Podcasts about Pushcart Prize

Vol. 16 of Story Time, featuring an author reading aloud from her work. In this episode, Deb Olin Unferth reads from her new novel, Earth 7, now available from Graywolf Press. Deb is the author of six books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Granta, Harper's, McSweeney's, and The Paris Review. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Podcasting in Time is brought to you by the Afterheads and Producers on Patreon in collaboration with my unemployment. If you enjoy it, SUBSCRIBE to get episodes early and enable me to do more things like this. You'll also get all the other bonus episodes of TIYA After Dark:https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlifeWelcome back to Podcasting in Time, a This Is Your Afterlife bonus miniseries exploring the filmography of Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky.Stalker is the only movie I'd seen before embarking on this project, and it's in the conversation for most people's favorite Tarkovsky. But for me, the real treat of this episode is my guest. Philip Metres is a poet, scholar, and TRANSLATOR OF ARSENY TARKOVSKY'S POETRY. That's right, the father of Andrei whose poems feature prominently in several of his films, especially including Stalker. Phil and his co-translator Dimitri Psurtsev published I Burned at the Feast: Selected Poems of Arseny Tarkovsky, an approachable volume that shows the father as an artistic force, a fact the son clearly knew. Beyond his translation work, Phil has amassed a heap of impressive accomplishments. Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships! A Pushcart Prize! He's the director of the Peace, Justice, and Human Rights program at John Carroll University! And I just happen to know him socially as a fellow Clevelander and 80s punk rock fan. Who better to talk to about Andrei Tarkovsky's status as "the poet of cinema"? What a treat.Follow Philip and read his work:https://philipmetres.substack.com/https://instagram.com/philipmetres/https://twitter.com/PhilipMetreshttps://linktr.ee/philipmetreshttps://philipmetres.com/Follow TIYA, share your thoughts:https://thisisyourafterlife.com/https://www.instagram.com/thisisyourafterlife/thisisdavemaher@gmail.comMusic by TIYA house band Lake Mary:https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Jess Row is the author of the novels The New Earth and Your Face in Mine as well as a collection of essays, White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination.  His short story collections include The Train to Lo Wu, Nobody Ever Gets Lost and the newly published Storyknife. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Tin House, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Granta, n+1, and elsewhere, has been anthologized three times in The Best American Short Stories, and has won two Pushcart Prizes and a PEN/O. Henry Award. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, an NEA fellowship in fiction among other honors. He directs the undergraduate creative writing program in the Department of English at NYU and is an ordained senior dharma teacher in the Kwam Um School of Zen.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Hafeez Lakhani joins Book Gang to discuss Abundance, a moving novel about an Indian-American Muslim family chasing the complexities of the American dream. I'm delighted to welcome Hafeez Lakhani to Book Gang for a heartfelt conversation about his debut novel, Abundance. Hafeez brings generosity and deep personal insight as he shares the family stories, cultural touchstones, and creative leaps behind this moving portrait of an Indian-American Muslim family. Together, we explore how the concept of naseeb—destiny—shapes both his own life and the emotional heart of the novel. Abundance follows Sakeena, a Miami Dunkin' owner facing a life-or-death decision, and her family as they navigate her agency and the messy realities of chasing the American dream. Through richly drawn characters and intimate moments, Hafeez invites us to consider what we control, what we inherit, and how generations care for one another. In this week's warm episode, we discuss:

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of the novel Earth 7, available from Graywolf Press. Unferth is the author of six books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Granta, Harper's, McSweeney's, and The Paris Review. *** Today's episode is brought to you by Rula. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rula.com/otherppl⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to get started. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nicole Walker joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about how we talk about current traumas and past traumas in ways that don't retraumatize us, making our work matter to others, giving ourselves agency over the hard stuff we're writing about, conveying interiority and emotion, making our experience fundamental to our writing process, exploring our stories through research, asking readers not to look away, disassociation vs distance, metaphors as entry points for readers, experimenting with the speculative, becoming more expansive, and her new book Writing the Hard Stuff.   Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story    Also in this episode: - revising life paths - encapsulating our experience - the narrator voice and perspective in our work   Books mentioned in this episode: Constellation of Ghosts: A Speculative Memoir with Ravens by Laraine Herring Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story by Erica Stern A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form by Brenda Miller How to Plant a Billion Trees by Nicole Walker   NICOLE WALKER is the author of several books including How to Plant a Billion Trees and Writing the Hard Stuff. She has written pieces for The New York Times and is a noted author in several editions of Best American Essays. She edits Crux, the literary nonfiction series at University of Georgia Press and teaches creative writing at Northern Arizona University where she serves as Writer-in-Residence for the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society.    Connect with Nicole: Website: nikwalk.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicole.walker.18041 @nikwalk.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikwalker28/ ‭https://nikwalk.substack.com/    Purchase Book:  https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/writing-the-hard-stuff-9781350518650/ https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/how-to-plant-a-billion-trees-9798216278894/   - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/  

Hemat Malak joins Timothy Green on the Rattlecast for a conversation about poetry, identity, poetic form, and her debut collection, Shelf Life, published by 5 Islands Press. An Australian poet based in Picton, New South Wales, Hemat returned to poetry after more than four decades away and won the 2025 Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize for “I Don't Say My Name Right.” A longtime Rattle listener and member of the community, she has published several poems with Rattle, including the title poem “Shelf Life,” which we nominated for a Pushcart Prize. In this episode, we discuss Shelf Life, returning to poetry later in life, Australian poetry, identity and immigration, motherhood and belonging, formal poetry, sound and revision, and the role that prompts and poetry communities can play in developing a writer's voice. We'll also talk about Hemat's journey from Rattle listener to Rattle contributor and award-winning poet, and open the lines for this week's prompt-based poetry reading. This Week's Prompt: Write a contemporary epic poem. Next Week's Prompt: Write a poem about something you've kept on a shelf for far too long. Submit your poem through Submittable by midnight Sunday for a chance to be invited on the show: https://rattle.submittable.com/submit/269309/rattlecast-prompt-poems-online Find more about Hemat Malak here: https://hematmalak.com/ The Rattlecast livestreams every Monday on YouTube, Facebook, and X, then becomes available as an audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.

Jim Daniels has authored more than thirty collections of poetry, seven collections of fiction, and one collection of essays, and has written four produced screenplays. He has also edited or co-edited six anthologies, most recently RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music. He is a recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His books have won four Michigan Notable Books awards, the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry, the Tillie Olsen Creative Writing Award, the Milton Kessler Award, and three gold medals in the Independent Publisher Book Awards, among others, and his films have won awards in film festivals around the world. His work has been published in The Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize volumes. He has read his poetry on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, and his poems were frequently featured on Keillor's Writer's Almanac. Poet laureates Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, and Tracy K. Smith all showcased his writing as part of their work to bring poetry to average Americans. During his long career, he has warmed up for singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams at the Three Rivers Arts Festival, read poems at a Jamestown Jammers AA baseball game, had his poem “Factory Love” displayed on a race car, and sent poetry into space as part of the Moon Arts Project. A native of Detroit, he lives in Pittsburgh, where he is the Baker University Professor Emeritus of English at Carnegie Mellon University. He currently teaches in the Alma College low-residency MFA program. Author Jim Daniels spoke at Marshall District Library as part of the 2026 #MiNotableBks author tour and was also honored as the 2025-2026 #MiAuthorAward recipient. Special thanks to MDL for hosting and to the Library of Michigan Foundation for their support of both programs. Visit www.Michigan.gov/NotableBooks and www.Michigan.gov/MiAuthorAwardfor more details on each program.  An Ignorance of Trees: A Memoir in Essays was published in August 2025 by Cornerstone Press and won a Michigan Notable Book Award in 2026.This was his fifth Michigan Notable Book Award: two in poetry, one in fiction, one in nonfiction, and one for editing (RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music.More info on the Michigan Author Award at link above. https://msupress.org/9781611865745/late-invocation-for-magic/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_DanielsWriters mentioned: Andrew Collard, Dustin M. Hoffman, R.S. Deneen

