Podcasts about North American Review

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Donna Vorreyer about her poetry collection, Unrivered (Sundress Publications, 2025). Donna Vorreyer strikes gold with Unrivered, a stunning collection of poems that meditate on grief, regret, longing, self-love, and acceptance. Reeling from the loss of her parents, Vorreyer's speaker is forced to grapple with her own mortality, and with the complicated feelings that come with aging. At times whispering softly in our ears, at times spitting venom with every word, Vorreyer charts the ways loss impacts the body and our perceptions of self, and how we are to keep on living. With a heroic sonnet crown woven through the book like the loose stitches in her grandmother's quilt, Vorreyer offers hope, courage, and gratitude in the face of our deepest fears. The result is a masterful and gripping story of loss and acceptance. Offering up rending, apocalyptic elegy, ironic detachment, or passionate, joyful celebration of life, Unrivered is bound to both take your breath away and give it a new form. Donna Vorreyer is the author of four full-length poetry collections: To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), and Unrivered (2025), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, and Booth. Her visual art has been featured in North American Review, Waxwing, About Place, Penn Review, Ilanot Review, Double Back Review, Pithead Chapel, and other journals. Donna currently lives and creates in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Donna Vorreyer about her poetry collection, Unrivered (Sundress Publications, 2025). Donna Vorreyer strikes gold with Unrivered, a stunning collection of poems that meditate on grief, regret, longing, self-love, and acceptance. Reeling from the loss of her parents, Vorreyer's speaker is forced to grapple with her own mortality, and with the complicated feelings that come with aging. At times whispering softly in our ears, at times spitting venom with every word, Vorreyer charts the ways loss impacts the body and our perceptions of self, and how we are to keep on living. With a heroic sonnet crown woven through the book like the loose stitches in her grandmother's quilt, Vorreyer offers hope, courage, and gratitude in the face of our deepest fears. The result is a masterful and gripping story of loss and acceptance. Offering up rending, apocalyptic elegy, ironic detachment, or passionate, joyful celebration of life, Unrivered is bound to both take your breath away and give it a new form. Donna Vorreyer is the author of four full-length poetry collections: To Everything There Is (2020), Every Love Story is an Apocalypse Story (2016) and A House of Many Windows (2013), and Unrivered (2025), all from Sundress Publications. Recent work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Harpur Palate, Baltimore Review, and Booth. Her visual art has been featured in North American Review, Waxwing, About Place, Penn Review, Ilanot Review, Double Back Review, Pithead Chapel, and other journals. Donna currently lives and creates in the western suburbs of Chicago and runs the online reading series A Hundred Pitchers of Honey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/poetry

Welcome to Off The Bricks poets and poetry lovers, our guest this week is Natalie Solmer. Solmer is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Indianapolis Review and is an Assistant Professor of English at Ivy Tech Community College. She grew up in South Bend, Indiana, went to Clemson University in South Carolina, and majored in horticulture. Before her return to grad school and career in teaching, she worked as a grocery store florist for 13 years. Her poetry has been published in numerous publications such as: Colorado Review, North American Review, The Literary Review, and Pleiades. You can find her poetry for purchase at Kelsay Books, and on Amazon.

The queens shine a rainbow spotlight on some fabulous, emerging queer poets.Support Breaking Form by reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts here.Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is available from Bridwell Press. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.  Notes:Xavier Searle is a poet and educator. A recipient of an Academy of American Poets University & College Prize, their work has appeared in The Broken Plate, Stone of Madness, and the anthology Broken Olive Branches. They hold an MFA from North Carolina State University. Read their poem "Elegy." Deon Robinson (he/him) is a Queer Afro-Latino poet born-and-raised in The Bronx. He received his B.A. in Creative Writing from Susquehanna University, where he was a two-time recipient of the Janet C. Weis Prize for Literary Excellence. Currently, he is a first year MFA Candidate in Poetry at the University of Urbana-Champaign where he is a recipient of a Graduate College Master's Fellowship and selected by Adrian Matejka for the 2022 Hobart L. and Mary Kay Peer Memorial Award. Read Deon Robinson's "(Pleasure-Knowledge) (Knowledge-Pain)" from The Adroit Journal. Visit his website: https://djrthepoet.weebly.com Kaitlin Hsu 徐欣 (she/她) is a queer Taiwanese poet, translator and editor from the Bay Area. Her work can be found in A Public Space, Poet Lore, Peach Mag and elsewhere. She is a 2024 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and works at Kaya Press as an associate editor. Hsu was also a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. Check out Hsu's website at https://myrefoli.github.io and read her poem "As a Child, I Pretended to Be a Tree" here.Stefania Gomez is a 2025 Luminarts Fellow in Poetry and a 2023 Fulbright Research Award Grantee, and a finalist for the 2024 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship and 2023-2024 Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship Semifinalist. She has received additional fellowships from the Dirt Palace, Sewanee Writers Workshop, Lambda Literary, and the International Quilt Museum. She received her MFA in poetry at Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently a PhD candidate in English at the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches Creative Writing at The Chicago High School for the Arts, Chicago's first public arts high school. Read her poem "Wreck" here and check out her website here. Another Gomez poem worth your time is "At the New York City AIDS Memorial"John Bonanni founded and edits the Cape Cod Review. His poems have appeared in North American Review, Foglifter, Black Warrior Review, Washington Square Review, Florida Review, and Gulf Coast, and his literary criticism has been featured in DIAGRAM, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, and The Kenyon Review. He teaches on Cape Cod. Visit his website and read "Elegy for Gaeton Dugas" here. Bonnani's book Retrovirology, won the Donald Hall Prize (judged by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers) and will be available in September from the Pitt Poetry Series. Alec Hershman is the author of the chapbooks Permanent and Wonderful Storage  (2019) and The Egg Goes Under (2017), both from Seven Kitchens Press. He lives in Michigan where he teaches literature and writing to college students. His poetry appears widely in literary journals and magazines such as Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, The Journal, Sycamore Review, DIAGRAM, Columbia, The National Poetry Review, and Harpur Palate. You can find links to his work online at https://alechershmanpoetry.com. Read Hershman's "Mercury Fields." Denice Frohman is a poet and performer from New York City. She has received support from The Pew Center for the Arts, Baldwin for the Arts, CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Poem-A-Day, The BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, The Rumpus and elsewhere. A former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she's featured on hundreds of stages from The Apollo to The White House. Currently, she is developing her one-woman show, Esto No Tiene Nombre, which centers the oral histories of Latina lesbian elders. Read or listen to Frohman's poem "Lady Jordan" here and check her website out here: https://www.denicefrohman.comZachary Scalzo (he/they) is a queer writer, translator, and theatremaker. They can be found at azachofalltrades.com and on Instagram at @zjscalzo. Their poetry has appeared in journals including Dear Poetry, Ghost City Review, and &Change. Read their poem “Sometimes—there's God—so quickly.” Journalist Randy Shilts popularized the concept of "Patient Zero" in his 1987 book, And the Band Played On. By 1987, however, it was known that an infected individual might not display symptoms for several years, and that the study on which Shilts based his assumption was unlikely to have revealed a network of infection. Still, Shilts uncritically spread the story of the Los Angeles cluster study and its ‘Patient 0,' with long-standing consequences. For more about this, read here.Director Laurie Lynd released a documentary in 2019, Killing Patient Zero, which delves more into Gaeton Dugas's life. Read more about the documentary here.

