Podcasts about rainier writing workshop

Rick Barot's poem “The Singing” takes place in the humdrum, relatable setting of the waiting room at a car dealership. But the unexpected occurs when one woman's soft humming builds into strange, full-throated singing. Curiosity, wonder, anger, and dread spill over, forcing you to face the same dilemma as the narrator: What can you do when reality defies your control?Rick Barot was born in the Philippines, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and attended Wesleyan University and The Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. Barot teaches at Pacific Lutheran University and is the director of the Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at Pacific Lutheran University. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, was published by Milkweed Editions in 2020, and his most recent collection is Moving the Bones.Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.We're pleased to offer Rick Barot's poem and invite you to subscribe to Pádraig's weekly Poetry Unbound Substack newsletter, read the Poetry Unbound book, or listen to past episodes of the podcast. We also have two books coming out in early 2025 — Kitchen Hymns (new poems from Pádraig) and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other (new essays by Pádraig). You can pre-order them wherever you buy books.

Today I talked to Scott Nadelson's novel Trust Me (Forest Avenue Press, 2024).  After his divorce, Lewis moves into the cabin he bought as a vacation home towards the end of his marriage. It's in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, a forty-five-minute drive from his twelve-year-old daughter's school and his tedious government job in Salem, Oregon. In fifty-two short stories that alternate between Skye and her father's viewpoint, we learn about a challenging, sometimes difficult year of hiking, fishing, reading, foraging for mushrooms, and cooking meals without television, computers, or cellphones to distract them from nature or each other. Their relationship changes over the months, but the love between father and daughter pulls them through the tragedy that changes everything. Scott Nadelson is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Trust Me and the short story collection While It Lasts. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, Harvard Review, and The Best American Short Stories, and he teaches a range of creative writing classes, including introductory multi-genre, fiction, and creative nonfiction at Willamette University and in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. He earned a BA in English from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Oregon State University, and an MFA in creative writing from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. When he isn't reading, writing, or teaching, he spends much of his time foraging for wild mushrooms in the foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains and cheering on his child's roller derby team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today I talked to Scott Nadelson's novel Trust Me (Forest Avenue Press, 2024).  After his divorce, Lewis moves into the cabin he bought as a vacation home towards the end of his marriage. It's in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, a forty-five-minute drive from his twelve-year-old daughter's school and his tedious government job in Salem, Oregon. In fifty-two short stories that alternate between Skye and her father's viewpoint, we learn about a challenging, sometimes difficult year of hiking, fishing, reading, foraging for mushrooms, and cooking meals without television, computers, or cellphones to distract them from nature or each other. Their relationship changes over the months, but the love between father and daughter pulls them through the tragedy that changes everything. Scott Nadelson is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Trust Me and the short story collection While It Lasts. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, Harvard Review, and The Best American Short Stories, and he teaches a range of creative writing classes, including introductory multi-genre, fiction, and creative nonfiction at Willamette University and in the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. He earned a BA in English from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Oregon State University, and an MFA in creative writing from the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. When he isn't reading, writing, or teaching, he spends much of his time foraging for wild mushrooms in the foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains and cheering on his child's roller derby team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literature

In today's episode, we dive deep into Jasminne Mendez's celebrated novel "Aniana Del Mar Jumps In," which has received the prestigious 2024 Pura Belpre Honor Award. Together, we'll navigate the powerful currents of her narrative, where poetry meets prose to explore the pressing themes of chronic illness, cultural identity, and the transformative symbolism of water. Jasminne, with her personal connection to these narratives, will share her insights on the connections between her characters and her own life experiences, including her Dominican roots and her journey living with an autoimmune disease. We'll discuss the often underrepresented struggles of women of color in literature, particularly the experience of young Latina women who find solace and strength in swimming. Jasminne will also take us behind the scenes of her character development, particularly the nuances of Dominican masculinity and familial dynamics that resonate throughout her work. Plus, we'll unravel her emotional connection to poetry, and her transition from poet to novelist. To wrap things up, we'll hear about Jasminne's literary inspirations, her advice for aspiring writers, and where you can follow her work online. So, settle in as we turn the page into the powerful story of Aniana and the rich tapestry of experiences that define Jasminne Mendez's craft. Jasminne Mendez is a best-selling Dominican-American poet, translator, playwright, audio book narrator and award winning author of several books for children and adults. Including the middle grade novel in verse Aniana del Mar Jumps In (Dial) which received the 2024 Pura Belpre Honor Award. Her other books have received prizes from the Texas Institute of Letters, the Writer's League of Texas and the International Latino Book Awards. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alumni. She is the Program Director for the literary arts non-profit Tintero Projects and she lives and works in Houston, TX. Social Media: IG/Twitter @jasminnemendez Website: www.jasminnemendez.com