William Huhn is a critically acclaimed, award-winning writer of poetry and narrative essays. Huhn, the grandson of Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Henrietta Seiberling, graduated from Vassar College with a degree in chemistry. He works for a testing and certification company, overseeing its East Coast laboratories. But despite the science side to him, he is really a creative artist at heart.He studied classical violin from age five and then took up old-time fiddle. He played fiddle across Europe after graduating from college, hoping to raise enough funds to live as a poet. He wrote much poetry during that period and others, many examples of which were published in journals and magazines.Now, years later, his debut poetry collection was released. Bachelor Holiday, which has been praised by Midwest Book Reviews, Literary Titan, and by notable award-winning writers. Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review and the book was a finalist at American Book Fest's 2024 Book Award for Poetry. It also was the winner of the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for Poetry.He's had numerous narrative essays published in American Literary Review, Sport Literate, Pembroke, Rosebud, and other publications. Eight of these essays were listed as “Notable Essay” in The Best American Essays series. His writings received two honorable mentions in the New Millennium Award (for nonfiction) and twice he received Pushcart Prize nominations for nonfiction.His poetry has been published in Verse Daily, The Carolina Quarterly, Talking River Review, 34th Parallel, San Pedro River Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Blue Moon Literary and Art Review, and elsewhere. BlazeVOX, his book publisher, is among the most prestigious independent literary presses in the nation.Born in Bryn Mawr, and raised in Devon, Pennsylvania, he also lived in Southern California and New York. He resides in a suburb of New York City with his wife and two young children. For more information, please see: www.williamhuhn.com.  Connect on social media:https://www.facebook.com/WilliamBucklerHuhn/https://www.instagram.com/willhuhn/https://x.com/WillHuhnBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

On this episode of Antioch MFA Program's LitCit, host Teré Fowler-Chapman chats with guest  Niki Herd. Niki is the author of two poetry collections, The Stuff of Hollywood (2024) and The Language of Shedding Skin (2011), and the chapbook ____, don't you weep (2022). She is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominee and is an assistant professor at Franklin & Marshall College. This episode was produced by Jenna Ray and edited by Odin Rasco.

Jess Row is the author of the novel Your Face in Mine, the essay collection White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination, and two collections of short stories, The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Tin House, Conjunctions, Ploughshares, Granta, n+1, and elsewhere, has been anthologized three times in The Best American Short Stories, and has won two Pushcart Prizes and a PEN/O. Henry Award. He has received a Guggenheim fellowship, an NEA fellowship in fiction, a Whiting Writers Award, and a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant. In 2007, he was named a “Best Young American Novelist” by Granta. His nonfiction and criticism appear often in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Threepenny Review, and Boston Review, among other venues. He directs the undergraduate creative writing program in the Department of English at NYU and lives in New York City and Plainfield, Vermont. His latest is the shortstory collection titled, Storyknife. Learn more at jessrow.com Intro reel, Writing Table Podcast 2024 Outro RecordingFollow the Writing Table: @writingtablepodcastEmail questions or tell us who you'd like us to invite to the Writing Table: writingtablepodcast@gmail.com.

When author Michelle Collins Anderson debuted her first novel, The Flower Sisters, she joined the podcast to discuss the ten-year journey it took to bring that story into the world. Since then, life has changed dramatically. Her second novel, The Moonshine Women, has become an instant USA Today bestseller, and she's already hard at work on book number three.In this episode, we talk about her fascinating new novel set in the Missouri Ozarks, but we also dive into something much deeper: the pressure that comes after success. How do you create when people are waiting? How do you stay true to your voice when everyone has an opinion? And how do you keep moving forward when the expectations, both internal and external, keep getting higher?Whether you're an author, an entrepreneur, a parent, or simply someone who wonders if you're doing enough, you'll find encouragement in Michelle's honest reflections on creativity, criticism, deadlines, and learning that your worth isn't defined by your latest achievement.Show Notes:Michelle Collins Anderson grew up in the Missouri Ozarks and holds a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri and an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. Her debut novel, The Flower Sisters, was an instant USA Today bestseller and won the Missouri Library Association Literary Award in 2025. Her new novel, The Moonshine Women, was an IndieNext pick in April 2026 and an instant USA Today bestseller. Michelle's short fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Nimrod International Journal, Literal Latté, Midwestern Gothic, Elder Mountain: A Journal of Ozarks Studies, Literary Mama and more. She and her husband have three adult children and live in St. Louis with two sister cats and a rambunctious border collie.To purchase her books, go to https://bookshop.org/shop/michelle_collins_anderson Follow her writing journey at: The Creative Pause on Substack or at www.MichelleAnderson.meShow produced by Jordan Overkamp at playroomstudio.net

Barbara Mujica is a multi-award-winning, bestselling novelist, and a professor emerita at Georgetown University. She's also a short-story writer, essayist, and critic. She's been published in The New York Times, The Miami Herald, and The Washington Post. Barbara's stories have appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals.  She's a two-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize for Fiction. And her work has been optioned for the movies and adapted for the stage. Her latest novel, Miss del Río, which is a historical fiction about the great Mexican-American actress, Dolores Del Rio, has been optioned for a film by John Black Productions. It was a Target Book Club pick, an Apple Audio "Must Listen," a Library Journal "Best Book of the Year" selection, and The Washington Post named it "One of the five best recent historical novels." I've read Miss Del Rio, and can tell you it's riveting storytelling about a real-life major movie star as she lives and works in an elite world few ever get to experience. Miss Del Rio is a fascinating glimpse into many of the true characters of Hollywood's silent era as it transitioned to talkies and far beyond.Among Barbara's published books are Frida, a best seller is based on the tumultuous relationship between the artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Sister Teresa, I Am Venus, The Deaths of Don Bernardo, and three short story collections: Imagining Iraq, Sanchez Across the Street, and Far from My Mother's Home. As a scholar, Barbara specializes in Early Modern Spanish literature and contemporary Latin American Culture. Barbara's also been active in veterans' issues at Georgetown since 2010. Her book Collateral Damage: Women Write about War was inspired by a symposium she organized at Georgetown on women and war. And you may have seen or heard Barbara being interviewed on CBS-TV News, NPR, NBC Radio, The PBS TV News Hour, and CNN-LatinoIn case you're wondering about the intermittent snoring throughout much of the show, it is Barbara's dog, Frankie, who was taking a long snooze as we were recording. 

What does it mean to inherit a story? How do memory, family, race, and identity shape the poems we write—and how do poems, in turn, reshape the stories we tell ourselves?In this episode of The Hive Poetry Collective, host Julie Murphy welcomes award-winning poet Lisa Low to discuss her remarkable new collection, Replica (University of Wisconsin Press, 2026). The conversation begins with Tiana Clark's exuberant "Broken Ode for the Epigraph," opening a rich discussion about literary lineage, artistic permission, revision, and the transformative power of poetry.Together they explore the craft behind several poems from Replica, including "Replica," "People Who Look Like You," "Palinode," and "On Effort," examining how ordinary objects, sharp observation, humor, and self-interrogation become vehicles for profound emotional and philosophical inquiry.Lisa Low is the author of Replica and the chapbook Crown for the Girl Inside. A recipient of the 2023 Pushcart Prize and the 2020 Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Ecotone, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Maryland, she lives in Chicago.