Humans have been exchanging tokens of friendship since before recorded history. From calling cards to Valentines to Christmas cards, the modern greeting card industry evolved. Research: “America’s First Christmas Card.” Albany Institute of History and Art. https://www.albanyinstitute.org/online-exhibition/50-objects/section/america-s-first-christmas-card Britannica Editors. "scarab". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Apr. 2014, https://www.britannica.com/topic/scarab Britannica Editors. "greeting card". Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 Mar. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/greeting-card Brown, Ellen F. “Christmas, Inc.: A Brief History of the Holiday Card.” JSTOR Daily. Dec. 20, 2015. https://daily.jstor.org/history-christmas-card-holiday-card/ Chase, Ernest Dudley. “The Romance of Greeting Cards.” Rust Craft. Cambridge, MA. 1956. “Dali at Hallmark.” Hallmark Art Collection. https://www.hallmarkartcollection.com/creatively-thinking/stories/dali-at-hallmark/ “Esther Howland 1847.” Mount Holyoke. https://www.mtholyoke.edu/directory/alum/esther-howland Evans, Elaine Altman. “The Sacred Scarab, Occasional Paper.” McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture. University of Tennessee. January 1, 1996. https://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/1996/01/01/sacred-scarab/ Greeting Card Association. “The History of Greeting Cards.” https://www.greetingcard.org/history/ Hanc, John. “The History of the Christmas Card.” Smithsonian. Dec. 9, 2015. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-christmas-card-180957487/ Henry, William E. “Art and Cultural Symbolism: A Psychological Study of Greeting Cards.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 6, no. 1, 1947, pp. 36–44. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/426176 Kavanagh, Marybeth. “Louis Prang, Father of the American Christmas Card.” The New York Historical. Dec. 19, 2012. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/prang Koon, Wee Kek. “How ancient Chinese new year cards went from elites’ greetings to bribery instruments.” South China Morning Post. Jan. 31, 2026. https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/chinese-culture/article/3341675/how-ancient-chinese-new-year-cards-went-elites-greetings-bribery-instruments?module=perpetual_scroll_0&pgtype=article Korolkov, Maxim. “‘Greeting Tablets’ in Early China: Some Traits of the Communicative Etiquette of Officialdom in Light of Newly Excavated Inscriptions.” T’oung Pao, vol. 98, no. 4/5, 2012, pp. 295–348. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41725988 Lee, Ruth Webb. “A History of Valentines.” 1984. Newberry, Percy E. “Scarabs: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian Seals and Signet Rings.” London. Archibald Constable and Co. Ltd. 1908. https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/scarabsintroduc00newbuoft/scarabsintroduc00newbuoft.pdf Purcell, Denise. “Authentic Messaging and Independent Makers Drive Greeting Cards' Next-Gen Relevance.” U.S. Chamber of Commerce. https://www.uschamber.com/co/good-company/launch-pad/greeting-card-next-gen-relevance#:~:text=The%20category%20is%20massive:%20According,card%20market%20at%20$7%20billion. Grafton, Samuel. “Holly Leaf and Copper Plate.” The North American Review, vol. 226, no. 6, 1928, pp. 660–64. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25110633 Shoichet, Catherine E. “This ‘visionary’ woman changed the way many Americans celebrate Valentine’s Day.” CNN. Feb. 14, 2024. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/13/style/esther-howland-valentines-card-history-cec Schmidt, Leigh Eric. “The Commercialization of the Calendar: American Holidays and the Culture of Consumption, 1870-1930.” The Journal of American History, vol. 78, no. 3, 1991, pp. 887–916. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2078795 Stupperich, Andy. “Art Education: Louis Prang's Christmas Card Competitions.” The Henry Ford Museum. January 29, 2026. https://www.thehenryford.org/collections/explore/articles/art-education-louis-prang%27s-christmas-card-competitions Terrell, Ellen. “Esther Howland and the Business of Love.” Library of Congress. March 23, 2016. https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2016/03/esther-howland-and-the-business-of-love/ “World's first printed Valentine's Card.” A History of the World. BBC. 2014. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/L1NM_6mWRymAMKXcRDlXJA Wright, Helena E. “A winning design: Prang’s Christmas card contests of the 1880s.” National Museum of American History. December 23, 2019. https://americanhistory.si.edu/explore/stories/winning-design-prangs-christmas-card-contests-1880s See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s, Jane Kim and her brother, Kevin, dutifully embodied the model minority myth as their parents demanded: both stellar tennis players and academically gifted, they worked hard to make their parents proud. Jane went on to law school. Kevin came close to becoming a professional tennis player. But where they started is nowhere near where they have ended up: Jane has stopped going to her law school classes, and Kevin, now a policeman, has become increasingly distant. Their parents, each on their own path toward the elusive American Dream (their mother hell-bent on having the perfect house and the perfect family, their father obsessed with working his way up from one successful business to the next), don't want to see the family unraveling. When Kevin goes missing, no one recognizes his absence as the warning sign it is until it erupts, forcing them all to come to terms with their past and present selves in a country that isn't all it promised it would be. Both deeply serious and wickedly funny, American Han (Algonquin Books, 2026) is a profound story about striving and assimilation, difficult love, and family fidelity. A searing portrait that challenges assumptions about the immigrant experience, Lisa Lee's debut introduces a powerful new voice on the literary landscape. Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received additional fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, the Korea Foundation, and others. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, Tusculum Review, Reed Magazine, New World Writing, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles and grew up in Napa, California. Recommended Books: Giada Scodellaro, Ruins, Child Morgan Day, The Oldest Bitch Alive Elaine H. Kim, “Home is Where the Han Is” Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s, Jane Kim and her brother, Kevin, dutifully embodied the model minority myth as their parents demanded: both stellar tennis players and academically gifted, they worked hard to make their parents proud. Jane went on to law school. Kevin came close to becoming a professional tennis player. But where they started is nowhere near where they have ended up: Jane has stopped going to her law school classes, and Kevin, now a policeman, has become increasingly distant. Their parents, each on their own path toward the elusive American Dream (their mother hell-bent on having the perfect house and the perfect family, their father obsessed with working his way up from one successful business to the next), don't want to see the family unraveling. When Kevin goes missing, no one recognizes his absence as the warning sign it is until it erupts, forcing them all to come to terms with their past and present selves in a country that isn't all it promised it would be. Both deeply serious and wickedly funny, American Han (Algonquin Books, 2026) is a profound story about striving and assimilation, difficult love, and family fidelity. A searing portrait that challenges assumptions about the immigrant experience, Lisa Lee's debut introduces a powerful new voice on the literary landscape. Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received additional fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, the Korea Foundation, and others. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, Tusculum Review, Reed Magazine, New World Writing, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles and grew up in Napa, California. Recommended Books: Giada Scodellaro, Ruins, Child Morgan Day, The Oldest Bitch Alive Elaine H. Kim, “Home is Where the Han Is” Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s, Jane Kim and her brother, Kevin, dutifully embodied the model minority myth as their parents demanded: both stellar tennis players and academically gifted, they worked hard to make their parents proud. Jane went on to law school. Kevin came close to becoming a professional tennis player. But where they started is nowhere near where they have ended up: Jane has stopped going to her law school classes, and Kevin, now a policeman, has become increasingly distant. Their parents, each on their own path toward the elusive American Dream (their mother hell-bent on having the perfect house and the perfect family, their father obsessed with working his way up from one successful business to the next), don't want to see the family unraveling. When Kevin goes missing, no one recognizes his absence as the warning sign it is until it erupts, forcing them all to come to terms with their past and present selves in a country that isn't all it promised it would be. Both deeply serious and wickedly funny, American Han (Algonquin Books, 2026) is a profound story about striving and assimilation, difficult love, and family fidelity. A searing portrait that challenges assumptions about the immigrant experience, Lisa Lee's debut introduces a powerful new voice on the literary landscape. Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received additional fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, the Korea Foundation, and others. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, Tusculum Review, Reed Magazine, New World Writing, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles and grew up in Napa, California. Recommended Books: Giada Scodellaro, Ruins, Child Morgan Day, The Oldest Bitch Alive Elaine H. Kim, “Home is Where the Han Is” Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In this episode of What Are You Reading?, host Jason Blitman sits down with Lisa Lee to talk about the books that shaped and sustained her through the decade-long journey to her debut novel, American Han.Lisa Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received other fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, and the Korea Foundation. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Lee holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles.Sign up for the Gays Reading Book Club HERESUBSTACK! MERCH! WATCH! CONTACT! hello@gaysreading.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Notes and Links to Lisa Lee's Work     Lisa Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, North American Review, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere. Her essay on racial invisibility and erasure in the writing workshop was featured on Bitch Media's feminism & pop culture podcast Popaganda, on the episode “Writing About Race.”  Today, March 31, is Pub Day for her novel, American Han.   Buy American Han   Lisa Lee's Website   Review of American Han from Kirkus Reviews   At about 1:40, Lisa discusses the exhaustion and excitement that comes with Pub Day and the book's unveiling At about 4:45, Lisa gives info on publishing and buying her book At about 5:40, Lisa and Pete shout out meaningful writers in her life and talk about her book events coming up At about 6:15, Lisa responds to Pete's question about her language and reading life in childhood and into young adulthood At about 9:00, Lisa cites Housekeeping by Robinson and Everett's Erasure as changing her perceptions of what writers At about 10:30, Lisa expands upon the greatness of Percival Evertett, homing in on Erasure At about 13:20, Pete reads a generic definition of han and compares it to a word like saudade that is virtually untranslatable  At about 14L15, Lisa responds to Pete's questions about the meaning(s) of han At about 16:00, Pete sets the book's exposition, and Lisa expands on the narrator Jane's mindset at the beginning of American Han  At about 20:45, The two discuss the competitiveness within the family and expectations of Jane's mother  At about 21:45, Lisa responds to Pete asking about the quote that Jane has succeeded “despite” her mother, not “because of” her mother  At about 25:15, Pete cites the Korean folk tale of Chun in talking about parental-child relationships and sibling relationships  At about 26:05, Lisa responds to Pete's question about empathy/sympathy for her characters  At about 29:05, Lisa reflects on Pete's wondering about han and intergenerational traumas in the book, and expands upon differences in han's impact in contemporary Korea and among members of the Korean diaspora At about 33:30, Pete highlights a memorable scene that  At about 34:05, Pete riffs on the "manosphere" and connections to Kevin, the narrator's sister, and his misogyny; Lisa speaks on Kevin's background and sense of han and sense of gender identity At about 40:15, Lisa and Pete discuss the book's timing and pacing and flashbacks At about 42:40, Pete highlights an important and well-drawn scene about an alternate way of being mother and daughter  At about 43:55, Lisa expands on a Korean custom of associating parents with their children through different forms of address At about 45:40, The two reflect on children as the parents' “identity” At about 46:40, Pete points out the independence of the mother and father at a point in the book where Kevin's horrific act shakes up the family  At about 47:35, The two discuss the importance of a family vacation and ideas of “let[ting] the lid off” At about 48:10, Pete asks Lisa about ending the book as she does, with a flashback, and with the tone that she uses      You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode.       Pete is very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. His conversation with Jeff Pearlman, a recent guest, is up now at Chicago Review.     Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl      Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting Pete's one-man show, DIY podcast and extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    This month's Patreon bonus episode features an exploration of formative and transformative writing for children, as Pete surveys wonderful writers on their own influences.    Pete has added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show.     This is a passion project, a DIY operation, and Pete would love for your help in promoting what he's convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 335 with Toni Ann Johnson, who won the 2024 Screen Door Press Prize for Fiction with her linked collection, BUT WHERE'S HOME? (UPK 2026). In 2021, she won the Flannery O'Connor Award for her linked short story collection LIGHT SKIN GONE TO WASTE (UGA Press 2022). The collection was shortlisted for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, and also shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize. A novella, HOMEGOING, won Accents Publishing's inaugural novella contest in 2020 and was released in May of 2021.    She is also a screenwriter with a number of produced projects to her credit including, Ruby Bridges (ABC), Crown Heights (Showtime), The Courage to Love (Lifetime) the TV pilot, Save The Last Dance (Fox Television), and the feature film, Step Up 2: The Streets (Summit Entertainment).    The episode airs March 31 or April 1.    Please go to ceasefiretoday.org, and/or https://act.uscpr.org/a/letaidin to call your congresspeople and demand an end to the forced famine and destruction of Gaza and the Gazan people.    You can also donate at chuffed.org, World Central Kitchen, and so many more, and/or you can contact writer friend Ursula Villarreal-Moura directly or through Pete, as she has direct links with friends in Gaza.