Home isn't always what we dream it will be.Eleven-year-old Sierra just wants a normal life. After her military mother returns from the war overseas, the two hop from home to homelessness while Sierra tries to help her mom through the throes of PTSD.When they end up at a shelter for women and children, Sierra is even more aware of what her life is not. The kind couple who run the shelter, Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, attempt to show her parental love as she faces the uncertainties of her mom's emotional health and the challenges of being the brand-new poor kid in middle school. The longer she stays at the shelter, the more Sierra realizes she may have to face an impossible choice as she redefines home.This middle-grade novel offers a compassionate look at poverty, homelessness, and hope. Readers walk alongside brave Sierra as she holds on to a promise she believes God gave her: that one day she will have a real home. But what if that promise looks far different than she has ever dreamed?Enjoy this reading of Hotel Oscar Mike Echo by Linda MacKillop!Linda MacKillop writes stories for both adults and kids. She and her husband, Bill, raised four sons in a book-filled home with nightly read-aloud time. Her favorite read-aloud place is a tent, preferably on the water. After living in Virginia for many years, she now resides outside of Chicago in an empty nest. Linda earned her MFA degree in creative writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop and strives to put life's broken pieces and people together again through stories filled with heart and charm.You can learn more about her at lindamackillop.comPlease share StoryJumpers with a friend if you enjoyed this episode. StoryJumpers is still growing, and your positive review and 5-star rating would help.The Bridge Podcast Network is made possible by generous support from The Boardwalk Plaza Hotel and Victoria's Restaurant on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware - Open 7 days a week, year-round - Learn more at https://boardwalkplaza.comFeedback, or Show Ideas? Send an email to podcast@wearethebridge.orgDownload The Bridge Mobile App to get the latest podcast episodes as soon as they are published!

This week co-hosts Mike Nawrocki and Sarah Humphrey talk to author Linda McKillop about her new middle grade novel, Hotel Oscar Mike Echo. Home isn't always what we dream it will be.  Eleven-year-old Sierra just wants a normal life. After her military mother returns from the war overseas, the two hop from home to homelessness while Sierra tries to help her mom through the throes of PTSD.   When they end up at a shelter for women and children, Sierra is even more aware of what her life is not. The kind couple who run the shelter, Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, attempt to show her parental love as she faces the uncertainties of her mom's emotional health and the challenges of being the brand-new poor kid in middle school. The longer she stays at the shelter, the more Sierra realizes she may have to face an impossible choice as she redefines home. This middle-grade novel offers a compassionate look at poverty, homelessness, and hope. Readers walk alongside brave Sierra as she holds on to a promise she believes God gave her: that one day she will have a real home. But what if that promise looks far different than she has ever dreamed?  Linda MacKillop writes stories for both adults and kids. She and her husband, Bill, raised four sons in a book- filled home with nightly read-aloud time. Her favorite read-aloud place is a tent, preferably on the water. After living in Virginia for many years, she now resides outside of  Chicago in an empty nest. Linda earned her MFA degree in creative writing from the Rainier Writing Workshop and strives to put life's broken pieces and people together again through stories filled with heart and charm. You can learn more about her at lindamackillop.com. -------------------------------------- The BIble for Kids is now a 501c3 non-profit and we'd love to have you join us in our mission of reaching kids with the message of the Bible. Our NEW store now features "Pay What You Can" pricing on many items with more coming soon. Visit TheBibleforKids.com to donate or learn more today! The Bible for Kids Podcast is a part of the Christian Parenting Podcast Network. To find practical and spiritual advice to help you grow into the parent you want to be visit www.ChristianParenting.org

This week's podcast features Robin Maass (The Walled Garden, Spark Press, May 2022). We discuss MFA programs and how they often neglect to teach story structure, and how, as a result, she had to move from “discovering the book” or pantsing to realizing you need stepping stones along the way. We explore how every book has some kind of mystery at its core and how important it is to spend time figuring out what kind of story you want to tell. Finally, we delve into social media and the appeal of Instagram as a platform. Robin Farrar Maass is a lifelong writer and reader who grew up in western Washington and fell in love with England on her first trip when she was twenty-two. She enjoys tending her messy wants-to-be-an English garden, painting watercolors, and traveling. The Walled Garden is her first novel, and she's already at work on her next novel set in England. She has an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Redmond, Washington with her husband and two highly opinionated Siamese cats. Robin Farrar Maass is a lifelong writer and reader who grew up in western Washington and fell in love with England on her first trip when she was twenty-two. She enjoys tending her messy wants-to-be-an English garden, painting watercolors, and traveling. The Walled Garden is her first novel, and she's already at work on her next novel set in England. She has an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and lives in Redmond, Washington with her husband and two highly opinionated Siamese cats. To learn more about Robin, click here.  