In this episode, ERB Podcast producer Julie L. Moore speaks with acclaimed writers Robert Cording and Marjorie Maddox about their most recent books: In the Unwalled City and What's Possible: New and Selected Poems by Cording and Seeing Things and Hover Here by Maddox. Humble and gracious, Cording and Maddox share how they write about their own deep questions, intense challenges, and heart-breaking losses in their vulnerable, relatable poetry and prose. Both retired college professors, Cording and Maddox also address contemporary Americans' hesitance regarding and anxiety about reading poetry as they likewise discuss how their craft enables readers to feel welcome when encountering their poetry. They each read one of their poems to illustrate how accessible and moving their poetry can be.   Robert Cording is professor emeritus at College of the Holy Cross where he taught for 38 years and served as the Barrett Chair of English and Creative Writing.  After his retirement, he worked for five years as a poetry mentor in the Seattle Pacific University low residency MFA program. He has published ten collections of poems, and three of his books were finalists for the Connecticut Book Award. Walking with Ruskin (CavanKerry Press) was also a runner-up for the Poet's Prize. A book on poetry, the Bible, and metaphor, Finding the World's Fullness, was published by Slant. He has received two NEA Fellowships in poetry, two poetry fellowships from the state of Connecticut, and has won three Pushcart Prizes in poetry. His poems have appeared in such notable publications as Best American Poetry, 2018; Best Spiritual Writing (1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010); Poetry Magazine Anthology; Godine: Poets of the New Century; and Milkweed: Urban Nature. Cording has also served as director of From the Fishouse and was poet-in-residence at the Frost Place.Marjorie Maddox is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University, 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, a poetry editor of Presence, and radio host of WPSU-FM's Poetry Moment. Maddox has published seventeen collections of poetry and won many awards, including the Yellowglen Prize and the Philip H. McMath Post-Publication Award for Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation; the Sandstone Book Award for Perpendicular As I; the Redgreene Press Chapbook Award for When the Wood Clacks Out Your Name: Baseball Poems; the Painted Bride Chapbook Award for How to Fit God into a Poem; and the Amelia Chapbook Winner for Nightrider to Edinburgh. Her poem, “Arise,” about the Thailand cave rescue, won the 2019 Foley Poetry Prize by America Magazine. She is co-editor, with Jerry Wemple, of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press, 2005) and Keystone: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State University Press, 2025).If you'd like to order any of the following books, we encourage you to do so from Hearts and Minds Books(an independent bookstore in Dallastown, PA, run by Byron and Beth Borger)Robert Cording's Recent Books, both by Slant Books: In the Unwalled City (2022) What's Possible: New and Selected Poems (2026) Marjorie Maddox's Recent Books: Seeing Things (Wildhouse Publishing, 2025)Hover Here (Broadstone Books, 2026)Other Books Discussed: Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of NorwichThe Awful Rowing Toward God by Anne SextonWalking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'EngleThe Accidental Pilgrim: Finding God and His Mother in Tuscany by Judith SornbergerSorority of Stillness: A Gallery of Women in Art by Judith SornbergerLove Song with Dying Fish by Marci Rae Johnson Devil's Backbone by Julie L. MooreThe Countess by Rebecca JohnsPoems Mentioned: "Satire III" by John Donne"Lord" by George HerbertInfluential Authors Mentioned & Recommended: Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Wenthe, Sydney Lea, Baron Wormser, Ada Limón, Laura Reece Hogan, and Marie Howe

This episode covers a new anthology from Wayne State University Press. Titled Black Summers: Growing Up in the Urban Outdoors, this vibrant collection invites readers to breathe deeply and return to that "carefree" season from an urban perspective. These emerging and award-winning creators of all ages recount the struggles and triumph of staking their claim to public spaces. Ranging from poetry to essay, creative nonfiction to comics, this collection blends nostalgia with struggle and resilience. DESIREE COOPERDesiree Cooper, the book's editor, was born in Japan as a military dependent and spent her adulthood in Detroit. She now lives in coastal Virginia where she is raising her grandchildren. She is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, and among her accolades are a 2017 Midland Authors Award Winner in Adult Fiction, a 2017 Michigan Notable Book, a 2016 Midwest Book Award Finalist, and inclusion in the Poets and Writers 5 Over 50.NANDI COMER Our next author is Nandi Comer, an award-winning poet and essayist. She served as the 2nd Poet Laureate of the state of Michigan 2023-2025, during which time she spearheaded Michigan Words and the video series Michigan in Verse. She is the author of the chapbook American Family: A Syndrome. Her debut poetry collection, Tapping Out, won the 2020 Society of Midland Authors Award and the 2020 Julie Suk Award. Her poems and essays have appeared in American Poets, Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, and others. She currently serves as the 2025-2026 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Creative Writing and co-director of Detroit Lit. ROCHELLE WILSON-ELLISNext we have, Rochelle Wilson-Ellis. She is a U.S. Navy veteran whose journey has been shaped by service, resilience, and care for others. Having served aboard the USS Ross and USS George Washington, Rochelle has carried that same spirit of dedication into every chapter of her life. A loving mother of two and a certified baker and pastry chef, she has also spent years working in healthcare. In 2021, Rochelle was trained as a citizen journalist through the Sarah E. Ray Project, helping preserve the oral histories of those who attended Detroit's legendary Action House in the 1970s and '80s. LILLEN WALLEROur final reader is Detroit native Lillien Waller, a poet and essayist. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New Poets, and, in 2015, she received a Kresge Artist Fellowship in Poetry. In 2023, Lillien was awarded an Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Her essay “Listen Children, All Is Not Lost” appears in the anthology Black Summers: Growing Up in the Urban Outdoors. For more information on the book and the authors, please see the Wayne State University Press website. 

Summer reading is often about traveling to far-away places and meeting fascinating people. But for two Vermont authors, the exotic destination for their new books is their home state.Hardwick author Brett Ann Stanciu's latest book is “Call It Madness.” It features a young protagonist, Avah Lavoie, who journeys to a remote village in northern Vermont to salvage an old farmhouse that offers answers to mysteries about her family. The book's title is taken from a David Budbill poem and “reflects the sorrow and stubbornness of family life,” says the author. Stanciu told me she “wanted to write about a small Vermont village that has people who are very wealthy … people who are in the middle and people who are really scrambling in the bottom.”If her fictional village sounds suspiciously like the real town of Greensboro, there is a reason: Stanciu is the treasurer and zoning administrator for the Northeast Kingdom town. The Marlboro College graduate is the recipient of two Vermont Arts Council grants and was a 2025 nominee for the Pushcart Prize, the prestigious literary award. She is editor-at-large for Vermont Almanac. Stanciu was a guest on Vermont Conversation in 2021 to discuss her nonfiction book “Unstitched: My Journey to Understand Opioid Addiction and How People and Communities Can Heal.”For Corinth author Catherine Tudish, the title of her latest book, “A Thousand Souls,” refers to the population of the fictional village of Neptune, Vermont. The characters include a boy who travels to South Carolina to meet his father for the first and only time, a shy girl who loses her stutter when she befriends a black bear, and a beloved sheriff who breaks up a drug operation only to get arrested himself for helping undocumented workers evade immigration enforcement.Tudish is the author of three books and has taught writing and literature at George Washington University, Harvard, Dartmouth and the Bread Loaf School of English.Tudish said she is drawn to writing about Vermont because of “the qualities of observation of the people who live here, a very particular kind of sense of humor, and a great interest in people who come from away and what we're like and how we behave. We can sometimes be objects of humor, but I think that there's also a great kindness inherent in people in Vermont.”Tudish said her fictional town of Neptune is based loosely on Strafford, which is enjoying a moment of fame for its illustrious son, musician Noah Kahan. It turns out that Tudish knew Kahan as a child.Kahan “was a very interesting 3-year-old. He seemed very curious and focused and asked a lot of questions in a way that I think other 3-year-olds didn't. So I'm not surprised that he's ended up doing something sort of extraordinary.”Stanciu said a common thread between the main characters that she and Tudish write about is that “Vermont is a place of multiplicity, that people come from all kinds of walks of life, they do all kinds of different things, have many different skills, lots of different experiences, some joyous, some tragedy. But between that, there's this sense of respect for the individual for what they're doing.”“It doesn't always mean that the characters in these books are behaving well,” said Stanciu. “But they're struggling in one way or another to try to figure out their lives within this complicated network of the people around them, the village, the rural communities and the influence of the landscape.”

Jenny Lisk joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about losing her husband to an aggressive brain cancer and becoming a widowed parent, learning how to do a job she never asked for, being a resource for widowed parents, feeling like you're doing grieving wrong, better understanding grieving children, launching a podcast to learn more about widowhood, incorporating a Caring Bridge blog into memoir, utilizing storytelling principles to flesh out a story and transform it into memoir, fear of vulnerability, defining book marketing broadly, assisting writers in self-publishing, memoir as an act of service, and her memoir Future Widow.   Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: - knowing where to end a memoir - instrumental and intuitive grievers - early marketing and building relationships   Books mentioned in this episode:  - The Anatomy of Story by John Truby - Real American Julie by Lythcott-Haims The Chicago Manual of Style from University of Chicago Press   Jenny Lisk is the founder of the Widowed Parent Institute. She is an award-winning author and widowed mom who is dedicated to helping widowed parents increase their family's well-being. Jenny's books, Future Widow and Widowed Parents Unite, and her show, The Widowed Parent Podcast, guide the journey of solo parenting after loss. Jenny's work has been featured in The Washington Post, Katie Couric Media, Yahoo Life, ParentMap, and more. She lives in Redmond, Washington, with her two college-age kids.   Connect with Jenny: Website: https://jennylisk.com https://jennyliskllc.com/ https://widowedparentinstitute.com/   - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