Notes and Links to Keith O'Brien's Work     Keith O'Brien has written five books, won the PEN America award for best biography, and has contributed to multiple publications over the years.    Keith's work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Rolling Stone, the Wall Street Journal, and on National Public Radio. His radio stories have aired on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition, as well as Marketplace and This American Life. His latest gem is Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird.   Buy Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird    Keith O'Brien's Website   Review for Heartland from The Wall Street Journal   At about 1:50, Pete shouts out his brother as a huge Larry Bird fan At about 2:30, Keith talks about his book tour for the launch of Heartland and gives a summary of the book at about 4:40, Keith responds to Pete asking about the time period covered in the book and how he figured out his angle for the book at about 7:55, Keith talks about his attempts to talk to Larry Bird for the book at about 10:00, Pete sets the record straight grammatically, and Keith expands on Indiana State University President Dick Landini's persona  at about 11:20, The two discuss the book's opening sequence, and Keith explains why he started the book where he did, with an Indiana State NIT loss and Larry Bird fracas  at about 16:25, Keith talks about Larry Bird's treatment as "The Great White Hope" and the ways in which he was talked about and treated in the late 1970s at about 19:00, Larry Bird's childhood is discussed, including his father's military background, and Larry talks about his research and work to make Joey Bird "three-dimensional"  at about 22:40, Keith gives background on the poverty and hardship in Larry Bird's upbringing at about 23:40, Dave Bliss, Bobby Knight, and Larry Bird's college recruitment are discussed at about 24:20, Keith recounts an amazing story involving Denny Crum and Larry Bird's recruitment  at about 26:45, Larry's short time at Indiana University and Northwood Institute are highlighted at about 29:40, The two discuss important recruits for Indiana State to team up with Larry Bird, including Harry Morgan and his upbringing in a racist town/society at about 33:00, Larry responds to Pete's asking about the college basketball Magic Johnson/Larry Bird dynamic, and the racial dynamics and popularity of the NBA in the late 1970s at about 36:30, Keith gives background on the Celtics drafting Larry Bird after his junior year of college at about 37:10, Pete discusses the "glue guys" that Coach Hodges brought in to ISU for Larry's third year and the novelty of nationally-televised games  at about 39:00, Keith reflects on the fact that while Magic Johnson is crucial to the book's events, he was at the time of the book's action, largely unknown to Larry, and vice versa at about 41:30, Keith responds to Pete's referring to the book's last section, a sort of "Where are they now?" by calling it his favorite section and how the players and connections to ISU were irrevocably-changed    You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode.       Pete is very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. His conversation with Jeff Pearlman, a recent guest, is up now at Chicago Review.     Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl      Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting Pete's one-man show, DIY podcast and extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    This month's Patreon bonus episode features an exploration of formative and transformative writing for children, as Pete surveys wonderful writers on their own influences.    Pete has added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show.     This is a passion project, a DIY operation, and Pete would love for your help in promoting what he's convinced is a unique and spirited look at an often-ignored art form.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 334 with Lisa Lee. She is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, North American Review, Sycamore Review, and elsewhere. Her essay on racial invisibility and erasure in the writing workshop was featured on Bitch Media's feminism & pop culture podcast Popaganda, on the episode “Writing About Race.”     The episode airs on March 31, Pub Day for her novel American Han.    Please go to ceasefiretoday.org, and/or https://act.uscpr.org/a/letaidin to call your congresspeople and demand an end to the forced famine and destruction of Gaza and the Gazan people.    You can also donate at chuffed.org, World Central Kitchen, and so many more, and/or you can contact writer friend Ursula Villarreal-Moura directly or through Pete, as she has direct links with friends in Gaza.

 Poet Kevin Nance uses writing prompts regularly because they "can take you places that you never could have gone any other way."On this episode, Kevin discusses ways to access the part of the brain that author Marilynne Robinson believes is most creative—your "back mind." He also shares a prompt that helps his writing students "tap into their inner angst."About Kevin NanceKevin Nance is a photographer, arts journalist, and poet in Lexington. He has published widely in newspapers and magazines including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Poets & Writers, and has work in literary journals, including The North American Review, Poet Lore, Willawaw, and Still: The Journal. His four books include Smoke, published last year by Accents Publishing. Kevin was recently announced as the new editor of Yearling, the poetry journal of Workhorse Writers.

Send a textWe trace how the Great Plains still lives with Dust Bowl forces as Dr. Joshua Anderson links soil loss, monoculture, and rural decline to a culture that no longer asks if we are growing food. Caregiving for his father with MS shapes a vision to “restory” land and rebuild soil health through minimal disturbance, living roots, diversity, and cover.Joshua T. Anderson is a writer and soil conservationist from rural North Dakota committed to flyways, foodways, and folkways. His featured article on the intersection of soil health and human health appears in the fall issue ofEarth Island Journal, and his creative nonfiction essay on the dominance of the sugar industry in North Dakota's Red River Valley appears in Open Space(the online journal of North American Review). His recent publications on regenerative agriculture and grassland conservation appear inMary Swander's Emerging Voices,Iowa Capital Dispatch, andNorth Dakota Monitor. He was recently an artist-in-residence at the Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture in Sisters, Oregon. His soil and water conservation efforts have been featured in newspapers throughout the Great Plains, including feature interviews about his podcast, prairie conservation through arts and education, and his work to protect his home watershed. He is the co-founder of the Flyway Institute, which brings artists to rural communities in support of conservation efforts throughout the North American flyways. His first narrative nonfiction book Soil Horizons will be published by Plainspoken Books. In this episode:• topsoil loss in North Dakota since the 1960s• monoculture sugar and fuel displacing real food• food deserts amid vast agricultural acres• soil health principles and prairie ecology• costs of inputs rising as organic matter falls• cultural change and land consolidation pressures• small diversified farms feeding communities• language links: humus, humility, human• excerpt reading from Rooted In Care• forthcoming book Soil Horizons and its themesPlease help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights, and expose false solutionsSimply text Give G I V E to 1716 257 4187Support the show