Our guest this week is Linda MacKillop (The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, Kregel Publications May 2022). Linda took a rough draft she'd worked on for years into her new MFA program and emerged with a polished manuscript, including a central character often likened to Olive Ketteridge. We discuss what it's like when your protagonist is both difficult and suffering from memory loss, (which of course makes her unreliable) and how switching from first person to third person close made that task more manageable. She also shares marketing tips about interfacing with local community resources and how she didn't avoid, but embraced using her faith to enrich the story's themes.  Linda MacKillop writes fiction for both adults and young people, and creative nonfiction. Her articles and essays have appeared in books, magazines, and literary journals such as Under the Sun and Relief Journal. The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon is her first novel. Hotel Oscar Mike Echo, her middle-grade novel, releases in June 2023. She earned her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the Rainier Writing Workshop in Tacoma, Washington. As the mother of four adult sons, she and her husband live in an empty nest outside of Chicago. To learn more about Linda, click here.

Join Chris of The Poetry Question in a sit down with Jasminne Mendez, Author of City Without Altar (Noemi Press), about passions, process, pitfalls, & Poetry! Jasminne Mendez is a Dominican-American poet, playwright, translator and award winning author of several books for children and adults. She is the author of two hybrid memoirs, Island of Dreams (Floricanto Press) and Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays and Poetry (Arte Público Press). Her second YA memoir, Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American (Arte Público Press) is forthcoming in May 2022 and her debut poetry collection, City Without Altar, was a finalist for the Noemi Press Book Award for Poetry and will be released in August 2022. Her debut middle grade book Anina del Mar Jumps In (Dial) is a novel in verse about a young girl diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis and is set to release in 2023. Her debut picture book Josefina's Habichuelas (Arte Público Press), was released last year. Mendez has had poetry and essays published by or forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies including The Kenyon Review, New England Review, the YA Latinx Anthology Wild Tongues Can't be Tamed edited by Saraciea Fennell (Flatiron/Macmillan), and in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext (Haymarket Books). She has translated and written poetry and a libretto for the Houston Grand Opera and she translated Amanda Gorman's best-selling Change Sings into the Spanish edition La canción del cambio. The dramatized version of her play in verse City Without Altar received its world premiere at Milagro theatre in Portland, Oregon this spring. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, a University of Houston alumni, and a Canto Mundo Fellow. Based in Houston, she is the Co-Founder and Program Director of the Houston based Latinx literary arts organization Tintero Projects and a co-host to the poetry and writing podcast series InkWell a collaboration between Tintero Projects and Inprint Houston. She is a Canto Mundo Fellow, a Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop Peter Taylor Fellow and a Macondo and VONA alumni. When she's not writing or napping in her hammock she enjoys playing with sand on the beach with her daughter, swimming in the ocean or a pool, practicing yoga, baking cupcakes and laughing with her partner in poetry and in life Lupe Mendez - the Texas State Poet Laureate. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Nuestra Palabra: To Live, Love, Heal & Experience Violence as a Black Person w/ Jasminne Mendez Jasminne Mendez talks to Tony Diaz about her book, "City Without Altar" and how her book helped her redefine her identity as a Black woman and better understand what it means to be Black. Jasminne Mendez is a Dominican-American poet, playwright, translator and award winning author of several books for children and adults. She is the author of two hybrid memoirs, Island of Dreams (Floricanto Press) and Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays and Poetry (Arte Público Press). Her second YA memoir, Islands Apart: Becoming Dominican American (Arte Público Press) is forthcoming in May 2022 and her debut poetry collection, City Without Altar, was a finalist for the Noemi Press Book Award for Poetry and will be released in August 2022. Her debut middle grade book Anina del Mar Jumps In (Dial) is a novel in verse about a young girl diagnosed with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis and is set to release in 2023. Her debut picture book Josefina's Habichuelas (Arte Público Press), was released last year. Mendez has had poetry and essays published by or forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies including The Kenyon Review, New England Review, the YA Latinx Anthology Wild Tongues Can't be Tamed edited by Saraciea Fennell (Flatiron/Macmillan), and in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext (Haymarket Books). She has translated and written poetry and a libretto for the Houston Grand Opera and she translated Amanda Gorman's best-selling Change Sings into the Spanish edition La canción del cambio. The dramatized version of her play in verse City Without Altar received its world premiere at Milagro theatre in Portland, Oregon this spring. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University, a University of Houston alumni, and a Canto Mundo Fellow. Based in Houston, she is the Co-Founder and Program Director of the Houston based Latinx literary arts organization Tintero Projects and a co-host to the poetry and writing podcast series InkWell, a collaboration between Tintero Projects and Inprint Houston. She is a Canto Mundo Fellow, a Kenyon Review Writer's Workshop Peter Taylor Fellow and a Macondo and VONA alumni. When she's not writing or napping in her hammock she enjoys playing with sand on the beach with her daughter, swimming in the ocean or a pool, practicing yoga, baking cupcakes and laughing with her partner in poetry and in life Lupe Mendez - the Texas State Poet Laureate. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jmendezmemoirs/ Twitter: @jasminnemendez Instagram: @jasminnemendez Website: https://www.jasminnemendez.com/ * This is part of a Nuestra Palabra Multiplatform broadcast. * Video airs on www.Fox26Houston.com. * Audio airs on 90.1 FM Houston, KPFT, Houston's Community Station, where our show began. * Live events. Thanks to Roxana Guzman, Multiplatform Producer Rodrigo Bravo, Jr., Audio Producer Radame Ortiez, SEO Director Marc-Antony Piñón, Graphics Designer Leti Lopez, Music Director Bryan Parras, co-host and producer emeritus Liana Lopez, co-host and producer emeritus Lupe Mendez, Texas Poet Laureate, co-host, and producer emeritus Writer and activist Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, hosts Latino Politics and News and the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on 90.1 FM, KPFT, Houston's Community Station. He is also a political analyst on “What's Your Point?” on Fox 26 Houston. He is the author of the forthcoming book: The Tip of the Pyramid: Cultivating Community Cultural Capital. www.Librotraficante.com www.NuestraPalabra.org www.TonyDiaz.net Nuestra Palabra is funded in part by the BIPOC Arts Network Fund.

Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her honors include a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and a NEA Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, New England Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University, and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University's low-residency MFA program. She lives in Pittsburgh. jennyjohnsonpoet.com "The Lone Palm" was previously published in the Harvard Review. Text of today's poem and more details about our program can be found at: deerfieldlibrary.org/queerpoemaday/ Queer Poem-a-Day is directed by poet and teacher Lisa Hiton and Dylan Zavagno, Adult Services Coordinator at the Deerfield Public Library. Music for our series is from Excursions Op. 20, Movement 1, by Samuel Barber, performed by pianist Daniel Baer. Queer Poem-a-Day is supported by a generous donation from the Friends of the Deerfield Public Library. Queer Poem-a-Day is a program from the Adult Services Department at the Library and may include adult language.

Marie Mutsuki Mockett in conversation with Garnette Cadogan discussing her new book "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland," published by Graywolf Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. Marie Mutsuki Mockett is the author of a novel, "Picking Bones from Ash," and a memoir, "Where the Dead Pause," and "The Japanese Say Goodbye," which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. She has written for the New York Times, Salon, National Geographic, Glamour, Ploughshares, and other publications and has been a guest on The World, Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered on NPR. She is a core faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop and a Visiting Writer in the MFA program Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California. She lives in San Francisco. Garnette Cadogan is the Porter Distinguished Visiting Professor for the 2020-2021 academic year. Born and raised in Jamaica, Garnette Cadogan is an essayist, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University.