Today on the program, a trip into the archive and a return to Episode 99, my conversation with Elizabeth Ellen, author of American Thighs, editor of Hobart, and publisher of SF/LD Books. Air date: August 26, 2012. Elizabeth Ellen's stories have been published in American Short Fiction, HARPER'S Magazine, Muumuu House, Joyland, and numerous other magzines and journals. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for her story "Teen Culture," and is the author of several books including the cult classics Fast Machine and Person/a. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Courtney Kocak joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her Hollywood misadventures, facing coercion and exploitation as a young woman, systemic structures we bump up against, fighting the patriarchy, having compassion for the girl she was, landing on essays as a place to stretch out on the page, not terrorizing the people we write about, making dialogue feel alive, book incubators, engaging with other writers and finding community, writing as a means to create opportunities for ourselves, forgiving our younger selves, writing our own rules, taking power back, and her new memoir Girl Gone Wild.   Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: - being objectified - deadlines and accountability - small presses as champions for innovative memoir Books mentioned in this episode: - Draft Number 4 by John Mcphee - Finger Exercises for Poets by Dorianne Laux - Wild  by Cheryl Strayed  - Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Stayed - The Wager by David Grann   Courtney Kocak is a writer, podcaster, and comedian who splits time between Austin and Los Angeles. She wrote for Amazon's Emmy-winning animated series Danger & Eggs and Netflix's Know It All. She's produced a slew of highly-ranked podcasts and currently hosts three of her own with over two million downloads to date: Private Parts Unknown, about love and sexuality around the world, The Bleeders, about book writing and publishing, and Podcast Bestie, a best friend to podcasters trying to grow and monetize their shows (and a popular Substack). As a writer, her bylines include The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, LA Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, HuffPost, and more. Her debut memoir, Girl Gone Wild, with Trio House Press, is out now!   Connect with Courtney: Website: https://www.courtneykocak.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/courtneykocak/ Threads: https://www.threads.com/@courtneykocak Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/courtneykocak.bsky.social Twitter: https://x.com/courtneykocak Purchase Book via Bookshop: Girl Gone Wild on Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/a/85623/9781949487541 Teaching: https://www.courtneykocak.com/teaching - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

Carol Odell joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about being methodically sexually groomed as a girl during her time working at a stable, sexual grooming as a slow desensitization process,  interrupting the patterns created from unprocessed trauma, including her experience as a therapist in her pages, trying to trace our behavior and thread the story in the narrative, taking risks and doing deeper work, the divisions within ourselves, writing self back into scenes we've emotionally splintered off from, recognizing ourselves as victims, hybrid publishing through She Writes Press, turning down the volume on critical self-talk, and her new memoir Girl Groomed: A Therapist's Memoir of Trauma.   Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: - vulnerability - practicing good self-care - being compassionate with ourselves   Books mentioned in this episode:  - Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - Educated by Tara Westover - Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott - Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg Carol Odell, LICSW, grew up riding horses on the show jumping circuit in Virginia. She has been a practicing psychotherapist facilitating groups and working with couples and individuals since 1984. Married for thirty-eight years and the mother of a grown son, her other passions include: squash, pickleball, partner-dancing, mosaics, writing, traveling and being in community with friends and family. She and her husband currently split their time between Seattle and Cle Elum, Washington.   Connect with Carol: Website and newsletter: www.carolodellmsw.com Instagram: mosaicofthoughts_ Professional FB page: www.facebook.com/cfodellmsw   - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

Hafeez Lakhani was born in Hyderabad, India and raised in suburban South Florida. His fiction and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, Exposition Review, Salt Hill, Tikkun, The Cortland Review, and The Southern Review, and have garnered fellowships from PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He was twice recognized with a Notable Essay in Best American Essays and twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was profiled by the Huffington Post as one of “Eight Fantastic New Writers to Look Out For.” His debut novel, Abundance, following five members of an American Muslim family across Miami, New York, Monaco, and Gujarat, was a People Magazine Most Anticipated Book of 2026. Hafeez and Barbara DeMarco-Barrett talk about how he knew the novel idea had legs and how he committed to it for the long haul: 12 years in the making! They also talk about when you know a novel is done, how to use your critique groups' feedback, using a Venn diagram, not going to an MFA program, and much more. For more information on Writers on Writing and to become a supporter, visit our Patreon page. For a one-time donation, visit Ko-fi. You can help out the show and indie bookstores by buying books at our bookstore on bookshop.org. It's stocked with titles by our guest authors, as well as our personal favorites. And on Spotify, you'll find an album's worth of typewriter music like what you hear on the show. It's perfect for writing. Look for the artist, Just My Type. You can find hundreds of past interviews on our website. (Recorded on April 28, 2026) Host: Barbara DeMarco-Barrett Host: Marrie Stone Music: Travis Barrett (Stream his music on Spotify, Apple Music, Etc.)    

In this episode, C. Christopher Smith, founding editor of ERB, chats with poet Julie Moore, who is also the new producer of this podcast. Chris and Julie offer a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast and discuss Julie's hopes for her work as producer. They also discuss Julie's brand collection of poems, Devil's Backbone, which arrives in bookstores this week.A Best of the Net and eight-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Julie L. Moore is the author of five poetry collections, including, the brand new collection Devil's Backbone. Her previous collection, Full Worm Moon, won a 2018 Woodrow Hall Top Shelf Award and received honorable mention for the Conference on Christianity and Literature's 2018 Book of the Year Award. After directing two university Writing Centers for 20 years, Julie now lives in Indiana and works at Eastern University for its LifeFlex program as a Senior Online Advisor and First Year Composition Instructor.

ADVENT BLUE Will Fortner is very good at his job. As a data manager for the Choice Institute — a global technology conglomerate that transforms raw information into certainty for the world's most powerful clients — he has learned to read patterns that others cannot see. He has also learned that not everything he sees is necessarily to his clients' advantage. This knowledge has made him wealthy. It has also made him deeply, permanently cynical. When Will is recruited for a particularly delicate and far more lucrative contracted query, the Institute insists he take on a companion to ensure his stability. Mirai Redwater is clever, forthright, and entirely impossible to read. As Will moves deeper into the entanglements of the Choice Institute's darker architecture, the question that follows him at every step is the same one that defines the novel: is he being supported — or is he being used? A near-future psychological thriller for readers of Kazuo Ishiguro's "Klara and the Sun", Dave Eggers' "The Circle", and Philip K. Dick. Literary science fiction that does not feel like science fiction — because the world it depicts feels like tomorrow morning. TOPICS OF CONVERSATION The data-driven future behind Advent Blue, where the Choice Institute collects and maps human behavior to predict and influence what people will do, taking today's data tracking many steps further. Will Fortner, the "navigator" who reads people through the map, and how that ability breeds cynicism and isolation, mirrored in the fortress home he builds for himself called the Keep. The key relationships that shape Will: his supervisor Stockton the moral chameleon, his ex Hannah, and his assigned companion Mira, whose foundation of candor and "sacred veil" drive much of the emotional core. The moral machinery of the Institute, including "bomber's morality," the AI handler Emma, and how manipulation gets reframed as serving a greater good. The book's layered symbolism and dualities, from the Phantom Reach painting to Mars as the ordered world and Earth as the mess, and how things can be one thing and its opposite at once. Roland's approach to writing the strange and surreal, grounding the uncanny in recognizable reality so readers connect with the characters on a human level. ABOUT THE AUTHOR After working more than thirty-five years in health care, including three decades of midnight shifts, Roland Allnach has seen life from a different angle. He has worked to develop his writing career, drawing creatively from life experience, literary classics, history, and mythology. His publishing arc began with short stories, one of which was nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his stories have appeared in numerous publications. From there he branched into book publishing and has since followed with a string of titles ( Remnant, Oddities & Entities, Prism, Oddities & Entities 2: Vessels, The Digital Now, The Writer's Primer, Angela's Arm, and his most recent, Advent Blue ). Although his stories often bridge several genres, his writing dwells most often on the strange and surreal, with strong characterization and cathartic elements, utilizing aspects of science fiction, the supernatural, paranormal, and psychological/Gothic horror. His books have received unanimous critical praise and have been honored with more than a dozen national book awards. He has also served as an active member of his local literary community on Long Island, New York. During his tenure as president of Long Island Authors Group he doubled membership to one hundred authors, implemented the group's unique Traveling Bookstore and later transformed this to a permanent bookstore in conjunction with Islip Arts Council. He also made the group's authors a regular presence at many local town fairs, made appearances at the Brooklyn Book Festival, and represented the group before the New York Library Trustees Association. Roland has also appeared on national and local television, terrestrial and internet radio, and has conducted presentations on publishing at local libraries and art venues. After a break from publishing during and after the COVID pandemic, he has now returned to his writing pursuits. When not immersed in his imagination, he can be found at his website, rolandallnach.com, along with a wealth of information about his stories and experiences as an author. He is also a scale model hobbyist, and his creations can be found on his Youtube channel, Practical Plastic. Creative pursuits aside, his joy in life is the time he spends with his family.   Learn more about the author and his work at: www.rolandallnach.com CONNECT WITH ROLAND ALLNACH WEBSITE: www.rolandallnach.com GOOREADS:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5181360.Roland_Allnach AMAZON PAGE: https://amzn.to/3Qtjz7f   FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/roland.allnach YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDi6-XVqErGMIoXv027j3tw

