which like race—like race alliances, racism sort of trump, no pun intended, this like gender element. And the way in which women loathe themselves so deeply, on this like deep sort of cultural level, right, that like even though Hillary Clinton is like the most privileged woman probably to ever walk the fucking planet [laughter]. That she couldn’t win that election against this like incompetent, blowhard, like caricature of a sexist guy from like an ’80s cartoon. Like that to me is just an illustration of like how broken it is. Again, regardless of how you think about her specifically. And I think that like “Cat Person” is another really good example of that, in terms of that story, like where it’s all about like… it’s like, again, not about rape exactly but it’s about like what does it mean that like women—it’s like easier to have sex with a man that you’re not really that into than to like say no and walk away… because it is! And like I have been there. I have personally been there. Where it’s like [absolutely!], “I don’t want to do this.” And most women I know have been there where there like, “I really don’t want to do this but I’d rather like just not have to deal with not saying no.” And literally like that Stormy Daniels interview, I don’t know if you guys have watched it but like— [27:06] SWB I specifically did not watch it but I read about it later. But yeah that’s kinda the story too, right, it’s like, [crosstalk] “Well, I might as well do this ’cause…” CMM He’s like, “Were you attracted to him?” And she was like, “Oh no!” It’s just like [laughs] and then she was like—and then he was like, “Well, why’d you do it?” And she’s like, “Well I found myself like, ‘Here I am, like I’m stupid enough to get into his room like I might as well just like do this.’” And it’s the same like absolute like res—where it’s like ugh the resolve. It’s like, “I can’t fight this anymore. Like it just is what it is. It’s easier to have sex with this totally odious man than it to like just get out of here because he could do god knows what.” And so I feel like there’s something about that that’s really interesting and I feel like the Claire Vaye Watkins essay, again, dealing with with this idea of like women trying to align themselves with men which I think is also like a massive problem that we don’t really talk about a lot. And I feel like this narrative of sort of like, you know, women being like, “I’m just one of the guys!” I’m like I knew a woman like that in college, it was this woman who like that was literally like she was just like, “I’m just one of the dudes! Like I don’t know nuh nuh nuh,” and it always struck me as like deeply, profoundly sad and I feel like it—the more I sort of live like the more I’m like, “God! That’s the [yells] saddest, worst thing!” Um so, you know, like feminis—femininity and femaleness is so odious to somebody that they would just be like, “I reject that. Women are—” She was like, “Women are just drama queens. I rather like align myself with men.” And even queer women align themselves with like male power, so that women who aren’t even attracted to men necessarily being like, “Oh I need to like align myself in that way.” And so that to me is really interesting and I think that there’s something in there that we’re—we’re coming to this like… I don’t know if it’ll actually be a catharsis but I feel like [mm hmm]—we’re sort of—this is like sort of what’s in the air right now and I feel like we’re arriving in this place where we’re having to reckon with like… again, like not just like this cartoonish like male villainy that’s so—The problem is that like Trump is like… cartoonish male villainy, but what’s actually way worse is like, again, this slow, almost invisible grind, and the ways in which women then within themselves reinforce that, even when the, sort of, the power’s not directly not on them in that moment [mm hmm]. And I feel like that is something that we like need to figure out. And I don’t know if we will, I don’t know if that’s possible, but it’s something that is—is very interesting to me as a writer and so it’s like what I write about and so of course that book—that essay—you know, writing that review gave me a little space to like talk about that because it was—I was like, “Oh this is exactly what this book is about so like [mm hmm]. Here, I’m also gonna like talk about this idea that I have.” [29:20] SWB Yeah I mean I feel like this comes up in all kinds of fields. I mean I definitely know early in my career I… spent a lot of time hanging out with the dudes in my office because the dudes in my office were like in positions of more power, oftentimes. And they were fun! They were nice. I mean they were—they were in lots of ways great people but I definitely had a couple of years in there where it was almost like I set aside a lot of the more… like overt feminist work that I had done prior to that and was like, “I’m kinda—I’m here to, you know, get shit done and move up and make space for myself and, you know, I’ll do that by fitting in at—for a round of