Tony Award winner Dinah Manoff chats with author and playwright Warren Read in the episode premiering April 9. This lively episode centers on Read’s new book, One Simple Thing, as well as the pair’s previous collaboration in presenting two of Read’s short plays, both of which were directed and produced by Manoff in BPA’s One Act Fest – Black Gum Rising (2014) and A View From the Porch (2015). "A gripping tale of crime, intrigue, and complicated family relationships...This hard-hitting literary noir is a real knuckle-biter." —Publisher's Weekly "Nicely atmospheric with compelling characters and smooth writing, (One Simple Thing) makes for a pleasant diversion during a time of pandemic." —Booklist ". . . mixes compassion and hope among its suspenseful twists." —Foreword Reviews "Tension is inescapable . . . One Simple Thing is hardly so simple." —Popmatters.com    WARREN READ Warren Read is an assistant principal on Bainbridge Island, WA, and is the author of the 2008 memoir, The Lyncher in Me (Borealis Books), and novels One Simple Thing (2021, Ig Publishing) and Ash Falls (2017, Ig Publishing). His short fiction has been published in Hot Metal Bridge, Mud Season Review, Sliver of Stone, Inklette, Switchback and The Drowning Gull. In addition, he has had two short plays directed and produced by Tony Award winner Dinah Manoff. In 2015 he received his MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Visit Warren online at warren-read.com.   DINAH MANOFF An actor, playwright, coach, and teacher, Dinah’s extensive Broadway credits include I Ought to Be in Pictures (Theater World and Tony Award as Best Featured Actress), Leader of the Pack, Alfred and Victoria, Kingdom of Earth, Gifted Children, and Telegrams From Heaven (Best Director of the Year and playwright). On TV, she was a series regular on Soap, and is best known for her portrayal “Carol Weston,” the character she played for seven years on Empty Nest. She has also appeared in Maid For Each Other (playwright) and the acclaimed ABC family series State of Grace (Jewish Image Award).   As a TV director, she has helmed episodes of Sabrina, Movie Stars, Brothers, and numerous episodes of Empty Nest. Film credits include Grease, Ordinary People, Bloodhounds of Broadway, Child’s Play, Staying Together, Backfire, I Ought to Be in Pictures, Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael, and the independent film, Bart Got a Room. Read Dinah’s full bio here.

Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her honors include a Whiting Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and a NEA Fellowship. She has also received awards and scholarships from the Blue Mountain Center, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, New England Review, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, and elsewhere. After earning a BA/MT in English Education from the University of Virginia, she taught public school for several years in San Francisco, and she spent ten summers on the staff of the UVA Young Writer’s Workshop. She earned an MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at West Virginia University, and she is on the faculty of the Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University’s low-residency MFA program. For more about Jenny, please visit her website: https://www.jennyjohnsonpoet.com/

Jasminne Mendez is a Dominican-American poet, educator, playwright and award-winning author. Mendez has had poetry and essays published by or forthcoming in The New England Review, Crab Creek Review, Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, and others. She is the author of two poetry/prose collections: Island of Dreams (Floricanto Press, 2013) which won an International Latino Book Award, and Night-Blooming Jasmin(n)e: Personal Essays and Poetry (Arte Publico Press, 2018). She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alumnus. Her second YA memoir A Bucket of Dirty Water: Memories of my Girlhood and her debut picture book, Josefina's Habichuelas (Arte Público Press) will be released in 2021. Her first full poetry collection Machete will be released in 2022 (Noemi Press).

Broadly speaking, an ideological gap exists between the more liberal coasts and the more conservative “fly-over” states. So why does that divide exist? Marie Mutsuki Mockett, a fiction and nonfiction teacher at Rainier Writing Workshop and visiting writer in the MFA program at Saint Mary’s College, joins host Krys Boyd to talk about her exploration of her family’s heritage in rural Nebraska to understand a more conservative way of life. Her book is “American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland.”

Welcome back, lovelies! Last week, Rick Barot blew our minds with his thoughts on how poetry connects to everything from Spanish paintings to runway models. This week, Rick reads us the poem "Given to Rust" by Vievee Francis, and we delight in how this poem invites us to think about lineation, survival, authorial intent v creation, and Emily Dickinson.  RICK BAROT was born in the Philippines, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and attended Wesleyan University and The Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has published three books of poetry with Sarabande Books: The Darker Fall (2002); Want (2008); and Chord (2015), which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and received the 2016 UNT Rilke Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award. Barot is the poetry editor of New England Review. He lives in Tacoma, Washington and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University. He is also the director of The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at PLU. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, will be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2020. VIEVEE FRANCIS is the author of Forest Primeval (TriQuarterly Books, 2015), winner of the 2017 Kingsley Tufts Award; Horse in the Dark (Northwestern University Press, 2012), winner of the Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize; and Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University Press, 2006). The recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem and the Kresge Foundation, Francis currently serves as an editor for Callaloo and teaches English and creative writing at Dartmouth College. REFERENCES: "Give to Rust" by Vievee Francis (Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day), enjambment, "Crumbling is not an instance act, or 1010" by Emily Dickinson