Cinelle Barnes joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about her brain aneurism rupture, writing a memoir two years after brain surgery, the healing modality that is writing personal narrative, memoir as a palimpsest, having multiple memoirs, narrating from the perspective of the adult, choosing to be in a place of discovery, alternating timelines, offloading thoughts onto sticky notes, when writing becomes episodic and collage like, gratitude as fertilizer for the brain, holding onto our words and art to keep holding onto who we are, investigating the many selves within the self, and her new memoir A Way Home: A Memoir of Losing Yourself and the Beauty of Returning.   Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: -micromemoirs -fostering neuroplasticity -changing as we explore   Books mentioned in this episode:  -Easy Beauty by Chloe Cooper Jones -Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy -The Man Who Could Move Clouds by Ingrid Contreras   Cinelle Barnes is the Philippine-born author of Monsoon Mansion: A Memoir, Malaya: Essays on Freedom, and A Way Home: A Memoir of Losing Yourself and the Beauty of Returning. She is also the editor of the New York Times “New and Noteworthy” A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South. Cinelle is a survivor of a brain aneurysm rupture and sits on the Brain Injury Leadership Council of South Carolina, and is the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Sustainable Arts Fund, the Authors League Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, South Arts, and the North American Travel Journalists Association, among others. She has served on the jury panels for several literary awards, including the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Memoir. Her writing has appeared in Coastal Living, Travel + Leisure, Buzzfeed, Catapult, Electric Literature, and Longreads, among others. Cinelle lives in Charleston, SC, with her husband, daughter, and cat.    Connect with Cinelle: Webiste: cinellebarnes.com Instagram: @cinellebarnesbooks   Purchase Book via Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-way-home-a-memoir-of-losing-yourself-and-the-beauty-of-returning-cinelle-barnes/1a3f1cce1c657294?ean=9781662510618&next=t   - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-fiction

Well, that's about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth's wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Recommended Books: Victor Pelevin, Omon Ra Jean Stafford, A Mother in History Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth Chris Holmes is Chair of Literatures in English and Professor at Ithaca College. He writes criticism on contemporary global literatures. His book, Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature, is published with Bloomsbury Publishing. He is the co-director of The New Voices Festival, a celebration of work in poetry, prose, and playwriting by up-and-coming young writers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

We're bringing back favorite episodes over the summer as encore editions. Since this episode first aired, poet Jen Siraganian won the 2026 Perugia Press Prize for her debut collection "Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead," which is forthcoming in September 2026. Congratulations, Jen!  Slushies, we invoke the retelling of a ghostly experience shared by Kathy and Marion at the Hotel Figueroa in California earlier this year partway into this episode. Two poems by Jen Siraganian are at the heart of our discussion, and it's the first of these that puts ghosts into our heads. This poem also causes us to consider at some length the physical form chosen by or for a poem, and how this can utterly enhance the experience of the poem when it's just right. It's also an opportunity for Jason to raise the spectre of the virgule (or slash) once again, and we even pause briefly to recall when WYSIWYG was a useful acronym. We end the episode with an ekphrastic that prompts an on-the-spot tie breaker (thanks to our sound engineer Lillie for saving the day!).   https://whitney.org/collection/works/2171 https://www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/gorky-the-artist-and-his-mother.html    At the table: Kathleen Volk Miller, Marion Wrenn, Lisa Zerkle, Jason Schneiderman, Dagne Forrest, Jodi Gahn, Derek Grebis (sound engineer)   Jen Siraganian is an Armenian-American writer, educator, and former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in AGNI, Barrow Street, Best New Poets, Cortland Review, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Rumpus, Smartish Pace, and other journals. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and won the 2024 New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. A former managing director of Litquake: San Francisco's Literary Festival, she is a current Lucas Artist Fellow. jensiraganian.com      Social media handles:   Facebook @jen.siraganian, Instagram @jsiraganian, Bluesky @jsiraganian.bsky.social, Website   Walking into St. James Cathedral as If We Were Already Ghosts     My Father and I View Two Versions of Arshile Gorky's The Artist and his Mother   Lip corners sink, an upturned bowl dripping its contents onto the white   of her dress. Her eyes, Armenian saucers of round, outline hollows of darkness.   Sharing color only, no overlap of limbs or space, shades of pink echo his coat,   her lap, a paleness descends. My father nudges my elbow. He seldom mentions   his mothers, the one who raised him, the other who gave him away. I want him   to discuss the lack of daisies in the boy's hands, the mother's face swaddled in a cocoon of scarf.   Instead, he stands, cloud-drifts across the gallery. We bench in front of The Liver is the Cock's Comb.   He points to the ferns feuding with triangles, the thorned stems breathing blossom.  

Amil Niazi joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about the pressure on children of immigrants, outsiderness, striving to change our circumstances, what happens to women in the workplace after becoming mothers, confronting misogyny and racism, The Hard Part - her series for The Cut, when people are threatened by ambition, avoiding the need to make memoir prescriptive, offering people perspective that is uniquely yours, sticking to our original vision, finding a way to get our books into the worlds, when work, motherhood, and ambition collide, the desire to have more, the journey of a life, and her new memoir Life After Ambition: A “Good Enough” Memoir. Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story Also in this episode: -pivoting -obligatory gratitude -asking ourselves what drives us   Books mentioned in this episode: Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion Daughter by Claudia Dey   Amil Niazi is a writer and producer. She writes The Cut's series on parenting, The Hard Part, and covers work and motherhood and how the two intersect. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post.   Connect with Amil: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amilniazi/ Ami Niazi's column on The Cut: https://www.thecut.com/author/amil-niazi/ Life After Ambition: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Life-After-Ambition/Amil-Niazi/9781668056035   - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

With thanks to “forever” plastics, the earth has reverted to sand and dust. Dylan has been raised by her scientist mother, in a pod under the sea, and longs to escape the loneliness of being confined. The only friend she ever had was a pen pal from Mars, who disappeared. With great effort, she's escorted onto land, to the place of her mother's employment where she becomes the groundskeeper. Unofficially, she begins studying sand. After a few years, the company sends her on a vacation and she meets Melanie, possibly a robot. Love flourishes on the floundering planet, but death is never far, and Dylan's pen pal returns too late in Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026), a dystopian novel about the frailty of the planet, the ongoing need for scientific research, and the human struggle for survival. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including the novels Barn 8 and Vacation, the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, two story collections, and the graphic novel I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper's, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies.  She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Unferth founded and directs the Pen City Writers, a creative writing program for incarcerated men at a maximum-security prison in south Texas. The program has been running for ten years, and the students regularly win writing awards from Pen America and the Insider Prize. Their work has appeared in many places, including Vice, StoryQuarterly, the Texas Observer, the Stranger's Guide, and the Marshall Project. Deb and her friend, Lucy Corin, have gone on several research and writing trips together, including to the Sahara Desert for the sand; in 2024, they spent a month in the Arctic to see ice, trying to get as close to the North Pole as possible, and reaching the 82nd parallel. Last year, they rented two pods in a scrub desert Dark Sky area of the US to see darkness. Originally from Chicago, Unferth lives in Austin with philosophy professor Matt Evans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

With thanks to “forever” plastics, the earth has reverted to sand and dust. Dylan has been raised by her scientist mother, in a pod under the sea, and longs to escape the loneliness of being confined. The only friend she ever had was a pen pal from Mars, who disappeared. With great effort, she's escorted onto land, to the place of her mother's employment where she becomes the groundskeeper. Unofficially, she begins studying sand. After a few years, the company sends her on a vacation and she meets Melanie, possibly a robot. Love flourishes on the floundering planet, but death is never far, and Dylan's pen pal returns too late in Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026), a dystopian novel about the frailty of the planet, the ongoing need for scientific research, and the human struggle for survival. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including the novels Barn 8 and Vacation, the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, two story collections, and the graphic novel I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper's, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies.  She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Unferth founded and directs the Pen City Writers, a creative writing program for incarcerated men at a maximum-security prison in south Texas. The program has been running for ten years, and the students regularly win writing awards from Pen America and the Insider Prize. Their work has appeared in many places, including Vice, StoryQuarterly, the Texas Observer, the Stranger's Guide, and the Marshall Project. Deb and her friend, Lucy Corin, have gone on several research and writing trips together, including to the Sahara Desert for the sand; in 2024, they spent a month in the Arctic to see ice, trying to get as close to the North Pole as possible, and reaching the 82nd parallel. Last year, they rented two pods in a scrub desert Dark Sky area of the US to see darkness. Originally from Chicago, Unferth lives in Austin with philosophy professor Matt Evans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-fiction