beers with these dudes.” And I couldn’t really see it that way at the time. Like I could not have explained that was what I was doing but looking back it’s like that was definitely what I was doing. And there came this moment where I was just like, “I don’t fucking want to.” And then I realized is that over the past several years, I mean definitely since the election but even before that, I was going through a process of sort of like… reevaluating the men in my life [mm hmm]. Um like I have a husband. I love him. His great [laughter]. Still in my life. He stayed. Um but like I definitely cut out a lot of people who I thought I was like “supposed to” like [mm hmm], or people who were “important” in my field, or whatever. Right? Like I was just like, “Oh. Is this actually bringing me anything in my life?” CMM And I do think that’s also—I think that’s part of getting older. I do feel like as you get older you’re like, “Well life is short, I will die one day [chuckling in background], I need—I can’t like waste time on people who are like making me miserable or like don’t—or don’t—you know they don’t, not that you like, not in like a self-serving way where you’ll like, ‘Only people who can help me,’ but like just being like, ‘No, like that person doesn’t give me any joy. That person like makes me feel bad about myself.’” You know, whoever. Like I want to—but then yeah, there’s this element also of like my tolerance for like, male masculine bullshit is like this big. People who are listening, you can’t see. I’m making a very tiny little notch [chuckling in background] with my fingers. It’s like almost nothing because I’m just like, “I can’t. I don’t have time for your weird shit.” [Laughter] Like, I don’t want to deal with that. I gotta live my life. I gotta make art. I got a life. But I—but I crave the company of other women. And I mean I’m queer but also like I just crave like… I think women are more interesting [laughs]. I think women are just more interesting and I feel like the—yeah, it’s like I don’t have to explain myself to women [yes]. I don’t have to explain… we just know. KL Yeah, you don’t have to explain about being or existing in—in [right]—in small facets of [right]—of ways that like seem like they should be obvious but [yeah]. SWB Right. Like when you’re like, “Well, you know, sometimes you just had sex with somebody because it was easier than leaving.” And everybody’s just like [crosstalk and laughter], “Oh yeah—I get it.” [32:00] CMM [Inaudible][Laughter]—no man. Almost no—well, I’m sure some men. But almost [sure]. Probably a very tiny percentage but every woman knows what that’s like, every single woman. It’s like, “Oh yeah,” where you’re like, “I’d rather—I don’t know what this—I don’t know this guy, I don’t know what he’ll do if I say no.” Or having to deal with like the whining and the inevitable like bullshit that’s gonna come with me saying no is just like easier for me to just like have sex and then like go away. So like that, right, well woman know that and—and I think it’s really nice to have that um and I think what’s really nice about what’s happening sort of in terms of art and writing right now is like you are getting a lot of these narratives are sort of being presented um like well before like “Cat Person” and like all these other stuff that’s been in the last couple of years. There was this really amazing piece I want to say in Buzzfeed maybe like two or three years ago that was also about this idea where it’s like not rape… but it’s like what about this exact phenomenon where it’s like it’s not rape, it’s not sexual assault, like you consent, technically, but you’re consenting because of this like larger power structure that like is totally out of your control and like, all things being equal, you would say no but like you just don’t want to deal with—You know so it’s like I’ve—this is like a thing that’s just in the air and I think we’re just like thinking about it a lot. SWB Well I think that there’s kind of a lot of stuff in the air right, you know, you touched on some of it and one of the things that—that seems to be like definitely in the air is just I mean women’s stories are—are selling now. Like in a way that, I don’t know, maybe they probably never had the opportunity to before, they probably [chuckles] would’ve sold if they had been out there in the world [mm hmm] but I feel like there’s—there’s suddenly a lot more space? I’m not sure if that’s the way right way to look at it though but I feel like there’s um so many more women authors from all kinds of backgrounds who are like getting a lot of attention and who are kind of becoming, well like “the new vanguard” or whatever, right? Like there’s like—there’s—there’s sort of an appetite for that and a—and a—more of a, I don’t know, there’s an appetite for it which maybe was always there but there’s maybe more of a willingness to publish it and more of a willingness to promote it? CMM Yeah I mean it—I feel like it’s sort of actually a bunch of different things, like I mean on one hand, not to be um, not