Podcast appearances and mentions of Pam Houston

Celebrated author Pam Houston describes her extraordinary journey with Carl in this inspiring episode —from a childhood shaped by financial anxiety to finding solace and purpose in the natural world. Pam shares the remarkable story of how she bought her beloved ranch in Wyoming with just 4.7% down and a signed copy of her first book, the life lessons she learned from her father's obsession with money, and how she discovered the true meaning of “enough.” Along the way, Pam reflects on the power of risk-taking, the importance of saying "yes" to life's unexpected opportunities, and the deep connection she feels to the land, her animals, and the places that have shaped her. Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, warmth, and the reminder that sometimes, taking the biggest leap leads to the greatest rewards.  For more on Pam, visit https://pamhouston.net/ —----------------------------- Follow 50 Fires on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/50firespod/ Please direct business inquires to: blindnilaudio@magnolia.com Cover Art: Josh Passler - TheFinArtist.com Music Credits:  Alexandra Woodward / Rabbit Reggae / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com Cody Francis / Wherever You're Going / courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today - we're talking with Colorado author Pam Houston, whose new book Without Exception: Reclaiming Abortion, Personhood, and Freedom takes "the personal is political" to new heightsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we'll talk with writer Pam Houston about her new book Without Exception: Reclaiming Abortion, Personhood, and Freedom.

Pam Houston is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels and a collection of essays. We revisit our conversation from September 2021.