With thanks to “forever” plastics, the earth has reverted to sand and dust. Dylan has been raised by her scientist mother, in a pod under the sea, and longs to escape the loneliness of being confined. The only friend she ever had was a pen pal from Mars, who disappeared. With great effort, she's escorted onto land, to the place of her mother's employment where she becomes the groundskeeper. Unofficially, she begins studying sand. After a few years, the company sends her on a vacation and she meets Melanie, possibly a robot. Love flourishes on the floundering planet, but death is never far, and Dylan's pen pal returns too late in Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026), a dystopian novel about the frailty of the planet, the ongoing need for scientific research, and the human struggle for survival. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including the novels Barn 8 and Vacation, the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award, two story collections, and the graphic novel I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper's, the New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney's. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies.  She's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers' Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative-writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Unferth founded and directs the Pen City Writers, a creative writing program for incarcerated men at a maximum-security prison in south Texas. The program has been running for ten years, and the students regularly win writing awards from Pen America and the Insider Prize. Their work has appeared in many places, including Vice, StoryQuarterly, the Texas Observer, the Stranger's Guide, and the Marshall Project. Deb and her friend, Lucy Corin, have gone on several research and writing trips together, including to the Sahara Desert for the sand; in 2024, they spent a month in the Arctic to see ice, trying to get as close to the North Pole as possible, and reaching the 82nd parallel. Last year, they rented two pods in a scrub desert Dark Sky area of the US to see darkness. Originally from Chicago, Unferth lives in Austin with philosophy professor Matt Evans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

On this episode of Madison BookBeat, host Sara Batkie is joined by author Lisa Fishman to talk about her deubt novel, Write Back Now! Acclaimed poet Lisa Fishman's debut novel tracks a peripatetic 1970s childhood and the uprooted friendship between girls who stay connected by mail, until they don't. It opens in a borrowed house in wintry Nova Scotia, where the adult narrator faces the first-ever border closure between her two countries. Framed by these long-separated experiences, the novel keeps almost-beginning again as the narrator tries to figure out where she will be next by figuring out where she has been previously. Along the way, a dead horse, a lost crop, a miscarriage, an extra-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds, and more friendships between women emerge. Write Back Now! explores the tensions between experience and loss, imagination and memory, the real and the secretly real. It is now available from Guernica Editions. Lisa Fishman is the author of the story collection World Naked Bike Ride, short-listed for the ReLit Award for Short Fiction. Her fiction has appeared in The Fairy Tale Review, The Rupture, Guesthouse, Flash Boulevard, and Jerry Jazz Musician. A nominee for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize and a Pushcart Prize, Fishman has published eight poetry books, including One Big Time; 24 Pages & other poems; Mad World, Mad Kings, Mad Composition; The Happiness Experiment; and Dear, Read. Her poetry is anthologized in Best American Experimental Poetry, The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral Poetry, The Ecopoetry Anthology, and Fence Books' Not for Mothers Only. With origins in both Montreal and the Detroit area, Fishman is a dual citizen who divides her time between Wisconsin and Eastern Canada. Write Back Now! is her first novel. You can learn more about Lisa on her page at Wave Books

All Home Care Matters and our host, Lance A. Slatton were honored to welcome Cory Fosco as guest to the show.   About Cory Fosco: Cory Fosco is the author of The Question of When: A Practical Guide to Knowing When It's Time for Assisted Living, Memory Care, or Skilled Nursing. Cory has spent 34 years in long-term care, beginning in social work and admissions and now working in healthcare technology. He is also the author of the chapbook Empty Streets (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), which contains a Pushcart Prize-nominated story, and his short work has appeared in Superstition Review, Hippocampus, and other publications. Cory holds an MA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University and a BA in Creative Writing from Loyola University Chicago. Cory lives in Chicago with his wife Cyndi.

Melisa Febos joins Let's Talk Memoir for a conversation about romantic obsessions, celibacy as a portal to freedom, living her way into a corner and having to fight her way out, leading with scene and story and plot, taking back the sovereignty of her own mind and body, approaching oneself as a protagonist, leaving out what isn't central to the story, remembering memoir is not a transcription of a time lived, radical feminists, exercising agency and self-reclamation, living an examined life, integrating memories that were indigestible to us in the moment, the project of looking at ourselves honestly, and her most recent book, now in paperback The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex. Ronit's upcoming workshop: Writing Dynamic Memoir: From Lived Experience to Gripping Story https://www.lmcmurtrylitcenter.org/workshops/writing-dynamic-memoir-from-lived-experience-to-gripping-story   Also in this episode: -deepending friendships  -memoir-plus digressions -writing about our obsessions   Books mentioned in this episode: Will and Attention by Meghan O'Gieblyn  Canon by Paige Lewis Fat Swim by Emma Copley Eisenberg   Melissa Febos is the national bestselling author of five books, including Abandon Me, Girlhood—which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, and, most recently, The Dry Season. Her awards and fellowships include those from the Guggenheim Foundation, LAMBDA Literary, the National Endowment for the Arts, The British Library, The Black Mountain Institute, MacDowell, the Bogliasco Foundation, The American Library in Paris, and others. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Sun, The New York Times Magazine, The Best American Essays, Vogue, The Best American Travel and Food Writing, and New York Review of Books. Febos is a Roy J. Carver Professor at the University of Iowa, where she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program. She lives in Iowa City with her wife, the poet Donika Kelly.   Connect with Melissa: Website: https://www.melissafebos.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissafebos Purchase book via bookshop: This is for the pre-order paperback for The Dry Season https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-dry-season-a-memoir-of-pleasure-in-a-year-without-sex-melissa-febos/f1c8367d8e351d91?ean=9780593685150&next=t - Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