Journalist and writer Elizabeth Bisland was sent on a trip around the world in 1889, in a sort of race against Nellie Bly. But that was not something she wanted to be known for. Research: Bisland, Elisabeth. “At the Sign of the Hobby Horse.” Houghton, Mifflin and Co. Riverside Press. 1910. https://archive.org/details/atsignofhobbyhor0000eliz/page/n12/mode/1up Bisland, Elizabeth, 1861-1929. “A Candle of Understanding: a Novel.” New York and London: Harper & brothers, 1903. Bisland, Elizabeth. “In Seven Stages: A Flying Trip Around the World.” New York. Harper & Brothers. 1891. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/bisland/stages/stages.html Bisland, Elizabeth. “Societies for Minding One's Own Business.” The North American Review. 11/1/1910. Bisland, Elizabeth. “The Art of Travel.” From The woman's book, dealing practically with the modern conditions of home-life, self-support, education, opportunities, and every-day problems. 1894. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_LBEhBEGmUq4C/ Bisland, Elizabeth. “The Truth About Men and Other Matters.” New York. Avondale Press. 1927. Britannica Editors. "Lafcadio Hearn". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Sep. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lafcadio-Hearn. Accessed 18 February 2026. Codrescu, Andrei. “The Many Lives of Lafcadio Hearn.” The Paris Review. 7/2/2019. https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/02/the-many-lives-of-lafcadio-hearn/ “Foley, Alethea "Mattie",” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, accessed February 19, 2026, https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/300004770. Goodman, Matthew. “Elizabeth Bisland’s Race Around the World.” Public Domain Review. 10/16/2013. https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/elizabeth-bislands-race-around-the-world/ Harrison-Kahan, Lori and Karen E. H. Skinazi. “The Girl Reporter in Fact and Fiction: Miriam Michelson's New Women and Periodical Culture in the Progressive Era.” American Quarterly , Jun., 2002, Vol. 54, No. 2 (Jun., 2002). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30041927 Heitman, Danny. “Lafcadio Hearn in New Orleans.” HUMANITIES, May/June 2012, Volume 33, Number 3. https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/mayjune/feature/lafcadio-hearn-in-new-orleans New York Times. “MRS. E.B. WETMORE, AUTHOR, DIES IN SOUTH; Former Elizabeth Bisland of This City to Be Buried in Woodlawn Today.” 1/19/1929. https://www.nytimes.com/1929/01/09/archives/mrs-eb-wetmore-author-dies-in-south-former-elizabeth-bisland-of.html Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. “Historical and Archaeological Investigations of Fort Bisland and Lower Bayou Teche, St. Mary Parish, Louisiana.” June 1991. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA242489.pdf Roggenkamp, Karen. “Dignified Sensationalism: ‘Cosmopolitan,’ Elizabeth Bisland, and Trips around the World.” American Periodicals , 2007, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2007). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20770967 Rose, Alex. “Elizabeth Bisland: Around the World in 76 Days.” Science Museum Group. 1/30/2023. https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/rare-globe-celebrates-elizabeth-bislands-voyage-around-the-world/ Science Museum Group. “Elizabeth Bisland 1861-1929.” https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/people/cp172999/elizabeth-bisland Tutwiler, Julia R. “The Southern Woman in New York.” The Bookman: A Magazine of Literature and Life. February, 1904. https://archive.org/details/the-bookman-1895-1933/1900-1909/1904/The%20Bookman%20v18n06%20%281904-02%29%20%28unz%29/page/624/mode/1up Tutwiler, Julia R. “The Southern Woman in New York: Part 2.” The Bookman: A Magazine of Literature and Life. March, 1904. https://archive.org/details/bookmanareviewb05unkngoog/page/50/mode/1up Vatican Apostolic Library. “Elizabeth Bisland.” En Route Project. https://enrouteproject.com/en/the-research/the-female-travelers/elizabeth-bisland/ Williams, Susan Millar. “L’enfant Terrible: Elizabeth Bisland and the South.” The Southern Review; Oct 1, 1986; 22, 4; ProQuest pg. 680. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Inner Moonlight is the monthly poetry reading series at the Wild Detectives in Dallas. Curated by Dallas poet Logen Cure, the in-person show is the second Wednesday of every month in the Wild Detectives backyard. We love our podcast fans, so we release recordings of the live performances every month for y'all! On 2/11/26, we featured Inner Moonlight favorite Samantha Strong Murphey!Samantha Strong Murphey (she/her) has an MFA in Poetry from NYU and has been supported by Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and Vermont Studio Center. She's taught creative writing at UT-Dallas, been a submission reader for Dallas-based literary magazine Sine Qua Non, and interned for her hometown global powerhouse publisher Deep Vellum Books. (Can you tell she loves Dallas?) Her work has been published by Rattle and the Crab Creek Review and is forthcoming the North American Review. She was a finalist for Ninth Letter's Regeneration Prize and Gulf Coast's Barthelme Prize. Before poetry, Sam worked as a journalist and has a rich and lengthy unwritten resume as a caregiver to her three human children, a dashing rescue cat, and a very earnest rescue dog. Sam grew up split between Cincinnati, Ohio and Fayetteville, Arkansas, but has, for the last decade, resided in Oak Cliff, the coolest neighborhood in … you guessed it … Dallas. She believes in sharp cheese, gun reform, and karaoke for all.⁠www.innermoonlightpoetry.com

We welcome in the new year with a full house today, Slushies, as we discuss two poems from Cal Freeman. The first poem's title glacier reminds Kathy of this year's epic snowfall in Juneau, Alaska (though it's forty inches, not forty feet, of snow). All that snow reminds Lisa of Boston's Vile Pile of snow that would not melt until July. Kathy deftly segues that memory back to our own slush pile. We admire Freeman's use of sonics in “Glacial Erratics” and the poem's subtle gestures towards relationship strife. We all agree we're stealing the poet's apt description of “overwrought craft beer.”    Since the second poem, “A White Bird,” is a classic Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, the discussion of iambic pentameter that ensues might be helpful to any teachers in the listening audience (as well as KVM's brother, Dave). Have a listen as we nerd out on meter. All the sonnet particulars lead Marion to admit what it is that gives her a secret intellectual boner.    We end with lots of fodder for your TBR pile. Listen through the end of the episode for everyone's recommended reads, linked below. As always, thanks for listening!   At the table: Dagne Forrest, Tobi Kassim, Samantha Neugebauer, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, and Lillie Volpe (sound engineer) PBQ's Recommended Reads:   From KVM:  Lili is Crying by Hélène Bessette  Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell   From Jason: Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi   From Sam: Flesh by David Szalay   From Dagne: When We Lost Our Heads by Heather O'Neill   From Tobi: Sally Rooney's novels Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space by Catherine Barnett Midwood by Jana Prikryl   From Marion: Nothingism: Poetry at the End of Print Culture by Jason Schneiderman Teaching Writing Through Journaling by Kathleen Volk Miller To learn to describe the animal by Guillermo Rebollo Gil   From Lisa:   Modern Life by Matthea Harvey Author Bio: Cal Freeman (he/him) is the author of the books Fight Songs (Eyewear 2017), Poolside at the Dearborn Inn (R&R Press 2022), and The Weather of Our Names (Cornerstone Press 2025). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals, including Atticus Review, Image, The Poetry Review, Verse Daily, Under a Warm Green Linden, North American Review, Willow Springs, Oxford American, Berkeley Poetry Review, and Advanced Leisure. He is a recipient of the Devine Poetry Fellowship (judged by Terrance Hayes), winner of Passages North's Neutrino Prize, and a finalist for the River Styx International Poetry Prize. He teaches at Oakland University and serves as Writer-In-Residence with InsideOut Literary Arts Detroit.    Instagram @johnfreeman5984 Photo credit: Shdia Amen Glacial Erratics I'm walking the rocks of mid-coast Maine and thinking about leaving, haze rolling in off Penobscot Bay nearly enveloping, but I can see my hands, swollen, red, silver ring in folds of skin. It's been five days of lobster, haddock, and overwrought craft beer. Sarah's in a nimbus on a bluff. I can't see her. These tidal patterns strand sponges and shellac seaweed to the stones. The tide's waning now, an hour past its peak. We arrived five days ago in a Tecnam T2012, in a two-prop puddle hopper. You get in the way you get out. I'm scared Cape Air will strand us in this fog. I don't want another day. You get in the way you get out unless you don't. An alabaster boulder rests at the foot of the bluff, a glacial erratic only special because of its geographical and visual context. Glacial errata, I thought I heard our tourist captain say, though Sarah corrected me. A glacial erratic's when the ice deposits stone of another realm to punctuate a scene in a distant future epoch– Sarah perched on a gunwale with a lighthouse at her back, the centenarian Cape Cod schooner they call the Olad meandering Penobscot Bay on a quiet afternoon in summer, and how I loved the way those seals on the Nautilus Island rock appeared to sweat (she said the song for our third decade should be “Me and You on the Rock”), their bellies gold as riesling in the sun. Their kind of torpor rests on the precipice of bathos and delight, their porcine bodies commas, long pauses between dips. At intervals they swim like dogs, like dogs they also growl, yet they dive with a gymnast's grace into the depths. A White Bird A rustic cottage on a kettle lake, shells of zebra mussels on the boat lift, a couple loons, a lone white bird adrift on combers in a pontoon boat's slow wake. Their time is short, they get what they can take. He reads a short story she wrote to sift for common nouns and proper nouns to lift for a poem. He settles on the drake and hen that dove their lithe bodies below and resurfaced a hundred yards away. Such secret lives of love, such dull regret. In the story, she says he cannot know what kind of bird they saw floating that day, as he insists it was the rare egret.