to be cynical, but like feminism is a brand that sells. Like there is a sort of level of like… it is accept—it is a thing that is acceptable… for like companies to make money on, you know? And like so the reason, for example, that we’re seeing like so many like gay st—we’re seeing more like gay stories and more feminist stories is because right now, we’re in a place where that sort of thing is permissible and is even, like, profitable. But I don’t think that necessarily means that like, it—I don’t know if that’s as much as changing, it’s just like technology’s permitting this, certain sort of independent groups but there’s like just sort of weird little pockets that like are permitting it, and so it is like happening, but I don’t necessarily know if that means that like it’s different now, “everything’s better,” like I don’t—I don’t actually know if that’s the case. I’m also very cynical about all this. [35:03] SWB And I wonder, right, like I wonder if there’s a moment where people are like, “Oooh! We can—if we buy this book, right, like if we buy this author’s work, we think that’s gonna sell because it’s going to fit into this like group of like [totally] women of color writers who’ve sold well in previous years.” That’s a moment. That may not be a change that lasts. CMM Right. The problem is that we think, and by we I just mean like culture. We think of like, minority—the art of non-dominant groups can be trendy, but we think of men and whiteness and straightness as, like, eternal and not trendy, and just like that is—that is the natural baseline, and anything else is like a trend. So like publishing—and publishing and other sorts of art forms—might follow those trends, but ultimately we will always return to this baseline. And of course that’s fake, right? Like, that’s not real: men, and white, and straight, and cis, and all those things are not like—are not neutral, but we think of them as neutral. So I feel like, yeah, I feel like we’re in this place where like, you know, there are these like spikes, but it’s because of this trendiness that—but it doesn’t mean that’s gonna be that way forever, right? So until we re-conceive of what is neutral, like, what is the center? And if we keep thinking of maleness and whiteness, et cetera, et cetera as the center, then we’re gonna keep like cycling back to that, you know? And so I think there’s like a different way to conceive of it that is like—but again, that’s about divesting. That’s about, like, rejecting the structure altogether, of everything, which is like really different than just being like, “Rah rah!” Like, “yay!” Like it’s actually more about like pulling everything out from the roots and like starting again, and how do we that? And I don’t know. Look, I don’t know how we do that. I think that’s like a big question and I think um… you know, we’ll see. SWB Yeah. If—if the question is basically like, ok, well if we redefine what neutral is or like sort of what—what normal is and we cannot do that unless we can deal with our internalized misogyny. [Right] Right? And so it’s like, ok, well then how do we deal with that? And that’s such a huge question. Then—then, you know, it’s like—it’s a long haul to get back around to like, ok then what—what—what does the world look like after that [right] and like who the hell knows. But I’m—I’m curious: what has that meant in your personal work in your life? So, like, how did you get to a place where you felt like you had the confidence to show up with, you know, your, I’ll use your quote from earlier, with your “fat mind,” [chuckling in background and chuckles] and like and to say like, “I’m here and I’m going to take up space and I’m going to tell the stories that I want to tell, and I’m going to do them in these genres that don’t—that haven’t really been recognized, or I’m going to take genre and I’m gonna do whatever the fuck I want with it.” Like how did you get to a place where you felt like that was something that you could do? [37:51] CMM I wish I could say that it was all internal because certainly part of the process is like, being like, “I am going to do this thing.” Part of it was actually—but part—a lot of it was other people, you know? I was lucky in that like I had like my girlfriend slash wife who’s like brilliant and I trust and love, like being like, “This is really awesome. This is really different.” There were other people in my life like really encouraging me and like, you know, readers who read my work and wrote to me and, you know, so there were like these other sort of forces working. And then at some point I—I feel like I was looking at what I was doing and I was like, “I have something to say.” And, you know, the interesting thing about being like a writer or being any kind of artist is like you have to have an ego. Because, you know, you have to say like, “What I’m creating is important enough that I think other people should pay for it, should read it. It should be published, or it should be presented,” or whatever, and like that requires an amount of ego where you’re