Join co-hosts Annie Liontas and Lito Velázquez in conversation with LitFriends Lucy Corin & Deb Olin Unferth about their travels in the Sahara, ancient chickens, disappointments, true love, and why great books are so necessary. Our next episode will feature Melissa Febos & Donika Kelly, out December 22, 2023.   Links Libsyn Blog www.annieliontas.com www.litovelazquez.com https://www.lucycorin.com https://debolinunferth.com LitFriends LinkTree LitFriends Insta LitFriends Facebook   Transcript Annie Lito (00:00.118) Welcome to Lit Friends! Hey Lit Friends!   Lito: Welcome to the show.    Annie: Today we're speaking with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth, great writers, thinkers, and LitFriend besties.    Lito:  About chickens, the Sahara, and bad reviews.    Annie: So grab your bestie   Annie & Lito: And get ready to get lit!   Lito: You know those like stones that you can get when you're on like a trip to like Tennessee somewhere or something, they're like worry stones? Like people used to like worry them with their thumb or something whenever they had a problem and it would like supposedly calm you down. Well, it's not quite the same thing, but I love how Deb describes her and Lucy's relationship is like, “worry a problem with me.” Like let's, let's cut this gem from all the angles and really like rub it down to its essential context and meaning and understanding. And I think essentially that's what like writers, great writers, offer the world. They've worked through a problem and they have answers. There's not one answer, there's not a resolution to it, but the answers that lead to better, more better questions.    Annie: Yeah, and there's something so special about them because they're, worry tends to be something we do in isolation, almost kind of worrying ourselves into the ground.   Lito: Right. Annie: But they're doing it together in collaboration.    Lito: It's a collaborative worry. Yes, I love that.    Annie: A less lonely worrying.    Lito: It's a less lonely place to think through these things. And the intimacy between them is so special. The way I think they just weave in and out of their lives with each other, even though they're far away from each other.   I think there's a romantic notion that you're tuned into about Lucy and Deb's trip to the desert. Do you want to say something about that? There's a metaphor in it that you really love, right?    Annie: (1:52) Yeah. Well, so I remember when we first talked about doing this podcast and invited them, we were at a bar at AWP, the writer's conference. And they were like, oh, this is perfect. We just went to the Sahara together. And I was like, what? You writers just decided to take a trip together through the desert? And they said, yeah, it was perfect. And they have adorable photos, which we of course are going to share with the world. Um, but it felt like such a, I mean, the fact that they would go on that kind of adventure together and didn't really plan ahead, I think it was just Deb saying, I really want to go to the desert. And Lucy saying, sure, let's go. Which feels very much a kind of metonym of their friendship in some ways.    Lito: Absolutely.    Annie: (2:42) Yeah. That they wandered these spaces together. They come back to art, right? Art is a way for them to recreate themselves and recreate their friendship. And they're doing such different things on the page.    Lito:  Oh yeah, no, they're very different writers but they do share a curiosity that's unique I think in their friendship, then unique to them.    Annie: Yeah and a kind of rigorousness and a love for the word.    Lito: (3:10) Oh and a love for thinking and reading the world in every capacity.    Annie: Tell me about your friendship with Lucy because you're quite close.   Lito: I was at UC Davis before it was an MFA program. It was just a Master's. After undergrad, I went to the master's program because I wasn't sure if I wanted to be an academic or do the studio option and get an MFA. I loved how Lucy and the other professors there, Pam Houston, Yiyun Li, showed us the different ways to be a writer. They couldn't be more different, the three of them. And, I particularly was drawn to Lucy because of her sense of art and play and how those things interact.    Lito: (03:59) And here was someone that was extremely cerebral, extremely intelligent, thinking through every aspect of existence. And yet it was all done through the idea of play and experimentation, but not experimentation in that sort of like negative way that we think of experimentation, which is to say writing that doesn't work, but experimentation in the sense of innovation. And. Lucy brought out my sense of play. I got it right away, what she was going for, that there is an intellectual pleasure to the work of reading and writing that people in the world respond to, but don't often articulate. Lucy's able to articulate it, and I admire her forever for that.    Lito: (4:52) And perhaps I'm not speaking about our friendship, but it comes from a place of deep admiration for the work that she does and the way she approaches life. You have a special relationship with Deb. I would love to hear more about that.    Annie: (5:04) Yeah, I think I've been fangirling over Deb for years. Deb is such a special person. I mean, she's incredibly innovative and has this agility on the page, like almost no other writer I know. Also quite playful, but I love most her humanity. Deb is a vegan who, in Barn 8, brings such life to chickens in a way that we as humans rarely consider. There's an amazing scene which she's like with a chicken 2000 years into the future. Also, I know Deb through my work with Pen City, her writing workshop with incarcerated writers at the Connally Unit, a maximum security penitentiary in Southern Texas.   Lito: How does that work? Is it all by letter or do you go there?    Annie: (5:58) Well, the primary program, you know, the workshop that Deb teaches is on site, and it's certified. So students are getting, the incarcerated writers, are getting now college credit because it's an accredited program. So Deb will be on site and work with them directly. And those of us who volunteer as mentors, the program has evolved a little bit since then, (06:22) but it's kind of a pen pal situation. So I had a chance to work with a number of writers, some who had been there for years and years. And a lot of folks are writing auto-fiction or fiction that's deeply inspired by the places they've lived and their experiences. It's such a special program, it's such a special experience. And what I saw from Deb was just this absolute fierceness. You know, like Deb can appear to be fragile in some ways (06:53.216), and it's her humanity, but actually there's this solid steel core to Deb, and it's about fortitude and a kind of moral alignment that says, we need to do better.    Lito: We have this weird connotation with the word fragile that it's somehow bad, but actually, what it means is that someone's vulnerable. And to me, there is no greater superpower than vulnerability, especially with art, and especially in artwork that is like what she does at the penitentiary. But, can I ask a question?    Annie:  Sure.   Lito: Why is it so special working with incarcerated folks?    Annie: (7:27) Oh, that's a great question. I mean, we need its own podcast to answer it.   Lito: Of course, but just sort of the...    Annie:  I think my personal experience with it is that so many incarcerated writers have been disenfranchised on all levels of identity and experience. Voting rights, decent food, accommodations, mental health, physical, you know, physical well-being. And we can't solve all those problems necessarily, at least all at once, and it's an up, it's a constant battle. But nothing to me offers or recognizes a person's humanity like saying, "tell us your story. Tell us what's on your mind. We are here to hear you and listen."  And those stories and they do come out, you know, there have been other programs that have done this kind of work, they get out in the world and there's, we're bridging this gap of people we have almost entirely forgotten out of absolute choice.  (8:27) And Deb is doing that work, really, I mean she's been doing that work for a long time and finally got some recognition for it, but Deb does it because she's committed.   Lito: That is really powerful. Tell us your story. Tell us your story, Lit Fam. Tell us your story. Find us in all your social media @LitFriendsPodcast or email us at LitFriendsPodcast@gmail.com   Annie: We will read all your stories. We'll be right back with Lucy and   Deb.   Lito: (09:00) And now, our interview with Lucy Corrin and Deb. Lucy Corin is the author of two short story collections, 100 Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses and The Entire Predicament, and two novels, Everyday Psychokillers and The Swank Hotel. In addition to winning the Rome Prize, Lucy was awarded a fellowship in literature from the NEA. She is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and a professor of English in the MFA program at UC Davis.    Annie:  Deb Olin-Unferth is the author of six books, including Barn 8, and her memoir, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Deb is an associate professor in creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin. She founded and runs Pen City Writers, a two-year creative writing certificate program at Connally, a maximum security prison in southern Texas. For this work, she was awarded the 2017 Texas Governor's Criminal Justice Service Award.   Lito: (09:58) Annie and I thought this up a year ago, and we were talking about what is special about literary friendships and how writing gets made, not as we all think, totally solitary in our rooms alone, but we have conversations, at least I think this way. They're part of long conversations with our friends, our literary friends and living and dead, and you know, all times, in all times of history.   But the idea here is that we get to talk to our literary friends and people we admire and writers who are close friends with each other and friendships in which literature plays a large role.   Annie: (10:37) Yeah, and I'll just add that when we first floated the idea of this podcast, you know, your names came up immediately. We're so in awe of you as people and practitioners and literary citizens, and we love your literary friendship. I mean, I really hold it dear as one of the best that I know of personally.    Lucy, I think of you as, you know, this craftsperson of invention who's always trying to undo what's been done and who's such an amazing mentor to emerging writers. And Deb, you know, I'm always returning to your work to see the world in a new way, to see something I might have missed. And I just, I'm so moved by your generosity in your work and in your life's work with Penn City and elsewhere, which I'm sure we'll have a chance to talk more about.   Annie: (11:30) But I think I recall the first day I realized how close the two of you were when Deb told me that you all were taking a trip to the Sahara. And I was like, oh, of course, like, of course, they're going to have desert adventures together. Like, this makes so much sense. So I hope we'll, you know, we'll talk more about that too.    Annie (11:53) But we're so grateful to have you here and to have you in our lives. And we're going to ask you some questions to get to know a little bit more about you.    Deb:  Sounds great.    Lucy: Thanks.    Deb: It's great to be here. It's really great to see everybody.    Lito: Thank you so much for being here. Deb, will you tell us about Lucy?   Deb: (12:16) I mean, Lucy's just one of my very favorite people. And I feel like our friendship just started really slowly and just kind of grew over a period of many years. And some of the things that I love about Lucy is she is, well, of course, she's a brilliant genius writer. Like, I mean, no one writes weird like Lucy writes weird and no one writes like more emotionally, and more inventively and some of her books are some of my favorite books that have ever been written. Especially her last two books I think have just been such just major literary accomplishments and I just hold them so dear.    (13:05) And as a friend some things that I really love about her is that she will worry a problem with me that's just bugging me about like literary culture or about writing or about, you know, just it could be anything about aesthetics at all. And then she'll literally talk to me about it for like five or six days straight without stopping. Like we'll just constantly, dinner after dinner, like, you know, if we're on a trip together, just like all day, like I'll wake up in the morning and I'll be like, here's another piece of that pie. And then she'll say, oh, and I was thinking, and then we'll like go off and work and then we'll come back at lunch and be like, "and furthermore," you know? And by the end, I remember at one point we were doing this and she said, this is a very interesting essay you're writing. And of course, like it wasn't an essay at all, but it was just like a way of thinking about the way that we were talking.   (14:06) And then she is hilarious and delightful and just like so warm. I don't know, I just love her to pieces. She's just one of my favorite people in the whole world. I could say more, but I'll stop right there for a minute.    Annie: Lucy, tell us about Deb.    Lucy: (14:24) Yeah, I mean, Deb, I mean, the first thing, I mean, the first thing you'll notice is that Deb is sort of effortlessly enthusiastic about the things that she cares about. And that's at the core of the way that she moves through the world and the way that she encounters people and the way that she encounters books.   (14:44) I'm more reserved, so I'll just preface what I'm going to say by saying that like, my tone might not betray my true enthusiasms, but I'll try to list some of the things that I think are special and extraordinary about my friend Deb.   One is that there's this conversation that never stops between the way that she's thinking about her own work and the way that she's thinking about the state of the world and the way that she's thinking about the very specific encounters that she's having in daily life. And so like moving through a conversation with Deb or moving through a period of time with Deb in the world, those things are always in flux and in conversation. So it's a really wonderful mind space to be in, to be in her presence.   (15:35) The other thing is that she's like the most truly ethical person that I am close to and in the sense that like she thinks really hard about every move she makes.   The comparison I would make is like you know Deb is like at the core like, the first thing you might notice about Deb's work is that she's a stylist, that she works sentence by sentence and that she always does. But then the other thing she does is that she's always thinking hard about the world and the work, that it never stays purely a love of the sentence. The love of the sentence is part of the love of trying to understand the relationship between words and the world.    (16:15) And, and they're both an ethics. I think it's an ethics of aesthetics and an ethics of trying to be alive in as decent way as you can manage. And so those things feed into the friendship where she's one of the people who I know will tell me what she really thinks about something because we can have a baseline of trust where then you can talk about things that are either dangerous or you might have different ideas about things or you may have conflict.    (16:47) But because of my sense of who she is as a person, and also who she is with me, we can have challenging conversations about what's right about how to behave and what's right about how to write. And that also means that when the other parts of friendship, which are just like outside of literature, but always connected, which, you know, about your own, you know, your other friendships, your, the rest of your life, your job, your family, things like that, that you wanna talk about with your friends. Yeah, I don't know anybody better to sort through those things than Deb.    And it's in part because we're writers, and you can't separate out the questions that you're having about the other parts of your life from who you're trying to be as a writer. And that's always built into the conversation.   Annie: (17:40) I knew we asked you here for a reason.   Lito: We'll be right back.    Lito (17:58) Back to the show.    Annie: I'm hearing you, you know, you're both, you're sort of really seeing one another, which is really lovely. You know, you're, Deb, you're talking about Lucy wearing a problem with you, which I think conveys a kind of strength and... Of course, like I'm quite familiar with Deb's like strong moral anchors. I think we all are and truly respect, but I'm just wondering, what do you most admire about your friend? What do you think they give to the world in light of this portrait that you've given us?   Deb: (18:28) Lucy is a very careful thinker, and she's incredibly fair. And I've just seen her act, just behave that way and write that way for so many years and it just the quality of it always surprises me.  Like I mean, there was a writer, most recently there was a writer who's been cancelled, who we have spent an enormous amount of time talking about and trying to figure out just exactly what was going on there. And I felt like Lucy had insights into what had happened and what it was like on his end and what about his culture could have influenced what happened. Just all of these things that were.   (19:36.202) It was so insightful and I felt like there's no way that I could have moved that moved forward that many steps in my understanding of what had happened. And in my own like how I was going to approach what had happened. Like there's no way I could have done that without that just constant just really careful thought and really fair thought. Just like trying to deeply understand. Like Lucy has an emotional intelligence that is just completely unparalleled. That's one thing I really love about her.    Another thing is that she's like up for anything. Like when I asked her to go to the Sahara with me, I mean, she said yes in like, it was like not even 12 seconds. It was like 3 seconds, I think, that she was like, yeah.   Annie: You need a friend who is just gonna go to the Sahara.    Lucy: Deb, I don't even know if you actually invited me. The way I remember it is that you said something like, Lucy, no one will go to the Sahara with me. And I said, I would go to the Sahara with you.   Lito: That is lovely.   Lucy: (20:53) It's in Africa, right?    Lito:  Was there something specific about the Sahara that you need to go over for?   Deb:  Yeah, I mean, there was. It's a book I'm still working on, hopefully finishing soon. But it's mostly it's like...I just always wanted to go to the Sahara. My whole life, I wanted to go to Morocco, I wanted to go to the Sahara, I wanted to be surrounded by just sand and one line. You look in 360 degrees and you just see one line. I just wanted to see what that was like so badly, stripping everything out, coming down to just that one element of blue and beige. I just wanted that so much. And I wanted to know that it just went on and on and on and on.   (21:48) Yeah, and you know, people talk a big talk, but most people would not go. And so at one point I was just kind of rallying, asking everyone. And then Lucy happened to be in town and I just mentioned to her that this is happening. And then she said, yeah, and then we went for like a long time. Like we went to Morocco for like over three weeks. Like we went for like a month.    Lucy:  A month.    Deb: Yeah, crazy. But she's always like that. Like whatever I want to do, she's just up for it. I mean, and she called me up and she's like, hey, we want to come to Austin and like, go to this place that's two hours from Austin where you can see five million bats, right? Five million bats? Or was it more? Was it like 20 million?    Lucy:  That's right.    Deb: It was like 20 million bats and a lot of them are baby bats. It's like mama bats and baby bats.     Lucy: Yeah, like it's more when there's the babies.   Deb: (22:46) And yeah, and you were like, I want to come with them as the babies. Yeah, we like went and she just like came and Andrea came, and it was just absolutely beautiful.    Lucy: Well, you were just right for that adventure. I knew you would want to see some bats.    Lucy: Well, I could I could say a couple of more things about what Deb gives the world.    Annie: Sure. Love it.    Lucy: So some of the things that Deb gives the world and though when I listen to you talking about me, I realized why these things are so important to me, is that you have a very steady sense of who you are and a kind of confidence in your instincts. That I know that some of the ways that I worry things through are really productive and some of them are just an ability to see why I could be wrong all the time, and that can stymie me.    (23:48) And one of the things that I love about you and the model that you provide for me in my life is an ability to understand what your truth is and not be afraid to hold onto it while you're thinking about other people's perspectives, that you're able to really tell the difference between the way that other people think about things and the way that you do.   And it doesn't mean that you don't rethink things, you constantly are, but when you have a conviction, you don't have a problem with having a conviction. And I admire it enormously. And I think it allows you to have a kind of openness to the world and an openness to people who are various and different and will challenge you and will show you new things because you have that sense that you're not gonna lose yourself in the wind.    Deb: Mmm. That's really nice.   Lito: I am in awe of everything you've said about each other. And it makes me think about how you first met each other. Can you tell us that story? And why did you keep coming back? What was the person like when you first met? And why did you keep coming back to each other? Do you want to tell Lucy?     Lucy: Yeah, I'll start and you can add what I'm missing and... (25:06) tell a different origin story if you want. But I think that what we might've come to for our origin story is that it was one of the, one of the early &Now Festivals. And the &Now Festival is really great.   Lito: Could you say what that is? Yeah, say a little bit about what that is.   Luch: Oh, it's a literary conference that was started to focus on small press and more innovative—is the term that they used at the time anyhow—innovative writing as a kind of response to the market-driven culture of AWP and to try to get people who are working more experimentally or more like on the edge of literary culture less mainstream and give them a place to come together and have conversations about writing and share their work.   So it was one of the early ones of those. But I think it was, I think we figured out that there were like, yeah, there were three women. It was me, you, and Shelley Jackson. But it was, there were not that many women at this conference at the time. And we were, and I think we were noting, noting our solidarity. Yeah. And that, that's what. That's like some of the first images.   But I knew we were like aware of each other because in some ways we have tended to be up for the same jobs—Deb gets them—up for the same prizes—Deb gets them first, I'll get them later. And so I see her as somebody who's traveling through the literary world in ways that are... I mean, we're very different writers, but as people... You know what I mean? But I still... We still actually...come from a lot of the same literary roots. And so it makes sense that there's something of each other in the work that makes us appeal to overlapping parts of the literary world.   Deb: Yeah, I definitely think that there was in our origins, not only do we come from the same sort of influences, and just things that we admired and stuff, but I also feel like (27:28.018) a lot of our early work would have appealed more easily to the exact same people. As we've gotten older, our work isn't quite as similar. We're a little more different than we used to be. But there's still enough there that, you know, you can see a lot of the same people admiring or liking it.   But I was remembering that first time that we met, you playing pool. And we were, so we were like at a bar and you were like, and you were playing pool, and you had like just had a book out with FSG, I think, or something. I don't know if I even had—   Lucy: FC2. Very different.   Deb: FC2. That's right. FC2. And the FC2 editor was there. And I don't think I even had a book out. I don't remember what year this was. But I don't think I had any kind of book out. All I had was I had nothing, you know. And I was just so in awe of FC2 and the editor there, and you there, and like you could play pool, and I can't play pool at all. And it was just, it was—   Annie: Lucy's so cool. Yeah, she was cool. She was cool. And Shelly Jackson was cool. And it was like all the cool people were there and I got to be there, and it was great.   And then, yeah, and then I think how it continued, I don't know how it continued, we just kind of kept running into each other and just slowly it built up into a really deep friendship. Like at some point you would come through town and stay with me.   (29:25.782) And we moved, we both moved around a lot. So for a while there, so we kind of kept running into each other in different places. We've never lived in the same place.   Lucy: No, never.   Lito: How have you managed that then? Is it always phone or is it texting, phone calls?   Lucy: Well, we'll go through a spate of  texting.   Deb: Yeah, we do both. I think I like to talk on the phone.   Lucy: Yeah, I will talk on the phone for Deb.   Annie: The mark of a true friendship.   Lito: (30:01) Time for a break.   Annie Lito (30:12.43) We're talking with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth.   Lito: How has literature shaped your friendship then? Despite being cool. What kind of books, movies, art do you love to discuss? You can name names. What do you love talking about?   Deb: Well, I remember the moment with Donald Barthelme.   Lucy: That was what I was gonna say.   Deb: No, you go ahead.   Lucy: Well, why don't?   Deb: Oh, okay, you can tell it.   Lucy: I mean, I'll tell part and then you can tell part. It's not that elaborate, but we were, one of the things that Deb and I do is find a pretty place, rent a space, and go work together. And one time we were doing that in Mendocino and Deb was in the late stages of drafting Barn 8 and really thinking about the ancient chickens and the chickens in an ancient space. And we went for a walk in one of those very ferny forests, and Deb was thinking about the chickens and among the giant ferns. And I don't know how it happened, but Deb said something with a rhythm. And we both said to each other the exact line from Donald Barthelme's "The School" that has that rhythm.   (31:34) Is that how you remember it though? You have to tell me if that's how you remember it.   Deb: That's exactly how I remember it. Yeah. And then we like said a few more lines. Like we knew even...    Lito: You remember the line now?   Lucy: I mean, I don't... You do. If you said it, I could do it. I'm just... I was thinking before this, I'm like, oh God, I should go look up the line because I'm not going to get it right, like under pressure. It was just in the moment. It came so naturally.   Deb: It was one of those lines that goes... (32:03) Da da da-da da, da da da-da-da. There's a little parenthetical, it's not really in parentheses in the story, but it might be a little dash mark. But it has, it's something like, "I told them that they should not be afraid, although I am often afraid." I think it was that one.   Deb: I am often afraid. Yeah. And then it was like, we just both remembered a whole bunch of lines like from the end, because the ending of that story is so amazing. And it's, so the fact that we had both unconsciously memorized it and could just like.   And it was something about just like walking under those giant trees and having this weekend together. And like we're like marching along, like calling out lines from Donald Barthelme. And it just felt really like pure and deep.   Annie: It's I mean, I can't imagine anything sounding more like true love than spontaneously reciting a line in unison from Barthelme. And, you know, you both are talking about how your work really converged at the start and that there are some new divergences and I think of you both as so distinct you know on and off the page. There's like the ferociousness of the pros and an eye towards cultural criticism and I always think of you as writing ahead of your time. So I'm just wondering how would you describe your lit friends work to someone, and is there something even after all this time that surprises you about their writing or their voice?   Lucy: I mean, what surprised me recently about Deb's voice is its elasticity. I came to love the work through the short stories and the micros. And those have such a distinct, wry kind of distance. They sort of float a little separate from the world, and they float a little separate from the page.   (34:10) And they have a kind of, they have a very distinct attitude and tone, even if the pieces are different from each other, like as a unit. And that's just really different than the voice that you get in a book like Barn 8 that moves through a lot of different narrators, but that also has just a softer relationship with the world. Like it's a little more blends with the world as you know, it doesn't stay as distant. And I didn't know that until later.   Vacation is also really stark and sort of like has that distinctiveness from the world. And so watching Deb move into, you know, in some ways like just more realistic, more realistic writing that's still voice-centered and that still is music centered was a recent surprising thing for me.   But I'm also really excited about what I've read in the book that in the new book because I think that new book is sort of the pieces that the bits that I've read from it are they're marking a territory that's sort of right down the middle of the aesthetic poles that Deb's work has already hit I mean the other thing is that you know Deb does all the genres. All of the prose genres. Every book sort of is taking on it is taking on a genre And the next one is doing that too, but with content in a way that others have been taking on new genres and form. And so...    Lito: I love that. And I like that it's related to the music of the pros and sound. I feel like musicians do that a lot, right? There's some musicians that every album is a new genre or totally different sound. And then there's artists who do the same thing over and over again. We love both those things. Sorry, so Deb...   Deb: So I love how complicated Lucy can get with just an image or an idea. I just feel like no one can do it the way that she can do it. And my like her last in her last book, which I love so much, we're just brought through all these different places and each one is sort of (36:31.29) dragging behind it, everything that came before, so that you can just feel all of this like, pressure of like the past and of the situations and like even like a word will resonate. Like you'll bring like, there's like a word on maybe page like 82 that you encountered on like page 20 that like the word meant so much on page 20 that it like really, you can really feel its power when it comes on page 80.   And you feel the constant like shifting of meaning and just like the way that the prose is bringing so much more and like it's like reinterpreting that word again and again and again, just like the deeper that you go, like whatever the word is be it you know house or home or stair or um you know sex, whatever it is, it's like constantly shifting. (37:40.952) And that's just part of like who Lucy is, is this like worrying of a problem or worrying of a word and like carrying it forward. And so yeah, so like in that last book, it just was such a big accomplishment. And I felt like it was like her best work yet.   Lucy: So I will say, try and say something a little bit more specific, then. (38:09) Like I guess in the sort of 10 stories that I teach as often as possible in part because I get bored so easily that I need to teach stories that I can return to that often and still feel like I'm reading something that is new to me is the title story from Wait Till You See Me Dance and that story is a really amazing combination of methodical in its execution, which sounds really dull.   But what it does is sort of toss one ball in the air and then toss another ball in the air and then toss another ball in the air. And then, you know, the balls move, but you know, the balls are brightly colored and they're handled by a master juggler. So it's methodical, but it's joyful and hilarious. And then, and then, and you don't   And the other thing is that Deb's narrators are wicked and like they're wicked in the way that like… They are, they're willing to do and say the things that you secretly wish somebody would do and say. That's the same way that like, you know, in the great existential novels, you love and also worry about the protagonists, right? They're troubled, but their trouble allows them to speak truthfully because they can't help it. Or they can't help it when they're in the space of the short story. It's that like, you know, the stories are able to access—a story like this one and like many of Deb's—are able to access that really special space of narrator, of narration, where you get to speak, you get to speak in a whisper.   Annie: You get to speak in a whisper. That's beautiful, Lucy. You get to speak in a whisper.   Lito: We'll be right back.   Lito: (40:15) Welcome back.   Annie: I'm wondering about what this means, you know, how this crosses over to your own personal lives, right? Because of course, literary friendships, we're thinking about the work all of the time. But we're also, you know, when I think of my literary friendship with Lito, I think of him as like a compatriot and somebody who's really carrying me through the world sometimes. I'm wondering if there was for either of you, a hard time that you went through personally, professionally, you know, whether it's about publishing or just getting words on the page or something, you know, um, you know, family related or whatever, where you, um, you know, what it meant to have a literary friend nearby at that time.   Lucy: I mean that's the heart of it.   Deb: Yeah, I mean for sure.   Lucy: One happened last week and I'm sort of still in the middle of it where you know my literary mentor is aging and struggling and so that's painful for me and who gets that? Deb gets that.   The other one, the other big one for me was that the release of my last novel was really complicated. And it brought up a lot of, it intersected with a lot of the things going on in my family that are challenging and a lot of things that are going on in the literary world that are challenging. There were parts of that release that were really satisfying and joyful, and there were parts of it that were just devastatingly painful for me.   And, you know, Deb really helped me find my way through that. And it was a lot, like it was a lot of emotional contact and a lot of thinking through things really hard and a lot of being like, "wait, why do we do this? But remember, why do we do this?" And Deb was the person who could say, "no, you're a novelist." Like things that like I was doubting, Deb could tell me. And the other thing is that I would come closer to being able to believe those things because she could tell them to me.   Annie: Lucy, can you talk a little more about that? Like what did that? (42:27.126) What did that look like, right? Like you talked about resistance to phone calls, and you're not in the same place.   Lucy: It was phone. Right, it would be phone or it would be Zoom or it would be texting. And then, you know, when we would see each other that would be, we would reflect on those times in person even though that wasn't those immediate moments of support and coaching and, you know, wisdom.   Annie:  And that requires a kind of vulnerability, I think, that is hard to do in this industry, right? And I'm just wondering if that was new for you or if that was special to this friendship, right? Or like what allowed for that kind of openness on your part to be able to connect with Deb in that way?   Lucy: I mean, I think I was just really lucky that we've had, like even though we have really, I think, only noticed that we were close since that Morocco trip. Like that was a little bit of a leap of faith. Like, "oh my gosh, how well do I know this person and we're gonna travel together in like circumstances, and do we really know each other this way?" But the combination of the years that we've known each other in more of a warm acquaintance, occasional, great conversation kind of way towards being somebody that you, that you trust and believe and that you have that stuff built in.   And, you know, that over the years you've seen the choices that they've made in the literary world, the choices they've made in their career, when they, you know, everything from, you know, supporting, you know, being a small, being small press identified and championing certain kinds of books over other kinds of books. And like those, just like watching a person make choices for art that you think are in line with the writer that, watching her make choices in art that are in line with the writer that I wanna be in the world makes it so that when you come to something that is frightening, that's the kind of person you wanna talk to because she's done that thinking.   Deb: Yeah, I mean, I feel like there are like so many things that I could say about that. Like one thing is that the kind of time that I spend with Lucy is really different from the kind of time that I spend with most people. Like most people, (44:51) they come to town and I have dinner with them. Or I go to like AWP or whatever and we go out for dinner. Or maybe I spend like one night at their house like with their partner and kid or something, you know. But Lucy and I, we get together and we spend like four days or something all alone, just the two of us, you know, or a month or whatever. And we don't spend a ton of time with other people. And so there's, but then we also do that, but just like not very much.   And so there is something that just creates, like that's a really good mode for me. It's a, that's like the way that I make really deep friendships that are kind of like forever-people in my life. And I've always been like that. And so, but not a lot of people are willing to sort of do that with me. Like, I have so many acquaintances, I've got like a million, I feel like I could have dinner with someone just about any night, as long as it's only like once every few months or something, you know, but I don't have people who are willing to be this close to me, like spend that kind of time with me one-on-one. And the fact is like, they're not that many people that I really feel like doing that with.   And you know, every time Lucy and I do one of these, I just come away feeling like I thought about some really important things and I talked about some really important things and I saw some beautiful things because Lucy always makes sure that we're somewhere where we can see a lot of beauty. And so that just means so much to me. And it's like, and so for me it creates like a space where, Yeah, I can be honest and vulnerable, and I can also tell her, if I can tell her things that I don't tell other people, or I can be really honest with her if I feel like, if I'm giving her advice about something, I can just be honest about it. And so it's really, really nice.   (47:07) I mean, the other thing is like, we're so similar. Like we've made so many similar life choices. And we've talked about that. Lucy and I have talked about that. Like, you know, we both chose not to have kids. We live pretty, like we're both like kind of loners, even though we have partners. Like I think our partners are more like, they just kind of would, they would prefer that we.   I don't know, I shouldn't probably say anything, but I know that Matt would prefer if I was not quite as much of a loner as I am. Yeah, so I look at Lucy and I see the kind of person that I am, the kind of person I wanna be, so if I have a question, I mean, it happens.   Lucy mentioned a couple of things. I have... You know, she's had some pretty major, major things. I have like little things that happen all the time, and they just like bring me to tears.   Like there was this one moment during the pandemic when I was like driving across the country by myself. I was like in Marfa, and I was trying to get to California and I had like a toilet in the back seat. Remember when we were all doing that kind of thing?   Lucy: It was really amazing.   Deb: It was so crazy.   Lucy: But Deb, not everybody had a toilet in their back seat.   Annie: I know. I need that now.   Deb: It still comes in handy.   Annie: I'm sure.   Deb: (48:43) And I was in, and yeah, Lucy is amazing. She'll talk to me on the phone, but Lucy will do because I love to talk on the phone and I love to Zoom. Lucy does not. So she'll tell me in advance, okay, I will talk to you, but it's gonna be for like 20 minutes or I'm gonna have to get off like pretty soon.   But she Zoomed with me and Marfa and I just didn't realize how upset I was about this one rejection that I'd gotten. And it was a really small rejection, I don't know why it bothered me so much, but I just like started crying and like I was like way out in like so many miles from any so many hours from anyone I knew and you know the world was going to shit, and I'd gotten this like tiny rejection from a magazine like a little like I had it was the page was it was like a piece that was like a page long or something, and Lucy just like knew exactly why I I was so upset, and just was able to talk to me about what that meant to me. And just refocus me to like, "look, you don't have to write those. You don't have to be that writer. You don't have to do that." And it was so freeing to know that I didn't always have to be, I don't even know how to describe it, but it was meant a lot. And things like that happen all the time.   Annie: (50:15.265) That's such a wonderful model of mutual support.   Lucy: We'll be right back.   Annie: Hi Lit Fam. We hope you're enjoying our conversation with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth, and their love for the word, the world, and each other. If you love what we're doing here at LitFriends, please take a moment now  to follow, subscribe, rate, and review our podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Just a few minutes of your time will help us so much to continue to bring you great conversations like this week after week.  Thank you for listening. Back to a conversation with Lucy Corin and Deb Olin Unferth.     Annie: I'm also aware that we're working in an industry that's a zero-sum construct. And, you know, Lucy, you were sort of joking earlier about... Deb winning all of the awards that you later got. But I am curious, like, what about competition between literary friends when we're living in a world with basically shrinking resources?   Lucy: I feel competition, but I don't really feel it with my literary friends. Does that make sense? Like, I'll feel it with my idea of somebody that I don't really know except for their literary profile, right? But when someone like Deb gets something, it makes the world seem right and true, right? And so that's not hard to bear, right? That's just a sign of a good thing in a world that you're afraid isn't so good.   Deb: I guess I feel like if Lucy gets something, then that raises the chances that I'm gonna get something. I'm gonna get the same thing. Because if we're kind of in the same, like we both published with Grey Wolf, we both have the same editor, so we've multiple times that we've been on these trips, we've both been working on books that were supposed to come out with Graywolf with Ethan. (52:16.3) You know, so I feel like if Lucy gets something, then the chances go up.   Like there was just, something just happened recently where Lucy was telling me that she had a little, like a column coming out with The Believer. And I was like, "oh my God, I didn't even know that they were back." I'm like, "man, I really wanna be in The Believer. Like, I can't believe like, you know, they're back and I'm not in them. I gotta be in it. I said that to Lucy on the phone. And then, like the very next day, Rita wrote me and said, "Hey, do you want to write something?"   And so I wrote to Lucy immediately. I was like, did you write to Rita? And she was like, "no, I really didn't." So it's like, we're in the same— Did you, Lucy?   Lucy: No, I didn't! Rita did that all by herself.   Lito: You put it out into the universe, Deb.   Annie: Lucy did it. Hot cut, Lucy did it!   Deb:  So we're like, we're like in the same, I feel a lot of the time like we're kind of in the same lane and so that really helps because like, I do have writer friends who are not in the same lane as me and maybe. Like I'm not as close, but maybe that would be, but if I was as close, maybe that would cause me more confusion. Like I would be like, you know, "geez, how can I get that too? Or it's hopeless, I'll never get that, you know? So I just don't do that thing," or something. So that's really comforting.   Lito: What are your obsessions?   Lucy: Well, I mean-   Lito: How do they show up on the page?   Lucy: I feel like it's so obvious with Deb that like, you know, Deb got obsessed with chickens, and there was a whole bunch of stuff about chickens. First there was a really smart, brilliant Harper's essay where she learned her stuff. And then there was the novel where she, you know, imagined out the chickens (54:19) to touch on everything, right?   Annie: Then there was a chicken a thousand years in advance.   Lucy: Right, and then there's a beautiful chicken art in the house, and there's, you know. And I'm sure that she's gotten way more chicken gifts than she knows what to do with. But then the Sahara, like, you know, she was obsessed with the Sahara and you'll see it in the next book. It's gonna be— It's not gonna be in a literal way, right? But it'll be like, you'll feel the sand, you'll feel that landscape.   So I don't know, like I feel like the obsessions show up in the books. I mean, are there, I mean, this is a question like, Deb, do you think you have obsessions that don't show up in your work? We both have really cute little black dogs.   Deb: (55:07) Oh, not really. I mean, but I do get obsessed. Like I just get so, so like obsessed in an unhealthy way. And then I just have to wait it out. I just have to like wait until I'm not obsessed anymore. And it's like an ongoing just I'm like, OK, here it comes. It's like sleeping over me. Like how many years of my life is going to be are going to be gone as a result of this?   So I'm always like so relieved when I'm not in that space. Like Lucy's obsession comes down to that, with her language, that she's like exploring one idea, like she'll take an idea and she like worries that over the course of a whole book and that she'll just it's like almost like a cubist approach. She'll be like approaching it from so many different standpoints. And that is like, I mean, Lucy is so smart and the way that she does that is just so genius. And so I feel like that's the thing that really keeps drawing me to her obsessions, that keeps bringing me back to that page to read her work again and again. And yeah, and that's how she is in person too.   Lito: Why do you write? What does it do for the world, if anything?   Lucy: (56:37) I know I had a little tiny throat clear, but I think it was because I'm still trying to figure it out because I feel like the answer is different in this world order than it was in earlier world orders. Like when I first answered those questions for myself when I was deciding to make these big life choices and say, "you know, fuck everything except for writing," like I was answering, I was answering that question a different way than I would now, but I don't quite have it to spit out right now, except that I do think it has something to do with a place where the world can be saved. Like, writing now is a place of respite from the rest of the world where you can still have all of these things that I always assumed were widely valued, that feel more and more narrowly valued. And so I write to be able to have that in my life and to be able to connect with the other people who share those kinds of values that are about careful thinking, that are about the glory of the imagination, that are about the sanctity of people having made things.   Annie: Lucy, I need that on my wall. I just need to hear that every day.   Deb: I mean, I feel like if I can think about it in terms of my reading life, that like art changes my mind all the time. Like that's the thing that teaches me. Like I remember when I was a kid, and I lived right near the Art Institute of Chicago, and I remember going in, and they had the Jacob Lawrence immigration panels, migration panels up there that was like a traveling exhibition. And I had none of that information. I did not know about the Great Migration. I just didn't know any of that. So I just remember walking from panel to panel and reading and studying it, (58:47.952) reading it and studying it and just like getting like just getting just it was like a It was such a revelation and I just learned so much and like changed my mind about so many things just in that moment that it was like I'll never forget that.   And I feel like I, I totally agree with Lucy that the reasons that I write now and the reasons that I read now are very different than they were like before, say 2015, or something. But that, that maybe it has its roots in that sort of Jacob Lawrence moment where, you know, just I read these things and it's, I like, I love sinking deep into books that are really changing my mind and like teaching me about the world in ways that I never could have imagined, and I love that so much and I… I don't know if I have that to offer, but I really try hard, you know. Like I tried that with the chicken book. I'm kind of trying that, I hope, in this book that I'm trying to finish and— ha finish!—that I'm trying to get through. And so I think that that's why I think that art is so important.   I don't know if that's truly why I write though. I feel like why I write is that I've always written, and it's like I love it so much. Like I just, sometimes I hate it, sometimes I hate it for like a whole year or whatever, but it's just, it's so much a core of who I am. (01:00:39) And I just, I can't imagine my life any other way. It's just it's just absolutely urgent to me.   Annie: Yeah, urgent. Yeah. I think we all feel that in some way.   Annie:(01:01:04.374) Thank you both for talking to us a little bit about your friendship and getting to know a little bit more about how you started and where you're at now. We're going to move into the lightning round.   Lito: Ooooo Lightning round.   Annie: (01:01:16) Deb, who were you in seventh grade? Who was I in seventh grade? In one sentence, oh my God, the pressure is on. I was unpopular and looked, my hair was exactly the same as it is now. And I wore very similar clothes.   Lucy: (01:01:44) I was a peer counselor, and so I was like the Don who held everybody's secrets.   Lito: Beautiful. Lucy.   Lucy: It saved me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had a place in that world.   Annie: Makes so much sense.   Lito: Wow. Who or what broke your heart first, deepest?   Lucy: I mean, I would just say my mom.   Deb: I guess, then I have to say my dad.   Annie: Okay, which book is a good lit friend to you?   Deb: Can I say two? The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein and The Known World by Edward P. Jones.   Annie: Excellent.   Lucy: My go-to is White Noise. Still. Sorry.   Lito: No need to apologize.   Lucy: Yep.   Annie Lito (01:02:27) Who would you want to be lit friends with from any point in history?   Lucy: For me it's Jane Bowles.   Deb: Oh, whoa. Good one. She would be maybe a little difficult. I was gonna say Gertrude Stein, then I was like, actually, she'd be a little difficult.   Lucy: What a jerk!   Deb: I think Zora Neale Hurston would be fun.   Lucy: Well, yeah, of course. For sure.   Annie: We were gonna ask who your lit frenemy from any time might be, but maybe you've already said.   Lucy: Oh, right. I accidentally said my lit frenemy instead of my lit friend.   Annie: Yeah.   Lucy: Mm-hmm.   Deb: (01:03:08) A frenemy from any time?   Annie: Any time. Yeah, it doesn't have to be Jonathan Franzen. I feel like most people will just be like Jonathan Franzen. But it could be any time in history.   Deb: I mean, if you're gonna go that route, then it would probably be, um, like...   Lito: Kierkegaard.   Deb: I don't know, maybe Nietzsche? If you're gonna go that route, if you're gonna go like, like existential philosophers.   Annie: (01:03:34) That's great.   Lito: That could be a podcast too.   Annie: Just like epic frenemy. The most epic frenemy.   Lito: (01:03:35)  Well, that's our show.   Annie & Lito: Thanks for listening.   Annie: We'll be back next week with our guests Melissa Febos and Donika Kelly.    Lito: Find us on all your socials @LitFriendspodcasts   Annie: And tell us about an adventure you've had with your Lit bestie. I'm Annie Liontas.   Lito: And I'm Lito Velazquez.   Annie: Thanks to our production squad. Our show was edited by Justin Hamilton.   Lito: Our logo was designed by Sam Schlenker.   Annie: Lisette Saldaña is our Marketing Director.   Lito: Our theme song was written and produced by Roberto Moresca.   Annie: And special thanks to our show producer Toula Nuñez.   Lito: This was Lit Friends, Episode 2.