This last episode before summer has us dreaming of the beach, Slushies—watching moonlight on the waves, reading novels in the sand. But not before we share this packed episode with you. Today we welcome special guest, Daniel Kuriakose, to hear about “The Common Well,” the literary journal he's relaunching alongside K Hank Jost. Daniel sticks around for our discussion of two poems by Mara Lee Grayson.     We admire the duality on display in the first poem's back and forth-ness which has us pondering the undulation of its syntax. The late reveal of whom the lyric speaker addresses is satisfying surprise. A clever turn of phrase sends the more seasoned members of the team straight to this 90's Divinyls' song. The way enjambment revises meaning after a line break in both of these poems reminds Jason of Heather McHugh's poetry. And ultimately Kathy bring us back to the two questions we ask of every submission: do you want to stay with the poem and do you want to share it? Join us in sharing our deep thanks for two members of our staff who are with us for the final time: Reese, our co-op, and Lillie, our sound engineer. Best of luck to your both in the future. Thank you, Reese! Thank you, Lillie! Over the summer, keep tuning in for a retrospective with deep cuts from our archive. Thanks, as always, for listening!      At the table: Dagne Forrest, Tobi Kassim, Daniel Kuriakose (special guest from “A Common Well”), Reese Pfunder, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle, Lillie Volpe (sound engineer), Derek Grebis (sound engineer)          Author Bio: Mara Lee Grayson's poetry has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Tampa Review, and Nimrod, among other literary journals, and has been nominated multiple times for the Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes. Grayson is the author or editor of five books of nonfiction. She holds an MFA from The City College of New York and a PhD from Columbia University and was previously a tenured professor in the California State University system. Originally from Brooklyn, New York, she currently resides in New Jersey.     Social media: @maraleegrayson  Website: maragrayson.com    She Winds Her Stems through Fire for Burning Leaves Fend Off the Grief of Being Mowed On the trampoline, young boys next door              bounce while inside, their mothers   debate wine or coffee. Another weekend              when the county's on emergency alert.    For now, bees land on dogwood flowers,               robins nest in tall trees    planted by the prior owners,              and my husband's on his knees out back   for hours, pulling branches from hydrangeas              I have neither time nor thumb    to nurture back to life. He's learned a lot              in efforts to identify the colony of ants    that sent a scout across our deck, through               the side door to a cat food bowl,    like what distinguishes Bumblebee               from Carpenter (they look the same,    the bumble fuzzier). A million years               of evolution, the male bee    still hovers in one place, waiting               for a female to fly by. I fold laundry   then look up which buds bloomed               in 17th Century Versailles. (You'd guess    invasive species but, unironically,              it's narcissus and orange blossoms.)    For years, I worshipped palms               on the other side of the Continental Divide,    like I was replanted, like new soil               could change the nature of the seed.   I looked for lightning and caught language              in my mouth. I dreamed of blooms,    then woke up in the desert,               staring at a mountain, believed to be    an imprint of ancient gods whose voices               echoed off the surface of the earth.    The nervous system replicates in utero,              its fight or flight part predetermined,    part piano keys the brain may tap. Healing,              says the therapist, happens in the pendulation.   Insects bounce along the glass as children,               mothers sip merlot in coffee mugs,    and the man I married after you               tans wrist to elbow, scratching up his forearms    rending dead wood stems. It's sticky business,              caught between my lush, infertile soil and flirting    with the bees, he knows that when I think about you,               I touch my self-concept on the page.    What the Fortune Teller Tells Me on the Night I Leave California The Channel Islands will one day rise up in the distance like a resurrected poet  high on mescaline and memories of pretty women. You will or won't  learn how to tunnel through a prison  of the mind. When the wind picks up, she says  she was awoken by the rumble of a saw  told so many times it must be true.  You might as well  drive six years backward, park beside a pool  in west New Jersey.                                       I think she means  beginnings are like endings: eyelid work,  a neuron matter, not ontology or god.  To transit is to navigate the synapses,  trade one water for another,  every body's chemistry the same  except for how the furniture's arranged,  which pieces we keep secret from ourselves.  She eschews the label hypocrite,  calls herself a hippopotamus instead. Oh, she's drinking like a river now,    but can you honestly say you've never felt  a kinship for a living being who could crush you and the glass of bourbon in your hand? Maybe when you were a child, your father  chalked equations on a dusty blackboard. Your height in centimeters  is your adolescent telephone number  divided by the times your mother screamed  bringing you into this world.  

In celebration of the launch of season 8, Jill Christman joins Let's Talk Memoir to interview Ronit about growing up with no blueprint for making a relationship work, fending for ourselves in childhood, being driven by curiosity, writing about others with generosity and complexity, conveying to readers that we are not the only one, the use of speculation to move toward a deeper truth, the key to memoir structure, how the now-narrator reaches a hand back to help the character we were, finding a deeper empathy and understanding, opposite world, trying to look perfectly 1980s, trusting that our memories are trying to tell us something, and Ronit's memoir When She Comes Back.   Also in this episode: -Swedish Fish -The Love Boat -being prologue girls   Books mentioned in this episode: The Situation and the Story by Vivian Gornick Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin Stop-Time by Frank Conroy This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolf To Show and to Tell by Pilllip Lopate Jill Christman bio and links: Jill Christman is the author of The Heart Folds Early: A Memoir (released March 2026 from the University of Nebraska Press). Christman's other books include If This Were Fiction: A Love Story in Essays (2023 Foreword INDIES Silver Winner), Darkroom: A Family Exposure (winner of AWP Prize for CNF), and Borrowed Babies: Apprenticing for Motherhood. Her essays have appeared in many anthologies and in magazines such as Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, Iron Horse Literary Review, Longreads, and O, The Oprah Magazine. A 2020 NEA Literature Fellow, she teaches at Ball State University and serves as editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative and Beautiful Things (a weekly online magazine of micro nonfiction). Visit her at jillchristman.com. Connect with Jill: https://www.instagram.com/jillchristmanwriter @jillchristman.bsky.social jillchristman.com Order for yourself and all your memoir-loving friends—directly from the University of Nebraska Press or your local independent or by using any of the handy links on my website. Use code 6AS26 for 40% off on any UNP book! Ronit Plank bio and links:  Ronit Plank is a writer, teacher, and editor whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Poets & Writers, River Teeth's Beautiful Things, The Rumpus, Salon, Hippocampus, The New York Times, and elsewhere, earning Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her memoir When She Comes Back was a Book Riot Best True Crime Book and Kirkus Reviews calls it, “An intimate, intuitive, emotionally vivid family account that finds hope in reconciliation". Ronit is also the author of the award-winning short story collection Home is a Made-Up Place, and her work has been anthologized in Selected Memories, Vol. 2: 15 Years of Hippocampus Magazine and Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture and Heritage. Ronit is the Creative Nonfiction Editor at The Citron Review, teaches memoir at a host of venues including the University of Washington's Continuum Program, Antioch University, and 92NY's Roundtable, and is host of the podcast Let's Talk Memoir and the Substack Let's Talk Memoir. Find her on social media @ronitplank   Website: www.ronitplank.com Substack: https://substack.com/@ronitplank Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ronitplank/ When She Comes Back: https://ronitplank.com/when-she-comes-back/

Ramona Ausubel is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of the novel No One Is Here Except All of Us and the short story collection A Guide to Being Born. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, Best American Fantasy, and elsewhere, and has received special mentions in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. She has been longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award and the Pushcart Prize. Her new book is Unstuck: A Writer's Guide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hafeez Lakhani was born in Hyderabad, India and raised in suburban South Florida. His novel is called Abundance. His fiction and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, Exposition Review, Salt Hill, Tikkun, The Cortland Review, and The Southern Review, among other places, and have garnered fellowships from PEN America and The Center for Fiction. He was twice recognized with a Notable Essay in Best American Essays and twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. After publishing his essay, If We Show That We Like They Make More Mainga, he was profiled by the Huffington Post as one of “Eight Fantastic New Writers To Look Out For”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kathy puts the kibosh on our introductory weather ramblings, Slushies. Instead we're sharing what makes us grateful. Seems like, with our combined love of coffee, we're keeping the baristas in business. Aside from java, Tobi's thankful for poetry podcasts (not just ours), including Poem Talk from Penn Sound. Lisa's grateful for the public library that gives her free access to novels like The Copywriter by Daniel Poppick. Eric appreciates his students. And we reveal the secret behind why we're not on YouTube. Of course we're thankful to YOU for listening, Slushies, and to the writers who allow us to discuss their work, like today's featured poet, Sarah Brockhaus.   In the first poem, “Still Here,” Eric notes the honest intertwining of the writing and teaching life. And Tobi remarks how the flexible nature of the English language, with its ability to shift nouns into verbs, is on display in the poem. The poem's nimble leaps reminds Jason of Richard Siken's valuable advice to “focus less on the lyric leap and more on the lyric landing.” The second poem challenges us with its frequent use of enjambment and caesura, but the ratio of challenge to pleasure is high. We end with Jason's sage advice on how to structure a submission. Thanks, as always, for listening, Slushies!   At the table: Eric Baker, Tobi Kassim, Jason Schneiderman, Kathleen Volk Miller, Lisa Zerkle, Lillie Volpe (Sound Engineer)   Author Bio: Sarah Brockhaus is an MFA student at Louisiana State University. She is a co-editor of The Shore Poetry. Her work has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and her poems are published or forthcoming in Guernica, The National Poetry Review, American Literary Review, The Greensboro Review and elsewhere. Website: sarahbrockhaus.com Social Media:    Instagram: @sarahb._23   Blue Sky: scbrock.bsky.social   Still Here   I try to teach  my students to exist outside  themselves and they email about double    spacing and panic apologize for 12:01 submissions  and I want to see them and say we're real  people, all of us, we're real. Do you see? But I stare    at my wall for hours and it means nothing. I've been losing  things in dreams, each shape afterimages on my lids  and I can't see the space around enough    to place them. Perhaps there never was a hairbrush, a magnet in the shape  of Louisiana, a letter written springs ago. Fingers trace    the handwriting by heart like revision,  same stories and script but the wrong  heart. I'm translating farther and farther   from the origin. My nails grow too long. I imagine  myself bodiless, avoid reflections. I hold still  and myself.    There are eight taxidermied ducklings at the craft fair. So like life and so  still. I want to break    them from the cage, find a way  for their bodies  to hold again.   Phonagnosia   A wasp taps again against  the window. I imagine the hollow  clunk communicating other causes: an acorn    slouching from a branch into a pool. A man's  head, drunk, hitting the wall lullabically, my hand  slid into the space between skin and cinder   -block, how one might protect a baby's soft  skull from a corner. I try to tell the wasp I am not  home and everything from my body sounds    human. To sleep I make lists on the uselessness  of language: the phrase how are you? and how your doing well is a wall I trace my own name    on like tally marks, how the sea swallows  song and estranges it, how without air I am voice -less, how I haven't trained my ear to echo locate,    and can't even vibrate some signal through a        pane  of glass, can't replay what you said years ago in any voice    but the one inside me, that won't go, won't sound  like anyone I know.