like, “I think that what I have to say is that important.” Um and I think sometimes people forget that element of it or they—or they—they’re like, “Oh like this person is so arrogant,” or whatever but it’s like no, no, you have to believe that, or else why the fuck are you writing? What’s the point? Or why are you making whatever art? So at some point I had to be like, “Yes, like I’m really good at this. I’m gonna—I’m gonna do it and I’m just gonna make this happen.” And that felt really amazing, and it felt really—and it felt right. And now—so it’s like I had to get over this hump, and then at some point, like obviously like the books are doing really well and I was like, “Ok so I wasn’t—” But even the book hadn’t done well I think I still would’ve felt that way like, “I’m good at what I do.” Like I know that I’m good at—I’m not good at a lot of things. Like, you know, I can’t draw to save my life. Like, you know, I’m really bad at dancing, like I’m not a fast runner, when I paint walls it’s always really crooked, like there I do not have a lot of skills but I know that I’m a good writer. And that—I can say that and like I know that’s true. And I would never—you know, I don’t ever say things like I, yeah, I would never claim to be anything that I’m not and like—but I know I’m a good writer. And I have that. I have that. And so… I can sort of move forward that and that’s like in my arsenal of like getting through my life and like getting through everything um and knowing that and believing that. So… yeah. I don’t know. So I think it is like—it’s, yeah, it’s partially like sort of taking from other people what they are handing to you because I think oftentimes people will say to you like, “You’re really good at this thing.” And you want to be like—especially women want to be like, [uptalking:] “No, no, no. Like I’m not—I’m not—oh, oh, you know, like I—thank you. I’m just doing what I do.” You know? And it’s like you want to—because you’re trained to like minimize yourself in that way and it’s like—it’s like saying, “Oh thank you, I worked really hard on that. So thanks so much. I really appreciate it.” And it can be scary and also for me like I get really scared when I have to admit like—Like, for example, like right now I’m working on this new book and I’m really scared that I’m not smart enough to write it and that’s really hard to admit. Because it’s like, oh my god, like, what if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew? Like what if, you know? And so now I’ve gotta like rapidly make myself the kind of writer who can get through this project, and that’s like a very terrifying challenge. But also, that’s how I know I’m getting better, because I’m like pushing myself through like these new stages of—of art and of—you know, and I read my book—my book came out in October. When I read it I’m like, “I’m already a better writer than I was when I wrote this book.” And that’s really exciting too, being like, “Oh no, like I, you know, I’m already better.” … Like I’m already sick of reading from it because I’m like, “Oh I can do better than this,” you know? [Laughs] So yeah so I feel like it’s like taking what people give you… sort of, you know, challenging yourself and pushing yourself and, you know, knowing what you’re good at, and I think also like a lot of that in—involves like being bad at things. Like, I don’t know, my dad is a chemical engineer and the poor man was trying to get me to be a scientist for like my entire life and of course I like at every turn just resisted him in [chuckles] in every way [chuckling in background]. [41:29] CMM [Continued] And I’m ba—I’m not good at math, I’m not good at, you know? [Laughs] You know like I’m not good at any of that stuff. Um but I do remember like getting I think a C in chemistry in high school and I had like a—I had like a conniption, like I was having like a nervous breakdown, and my dad was like, “Look,” he said, “Ye—did you do your best?” And I said, “I did!” Like I was going to school, I was like. He’s like, “That’s all you can do. It’s ok. You don’t—you’re not good—no one’s—no one’s good at everything.” He’s like, “I never trust people who have like straight As in absolutely everything because it’s like… it’s like you’ve gotta fail, you’ve gotta,” well he didn’t say—he didn’t say “fuck up” but I would say you gotta fuck up sometimes. You gotta be like, “I’m gonna try this thing, maybe I’ll get a little better, maybe not. Like, I’m—but also I can do this.” Or, “This thing gives me pleasure, I’m gonna do it anyway.” And I feel like there’s this way of just like figuring out like, yeah, like how you occupy your space and like being ok with bad at things and also being comfortable with being good at something and men are good at both those things. Men are really good at being like super confident in everything that they’re doing and also like fucking up royally at the same time. SWB And they just move on! CMM They’re just going on! Right! And like women are just like, “Aaaaaah!” [Laughter in background] And I feel like it’s