Today, I get to sit down with returning guest, JoAnn Stevelos, MS, MPH. She is a writer, public health advisor, and researcher whose work sits at the intersection of survival, spiritual terror, radical repair, and relational hope. With more than twenty years' experience in nonprofits, government, public health research, bioethics, and education, she uses her training to help create a culture of health through innovative solutions that treat health as a fundamental human right. Her Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–funded work in Aotearoa New Zealand inspired her to adopt a Samoan proverb as a north star: “Solutions for the community come from the community.”JoAnn is currently the Executive Director of the Andrew Levitt Center for Social Emergency Medicine. She has served in key leadership roles including Executive Director of the Coalition for Supportive Care of Kidney Patients at George Washington University; Director of the NYS Center for the Prevention of Childhood Obesity; Director of Evaluation for the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign; and Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor for the RWJF-funded Comprehensive Child Sexual Abuse Prevention, Treatment, and Mitigation program in New Zealand. She advises national and international nonprofits that address health disparities and inequities. A founding board member of The Hope Institute, she has served on the boards of Eat REAL and the New York State Public Health Association. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the University at Albany School of Public Health and Albany Medical College.As a writer, JoAnn's work spans memoir, fiction, poetry, and performance. A Pushcart and Best American Essays nominee, her essays have appeared in The Guardian— “This story isn't about the priest who abused me. It's about my mother.” , Chicago Story Press “How Do You Forgive the Unforgivable?”, and The DewDrop“Passersby” . She is the author of the novel Howard Be Thy Name  and the cross-genre collection Dream Alibis,, and writes the Substack The Second Silence. Her essay “Mugwort” received distinction in the 2025 Writer's Digest Personal Essay Awards, and “The Archivist,” created in collaboration with photographer Sarah Blesener, is forthcoming in North American Review. JoAnn is represented by Barbara Jones at Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency.Today we focus our conversation on The Hope Model that JoAnn began exploring over 5 years ago. We talk about hopelessness and its many forms and how an awareness of the 4 elements of The Hope Model - Survival, Mastery, Attachment and Spirituality - can help to build hope.The Hope Institute offers Hope Assessments as well as The Oxford Compendium of Hope. Stay tuned to their work as they continue to offer resources and support to a world that sometimes feels in dire need of more hope.You can find more about JoAnn and her work below:https://linktr.ee/JoAnnStevelosChildren at the Table~Psychology Today Blog Dream AlibisToday's show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.Our show music is from Shana Falana!Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org** Please: SUBSCRIBE to the pod and leave a REVIEW wherever you are listening, it helps other users FIND IThttp://iwantwhatshehas.org/podcastITUNES | SPOTIFYITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/i-want-what-she-has/id1451648361?mt=2SPOTIFY:https://open.spotify.com/show/77pmJwS2q9vTywz7Uhiyff?si=G2eYCjLjT3KltgdfA6XXCAFollow:INSTAGRAM * https://www.instagram.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast/FACEBOOK * https://www.facebook.com/iwantwhatshehaspodcast

Ren Cedar Fuller joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about how when we love people we want their world to be bigger, raising a transgender child, having a disability, writing a lot of drafts for the right structure to snap into place, revising for months, not forcing an ending, writing about other people, including our children in our work, putting a collection together, finding themes in our work, entering contests, moving toward creativity and also toward organization, shaping a memoir-in-essays vs. an essay collection, and her award winning collection Bigger.   Also in this episode: -using the Poets & Writers database to research contests and presses -studying in an MFA program -a close look at a hermit crab essay   Books mentioned in this episode: -H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald -Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel -In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado   Ren Cedar Fuller's debut book, Bigger, won the 2024 Autumn House Press Nonfiction Prize and was a finalist for the 2024 Iron Horse Prize and the Santa Fe Writers Project 2023 Literary Awards Program. Her creative nonfiction essays have won Under the Sun's Summer Writing Contest in 2022, been a finalist in the 2022 Terry Tempest Williams Prize for Creative Nonfiction at North American Review, and placed second in the 2022 Eunice Williams Nonfiction Prize. Ren's essays have appeared in HerStry, Hippocampus, New England Review, North American Review, and Under the Sun, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best American Essays.    Ren is a parent facilitator at TransFamilies, an online hub for families with gender diverse children. She taught public school in California, Oregon, and Washington before founding a nonprofit early learning center in the Seattle area, where she continues teaching parent education.Ren lives in Seattle with her husband, Jason, and loves to kayak on the Salish Sea. She is currently in the M.F.A. in Writing program at Pacific University.  https://www.instagram.com/ren.cedar.fuller/ https://www.rencedarfuller.com/ Book purchase: https://bookshop.org/p/books/bigger-essays/f18b41d10d1216d8?ean=9781637681084&next=t&affiliate=21790 – 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

This week marks the beginning of our August round-ups where we choose our favorite episodes from the prior year as we gear up for our new season. We're revisiting two of our personal favorite authors and subjects: craft. Tune into Jane Alison and Jeannine Ouellette to glean insight and inspiration about your writing and the structures, forms, playfulness, and directions it can take when you're attuned to all the possibilities and permutations. Don't miss Janet Fitch's August 19th class. Details are online here. Jane Alison is the author of four novels, as well as Change Me, translations of Ovid's stories of sexual transformation, and Meander, Spiral, Explode, about the craft and theory of writing. Her newest novel is Villa E, about the collision of architects Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier. She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. Jeannine Ouellette is the author of the bestselling Substack Writing in the Dark, a creative community of almost 18K people strong. Her lyric memoir, The Part That Burns, was a 2021 Kirkus Best Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women's Literature, and her essays and short fiction have appeared widely in anthologies and journals, including Narrative, North American Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week marks the beginning of our August round-ups where we choose our favorite episodes from the prior year as we gear up for our new season. We're revisiting two of our personal favorite authors and subjects: craft. Tune into Jane Alison and Jeannine Ouellette to glean insight and inspiration about your writing and the structures, forms, playfulness, and directions it can take when you're attuned to all the possibilities and permutations. Don't miss Janet Fitch's August 19th class. Details are online here. Jane Alison is the author of four novels, as well as Change Me, translations of Ovid's stories of sexual transformation, and Meander, Spiral, Explode, about the craft and theory of writing. Her newest novel is Villa E, about the collision of architects Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier. She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Virginia. Jeannine Ouellette is the author of the bestselling Substack Writing in the Dark, a creative community of almost 18K people strong. Her lyric memoir, The Part That Burns, was a 2021 Kirkus Best Indie Book and a finalist for the Next Generation Indie Book Award in Women's Literature, and her essays and short fiction have appeared widely in anthologies and journals, including Narrative, North American Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Hollands was born and raised in Miami, Florida, graduated from Williams College, and received his MA in English as a Dr. Herchel Smith Fellow at Cambridge University. He worked for the New York Public Library and Microsoft before becoming a high school English teacher. He lives in Seattle with his husband and their son. A multiple Best of the Net and Pushcart nominee, he has been a finalist for North American Review's James Hearst Poetry Prize, Sycamore Review's Wabash Prize in Poetry, Smartish Pace's Erskine J. Poetry Prize, and New Ohio Review's NORward Prize. He reads submissions for Poetry Northwest and is a 2025 Jack Straw Writing Fellow. His debut collection Mangrove is out now from ELJ Editions. Find that book here: https://billhollandspoetry.com/ As always, we'll also include the live Prompt Lines for responses to our weekly prompt. A Zoom link will be provided in the chat window during the show before that segment begins. For links to all the past episodes, visit: https://www.rattle.com/rattlecast/ This Week's Prompt: Write a Poet's Respond poem that is in response to an obscure/off-beat news story. Next Week's Prompt: Write a sonnet in which someone sings. The Rattlecast livestreams on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, then becomes an audio podcast. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

As a backlash against LGBTQ rights escalates into an authoritarian crusade, acclaimed author and queer activist Taylor Brorby asks how we can still be fighting this battle? As a writer addressing the fossil fuel industry's acceleration in the midst of climate chaos, Taylor is forced to choose between the existential crises of the assaults on nature and on LGBTQ people. It's all connected, he says, as he seeks to reconcile nature, culture, diversity and belonging. Featuring Taylor Brorby, a Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Justice at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah, is an award-winning, widely published writer and poet as well as a contributing editor at North American Review who also serves on the editorial boards of Terrain.org and Hub City Press. Taylor regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change, and is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing up gay in a fractured land; Crude: Poems; Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience; and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. Resources Video | Taylor Brorby – Raising Hell: Censorship, Carbon Capture, and Being Gay on the Great Plains Learn more about Taylor Brorby at taylorbrorby.com Credits Executive Producer: Kenny Ausubel Written by: Kenny Ausubel Senior Producer and Station Relations: Stephanie Welch Host and Consulting Producer: Neil Harvey Program Engineer and Music Supervisor: Emily Harris Producer: Teo Grossman This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

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

Gloria L. Huang is a freelance writer whose fiction has appeared in literary journals including Michigan Quarterly Review, The Threepenny Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Witness Magazine, Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Southern Humanities Review, Fiction Magazine, North American Review, Arts & Letters, Washington Square Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Gargoyle Magazine, Sycamore Review, and The Antigonish Review. Her debut novel, KAYA OF THE OCEAN has been selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce selection, and Indie Next selection. It is just out from Penguin Random House. Listen in to this episode of The Qwerty Podcast, as she and host Marion Roach Smith discuss the art and work of being a contemporary freelance writer. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars and instructive posts and online classes in how to write memoir, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Today on the I Am Dad Podcast, we are honored to welcome Acamea, a gifted memoirist, essayist, and author of the deeply moving memoir Daddy's Little Stranger. Through her work, Acamea masterfully explores the complex emotions of family, identity, and reconciliation, resonating with readers worldwide. Her essays have appeared in esteemed publications like the Bellevue Literary Review, North American Review, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine, and she's been featured by major media outlets such as the New York Post, Cosmopolitan, and Lit Hub. Acamea is also a TEDx speaker, offering profound insights on connection and personal growth. An Indiana native now residing in Nevada, Acamea holds an MFA from Randolph College, where she earned the distinction of being a Blackburn Fellow. Join us as we dive into her creative journey, her reflections on fatherhood and family, and the stories that continue to inspire her work.