E199 - Cynthia Newberry Martin - Using a Blog and a Book Tour to Support Your Books and The Importance of a Great Book CoverBook BioCynthia Newberry Martin's (she/her/hers) first novel, Tidal Flats, won the Gold Medal in Literary Fiction at the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards and the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Fiction. Her website features the How We Spend Our Days series, over a decade of essays by writers on their lives. She grew up in Atlanta and now lives in Columbus, Georgia, with her husband, and in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in a little house by the water. Her third novel, The Art of Her Life, will be published in June of 2023.MORE ABOUT MEI write novels about relationships, about how characters navigate between separateness and togetherness. About how they balance the need for both time to themselves and time together. About what compromise does to a person's sense of self.My early stories, essays, and reviews appeared in Hunger Mountain, Brevity, Gargoyle, Contrary Magazine, Clapboard House, Storyglossia, and Numéro Cinq. For a number of years, which I think of as my crazy years, I served as the Review Editor for Contrary Magazine AND the Writing Life Editor for Hunger Mountain AND I was in graduate school AND in a writing group.In 2012 I graduated from Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Creative Writing. Later that year, I was awarded a residency at Ragdale, where I stayed in the Playroom and threw pages from the tower down the stairs… In 2013, because Pam Houston and Karen Nelson needed a third body, I became a founding board member of the literary nonprofit Writing by Writers. The workshops are set in gorgeous places with excellent faculty, and you will find me there selling faculty books.CynthiaNewberryMartin.com___https://livingthenextchapter.com/podcast produced by: https://truemediasolutions.ca/A podcast is an excellent business card for your book, coaching program or business! Build a community away from the rented land of social media - speak directly to your community and position yourself as the expert that you truly are!Take your passion to the next level - let us help you start and grow your podcast! Podcasts work. Visit https://truemediasolutions.ca/Support the showBuzzsprout is our podcast host for this show!Ready to find a better podcast host for your show? Get a $20 credit applied to your new Buzzsprout Account by using our link! Starting a new show or looking for a better host? Buzzsprout is amazing!https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1855306Please note! To qualify for this promotion. All accounts must remain on a pay plan and maintained in good standing (paid in full) for 2 consecutive billing cycles before credits are applied to either party.