like because we’re just taught to do that, we’re taught to like [inaudible crosstalk] freak out and agonize at every turn. And it’s like you don’t have to live your life that way. That’s like a prison. That’s fake. So, yeah, so I don’t know, and this is all stuff that I’ve only realized in the last like few years of my life, you know? And so there’s something really freeing about that. SWB I love it so much. CMM I’m so glad [laughs]. SWB I love it so much because, you know, we talk about this a lot on the show. This sort of like… having other—like when other people come to you and tell you you’re doing great, and like how important it is to actually listen to them and take that seriously because it’s so easy to brush it off and, again, like to come back to what—what I mentioned at the beginning, like, to reduce your own successes to luck, right? [Yeah] And to like, “Oh yeah I wasn’t—” No, like, sure, I mean, it’s not to say like there are some ways in which we all get lucky, there are ways in which we happen to have this moment, and the right thing at the right time but like, things have happened for me in ways that were good because I worked my ass off, right? [Right, yes] Like I’m good at things and that is why I’ve gotten a lot of it. [43:28] CMM And I think also recognizing because for me like people will ask me like, “What is—you’re having this moment, what does that mean?” And I’m like, “Well, like it’s a lot of things.” Like it is some amount of luck. Like there’s timing. Timing is a thing you often can’t but like good timing. Yes, I’ve worked my ass off. I’m also really privileged in a lot of ways. Like I grew up, you know, I was educated, like I grew up in a certain kind of household. Like I’ve never like been hungry, I’ve never like been homeless. Like there’s like all these things sort of working for me um so it’s like, you know, and also, yeah, I’m working really hard, and also I have some talent. And I think there’s like, like saying like, “I have a talent,” which is a thing that like is sort of nebulous and is hard to pin down and like where does it come from? And can you teach it and like I mean that’s kind of beyond purview and I could talk about that for like ten hours but there’s like that element, there’s privilege which you can’t control, there’s luck which you also can’t control, all you can control is like the hard work element. SWB Yeah, I mean I don’t know if you can teach this necessarily but it seems like something you can give to someone. CMM Or like—yeah or like let someone know about it. Yeah, no, for sure. KL Talk about it more like you’re saying, I mean I think talking to each other and talking to other women who may not just may not ha—have experience talking about this stuff or listening to people who have experienced it [yeah]. It’s, you know. SWB Or also it’s like we’ve sort of been taught to be ashamed of it. Like something [exactly] we talk about a lot is how common it is for women to feel like they shouldn’t talk about their ambitions, or talk [yes] about things they want, or like to like—yeah, like to—to—to be able to say out loud like the intentionality that they have [yeah] and put into things [yeah]. CMM Right it’s—it’s very gauche to be like, “This is what I want.” Or, “This is my goal.” SWB And I’m kind of fucking tired of that [yeah] like I don’t—I’m not interested in that. I want to hear what—what women want and [yeah] like what they’re—what they’re doing— CMM But not like in a Mel Gibson kind of way [boisterous laughter]. KL No. Never. [45:00] SWB Never. Literally never in a Mel Gibson kind of way. Carmen, thank you so much for being on the show today. CMM Oh of course! No problem, thank you [music fades in, ramps up, plays for five seconds alone, fades out]. SWB Is everybody ready for the Fuck Yeah of the Week? JL I’m so ready. SWB I’m always ready for the Fuck Yeah this week, because the Fuck Yeah this week is: naps. KL Aaaah! SWB Ugh uh do you—ok… JL How do you feel right now just saying the word “naps”? SWB I feel like I want a nap. JL You know what thinking about napping does? It can reduce your blood pressure. KL Just thinking about it? JL Just thinking about a nap! KL Oh my god. JL There was a recent study that found that just people anticipating naps was enough to lower your blood pressure. KL So we should be thinking more about snoozing. SWB Maybe this is why my blood pressure is so great because I think about naps a lot [KL laughs]. JL Everyone just stop for a second… think about a nap [sigh of relief from KL]… SWB So I don’t nap like all people nap. Like some people are like, “Oh my gosh, if I sit down for a nap it’s like two hours.” And I’m like I don’t have that kinda time. But when I take a nap, I—I take a micro nap. And— [46:13] JL What is a micro nap? And tell me more! SWB Ok. So, you know, I work at home, and, you know, sometimes you get like that afternoon lull where your brain doesn’t work that well, it’s like after lunch and you just need a minute. If I have a little bit of time something that I’ll often do is I will set