"No people has ever yet done great and lasting work if its physical type was infirm and weak."Here's a great article written by Teddy Roosevelt in 1890 on the benefits of manly exercises and other outdoor activities and the ills of professional sports and professional athletes...he references ancient Rome...we have been warned. Is anyone listening?Reference: "Professionalism" in Sports by Theodore Roosevelt, The North American Review; Vol. 151, No. 405; pp. 187-191 (AUG 1890)*Photo by Ron Jones

In this honest and refreshing episode, author Jennifer Case opens up about the often-hidden realities of motherhood that many women experience but few discuss openly. If you've ever felt alone in your complicated feelings about pregnancy, birth, or motherhood – this episode is for you.Key topics:* The profound isolation of early motherhood and why it's more common than you think"I realize now that my daughter is three how profoundly isolated I felt as I transitioned into motherhood" * How our modern approach to pregnancy and birth differs from historical "social childbirth" practices* Finding community in unexpected places, including online spaces like BabyCenter* The rarely discussed experience of pregnancy ambivalence and unintended pregnancy"The interesting thing about talking with other mothers in person is everyone seems so afraid of being judged, especially about the parenting choices they make when their children are young."* Navigating prenatal and postpartum depression while battling the stigma around these conditions* The importance of making space for all emotions during pregnancy – not just the "expected" onesFeatured insight: "The truth is half of the pregnancies in the United States are unintended... I think these kind of complicated reactions to pregnancy aren't nearly as uncommon as we initially think they are." – a striking reminder that you're not alone if your path to motherhood wasn't perfectly planned or immediately joyful.Guest: Jennifer Case, author of We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood, shares her personal journey through two very different pregnancies, including her experience with an unplanned second pregnancy and the complex emotions that followed.Whether you're struggling with isolation, experiencing complicated feelings about motherhood, or simply seeking validation that it's okay to not always feel okay – this episode offers a judgment-free space to explore the full spectrum of maternal experiences.Remember: Your feelings about motherhood, whatever they may be, are valid and shared by many others who may just be too afraid to speak up.Jennifer Case is the author of We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood (Trinity University Press, 2024) and Sawbill: A Search for Place (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Her essays have appeared widely in journals such as The Rumpus, Orion, Ecotone, Literary Mama, and North American Review, among others. She teaches at the University of Central Arkansas and serves as an assistant nonfiction editor at Terrain.org. You can find her at www.jenniferlcase.com.#MaternalMentalHealth #Motherhood #PregnancyTalk #PostpartumSupport #ParentingJourneyThanks for reading A Mind of Her Own and listening to The Reflective Mind! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Dr. Reid on Instagram: @jenreidmd and LinkedInAlso check out Dr. Reid's regular contributions to Psychology Today: Think Like a Shrink.Seeking a mental health provider? Try Psychology TodayNational Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255Dial 988 for mental health crisis supportSAMHSA's National Helpline - 1-800-662-HELP (4357)-a free, confidential, 24/7, 365-day-a-year treatment referral and information service (in English and Spanish) for individuals and families facing mental and/or substance use disorders.Disclaimer:The views expressed on this podcast reflect those of the host and guests, and are not associated with any organization or academic site.The information and other content provided on this podcast or in any linked materials, are not intended and should not be construed as medical advice, nor is the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this website is for general information purposes only.If you or any other person has a medical concern, you should consult with your health care provider or seek other professional medical treatment. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something that have read on this website, blog or in any linked materials. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or emergency services (911) immediately. You can also access the National Suicide Help Line at 1-800-273-8255 or call 988 for mental health emergencies. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amindofherown.substack.com

Nutmeg is native to the Banda Islands in Indonesia. Once Europeans discovered nutmeg, they had an enormous - often violent - impact on the islands it was growing on. Research: Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "nutmeg". Encyclopedia Britannica, 25 Oct. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/topic/nutmeg. Accessed 22 November 2024. Esarey, Logan. “The Literary Spirit Among the Early Ohio Valley Settlers.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 5, no. 2, 1918, pp. 143–57. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1886120. Accessed 25 Nov. 2024. Ghosh, Amitav. “The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis.” University of Chicago Press. 2021. Godinez, Andrea. “3,500-year-old pumpkin spice? Archaeologists find the earliest use of nutmeg as a food.” University of Washington. Via EurekAlert. 10/3/2018. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/578241 Haliburton, Thomas Chandler. “The Clockmaker; or the Sayings and Doings of Sam Slick, of Slickville, to which is added, The Bubbles of Canada by the Same Author.” Paris, 1839. https://books.google.com/books?id=jtssAAAAYAAJ Hill, Daniel Harvey. “Elements of Algebra.” J.B. Lippincott & Co. Philadelphia. 1857. https://books.google.com/books?id=5JoKAAAAYAAJ Intermediate Technology Development Group. “Processing of Nutmeg and Mace.” https://archive.org/details/production_nutmeg_mace/ Keyser, Hannah. “Why is Connecticut Called the “Nutmeg State”?.” Mental Floss. 9/26/2023. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/55245/why-connecticut-called-nutmeg-state Lohman, Sarah. “Why Early America Was Obsessed With Wooden Nutmegs.” Mental Floss. 4/24/2017. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94734/why-early-america-was-obsessed-wooden-nutmegs Rampe, Amelia. “Everything You Need to Know About Nutmeg.” Food and Wine. 12/28/2022. https://www.foodandwine.com/nutmeg-what-it-is-and-how-to-use-it-7089902 Sasikumar*, B. “Nutmeg - Origin, diversity, distribution and history.” Journal of Spices and Aromatic Crops. Vol. 30, No. 2. 2021. Spence, Charles. “Nutmeg and mace: The sweet and savoury spices.” International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science. Vol. 36, 2004. The North American Review, vol. 15, no. 37, 1822, pp. 340–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25109151. Accessed 25 Nov. 2024. Weil, Andrew T. “The use of nutmeg as a psychotropic agent.” United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1966-01-01_4_page003.html Winn, Philip. “Slavery and cultural creativity in the Banda Islands.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , October 2010, Vol. 41, No. 3. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20778894 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Itto Outini is an author, book coach, and entrepreneur. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The North American Review, The Fulbright Chronicle, The Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere, and she has earned support from the Fulbright Program, the MacDowell Foundation, and the Steinbeck Fellows Program at San José State University. The organizations for which she has spoken include Cal Tech University, Verizon Wireless, The International Trade Centre, and the United Nations. In partnership with her husband, Mekiya Outini, she founded The DateKeepers, a full-service author support platform dedicated to helping high achievers tell their stories and elevating creatives around the globe. Itto holds an MA in journalism and strategic media from the University of Arkansas.  Link to episode can be found here: #drdanamzallag, #drdanpodcast, #Happinessjourneywithdrdan, #ddanmotivation, #inspiringinterviews, #drdancbt, #drdantherapy, #drdancoaching, #drdanhappiness,   --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/happinessjourney/support

Today I talked to Esinam Bediako about here novel Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024). When Akosua, a 24-year-old grad student in New York, falls and bangs her head, she has too much drama in her life to pay attention to her headaches and exhaustion. She's just broken up with Wisdom, her boyfriend, she learns that her long-estranged Ghanian father is in New York, and she's worried that dropping so many graduate classes means that she'll lose her scholarship and work-study job in the library (where she met Daniel, her new crush). As she grapples with her Ghanian-American identity, her mother's wishes for her, her troubled relationship with the father who left when she was a child, and her coursework, Akosua's head injury worsens, and she wakes up in the hospital, forced to confront her own history, memory, dreams, and desires. Esinam Bediako is a Ghanaian American writer from Detroit. She writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including awkward third-person autobiographies. A graduate of University of Southern California (M.A.T. in Secondary English), Sarah Lawrence College (M.F.A. in Fiction), and Columbia University (B.A. in English and Comparative Literature), she has worked as a high school English teacher and administrator, a textbook editor, and, during one nerve-wracking summer, a pharmacy technician. She currently writes and edits for the Spondylitis Association of America. She is the author of the Ann Petry Award-winning novel, Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024), as well as the essay/poetry chapbook, Self-Talk (Porkbelly Press, 2024) and you can find some of her recent work in Porter House Review, Cathexis Northwest press, Great River Review, North American Review, and Southern Humanities Review. Esi lives in Claremont, CA with her husband and their two sons, who create stories, videos, and other artwork with enviable speed and imagination. 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