While I was on vacation and then got a cold with a cough, I read a book titled "DIRT - a love story".  It is a book of essays regarding one of our basic needs - the human connection to dirt/soil.   The Earth's soil is LIFE for us humans.  But we are NOT doing such a good job of taking care of of our soil.  It is a basic need for everything we need and do for our bodies and our brains.   I hope you enjoy this one essay of the many in the book.   Book info:  DIRT - a love story - 36 writers get down to Earth.  Edited by Barbara Richardson, Foreword by Pam Houston.Website: reggieweber.comInstagram: reggie.retreatsFacebook: reggieweberMore information about Green Women, Green Mamas & Green Grandmothers go to www.coachhelene.com

On this week's SELECTED SHORTS, Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about love, or the next best thing. In Pam Houston's “How to Talk to a Hunter” a smart woman can't get enough of what her man can't offer. The reader is Mia Dillon. And a widow and a lonely man make an odd couple in Lisa Ko's “Pat + Sam,” performed by Jennifer Ikeda.

Episode 136 Notes and Links to Rachel Yoder's Work        On Episode 136 of The Chills at Will Podcast, Pete welcomes Rachel Yoder, and the two discuss, among other topics, her Mennonite upbringing that was rich with books and libraries, her inspirations from her background and from college professors, and the myriad relatable and profound themes that populate her smash-hit Nightbitch, as Rachel shares the excitement that comes with the movie being adapted into a film. Rachel and Pete also discuss archetypes and double-standards and pressures both external and internal that come with motherhood and parenthood.        Rachel Yoder is the author of Nightbitch (Doubleday), her debut novel released in July 2021, which has also been optioned for film by Annapurna Pictures with Amy Adams set to star. She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and also holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. Her writing has been awarded with The Editors' Prize in Fiction by The Missouri Review and with notable distinctions in Best American Short Stories and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She is also a founding editor of draft: the journal of process. Rachel grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio. She now lives in Iowa City with her husband and son. Rachel Yoder's Website   Buy Rachel's Nightbitch   Review of Nightbitch-“a feral debut” in The Guardian    Information from Variety about Upcoming Movie Version of Nighbitch At about 1:50, Rachel talks about the exciting prospects for Nightbitch being made into a movie   At about 3:25, Rachel describes growing up in Ohio and her relationship with language and reading   At about 6:50, Rachel tells of the John Benton books she read as a child   At about 8:55, Rachel describes how writing was a “natural thing” and a hobby and how writing became essential during her time in Arizona   At about 11:00, Rachel cites Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Lorrie Moore, Hemingway, Pam Houston, and others as “formative writers” for her   At about 12:30, Rachel talks about short stories that changed the way she viewed the medium; she cites Amy Hempel's “The Harvest”   At about 15:05, Rachel talks about contemporary writers who thrill and inspire her, include Miriam Toews, Ottessa Moshfegh   At about 16:55, Rachel gives background on her immediate post-college jobs and writing background   At about 18:05, Rachel responds to Pete's question about how visual art and the idea of the muse work in with her writing process and writing material   At about 21:10, Rachel reads from the beginning of the book and discusses the genesis of the book's title    At about 25:20, Pete and Rachel ruminate on the dog from the book as a literal thing   At about 26:30, Pete shares the book blurb from Carmen Maria Machado in citing comparisons to Kafka's work; Rachel then discusses the balance between writing allegory and straightforward prose   At about 29:55, Pete contributes to a possible future blurb with another comparison of the book to another   At about 30:30, Rachel explains her thought process in not giving a name to the titular character   At about 31:45, Pete cites a famous quote in pointing out Rachel's work and subject matter work so well as fiction   At about 32:20, Pete and Rachel discuss themes of the singular focus of motherhood and “before and after motherhood”   At about 36:55, Pete and Rachel highlight ideas of ambition and regret and burdens carried by women intergenerationally with regard to moving scenes from the book   At about 40:20, Pete wonders about ideas of blame and culpability for oppression targeting women, and Rachel analyzes Nightbitch's background and how it informed her later life   At about 43:35, Mommy groups (!) are discussed, along with the lasting image from the book   At about 44:50, The two discuss the role and importance of the “mystic, the iconoclast” who was Nightbitch's grandmother   At about 45:50, Rachel discusses the stylistic choice of italicizing certain lines in her book   At about 47:20, The two talk about Wanda White and her Field Guide and their importance in the book   At about 50:00, Rachel explains background on the needs for community and their    At about 51:30, The two discuss themes of art and performance and their myriad meanings in conjunction with the book   At about 55:15, Pete compliments Rachel's writing that serves as informational and affecting without becoming didactic; Pete reads a profound paragraph from page 237 that illustrates this   At about 1:10:00, Rachel outlines some future projects   At about 1:02:50, Rachel gives her social media info and recommends places to buy the book, including Prairie Lights Bookstore, where you can a signed copy     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 me on IG, where I'm @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where I'm @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both my YouTube Channel and my podcast while you're checking out this episode.  This is a passion project of mine, a DIY operation, and I'd love for your help in promoting what I'm 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 137 with Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Emmy-nominated filmmaker, and Tony-nominated producer. A leading voice for the human rights of immigrants, his best-selling memoir, Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, was published by HarperCollins in 2018. His second book, White Is Not a Country, will be published by Knopf in 2023.     The episode will air on August 12. 

Pam Houston, author of Cowboys Are My Weakness, Deep Creek, and Contents May Have Shifted, joins us to talk about her one true Hemingway sentence. 

In this episode, August and Kendra share their favorite short stories. It was difficult for them to choose, and as the episode progresses, they remember great ones they've left out. What are some of your favorite short stories? Books mentioned in the episode: “The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter (197) "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1965) "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant (1888) "To Build a Fire" by Jack London (1902) "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" by Delmore Schwartz (1937) “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield (1921) "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin (1894) "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin (1957) "No Flesh Over Our Bones" by Mariana Enríquez (2016) "The Witch of Duva" by Leigh Bardugo (2012) "Continuity of Parks" by Julio Cortazar (1964) “Childfinder” by Octavia Butler (1971/2014) The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948) “How to Talk to a Hunter” by Pam Houston (1990) "Don't Look Now" by Daphne Du Maurier (1973) "The Night Driver" by Italo Calvino (1967) "Ariadne" by Anton Chekhov (1895)

On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants.

where we talk about: library news;  new library staff;  Becky and Austin's road trip;  Glacier National Park;  Deep Creek by Pam Houston;  Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy;  Pine Creek Lodge and the Montana Gang of writers;  Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison;  The Traveling Feast by Rick Bass;  The Solace of Open Spaces by Gretel Erlich;  The Meadow by James Galvin;  Outlawed by Anna North;  The Eagles of Heart Mountain by Bradford Pearson;  They Called Us Enemy by George Takei;  Longmire show and series by Craig Johnson;  and more!

Pam Houston is a Western author of short stories, novels, and essays. She teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is a Professor of English at UC Davis, and is a co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers.We discussed her books, the decision to commit to a piece of land, her experience as a Dall Sheep hunting guide in Alaska, her upcoming projects, and the future of her Colorado ranch.“In essays as lucid and invigorating as mountain air, Deep Creek delivers Houston's most profound meditations yet on how “to live simultaneously inside the wonder and the grief…to love the damaged world and do what I can to help it thrive.”” – W.W. Norton & CompanyGo to Pam's Website to peruse her books, which include:Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and PlaceDeep Creek: Finding Hope in the High CountryContents May Have ShiftedSight HoundA Little More About MeWaltzing the CatCowboys Are My Weakness

When the state of Colorado ordered its residents to shelter in place in response to the spread of coronavirus, writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine—who had never met—began a correspondence based on their shared devotion to the rugged, windswept mountains that surround their homes, one on either side of the Continental Divide.

Pam Houston reads from Deep Creek; Carol Borden (Guardian Angels Medical Service Dogs) on training dogs to help those with disabilities; value of reading a dog's body language

Author Pam Houston on the joys of creating home amid a lifetime of travel.

Beloved author Pam Houston is known for embodying the spirit of the American West through novels and memoirs like DEEP CREEK, CONTENTS MAY HAVE SHIFTED, and SIGHT HOUSE. In this episode, Ms. Houston talks to A Mighty Blaze cofounder Jenna Blum about finding inspiration and solitude during a pandemic and fraught political times. Hosted by Trisha Blanchet.

Pam Houston is the author of many books including the memoir, "Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country", "Cowboys are my Weakness" and most recently "Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place" (with Amy Irvine). Pam is also a fantastic teacher and the co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers.In this episode we talk all about place, writing, non-traditional parenting, and living an authentic life. She also tells us about her incredible experience running into the narwhal migration!This episode was audio produced by Aaron Moring. Theme music is by Madisen Ward.Episode webpage here.

Along with her dedication as a writer and coach to other writers, Pam Houston has had a long love affair with nature and has been a fierce advocate for environmental protections. Her memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, is a love story to the ranch she calls home and bounty of beauty that she's found all over he world. The memoir won the 2019 Colorado Book Award, the High Plains Book Award and the Reading The West Advocacy Award. Her most recent work is, Air Mail: Letters of Politics Pandemics and Place coauthored with Amy Irvine. She is also the author of Cowboys Are My Weakness and Sight Hound, as well as four other books of fiction and nonfiction, all published by W.W. Norton. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level on a 120-acre homestead near the headwaters of the Rio Grande and teaches at UC Davis and the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is cofounder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing by Writers and the fiction editor at the Environmental Arts Journal Terrain.org.

Pam Houston writes about nature and the environment the way that Dickens writes about London or Tolstoy writes military history–not as an object in and of itself but as a terrain for understanding the human condition. Houston is a pivotal figure in feminist and environmental writing, and a master of the short story, novel, and essay form. From her first, acclaimed book of short stories Cowboys are My Weakness, across novels such as Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, and up to the essays gathered in her recent memoir Deep Creek, Houston portrays women and men in perilous situations, whether it's from the natural, social, or emotional environment. Air/Light was honored to publish Houston's “Postcards from the West” in our first issue. This piece combines photographs taken by Houston of her 120 acre ranch in the Colorado Rockies with occasional essays about the last tumultuous year that included the pandemic, protests for racial justice, wild fires, and the end of the Trump presidency. Pam joins us on the Air/Light podcast to talk about “Postcards from the West”, as well as teaching, writing, the prospects of political activism after Trump, and her new book, Air Mail: Letters on Politics, Pandemic, and Place, co-written with Amy Irvine.

Listen to more of our conversation with authors Pam Houston and Amy Irvine about how they developed a relationship through letters and how that ultimately culminated […]

Are you curious about boiled peanuts? Who isn't? Author Robert Deen visits Nancy’s Bookshelf to discuss everything you wanted to know about boiled peanuts from his latest, The Boiled Peanut Book: Everything you always wanted to know about boiled peanuts . Also, in honor of this week’s Day of the Dead, award-winning Author Pam Houston discusses her book, Contents May Have Shifted , and details a sky burial she witnessed in Tibet.

Sometimes, a project just comes together in the most organic, meant-to-be way, and nothing can stop it. What’s that like? We explore that experience in this episode with our guest, Amy Irvine, who co-wrote Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place with our previous guest, Pam Houston. We’ll talk about how the form emerged--what began as an epistolary exercise became a fully fledged book. We’ll talk about how creative endeavors can create friendships. We also talk about her previous book, Desert Cabal, about backlash against women writers and more. Amy Irvine won the Orion Book Award and Colorado Book Award for her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land Her next book, Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist response to Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, and one of Orion’s “25 Most-Read Stories of the Decade.” It was also added to Outside Magazine’s Adventure Canon and named by Backpacker as one of its New Wilderness Classics. During the pandemic, Irvine co-authored Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Placewith Pam Houston; the book is forthcoming in October 2020, as is Amy’s latest essay for Orion: “Close to the Bone.” Irvine teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. In addition to frequently teaching for Orion Magazine, she has taught at Western Colorado University, the Free Flow Institute, Whitman College’s Semester in the West, the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Program at Rio Mesa, and Fishtrap’s Outpost. Irvine lives and writes off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado, just spitting distance from her Utah homeland.Amy IrvineAir Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & PlaceDesert CabalDesert SolitairePam Houston This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

When the state of Colorado ordered its residents to shelter in place in response to the spread of coronavirus, writers Pam Houston and Amy Irvine—who had never met—began a correspondence based on their shared devotion to the rugged, windswept mountains that surround their homes, one on either side of the Continental Divide.

Joy is not always found in big, milestone events. Sometimes, especially during times of chaos, the greatest joys are found in small, everyday moments.  Today’s episode is a lighthearted take on some of the joys and hustles of this wild and crazy year, but predominantly the joys – things that we would like to celebrate, despite the fact that we’ve spent most of 2020 within the confines of our own homes!  As we enter fall, we’d like to share with you some recommendations for the things we have been grateful for during lockdown, things that have brought us peace, a sense of freedom, pause to reflect, or simple, unadulterated pleasure. Tune in to find out more!   Key Points From This Episode: How the Aarke Sparkling Water Maker has helped Sandy drink more water each day. Why Jeni bought herself a pickup truck that, to her, is the definition of freedom. How Sandy discovered Planterina on YouTube and the value of Facebook Marketplace. Why we all need to understand the impact of social media on our lives and the manipulation. Our ability to create new technologies is surpassing our ability to solve ethical problems. Sandy talks about her new favorite app, iNaturalist, which helps you identify flora and fauna. Jeni’s new favorite app is one that is quite similar, and it’s a plant-identifier called PictureThis. Sandy highly recommends Big Friendship and the Call Your Girlfriend Podcast by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. Jeni is reading Deep Creek by Pam Houston, that she relates to because she lives on a farm. Resources (this week’s multiple Joy’s!) Aarke Planterina on YouTube WallyGro WallyGro on Instagram The Social Dilemma on Netflix iNautralist App PictureThis App Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close Call Your Girlfriend Podcast Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country   This week’s Hustle: While most of the joy’s mentioned in this week’s episode could be a hustle, this week’s hustle is Jeni’s Uplift Desk.   Know Your Numbers In our business, we're big fans of financial literacy and accountability. Knowing your numbers is an essential aspect of building a successful business and inherent responsibility for any entrepreneur.  What you focus on grows, so pay attention to your money. We use Bench for our bookkeeping. It's simple, elegant, and saves us so many hours that would otherwise be spent neck-deep in receipts on the other side of a spreadsheet. Each month our transactions are automatically imported into Bench and we get on-demand financial reports. We even enjoy opening up our profit and loss statement to review each month. When tax time comes around, we are up to date and ready to go. And this is what Financial Empowerment feels like. Use this link to save 20% off your Bench Accounting plan for the first six months!