my alarm for 12 or 15 minutes, and… I’ll just kind of doze off. And when I wake back up 12 to 15 minutes later, I feel so much better. And I know it sounds wild. Right? Like I know it sounds wild to be like, “Wait, you nap for 12 minutes?” JL Stop. Does this work? Is this real? SWB So it works for me and—and I’ll tell you when it works: it works when I’m having an afternoon where I’m just—I get that sluggish, tired feeling and where I’m feeling so sleepy already that I’m like, “I just can’t.” So I’m already like already pretty sleepy feeling and I figure like, instead of trying to fight it, I just lean into it, and then come back bounced back. And so for me, when I’m in that zone, I found that that kind of little break is much more productive than like trying to fight through it. So—so here’s my 12-minute story, ok: two minutes to fall asleep. Ten minutes of napping. JL And it wor—and you fall asleep within those two minutes? SWB Oftentimes I can fall into like a light sleep. JL Mmm… I’m—I feel like my blood pressure’s dropped just listening to you tell that story. KL I know! I—yeah, I have not usually been able to do that and I think now I’m listening to you say this and I’m wondering if it’s something that I could maybe just like try to practice a little bit more because when I have napped and just like been able to do it for like half an hour or something, even that is, you know, really nice and—and I feel refreshed. But I feel like I was always one of those people who I would go to sl—like go to sleep to nap and I would two hours later I would [chuckles] wake up and I’d be like, “Ah! Everything’s shot!” And then you feel terrible. SWB Yeah, I mean I can do that if I lie down for that long it’s like you’re just you’re brain foggy because you go into those deep sleep cycles. I don’t do that—it’s just like a real quick thing. Here’s the thing: you know my number one tip for getting good at the micro nap? I mean I don’t know if micro naps are gonna work for you or not, maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But my tip is like, first up… learn to feel really good about the idea. Like don’t feel bad or guilty about taking a little nap [KL absolutely].  Don’t feel like you should be doing something else, don’t feel like it’s sort of like indulgent. Feel like sometimes that is the most productive way that you could spending your time. [48:49] JL There’s so many studies about how good naps are for you. I mean like things like just being more alert, increasing your patience, reducing heart disease. SWB Oh my god, I need way more patience. So should I take a lot more naps [laughs]? JL Maybe you need to up it to [inaudible over crosstalk]— KL Yeah, definitely. SWB You know the other thing I think, though, like you were saying, Katel, like you need to practice a little bit. I do think it’s the kind of thing, like, even if you’ve mentally given yourself permission, you may not have kind of physically let go of this idea that—that taking nap is a—is, like, a weird thing to be doing. So like normalize it, and then it might get easier to fall asleep. KL Completely. I think that is absolutely true. And I think also just doing some sort of physical hygiene around that, where, you know, I’m putting myself in like a very comfortable place, and making it conducive to doing that instead of being like, “I’m gonna—I’m sitting on couch already, I’m just gonna like lay my head down,” that doesn’t always work. JL One of the things that always frustrated me as a new mom is everyone was like, “Sleep when baby sleeps.” And I’m like, “Buuut I can’t just sleep on demand,” and that would be so annoying because you can’t predict the sleep schedule of your newborn or toddler, it turns out um [laughs] and so he would go to sleep and I’d be like, “Well, I want to sleep,” but I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep and so like and I would give myself two minutes, ten minutes, 15 and I wouldn’t fall asleep and then I would just get frustrated and think about that and then I would just give up and—and do something else like eat or shower which was fine. Other necessities. But I—then I eventually realized that for me it wasn’t just about falling asleep, the idea of just lying down and giving my body and sometimes my mind a chance to just relax also was really refreshing. So I’ve gotten way better at that. So maybe not falling asleep but this idea of just breaks and resting and giving myself a chance to do that. And like you were saying, Sara, being ok with that. And also being ok if I don’t fall asleep. And I think that was one of the thing that was one of my biggest battles is I’d be like, “Napping’s not working. I’m not falling asleep.” But being like, “You know what? I’m just gonna lie here for ten minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, whenever he decided to wake back up and I’m just gonna—I’m just gonna be.” [51:04] SWB Did you ever think that you would be just like looking forward to when he’s like a surly tween or teen [laughter] and like won’t get up until 11:30 or [laughs]? So yeah, naps. I recommend it. They are Sara approved. I think you should take ‘em. I think you should feel good about them. I recognize if you work l