Today I talked to Esinam Bediako about here novel Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024). When Akosua, a 24-year-old grad student in New York, falls and bangs her head, she has too much drama in her life to pay attention to her headaches and exhaustion. She's just broken up with Wisdom, her boyfriend, she learns that her long-estranged Ghanian father is in New York, and she's worried that dropping so many graduate classes means that she'll lose her scholarship and work-study job in the library (where she met Daniel, her new crush). As she grapples with her Ghanian-American identity, her mother's wishes for her, her troubled relationship with the father who left when she was a child, and her coursework, Akosua's head injury worsens, and she wakes up in the hospital, forced to confront her own history, memory, dreams, and desires. Esinam Bediako is a Ghanaian American writer from Detroit. She writes fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, including awkward third-person autobiographies. A graduate of University of Southern California (M.A.T. in Secondary English), Sarah Lawrence College (M.F.A. in Fiction), and Columbia University (B.A. in English and Comparative Literature), she has worked as a high school English teacher and administrator, a textbook editor, and, during one nerve-wracking summer, a pharmacy technician. She currently writes and edits for the Spondylitis Association of America. She is the author of the Ann Petry Award-winning novel, Blood on the Brain (Red Hen Press, 2024), as well as the essay/poetry chapbook, Self-Talk (Porkbelly Press, 2024) and you can find some of her recent work in Porter House Review, Cathexis Northwest press, Great River Review, North American Review, and Southern Humanities Review. Esi lives in Claremont, CA with her husband and their two sons, who create stories, videos, and other artwork with enviable speed and imagination. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Ready to read this collection for yourself? ➡️ https://bookshop.org/a/81838/9781952177798 In this episode, we interview the editor of It Came From The Closet, a collection of essays blending LGBTQ+ experiences with horror. We discuss the inspiration behind focusing on queer stories in the genre, how essays were selected, and the recurring themes throughout the collection. The editor shares insights on amplifying diverse LGBTQ+ voices in horror, why the genre resonates with queer communities, and the impact he hopes the collection will have on discussions around representation. Want access to every episode early, ad-free content, and access to our discord server? Join our Community ➡️ https://www.patreon.com/ClosetedHistory

Miles Harvey is the author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects: Stories, which won The Journal Non/Fiction Prize and was published by Mad Creek Books, the trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. His fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, Conjunctions, AGNI, North American Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Nimrod, Fiction Magazine, and others, and has received a Distinguished Story in The Best American Short Stories, 2004, a Special Mention in Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses, 2013, and the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award from Mid-American Review, 2015. His most recent work of nonfiction, The King of Confidence (Little, Brown & Co., 2020), was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and was named as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice selection. He also wrote The Island of Lost Maps (a national and international bestseller for Random House, 2000) and Painter in a Savage Land (Random House, 2008). His play, How Long Will I Cry, premiered in 2013 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Harvey teaches creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago, where he chairs the Department of English and is a founding editor of Big Shoulders Books, a nonprofit, social-justice publisher. 

As a backlash against LGBTQ rights escalates into an authoritarian crusade, acclaimed author and queer activist Taylor Brorby asks how we can still be fighting this battle? As a writer addressing the fossil fuel industry's acceleration in the midst of climate chaos, Taylor is forced to choose between the existential crises of the assaults on nature and on LGBTQ people. It's all connected, he says, as he seeks to reconcile nature, culture, diversity and belonging. Featuring Taylor Brorby, a Fellow in Environmental Humanities and Environmental Justice at the Tanner Humanities Center at the University of Utah, is an award-winning, widely published writer and poet as well as a contributing editor at North American Review who also serves on the editorial boards of Terrain.org and Hub City Press. Taylor regularly speaks around the country on issues related to extractive economies, queerness, disability, and climate change, and is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing up gay in a fractured land; Crude: Poems; Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience; and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. Resources Taylor Brorby's keynote Bioneers 2024 – Raising Hell: Censorship, Carbon Capture, and Being Gay on the Great Plains Learn more about Taylor Brorby at taylorbrorby.com This is an episode of the Bioneers: Revolution from the Heart of Nature series. Visit the radio and podcast homepage to learn more.

Join us on The MisFitNation Show as we welcome Victoria Kelly, a distinguished author and poet whose work delves deep into the human experience. Victoria's impressive academic background includes an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, a B.A. Summa Cum Laude from Harvard University, and an M.Phil. in creative writing from Trinity College Dublin, where she was honored as a US Mitchell Scholar. She is the author of the poetry collection "When the Men Go Off to War" and her fiction and poetry have been featured in prestigious anthologies such as Best American Poetry 2013 and Contemporary American Poetry. Her work has also graced the pages of esteemed literary journals including Alaska Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, Prairie Schooner, and North American Review. Residing in Virginia with her husband and daughters, Victoria brings a unique perspective to her writing, exploring themes of love, loss, and resilience with eloquence and depth. Don't miss this captivating conversation with Victoria Kelly on The MisFitNation Show, where we delve into the intricacies of literature and the creative process. Connect with Victoria and explore her captivating work: Victoria's Website: https://www.victoria-kelly.com/ Victoria's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriakellybooks/?hl=en Book's Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/Homefront-Stories-Battle-Victoria-Kelly/dp/1647791448

In Ryan Kenedy's debut novel, The Blameless (University of Wisconsin Press 2023 ) we meet Virginia, an exhausted adjunct professor and divorced mother of an autistic five-year-old, whose father only takes him for one weekend a month. Virginia is lonely and struggling to make a living as an adjunct professor of English. When she learns that the man who murdered her father has been released from prison despite a life sentence, she decides to confront him and mete out his just punishment. She traces Travis Hilliard to a remote place in the Mojave Desert. He's inherited his uncle's trailer on an isolated strip of land and is trying to rebuild his life outside of prison. Because Virginia doesn't have anyone to care for her little boy, she brings him along for the confrontation. Ryan Kenedy was born and raised in the working-class neighborhoods of California's Central Valley. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from California State University, Fresno, and has taught writing and literature for over twenty-five years, both as an adjunct instructor and as a tenured faculty member. He currently teaches at Moorpark College. His short fiction is forthcoming in the North Dakota Quarterly and has appeared in North American Review, The Greensboro Review, Sou'wester, and The San Joaquin Review. His debut collection of short fiction, Don't Let Them Fall, will be published in 2025 by Johns Hopkins University Press. When he's not teaching or writing, Ryan likes strumming his Gibson guitar and watching the Dodgers on television, biking and kayaking with his wife of twenty-eight years, visiting his son in the heart of New York City, and hiking the forest trails of Washington State. As a volunteer with Alpha USA, Ryan creates opportunities for community members to engage in honest conversations about some of life's biggest questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In Ryan Kenedy's debut novel, The Blameless (University of Wisconsin Press 2023 ) we meet Virginia, an exhausted adjunct professor and divorced mother of an autistic five-year-old, whose father only takes him for one weekend a month. Virginia is lonely and struggling to make a living as an adjunct professor of English. When she learns that the man who murdered her father has been released from prison despite a life sentence, she decides to confront him and mete out his just punishment. She traces Travis Hilliard to a remote place in the Mojave Desert. He's inherited his uncle's trailer on an isolated strip of land and is trying to rebuild his life outside of prison. Because Virginia doesn't have anyone to care for her little boy, she brings him along for the confrontation. Ryan Kenedy was born and raised in the working-class neighborhoods of California's Central Valley. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from California State University, Fresno, and has taught writing and literature for over twenty-five years, both as an adjunct instructor and as a tenured faculty member. He currently teaches at Moorpark College. His short fiction is forthcoming in the North Dakota Quarterly and has appeared in North American Review, The Greensboro Review, Sou'wester, and The San Joaquin Review. His debut collection of short fiction, Don't Let Them Fall, will be published in 2025 by Johns Hopkins University Press. When he's not teaching or writing, Ryan likes strumming his Gibson guitar and watching the Dodgers on television, biking and kayaking with his wife of twenty-eight years, visiting his son in the heart of New York City, and hiking the forest trails of Washington State. As a volunteer with Alpha USA, Ryan creates opportunities for community members to engage in honest conversations about some of life's biggest questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Miah Jeffra is author of The Fabulous Ekphrastic Fantastic! (Sibling Rivalry 2020), The Violence Almanac (Black Lawrence 2021), the chapbook The First Church of What's Happening (Nomadic 2017), and co-editor, with Arisa White and Monique Mero, of the anthology Home is Where You Queer Your Heart (Foglifter 2021). Awards include the New Millennium Prize, the Sidney Lanier Fiction Prize, The Atticus Review Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Alice Judson Hayes Fellowship, Lambda Literary Fellowship, and 2019 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Outstanding Anthology. Most recent work can be seen in StoryQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The North American Review, The Pinch, The Greensboro Review, DIAGRAM, jubilat and Barrelhouse. Miah is a founding editor of Whiting Award-winning queer literary collaborative, Foglifter Press, and teaches writing and antiracist studies at Santa Clara University.  Support the Show.Instagram: GenderStoriesHosted by Alex IantaffiMusic by Maxwell von RavenGender Stories logo by Lior Effinger-Weintraub