Recorded Wednesday 24 June 10, 2020 Our Mother Bear KAL runs until September 1, 2020.  Please join the discussion in the 2020 Mother Bear KAL Chatter Thread and post your finished bears in the Mother Bear FOs Thread   Tracie and Barb support the Black Lives Matter movement and encourage you to add your voice to the fight for racial justice and police reform and demilitarization.  Please donate if you can: Black Lives Matter Southern Poverty Law Center NAACP Legal Defense Fund ACLU   Virtual get-together via Zoom on Saturdays, 12 noon  PST - Details here     KNITTING Barb finished:  Mother Bears 212 & 213   Tracie finished: Mother Bears 218, 219 and 220 80-26 Poncho Air Lux in Leading Men Fiber Arts Show Stopper in Wind Chill    Barb is working on Stoa scarf by Anne Ginger, using Blue Heron Cotton Rayon Flax Metallic in the Denim color way Papillion /Butterfly by Marin Melchior, using Knit Picks Chroma in the Gray and the Pegasus colorways Etude cardigan by Ririko, using Aussie SoxxiCast-on Vanilla Socks using and set of Fibernymph Dye Works Inversibles in lilac and pink  One-row Handspun Scarf by Stephanie Pearl McFee using a Caron Cake   Tracie is working on: Hatteras Cardigan by Kate Saloman (Green Mountain Spinnery) in Western Sky Knits Merino 17 in bright sky blue That's My Jam shawl/wrap by Steven Fegert, using Leading Men Fiber Arts Monologue in the London Fog colorway, and LunaPurl Una Merino Mini Skeins in the Drops of Jupiter colorway. Vanilla socks  in a Fish Knits sock gradient in greens   BOOKS Barb has finished The Daughter in Law by Nina Manning Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country by Pam Houston   Tracie has finished The Ladies’ Man by Elinor Lipman   Chirp is a great place to get audiobooks at deeply discounted prices! Tracie got a pedicure and a haircut Barb recommends Lenox Hill on Netflix  

Today Chelsey and Sara are trying something a little different and discussing a short story. First, we’ll deep dive into the dishy, gossipy, and glitzy world of Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever (this conversation sounds more like a discussion of The Bachelor than a work of classic lit!) and then we’ll share some contemporary authors who remind us of Wharton and short story collections we’re eager to read. Today’s discussion includes:   Our relationships with short stories and why this one in particular made our jaws drop. Why Edith Wharton is the perfect classic author for lovers of Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls, and anyone who loves reading about “rich people problems.” The contemporary author Chelsey realized was the perfect pairing for Wharton’s sassy and drama-filled books.   Plus, as always, we’re recommending lots of contemporary books along the way, including short story collections we love and our favorite rich people problems books.   Read Roman Fever online for free: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/pleasureofthetext/files/2016/10/Roman-Fever.pdf   Books discussed in today’s episode:  Big Little Lies and The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty (29:03) The Garden Party and Other Stories Katherine Mansfield (30:08) Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (31:10) The Six Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (31:40) The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (32:22) All this Could be Yours by Jami Attenberg (32:24) Succession (32:30) How Long til Black Future Month by N.K. Jemison (33:20) Tales of Two Cities: The Best and Worst of Times in Today’s New York (35:13) Florida by Lauren Groff (37:03) Laugable Loves by Milan Kundera (38:22) You Think It, I’ll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld (39:22) Heads of the Colored People  by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (40:06) Lot by Bryan Washington (40:49) Sabrina and Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine (41:20) Cowboys are My Weakness by Pam Houston (41:43)   Shop all of the books we mentioned today through our Bookshop storefront: https://bookshop.org/shop/novelpairings Follow us on Instagram at @novelpairingspod or get in touch with us at novelpairingspod@gmail.com

The world changed this month. As coronavirus settles in, Artemis reflects on what it means to be a hunter and angler in uncertain times. Thanks for sharing your voices with us, listeners!  3:00 - Venery company in Montana 3:45 - Jim Posewitz's "Beyond Fair Chase" book & Jackson Landers, "Hunting Deer for Food" 5:40 - 1957 movie "An Affair to Remember" 7:20 - How to make canned venison 7:50 - Modern Huntsman Vol. 4 8:50 - Mad River Outfitters YouTube channel 15:12 – Augusten Burroughs book "Toil and Trouble" & Netflix series "Self Made" 17:42 - "Bless Me Ultima" novel; "Neither Wolf Nor Dog" book 21:03 - "H is for Hawk" by Helen McDonald; PODCASTS: The Daily (New York Times), Death, Sex and Money, My Favorite Murder 22:10 - Bryce Andrews and Mark Kenyon books 24:00 - Deep Creek by Pam Houston 26:00 - "Cowboys are my Weakness" by Pam Houston, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, "My Ranch Too" by Mary Budd Flitner, “Riding the white horse home” by Theresa Jordan, "My Place Among Men," Kris Millgate 30:46 – Fly FishHer Adventures 32:50 - Bugz with Magz Happy Hour! 33:42 – “Beyond the Hundredth Meridian” by Wallace Stegner

This week’s episode is an exploration and celebration of the short form with one of its masters, Pam Houston. Whether you write essays, short stories, interlocking essays, memoirs-in-essay, or short polemics, there’s much to discover in this conversation about structure, finding the “glimmers,” as Pam calls them, and the layers of meaning-making in the short form. We also invite you to be your own cowboy on the writing journey and to enjoy this excursion “deep into the pasture” with Pam.

The Fall, 2019 issue of Alta features the magazine’s first standalone section on books and literature spearheaded by our books editor, David Ulin. In this podcast, we’ll explore how Alta’s Book Guide came to fruition with Ulin, as well as hear from included authors Carolina De Robertis, Matthew Zapruder. The Book Guide adds some serious pages to the magazine. Pick up this issue and you can tell, we’ve gained some paper weight. According to Ulin, now is absolutely the right time for Alta to invest our ink in covering literature. The 28 books highlighted in this special magazine section address topics ranging from immigration, race, and gender—to skateboards, drugs, and the wonders of nature. Each title is by a Western author, and is reviewed by a Western writer such as, Pam Houston on Terry Tempest WIlliams’ Erosion, Alexander Chee on Alex Epsinosa’s Cruising, and Emily Rapp Black on Téa Obreht’s Inland, to name just a few. The section also includes excerpts by Joan Didion and Kimi Eisele. Pick up your copy today!  

When not spending time in endangered and beautiful places or teaching writing, Pam Houston lives with horses, goats and dogs in her cherished home of almost 30 years, an off the grid ranch in the high country of Colorado. In this episode, Pam tells host and producer Katie Bausler that it is metaphors that get her through this seminal moment for the natural world. And discusses her latest book, Deep Creek,Finding Hope in the High Country.

On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the earth, the ranch most of all. Alongside her devoted Irish wolfhounds and a spirited troupe of horses, donkeys, and Icelandic sheep, the ranch becomes Houston's sanctuary, a place where she discovers how the natural world has mothered and healed her after a childhood of horrific parental abuse and neglect.

I am excited to introduce today’s Extraordinary Women Radio guest, Pam Houston: Author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country and Cowboys Are My Weakness. Pam is one of my favorite authors of all time! I read Pam’s book, Cowboys Are My Weakness, many, many years ago. Her books a series of short stories about her life – so many which mirrored my own life at that time – and her fun writing style made me feel like I was in the room with her. Fast forward all these years later, and one of my clients casually asks, "Have you ever read any Pam Houston books? She has a new book out that made me think of you." "OMG – yes I know who she is! I love her writing!" And I instantly proceeded to order her most recent  book, Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country. Deep Creek tells Pam’s story of finding her ranch in Creede, CO. At 31 years old, she was fresh off a tour promoting her book, Cowboys Are My Weakness. ,She had “no job, no place to lie except her North Face tent.” On an impulse and a good instinct, she spent her royalties on a 120-acre ranch near Creede, Colorado. It was more than she could afford, and required more maintenance than she could manage. And yet, 25 years later, it’s the piece of land that’s defined the largest part of her life. Deep Creek tells the remarkable story of “that girl who dared herself to buy a ranch, dared herself to dig in and care for it, to work hard enough to pay for it, to figure out what other people mean when they use the world ‘home.”’ So you can imagine how excited I was when I reached out to Pam as I was reading Deep Creek, and said – hey can I feature you on Extraordinary Women Radio – and within minutes she emailed back and said “Sure!” What’s really fun for me, is I’ve trail ridden in the mountains above Pam’s ranch. This is deep high country, and it is where my father’s ashes are spread, high atop a mountain range, 16 miles from any roads. This country is wild, rugged and magically spirit-filled. I feel Pam’s love for this land. It truly was a delight to feature Pam in this interview. She is also the author of Contents May Have Shifted, Waltzing the Cat, the novel, Sight Hound, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me. Her stories have been selected for volumes of Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Awards, The 2013 Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She co-founded the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers, is a professor of English at UC Davis, teaches in The Institute of American Indian Art, and at writer’s conferences around the country and the world. To learn more about Pam, follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of my sheroes, Pam Houston. Pam Houston Show Notes  

Pam Houston on WALTZING THE CAT and Truth I'd Dare; Nancy McKenney, on reactions to topics in NY Dog Festival films, defining/judging cruelty; Tracie answers a “cat question”

Today’s guest is Melanie Thorne, who earned her MA in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, where she worked with Pam Houston and Lynn Freed. Her thesis there was the first draft of what later became her debut novel, Hand Me Down,  which has been widely praised. Melanie joined me today to talk about presenting a memoir through the veil of fiction, and how the reading audience sometimes gets a thrill out of the consumption of another’s pain.  Support the Podcast https://writerwriterpantsonfire.com/support-the-blog/   Links for Melanie: Website: https://melaniethorne.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mthorneauthor IG: https://www.instagram.com/mthorneauthor/     Ad Links: Jagger Jones and the Mummy's Ankh by Malayna Evans: https://amzn.to/2Yj8Hbq Rachele Alpine Teacher’s Guide Services: https://www.rachelealpine.com/teacher-guides All the Walls of Belfast by Sarah Carlson: https://amzn.to/2H9p5FA

Host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello reveal their personal “Balancing Acts;” author Pam Houston reconciles her great love of the natural world and the challenges of living within it, as outlined in her latest book "Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country;" comedian Naomi Ekperigin talks couples therapy for comedians; entrepreneur and social activist Nadya Okamoto explains why she ignited the “menstrual movement;” and Shook Twins perform “Safe” from their album "Some Good Lives."

“Quitter” is sometimes an insult, but in this episode we explore how quitting can be underrated. Anyone involved in a creative project has likely wondered at some point if they should suck it up and continue the fight or move on. We’ll also discuss the dangers of the sunk cost fallacy, insights from Clue, the … Continue reading Episode 6: Quitting (with guest Pam Houston) → This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Here, prize-winning author and teacher of writing Houston takes us through the life journey that led her to buy a piece of ranch land in the southwest corner of Colorado. She knew nothing about ranching but with the help of many people and animals her wandering life became tethered to the land. She also gives insight into the process of writing. Her books include Cowboys Are My Weakness (W.W. Norton 2011), Deep Creek: Finding Hope in High Country (W.W. Norton 2019), Contents May Have Shifted (W.W. Norton 2012)Tags: Pam Houston, Terry Tempest Williams, Irish Wolfhounds, Creed Colorado, donkeys, Fenton Johnson, wildfires, Milky Way, metaphor, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Animals, Writing

Here, prize-winning author and teacher of writing Houston takes us through the life journey that led her to buy a piece of ranch land in the southwest corner of Colorado. She knew nothing about ranching but with the help of many people and animals her wandering life became tethered to the land. She also gives insight into the process of writing. Her books include Cowboys Are My Weakness (W.W. Norton 2011), Deep Creek: Finding Hope in High Country (W.W. Norton 2019), Contents May Have Shifted (W.W. Norton 2012)Tags: Pam Houston, Terry Tempest Williams, Irish Wolfhounds, Creed Colorado, donkeys, Fenton Johnson, wildfires, Milky Way, metaphor, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Animals, Writing 

Pam Houston is a prize-winning author and professor of English at the University of California Davis. She cofounded the literary non-profit Writing by Writers and also teaches in the Institute of American Indian Arts, Low Residency MFA Program and at writers conferences around the country and the world. Her books include Cowboys Are My Weakness (W.W. Norton 2011), Deep Creek: Finding Hope in High Country (W.W. Norton 2019), Contents May Have Shifted (W.W. Norton 2012)Tags: Pam Houston, Ranching, wildfire, Bob Pinckley, Belted Kingfisher, donkeys, Irish Wolfhounds, power of routines, Living in extreme temperatures, Animals, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Community

Columnist and author Shawn Vestal speaks with Pam Houston about her new book "Deep Creek".Her new book is an elegy to the disappearing wild places on Earth, like her 120-acre ranch, where cellphone towers are banned and the pantry is always stocked against the next three-day snowstorm. An English professor at the University of California–Davis, Houston also is the author of “Cowboys are My Weakness” and “Contents May Have Shifted.” Her new book, "Deep Creek," is on the Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller List.