Vol. 9 of Story Time, a new series on the program featuring an author reading aloud from his work. In this episode,  Kim Samek reads the title story from her acclaimed debut collection, I Am the Ghost Here (The Dial Press). Samek's fiction has won the O.Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and has been cited as a distinguished story in Best American Short Stories. Her stories appear in Zyzzyva, The Threepenny Review, Story, Guernica, and elsewhere. She works as a TV writer and producer, with credits including WordGirl and Catfish, and her writing has been nominated for an Emmy Award. A native of Seattle, she studied Creative Writing and German Literature at Stanford University. She lives in Los Angeles. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. This episode is sponsored by Ulysses. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ulys.app/writeabook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to download Ulysses, and use the code OTHERPPL at checkout to get 25% off the first year of your yearly subscription." Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A. J. Bermudez speaks to Emily Everett about her story “The Sixteenth Brother,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. With a fable-like feel, the story explores the dynamics of family and gender roles in Morocco, as fifteen brothers scheme to convince their youngest sibling to allow the sale of the family's ancient and opulent riyad. A. J. discusses the story's framing device—a storyteller relaying it, almost like gossip—and how it creates both intimacy and distance. She also talks about her work in film, and the interplay between writing for the page and for the screen. A. J. Bermudez is an award-winning writer and director who divides her time between Los Angeles and New York. She is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is a recipient of the PAGE Award, the Diverse Voices Award, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Steinbeck Fellowship. In addition to writing and filmmaking, she is also a former boxer and EMT, and her work gravitates toward contemporary intersections of power, privilege, and place. ­­Read the story in The Common here. Learn more about A. J. and her work here. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese's Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A. J. Bermudez speaks to Emily Everett about her story “The Sixteenth Brother,” which appears in The Common's fall issue. With a fable-like feel, the story explores the dynamics of family and gender roles in Morocco, as fifteen brothers scheme to convince their youngest sibling to allow the sale of the family's ancient and opulent riyad. A. J. discusses the story's framing device—a storyteller relaying it, almost like gossip—and how it creates both intimacy and distance. She also talks about her work in film, and the interplay between writing for the page and for the screen. A. J. Bermudez is an award-winning writer and director who divides her time between Los Angeles and New York. She is the author of Stories No One Hopes Are About Them, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award and a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She is a recipient of the PAGE Award, the Diverse Voices Award, the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Steinbeck Fellowship. In addition to writing and filmmaking, she is also a former boxer and EMT, and her work gravitates toward contemporary intersections of power, privilege, and place. ­­Read the story in The Common here. Learn more about A. J. and her work here. The Common is a print and online literary magazine publishing stories, essays, and poems that deepen our collective sense of place. On our podcast and in our pages, The Common features established and emerging writers from around the world. Read more and subscribe to the magazine here, and follow us on Instagram, Bluesky, and Facebook. Emily Everett is managing editor of the magazine and host of the podcast. In 2025 her debut novel All That Life Can Afford was a Reese's Book Club pick, and her work appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column. Previous publications include the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Tin House, and Mississippi Review. She was a 2022 Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Fiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

Mira is out sick again this week, so instead of a new episode of Brad & Mira for the Culture, I am instead joined by Chris Stuck, who came to my attention recently when he published a very provocative and unusually candid essay on the online literary magazine Zona Motel. The essay is called ‘Chasing Wild Geese Through the Corporate Book World, or How I Became a Hack and Stated Self-Publishing My Fiction.' Stuck is the author of Give My Love to the Savages, a debut story collection published in July 2021 by Amistad/HarperCollins. He was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Oregon Book Award, and is a Pushcart Prize winner. His next story collection is called Baby, This is a High-Priced Country, and it will be the first title published on Chris's very own imprint, called Black Heroics Books.     *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kim Samek is the author of the debut story collection I Am the Ghost Here, available from The Dial Press. Samek's fiction has won the O. Henry Prize, the Pushcart Prize and has been cited as a distinguished story in Best American Short Stories. Her stories appear in Zyzzyva, The Threepenny Review, Story, Guernica, and elsewhere. She works as a TV writer and producer, with credits including WordGirl and Catfish, and her writing has been nominated for an Emmy Award. She lives in Los Angeles. *** ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Otherppl with Brad Listi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is a weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Available where podcasts are available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, etc. Get ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How to Write a Novel,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ the debut audio course from DeepDive. 50+ hours of never-before-heard insight, inspiration, and instruction from dozens of today's most celebrated contemporary authors. Subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brad's email newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support the show on Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Merch⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠proud affiliate partner of Bookshop⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this rigorously honest conversation, author, speaker, advocate, and young woman in recovery Emi Nietfeld joins Dr. Tiffany Wynn to challenge the cultural narratives that equate suffering with strength and healing with achievement. Together, they explore what it means to reject recovery as a redemption arc and to release the pressure to turn pain into proof of worth.Emi shares her journey through foster care, homelessness, and significant mental health struggles, alongside the complex reality of later achieving many of the success markers society celebrates. She reflects on the dissonance of being seen as a story of resilience while still living with the lasting impacts of trauma, and how ambition can become entangled with survival, shame, and the need to justify one's suffering.Together, Emi and Dr. Tiffany unpack the myths of toxic resilience culture, including the expectation that trauma survivors package their pain into inspirational narratives. They explore the importance of creating communities where young women can be honest about struggling without feeling broken or behind, and how healing is shaped not only by individual effort, but by systems, relationships, and spaces that offer truth, connection, and a sense of belonging.Woven throughout the conversation are reflections from Emi's memoir, Acceptance, and a reminder that recovery is not about becoming stronger, more successful, or more palatable in the aftermath of pain. It is about telling the truth, being witnessed in our humanity, and remembering that we are always worthy of love and belonging—even when we are still healing.About EmiEmi Nietfeld is the author of Acceptance (Penguin Press, 2022), a memoir chronicling her journey through foster care and homelessness while interrogating the true meanings of resilience, ambition, and success.After graduating from Harvard in 2015, she worked as a software engineer, an experience she wrote about in her viral New York Times essay, “After Working At Google, I'll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again.”Emi's passionate about mental health, helping young people navigate their careers, and the connection between engineering and creativity. A dynamic, sought-after speaker, she regularly appears on podcasts, delivers conference keynotes, and speaks at universities and companies.Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Teen Vogue, Fortune, The Information, and other publications, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, noted in The Best American Essays, and taught in classrooms from high schools to MFA programs.Connect with Emi: https://www.eminietfeld.com/ About Dr. TiffanyDr. Tiffany Wynn is a behavioral health leader with a PhD in Counsellor Education who focuses on trauma and resiliency, behavioral management, leadership, and professional development. She serves as trainer and consultant for academic and treatment organizations and is also a woman in long-term recovery. Connect with Dr. Tiffany Wynn: https://www.newexperiencescc.com/ Episode Resources:SHE RECOVERS Support for the Next Generation: https://sherecovers.org/support-for-the-next-generation/ Acceptance, A Memoir:  https://www.eminietfeld.com/books “After Working At Google, I'll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again.” New York Times Essay: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/07/opinion/google-job-harassment.html 

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

Jane Doughtery writes magical, often apocalyptic fiction. She's been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and is inspired by myth, history and classical tradition. Also, she's a poet, seeking to capture the moment in a spark of creativity. Her new novel is 'Pasiphae'. It's a re-imagining of the Greek minotaur myth, a bid to reclaim one of its most maligned women. From the perspective of his mother, it's inspired by how women's roles are distored in Irish and Greek mythology. Jane is putting that right.We talk about why she's detached from technology, also about the intention of poetry and what living in the country means for her idea.You can hear why she just wants to live in the world of her novels, what she needs to know to start, and how she wrestles with the fear of rejection.Get a copy of the book at uk.bookshop.org/shop/writersroutineSupport the show - patreon.com/writersroutineko-fi.com/writersroutineRead the newsletter - writersroutine.substack.comThis episode is supported by the 'Quick Book Reviews Podcast' by Philippa Hall. @writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.