Todd Davis is the author of seven books of poetry. His most recent collections are Coffin Honey and Native Species. His book Ditch Memory: New and Selected Poems is forthcoming from Michigan State University Press in August of 2024. He has won the Midwest Book Award, the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Bronze and Silver Awards, the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Editors Prize, and the Bloomsburg University Book Prize. His poems appear in such journals and magazines as Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, Missouri Review, North American Review, Orion, Southern Humanities Review, and Western Humanities Review. He is an emeritus fellow of the Black Earth Institute and teaches environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University's Altoona College.Links:Read "For a Stray Dog near the Paper Mill in Tyrone, Pennsylvania" in 32 PoemsRead "Burn Barrel" at BroadsidedDitch Memory: New and Selected Poems, forthcoming in August 2024"A Nature Poet Grapples with Life at the Edge of the Climate Crisis," an interview in Allegheny FrontTodd Davis' websiteBio and Poems at the Poetry FoundationTwo poems in North American ReviewThree poems at Terrain.org"Salvelinus fontinalis," a video poemPodcast archive for Notes from the Allegheny Front

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Lena Crown interviews Richard Scott Larson.Richard Scott Larson is the author of  the memoir The Long Hallway  (UW Press). He has received fellowships from MacDowell and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and his creative and critical work has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Harvard Review, and other journals and anthologies.Lena Crown is a book editor for us at Autofocus Books. Her essays are published or forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Narratively, North American Review, The Offing, and elsewhere, and her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Boiler, Poet Lore, No Contact, and Variant Lit.____________Full conversation topics include:-- blocking out time to write-- doing residencies-- horror movies and mass-market fiction as a kid-- writing as a critic and with the NBCC-- the role of film in his life and the book-- a crisis of fiction-- memoir vs book-length essay-- the new memoir THE LONG HALLWAY-- gender, sexuality, and horror-- visibility and hiding queerness-- masks and Michael Myers in Halloween-- horror tropes appearing in memoir-- loneliness and observation-- film form-- fear and shame-- the Midwestern suburbs-- epiphany, revelation, and resolution (or lack of)-- examining our own cruelties-- writing about family-- the next book and gymnasts_______________Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.

Bill welcomes novelist and short story writer John Michael Cummings back to the show. John is the author of three novels, two novellas, and more than one hundred short stories. His debut novel, The Night I Freed John Brown (Penguin Group, 2008), won The Paterson Prize for Books for Young People and was selected for Black History Month by USA Today. Ugly To Start With (West Virginia University Press, 2011) was a finalist in the Foreword INDIES Book of Year Award. Don't Forget Me, Bro (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016) was widely excerpted in the Chicago Tribune. His nonfiction has been published by New York Daily News, Orlando Sentinel, Charleston Gazette-Mail, The Providence Journal, Richmond Free Press, and The Newark Star-Ledger. His short stories have appeared in Kenyon Review, North American Review, and The Iowa Review. His latest short story collection is The Spirit in My Shoes.

In this episode, Payton and Garrett delve into the chilling mystery surrounding the murder of Marion Gilchrist. As the police struggle to solve the case, they seek out unconventional assistance, including none other than the famed author of Sherlock Holmes himself. Live Show Tickets: https://www.murderwithmyhusband.com/live-shows All shows are 18+ even if it says 21+, its 18! Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-with-my-husband/id1508098400 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6GaodpBsSpBuUMhmEXhjK2 Case Sources: Conan Doyle for the Defense by Margalit Fox  Circumstances of Unexplained Savagery: The Gilchrist Murder Case and Its Legacy by Anne-Marie Kilday The Case of Oscar Slater by Arthur Conan Doyle University of Glasgow - https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/collections/medicalhumanities/forensic%20medicine/casefiles/oscarslaterglasgow1908-1909/  National Records of Scotland - https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/learning/features/the-case-of-oscar-slater  The Glasgow Police Museum - https://www.policemuseum.org.uk/crime-casebook/interesting-cases/murder-of-marion-gilchrist-1908/  Glasgow Times - https://www.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/19893164.glasgow-crime-stories-murder-wealthy-marion-gilchrist-1908/ The North American Review - https://www.jstor.org/stable/25110610  Oxford Open Learning - https://www.ool.co.uk/blog/sherlock-holmes-still-popular/ BBC - https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-65394103  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Dorothy Hale discuss the first chapter of Henry James's The Ambassadors, which was published as a novel in September 1903 after its previous appearance as a serial narrative in the North American Review. Dorothy Hale is a professor in the graduate school at the… Continue reading Episode 29: Jim Phelan & Dorothy Hale — Chapter I of Henry James's The Ambassadors

Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Alina is the author of several publications, including a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September, 2021). Her debut fiction collection, Every Mask I Tried On, won the Brighthorse Books Prize (April 2018). Alina's poems, essays, and fiction can be found in Prairie Schooner, North American Review, World Literature Today, Pleiades, Poetry, BOMB, Crab Creek Review, and others. She serves as poetry editor for several journals, reviewer and critic for others, and Co-Director of PEN America's Birmingham Chapter. She is currently working on a novel-like creature. More online at www.alinastefanescuwriter.com. We discussed how Alina started writing creatively to bridge the gap between her Romanian and American identities, the self-censorship she feels as an immigrant writer and how her voice changes when switching between Romanian and English. 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) was a Fireside Poet, journalist, and nature writer with ties to the Hudson River School of art. He wrote poems, essays, and articles that championed the rights of slaves, workers, and immigrants, and he was frequently published by the North American Review. He is the author of several books, including The White-Footed Deer and Other Poems (I. S. Platt, 1844), and The Fountain and Other Poems (Wiley and Putnam, 1842). -bio via Academy of American Poets Get full access to The Daily Poem Podcast at dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe

Writer, essayist, speaker and activist Taylor Brorby is the author of Boys and Oil, Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land, a NYT Editors' Choice published in 2022 by Liveright, a division of W.W. Norton. He is also the author of Crude: Poems, Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience, and he is the co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, LitHub, Orion Magazine, The Arkansas International, Southern Humanities Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and numerous anthologies. He is a contributing editor at North American Review and serves on the editorial boards of Terrain.org and Hub City Press. The QWERTY podcast is brought to you by the book The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text for Writing & Life. Read it, and begin your own journey to writing what you know. To learn more, join The Memoir Project free newsletter list and keep up to date on all our free webinars and instructive posts and online classes, as well as our talented, available memoir editors and memoir coaches, podcast guests and more.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) began writing his autobiography long before the 1906 publications of these Chapters from my Autobiography. He originally planned to have his memoirs published only after his death but realized, once he'd passed his 70th year, that a lot of the material might be OK to publish before his departure. These chapters were published in serial form in the North American Review during 1906-1907. While much of the material consists of stories about the people, places and incidents of his long life, there are also several sections from his daughter, which he calls “Susy's biography of me”. (Summary by John Greenman) Genre(s): Biography & Autobiography, Humor Language: English --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/librivox1/support

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

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Lena Crown interviews Jehanne Dubrow.Jehanne Dubrow is the author of nine books of poems, including most recently, Wild Kingdom (Louisiana State University Press, 2021), and three books of creative nonfiction, throughsmoke: an essay in notes (New Rivers Press, 2019), Taste: A Book of Small Bites (Columbia University Press, 2022), and Exhibitions: Essays on Art & Atrocity (University of New Mexico Press, 2023).Lena Crown is a book editor for us at Autofocus Books. Her essays are published or forthcoming in The Rumpus, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Narratively, North American Review, The Offing, and elsewhere, and her poems have appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, The Boiler, Poet Lore, No Contact, and Variant Lit.____________Full conversation topics include:-- writing routines and book juggling-- switching modes of writing/thinking-- teaching trauma writing-- starting as an encouraged visual artist-- Rothko-- writing young -- working on Taste: A Book of Small Bites and then Exhibitions: Essays on Art and Atrocity--  the research process for a braided essay-- rendering place and many different countries-- the "snapshots" and "galleries" in the book-- ekphrasis-- using the body and becoming a surface-- finding (and using) different forms-- the problem of beauty-- possession and dispossession-- discomfort-- fact and pathos-- organization and ordering-- flash/prose poem form-- her next book Civilians-- frivolity_______________Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.Episode and show artwork by Amy Wheaton.

The Archive Is All in Present Tense (Barrow Street Press, 2022) attempts to capture the feeling of archival research, which, despite being an attempt to access information about the past, has a way of infusing the present; research unfolds in real time as you touch and handle objects that radiate with presence. In the archive we follow a researcher who is exploring a fantastical, limitless archive and though she attempts to research the history of war crimes, she keeps encountering objects from her personal past and memory. Ultimately, it explores both the falling in love with big institutions of learning (libraries, archives, museums) and the exhilaration of discovery, but also the ways these institutions violently exclude and how to reconcile that love with the past wrongs these institutions have committed.  The Archive Is All in Present Tense is an intensely cinematic collection of poems, intensely erotic and equally cerebral, where you will descend into archival folds making the body negative space in a restless, inescapable, eternal now. To write is to rewrite with alphabets of the past, surging into the present, being remade, where the self is both trapped and sublime. Elizabeth Hoover is the author of the archive is all in present tense, winner of the 2021 Barrow Street Book Prize. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in the North American Review, the Kenyon Review, and StoryQuarterly. She teaches in the English Department at Webster University in St. Louis. You can learn more about Elizabeth's work here.  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