Columnist and author Shawn Vestal speaks with Pam Houston about her new book "Deep Creek".Her new book is an elegy to the disappearing wild places on Earth, like her 120-acre ranch, where cellphone towers are banned and the pantry is always stocked against the next three-day snowstorm. An English professor at the University of California–Davis, Houston also is the author of “Cowboys are My Weakness” and “Contents May Have Shifted.” Her new book, "Deep Creek," is on the Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller List.

On her 120-acre homestead high in the Colorado Rockies, beloved writer Pam Houston learns what it means to care for a piece of land and the creatures on it. Elk calves and bluebirds mark the changing seasons, winter temperatures drop to 35 below, and lightning sparks a 110,000-acre wildfire, threatening her century-old barn and all its inhabitants. Through her travels from the Gulf of Mexico to Alaska, she explores what ties her to the earth, the ranch most of all. Alongside her devoted Irish wolfhounds and a spirited troupe of horses, donkeys, and Icelandic sheep, the ranch becomes Houston's sanctuary, a place where she discovers how the natural world has mothered and healed her after a childhood of horrific parental abuse and neglect.

Colorado has a low vaccination rate that Gov. Jared Polis says he wants to elevate. But he's wary of eliminating the state's relatively generous exemptions for fear of creating "distrust." What does the research say? Then, why can't female astronauts find spacewalk suits that fit? Plus, DIA's notorious blue horse inspires a rampaging new video game. And author Pam Houston goes from living in her car to buying property near Creede.

Brazil To Grab Indigenous Lands / Beyond the Headlines / Losing Ground: Midwest Floods Rip Away Topsoil / BirdNote®: The Rainwater Basin of Nebraska / The Place Where You Live: Chadron, Nebraska / Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country In this episode: Record flooding in the Midwest has swept away the precious topsoil of the "bread basket of the United States." Farmers already dealing with the Trump Administration's trade war with China now face spoiled grain, dead livestock and an interrupted planting season. The more moderate spring rains are welcome as they bring out the green and help water crops, and in south-central Nebraska, they provide watering grounds for migrating birds, including the famous Sandhill Cranes. Also, a constitutional crisis looms in Brazil as its controversial new president, Jair Bolsonaro, seeks to open the Amazon's indigenous territories to mining, against tribes' wishes. And we hear from writer Pam Houston about her new memoir, "Deep Creek," and how life on a ranch high in the Colorado Rockies helped her find sanctuary after a childhood of abuse and neglect. All that and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

Brazil To Grab Indigenous Lands / Beyond the Headlines / Losing Ground: Midwest Floods Rip Away Topsoil / BirdNote®: The Rainwater Basin of Nebraska / The Place Where You Live: Chadron, Nebraska / Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country In this episode: Record flooding in the Midwest has swept away the precious topsoil of the "bread basket of the United States." Farmers already dealing with the Trump Administration's trade war with China now face spoiled grain, dead livestock and an interrupted planting season. The more moderate spring rains are welcome as they bring out the green and help water crops, and in south-central Nebraska, they provide watering grounds for migrating birds, including the famous Sandhill Cranes. Also, a constitutional crisis looms in Brazil as its controversial new president, Jair Bolsonaro, seeks to open the Amazon's indigenous territories to mining, against tribes' wishes. And we hear from writer Pam Houston about her new memoir, "Deep Creek," and how life on a ranch high in the Colorado Rockies helped her find sanctuary after a childhood of abuse and neglect. All that and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

Brazil To Grab Indigenous Lands / Beyond the Headlines / Losing Ground: Midwest Floods Rip Away Topsoil / BirdNote®: The Rainwater Basin of Nebraska / The Place Where You Live: Chadron, Nebraska / Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country In this episode: Record flooding in the Midwest has swept away the precious topsoil of the "bread basket of the United States." Farmers already dealing with the Trump Administration's trade war with China now face spoiled grain, dead livestock and an interrupted planting season. The more moderate spring rains are welcome as they bring out the green and help water crops, and in south-central Nebraska, they provide watering grounds for migrating birds, including the famous Sandhill Cranes. Also, a constitutional crisis looms in Brazil as its controversial new president, Jair Bolsonaro, seeks to open the Amazon's indigenous territories to mining, against tribes' wishes. And we hear from writer Pam Houston about her new memoir, "Deep Creek," and how life on a ranch high in the Colorado Rockies helped her find sanctuary after a childhood of abuse and neglect. All that and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

The dynamic duo of Sarah + Dimity dive into a conversation about triathlon with two enthusiasts: First is Meredith Atwood, a.k.a. SwimBikeMom, who is excited about the recent publication of the second edition of her book, Triathlon for the Every Woman. Meredith speaks candidly about how triathlon saved her from work stress and alcohol abuse. Nod in empathy as she details her first run (eight minutes), then laugh along with the trio as she describes her first swim session as an adult. Meredith reveals what triathlon taught her—and how it helps her accept her weight. Meredith and Dimity (also a triathlete) bond over praise of shorter races and women’s events. The second guest is Jackie Kahuna, a mom of two from San Diego who just celebrated the one-year anniversary of her first triathlon. Yet find out why she’s already completed a 70.3 (half-Ironman) event! Jackie and Dimity give guidance on getting used to clip-in pedals and toss around gear advice. Jackie’s enthusiasm for the variety of three sports is infectious. SBS + Dim talk books in the intro: Sarah raves about literary genius of The Virgin Suicides and extols The Winters (a modern reboot of Rebecca), while non-fiction-loving Dimity sings the praises of Pam Houston’s Deep Creek and On Desperate Ground. (Who knew she was fascinated by the Korean and Vietnam wars!?) SwimBikeMom joins the conversation at 19:50. Please help us out by taking a quick survey about our podcast. From March 29-31, 2019, save 20% on all Train Like a Mother Club triathlon programs, available for sprint, Olympic, Half-Ironman, and Ironman distances. Sign up at trainlikeamother.club/triathlon, using code TRIWEEKEND Get $50 off the purchase of an AfterShokz wireless bundle at amr.aftershokz.com by using code AMRBUNDLE at checkout. Start your vitamin ritual today at ritual.com/amr Freshen up your running gear with a Mercury Mile box: Take $10 off your stylist fee by using code AMR at checkout at MercuryMile.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brazil To Grab Indigenous Lands / Beyond the Headlines / Losing Ground: Midwest Floods Rip Away Topsoil / BirdNote®: The Rainwater Basin of Nebraska / The Place Where You Live: Chadron, Nebraska / Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country In this episode: Record flooding in the Midwest has swept away the precious topsoil of the "bread basket of the United States." Farmers already dealing with the Trump Administration's trade war with China now face spoiled grain, dead livestock and an interrupted planting season. The more moderate spring rains are welcome as they bring out the green and help water crops, and in south-central Nebraska, they provide watering grounds for migrating birds, including the famous Sandhill Cranes. Also, a constitutional crisis looms in Brazil as its controversial new president, Jair Bolsonaro, seeks to open the Amazon's indigenous territories to mining, against tribes' wishes. And we hear from writer Pam Houston about her new memoir, "Deep Creek," and how life on a ranch high in the Colorado Rockies helped her find sanctuary after a childhood of abuse and neglect. All that and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

A special edition of the Radio Bookclub featuring author Pam Houston speaking about her memoir Deep Creek – Finding Hope in the High Country. This interview […]

Pam Houstonis the guest. Her new essay collection, Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country, is available now from W.W. Norton & Co. Houston's other books include two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton. Her stories have been selected for volumes of The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Short Stories of the Century, among other anthologies. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA Award for contemporary fiction, the Evil Companions Literary Award and several teaching awards.  She teaches in the Low Rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is Professor of English at UC Davis, and co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

First Draft interview with Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek.

Pam Houston is the author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist and memoirist Pam Houston on how she was saved by nature.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Novelist and memoirist Pam Houston on how she was saved by nature. 

Pam Houston, the author of "Deep Creek - Finding Hope in the High Country" #WPRO She will headline a book launch event Feb. 27 from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. at Alchemy at 71 Richmond St. in Providence, in part to benefit the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge. https://www.facebook.com/events/805901086420868/ www.pamhouston.net

Pam Houston, the author of "Deep Creek - Finding Hope in the High Country" #WPRO She will headline a book launch event Feb. 27 from 7:00 to 9:00 P.M. at Alchemy at 71 Richmond St. in Providence, in part to benefit the Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge. https://www.facebook.com/events/805901086420868/ www.pamhouston.net

Award Winning Author Pam Houston discusses her memoir, Deep Creek Finding Hope In The High Country. Listen in as she shares her writing and editing process, the moment when her editor read the first draft and said it wasn't the book she was expecting and how Pam manages life as a writer, teacher and mentor while raising a family of animals on her beautiful 120 acre Ranch in the Colorado Rockies. Pam Houston is the author of the memoir, Deep Creek: Finding Hope In The High Country, as well as two novels, Contents May Have Shifted and Sight Hound, two collections of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton.  Her stories have been selected for volumes of The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Travel Writing, and Best American Short Stories of the Century among other anthologies. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA Award for contemporary fiction, the Evil Companions Literary Award and several teaching awards.  She teaches in the Low Rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is Professor of English at UC Davis, and co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers. She lives at 9,000 feet above sea level near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

With the money she made from her first book, Cowboys Are My Weakness, 31-year-old Pam Houston bought a 120-acre ranch near the headwaters of the Rio Grande. She joins us on this week’s episode—25 years later—to discuss Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country, a profound new essay collection expressing a deep appreciation for the lessons she learned from the land.

In the first in a series of Sewanee Writers' Conversations, recorded at the Sewanee Writers' Conference in July 2018, James sat down with poet Maurice Manning to talk about his latest collection, ONE MAN'S DARK, as well as a beautiful story about a gift from Claudia Emerson, challenging himself with each book, and how his poetry has changed. Plus, editor-in-chief of 32 POEMS, George David Clark.  Sewanee Writers' Conference: http://www.sewaneewriters.org/ - Maurice Manning Maurice and James discuss: Tony Earley  Tim O'Brien  Claudia Emerson  Pelican pens  Margot Livesey  Daniel Boone  Brooks Haxton  By Maurice Manning: ONE MAN'S DARK, THE GONE AND THE GOING AWAY, BUCOLICS, THE COMMON MAN, A COMPANION FOR OWLS, LAWRENCE BOOTH'S BOOK OF VISIONS  - George David Clark: http://www.georgedavidclark.com/ 32 POEMS: http://32poems.com/ David and James discuss:  32 POEMS  Texas Tech  VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW MERIDIAN  John Poch  ONE STORY  Hannah Tinti  Dan O'Brien  REDIVIDER  Mark Wagner  Aimee Bender  Lydia Davis  "How to Talk to the Hunter" by Pam Houston   -  Music courtesy of Bea Troxel from her album, THE WAY THAT IT FEELS: https://www.beatroxel.com/ -  http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/

Balancing travel with a true sense for home

Evolve! Nurturing the New in Consciousness, the Arts, and Culture hosted by : Robin White Turtle Lysne, M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D. Evolve! brings you people and ideas on the cutting edge of change opening the shells of the past to move our culture into the now. We are all in great need of sustainable ideas for change. The arts and evolving consciousness are how we are bringing that change to the culture at large. This show will bring you the wise, the foolish and the heart-based to help us meet the challenges of the times we are in. This show is a collection of teachers and writers at the Catamaran Writing Conference, 2017. Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Elizabeth McKenzie, Pam Houston, Syed Haider, Joan Rose Staffan, and the creator of the conference Catherine Segerson are all voices on this show. The conference is held every year at Pebble Beach at the Stevenson School. Writers of every genre are present for this unique conference.