" In the end there's really no way to know how much my misshapen body shaped me except to know that it did. My feelings about this body are likewise difficult to sort out. Indeed I may never untangle these strands - vexed from blessed, bitter from sweet. " Patricia Horvath Patricia is the author of the book All the Difference (Etruscan Press), a memoir about her journey through scoliosis and spinal fusion surgery. Her stories and essays have been published widely in literary journals including Shenandoah, The Massachusetts Review, New Ohio Review, The Los Angeles Review, and Confrontation. She is the recipient of New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowships in both fiction and literary nonfiction and the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction at Bellevue Literary Review, and has held residency fellowships at Hedgebrook, The Millay Colony for the Arts, and The Blue Mountain Center. She teaches creative writing at Framingham State University in Massachusetts. Patricia's website is https://patricialhorvath.com

02:21 - Debate about the pronunciation and the basis of 'Leda,' Amy's play. www.ledaplay.com 06:31 - Julia Swift. 08:16 - Reading in Ann Arbor, Michigan. http://www.a2ct.org/shows/the-play-s-the-thing-2015 09:40 - Director Pat Henderson! 11:31 - All ticket proceeds will go to the charity, Mercy Corps! https://www.mercycorps.org 13:01 - Amy's next project, "Charlie Johnson Reads All of Proust." 15:22 - Amy has applied to the Millay Colony to work on her Proust play. https://www.millaycolony.org 15:51 - Various artist residencies: McDowell in New Hampshire http://www.macdowellcolony.org and Yaddo in NY https://www.yaddo.org and Ragdale http://ragdale.org 17:01 - What is Amy's writing process? 18:14 - Used to be more concerned about selling her writing. 20:00 - Amy doesn't consider herself a novelist. 23:28 - Amy's evolution in being able to provide constructive criticism. www.ledaplay.com www.amycrider.com/ Follow us on Twitter or Facebook Intro Music: "Are You Famous, Yet?" - Laura Scruggs. Outro Music: "AYFY 1" - Christopher Kriz

Robert Repino had a couple of false start novels before setting out on The War With No Name series, which was inspired by a dream (really) and now includes three books: MORT(E), CUL-DE-SAC, and D'ARC. He and James discuss their MFA memories, learning to write, 80s nostalgia, and fans getting MORT(E) tattoos. Plus, Urban Waite and James talk about MFAs and creating your own residency.    - Robert Repino: https://robertrepino.com/ Robert and James discuss:  Emerson College  St. Joseph's University Press  Arts Boston  TKTS  Pamela Painter  DeWitt Henry  David Emblidge  Aditi Rao  Jessica Treadway  Jennifer Weltz  Laura van den Berg  Urban Waite  Michael Mann  Kapo Amos Ng  Animal Farm  1984  GHOSTBUSTERS  BACK TO THE FUTURE  THE GODFATHER  LETHAL WEAPON  METROID  THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK STAR TREK MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien    -   Urban Waite: http://www.urbanwaite.com/   Urban and James Discuss:    Emerson College Western Washington University University of Washington Margot Livesey St. Botolph Club  Vermont Studio Center  Chip Cheek  WHAT IF? WRITING EXERCISES FOR FICTION WRITERS ed by Pamela Painter & Anne Bernays  Richard Hoffman  Frederick Reiken Lizzie Stark  Thomas Mallon  Bread Loaf Writers' Conference  Mineral School  AWP Conference  Sewanee Writers' Conference  Yaddo  The Millay Colony - http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/

Friday Reading Series Vi Khi Nao holds an MFA in fiction from Brown University, where she received the John Hawkes and Feldman Prizes in fiction and the Kim Ann Arstark Memorial Award in poetry. Her work includes poetry, fiction, film, and cross-genre collaboration. Her stories, drawings, and poems have also appeared in numerous literary journals, including Glimmer Train, NOON, and Ploughshares. She is the author of two novellas, Swans In Half-Mourning (2013) and The Vanishing Point of Desire (2011), and her poetry collection, The Old Philosopher, was the winner of 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Her manuscript, A Brief Alphabet of Torture, won the 2016 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest. In Fall 2016, Coffee House Press will publish her novel Fish in Exile. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Jayson P. Smith is a writer, editor, & educator. Their poems & interviews appear in journals such as fields magazine, The Offing, Day One, The Rumpus, & boundary2. Jayson has been the recipient of fellowships from The Conversation, Millay Colony for the Arts, & Callaloo as well as scholarships from Cave Canem & The New Harmony Writers' Workshop. Jayson is currently a Mentor at Urban Word NYC & Creative Director for The Other Black Girl Collective. Jayson lives in Brooklyn and at www.jaysonpsmith.com.