This week, as part of our "Summer of Selfies," we discuss the latest book from Pam Houston, a work of fiction that borrows heavily from the author's life and even names its protagonist Pam. We talk about the line between fiction and memoir, and some of the more interesting ways to blur that line. We also discuss some of the difficulties of autobiographical writing, like how to know when your own experiences will be interesting to others. In the second half of the show, we talk about James Frey, who was Houston's student, and how much literary license we're willing to give memoir writers.

In this podcast, we will be discussing the book “A Little More About Me,” by Pam Houston. Pam Houston is a well-known fiction writer. In A Little More About Me, Pam uses essays to tackle the transformative moments of her life and to reflect on the decisions she has made and the various twists and turns her life journey has taken. As Pam takes the reader on this journey, we see that she refuses to ever give up her dreams, and refuses to settle for what others’ expectations are of her. Time after time, she bravely steps into the unknown to challenge herself and to search for who she truly is and who she wants to be. Pam embodies Athena’s perseverance, bravery through challenges, fortitude, and drive.INDEX0:00 Intro and Background of the Book1:07 Mid-30s3:30 Walking on the Edge6:55 Dogs and Kids10:27 Outgrowing Home14:04 Friendship: Loss and Gain19:06 The Grand Tetons: New Boundaries in Life24:38 Conquering Challenges, Accepting When it is Too Much28:37 Insecurities: We All Have Them34:37 Fear of Life Changes41:24 In the Company of Fisherman: Companionship47:55 Redefining Success52:05 Outro and Next EpisodeVisit www.modernathenas.com for links to all episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or YouTube. Send us feedback or leave a review! Follow us on Twitter/Facebook @modernathenasFollow us on Instagram @themodernathenaspodcast

In this podcast, we will be discussing the book “A Little More About Me,” by Pam Houston. Pam Houston is a well-known fiction writer. In A Little More About Me, Pam uses essays to tackle the transformative moments of her life and to reflect on the decisions she has made and the various twists and turns her life journey has taken. As Pam takes the reader on this journey, we see that she refuses to ever give up her dreams, and refuses to settle for what others’ expectations are of her. Time after time, she bravely steps into the unknown to challenge herself and to search for who she truly is and who she wants to be. Pam embodies Athena’s perseverance, bravery through challenges, fortitude, and drive.INDEX0:00 Intro and Background of the Book1:07 Mid-30s3:30 Walking on the Edge6:55 Dogs and Kids10:27 Outgrowing Home14:04 Friendship: Loss and Gain19:06 The Grand Tetons: New Boundaries in Life24:38 Conquering Challenges, Accepting When it is Too Much28:37 Insecurities: We All Have Them34:37 Fear of Life Changes41:24 In the Company of Fisherman: Companionship47:55 Redefining Success52:05 Outro and Next EpisodeVisit www.modernathenas.com for links to all episodes. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or YouTube. Send us feedback or leave a review! Follow us on Twitter/Facebook @modernathenasFollow us on Instagram @themodernathenaspodcast

This week on StoryWeb: Kent Haruf’s novel Plainsong. One of the pure delights in moving to Colorado eleven years ago was discovering a whole new crop of regional writers – in this case, Western writers. If you’ve followed StoryWeb for a while, you know I love American regional literature – especially Southern and Appalachian literature (but throw in a little Sarah Orne Jewett for the Maine coast, why don’t ya?). I quickly discovered that the West is richly endowed with powerful, powerful writers. Willa Cather helped set the scene, and well-known later writers like Annie Proulx, Pam Houston, Kim Barnes, and Wallace Stegner followed in her footsteps. Up-and-coming writers like Julene Bair delve into issues of great concern to the region. Among my favorite Western writers is Kent Haruf, whose novels are set on the flat plains of eastern Colorado. This is not a part of the country that gets much attention, and when people hear “Colorado,” they’re thinking Rocky Mountains, not hard-scrabble farming and small-town life on the high arid Plains. Haruf – who was born in Pueblo, Colorado, and grew up in small towns in eastern Colorado – understood that this seemingly quiet region could be a deep mine of richly lived life. Where better to examine human character, to see what really makes people tick? Published in 1999, Plainsong is the first novel in Haruf’s Plainsong trilogy set in the fictional community of Holt, Colorado, based on the town of Yuma, where Haruf spent part of his childhood. The novel is quiet indeed. Though the plot lines are unlikely, the characters always ring true. A newly single father struggles to raise his two young sons. Elderly unmarried brothers take in a pregnant teenager. Who knew life in a tiny Colorado town could be so complex and nuanced, so rich and provocative? Haruf knew – and he lets us in on the secrets of small-town life on the Plains. I have long enjoyed walking in the twilight of the evening just as people are preparing their suppers and turning on their lights. Call me a voyeur if you must, but I love getting glimpses into private homes, seeing how people settle in and comfort themselves after a long day. It is this view of the world – spying (almost) on private lives – that draws me to Kent Haruf’s work. I purely love the way Plainsong opened up a new world to me, a world that, as it turns out, had been there all along. To learn more about Haruf and Plainsong, read the New York Times’s fine review of the novel as well as the Times’s obituary of the acclaimed writer. Read the final interview with Haruf before his death from lung cancer in 2014. Watch a video tribute to Plainsong, and enjoy a pictorial exploration of Haruf’s fictional Holt County. Ready to read the book itself? You can start by reading the opening of the book online. Of course, you’ll want a hard copy of Plainsong as this is a book you’ll want to curl up with in an armchair, a good cup of tea at hand. Visit thestoryweb.com/haruf for links to all these resources and to watch Kent Haruf talk about his novel Plainsong. The next time you drive through Kansas or Nebraska or eastern Colorado and think you’re passing through empty country, read Plainsong and be reminded of the rich lives people live everywhere.

Pam Houston's most recent book is Contents May Have Shifted, published in 2012. She is also the author of two collections of linked short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness and Waltzing the Cat, the novel, Sight Hound, and a collection of essays, A Little More About Me, all published by W.W. Norton. Her stories have been selected for volumes of Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Awards, The 2013 Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She directs the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers, is professor of English at UC Davis, teaches in The Institute of American Indian Art's Low-Rez MFA program, and at writer's conferences around the country and the world. She lives on a ranch at 9,000 feet in Colorado near the headwaters of the Rio Grande.

How do authors approach writing a book-length piece, whether fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir? As he continues tackling his work-in-progress novel, host Ben Hess explores varying approaches to structure, character development, and plot with debut novelist Elizabeth Marro (Casualties) and GrubStreet National Book Prize Winner Josh Weil (The Great Glass Sea). He also includes another perspective on structure from award-winning writer and teacher Pam Houston that was first broadcast in Episode 001.

Season Two of Story Geometry kicks off with Episode 009, an exploration of Initiative vs Destiny. Host Ben Hess is in conversation with award-winning writer Fenton Johnson where Fenton also reads from his latest novel, The Man Who Loved Birds, and literary nonprofit Writing by Writers Co-Founder Karen Nelson. There's also an update from writer and teacher Pam Houston on her upcoming memoir, not to mention 'appearances' by George Eliot, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Steinbeck. Links: Fenton Johnson - http://fentonjohnson.com Karen Nelson & Pam Houston - http://writingxwriters.org Episode Sponsor: Talking Book - http://talkingbook.pub Produced & Hosted By: Ben Hess - http://ben-hess.com Season Partner: Writing by Writers - http://writingxwriters.org

A book release event featuring Pam Houston, Patty Limerick, and the book’s editor Taylor Brorby reading selections from the book and engaging in conversation about this complicated and important issue. Fracture brings together the voices of more than fifty writers who explore the complexities of fracking through first-hand experience, investigative journalism, storytelling, and verse. At a time when politics and profits inhibit our ability to have meaningful discussions about fracking, these creative pieces provide an opportunity to change the nature of our national conversation.

We break down four foundational tools for the writer’s toolbox pulled from award winning writers Mark Doty, Greg Glazner, Pam Houston, and Lidia Yuknavitch. The tools are: number one - Find Inspiration, number two - Form / Structure, number three - Rhythm of Language, and number four - Reading Aloud.

In an exploration of how place, setting, and location inform our writing, we travel around the United States, from the Deep South with National Book Award finalist Dorothy Allison and award winning novelist Josh Weil and then up to New York City with New York Times Bestselling writer Tom Barbash before heading west to California with all three. There’s also a surprise reading from Pam Houston’s forthcoming memoir, working title The Ranch: A Love Story.

This episode is an excerpt of a live, free-flowing panel discussion at the recent Writing by Writers Conference in Tomales Bay, California between poet, novelist, and National Book Award finalist Dorothy Allison, memoirist, journalist, fiction writer, and teacher Steve Almond, and award winning writer, teacher, and Writing by Writers co-founder Pam Houston. Links: Dorothy Allison - http://www.dorothyallison.net/ Steve Almond - http://stevealmondjoy.com Pam Houston - http://pamhouston.net Faculty Intros by UC Davis, Masters in Creative Writing students - http://english.ucdavis.edu/graduate/masters-creative-writing Season One Partner, Writing By Writers - http://writingxwriters.org Produced & Hosted By: Ben Hess - http://ben-hess.com

So you’ve slaved over your stories, essays, book proposal, or fiction manuscript … and now what? Ben Hess explores the business of writing with nonfiction agent Gordon Warnock, independent editor and writer Jay Schafer, in addition to writers and teachers Gary Ferguson and Pam Houston.

Aspiring novelist Ben Hess explores writing from the deep end of loss, grief, and uncertainty with teachers and authors Tom Barbash, Gary Ferguson, Alan Heathcock, Pam Houston, and Josh Weil. Links: Writing By Writers - http://writingxwriters.org Tom Barbash - https://www.facebook.com/Tom-Barbash-1403861426501638/timeline/ Pam Houston - http://pamhouston.net Alan Heathcock - http://alanheathcock.com Gary Ferguson - http://wildwords.net Josh Weil - http://www.joshweil.com NPR Fresh Air - Terry Gross interview with memoirist Mary Karr - http://www.npr.org/2015/09/15/440397728/mary-karr-on-writing-memoirs-no-doubt-ive-gotten-a-million-things-wrong Produced & Hosted By: Ben Hess - http://ben-hess.com

Aspiring novelist and screenwriter Ben Hess spent time at the April 2015 Writing By Writers Boulder Generative Workshop and gained insights on the origin of stories, on getting going using Pam Houston’s glimmer technique. The words of wisdom came from award winning writers and teachers Pam, Gary Ferguson, and Alan Heathcock. Links: Writing By Writers - http://writingxwriters.org Pam Houston - http://pamhouston.net Alan Heathcock - http://alanheathcock.com Gary Ferguson - http://wildwords.net Produced & Hosted By: Ben Hess - http://ben-hess.com

We're pleased to present a craft lecture from Pam Houston, recorded at the 2012 Port Townsend Writers' Conference. It all started in 1974 with the founding of the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference by novelist Bill Ransom, who envisioned an egalitarian, non-hierarchical conference where the emphasis was on the craft of literary writing.Such writers and welcomers as Jim Heynen, Carol Jane Bangs, Sam Hamill, Rebecca Brown, and many others continued this emphasis on the writing craft over the next few decades, and the Conference has become an annual pilgrimage for many. Whether you’re seeking to create or revise new work, find writing community, or simply desire a writing retreat in an inspirational location, Centrum is at the heart of the thriving Pacific Northwest literary scene. The list of Port Townsend Writers’ Conference faculty members is long and distinguished.

Pam Houston’s latest novel is Contents May Have Shifted. Her stories have been selected for The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, and The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She is the Director of Creative Writing at U.C. Davis and teaches in the Pacific University MFA program. She lives on a ranch in Colorado. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24370]

Pam Houston’s latest novel is Contents May Have Shifted. Her stories have been selected for The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the winner of the Western States Book Award, the WILLA award for contemporary fiction, and The Evil Companions Literary Award and multiple teaching awards. She is the Director of Creative Writing at U.C. Davis and teaches in the Pacific University MFA program. She lives on a ranch in Colorado. Series: "Story Hour in the Library" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24370]