What's good friends. This week we get down with getting back into the swing of "the poetry world." We also sat down with Rick Barot and got taken all the way to school. He dropped so much knowledge on art and the body and the state of contemporary American poetry. Hurry up and listen already! RICK BAROT was born in the Philippines, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and attended Wesleyan University and The Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa. He has published three books of poetry with Sarabande Books: The Darker Fall (2002); Want (2008); and Chord (2015), which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and received the 2016 UNT Rilke Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, and the Publishing Triangle's Thom Gunn Award. Barot is the poetry editor of New England Review.  He lives in Tacoma, Washington and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University.  He is also the director of The Rainier Writing Workshop, the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing at PLU. His fourth book of poems, The Galleons, will be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2020. THOSE WINTER GIN AND TONICS:  What did we know, what did we know of a gin and tonic's potential to be a winter cocktail? Nothing! (Until we invented this version). The addition of Amaro Averna and fresh blood orange give the refreshing G&T you know and love some deeper bitter notes and a blink more sweetness. The title of the drink alludes to the famous, heartbreaking sonnet “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. Ingredients: Gin (we used Seattle-based Big Gin), Tonic Water, Amaro Averna, Blood Orange REFERENCES: "Archaic torso of Apollo" by Rainer Maria Rilke; "Ode to a Grecian Urn" by John Keats; “Styrofoam Cup” by Brenda Hillman; Las Meninas by Diego Veláquez; "An A to Z of Theory: Roland Barthes and Semiotics" by Andrew Robinson; The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry & Poetics; "At the Fishhouses" by Elizabeth Bishop; VIDA

Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity and Some Say the Lark, which was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals, including American Poetry Review, Boston Review, The Nation, Poetry, and A Public Space, and she has published essays on poetry and poetics in The Los Angeles Review of Books, New England Review, and The Volta. She co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, an organization that supports Asian American writers, and teaches creative writing and literature at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.Jenny Johnson is the author of In Full Velvet (Sarabande Books, 2017). Her honors include a 2015 Whiting Award and a 2016-17 Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University. Her poems have appeared in The New York Times, Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism, New England Review, and elsewhere. She teaches at the University of Pittsburgh and at the Rainier Writing Workshop's MFA Program. Read "Again a Solstice" by Jennifer Chang.Read "In the Dream" by Jenny Johnson.Recorded On: Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Kate Carroll de Gutes' book, Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, won the 2016 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and a 2016 Lambda Literary Award in Memoir. Her latest book, The Authenticity Experiment: Lessons From the Best & Worst Year of My Life, was released in August, 2017. Kate has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and is a wry observer who writes grief, the drama of peri-menopause and dating, riding bikes, and the joys and challenges of authentic living. You can learn more at www.katecarrolldegutes.com

Brief Encounters (W.W. Norton)What anthology could unite the work of such distinct writers as Paul Auster, Julian Barnes, Marvin Bell, Sven Birkerts, Meghan Daum, Stuart Dybek, Patricia Hampl, Pico Iyer, Leslie Jamison, Phillip Lopate, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Lawrence Weschler?  What anthology could successfully blend literary forms as varied as memoir, aesthetic critique, political and social commentary, slice-of-life observation, conjecture, fragment, and contemplation?  What anthology could so deeply and steadily plumb the mysteries of human experience in two or three or five page bursts? For the late Judith Kitchen, editor of such seminal anthologies as Short Takes, In Short, and In Brief, "flash" nonfiction—the "short"—was an ideal tool with which to describe and interrogate our fragmented world.  Sharpened to a point, these essays sounded a resonance that owed as much to poetry as to the familiar pleasures of large-scale creative nonfiction.  Now, in Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, Kitchen and her co-editor, Dinah Lenney, present nearly eighty new selections, many of which have never been published before, having been written expressly for this anthology. Taken together, as a curated gallery of impressions and experiences, the essays in Brief Encounters exist in dialogue with each other: arguing, agreeing, contradicting, commiserating, reflecting.  Like Walt Whitman, the anthology is large and contains multitudes.  Certain themes, however, weave their way throughout the whole: the nature of family, the influence of childhood, the centrality of place, and the role of memory.  In Lynne Sharon Schwartz's "The Renaissance," for example, the author remembers her relationship with her mother, tracing her own adolescent route from intimacy to contempt.  In "The Fan," Eduardo Galeano dramatizes the communal devotions of the soccer fan.  And in "There Are Distances Between Us," Roxanne Gay considers the seemingly impossible and illogical demands of love.  What binds these and many other disparate essays together is the ways in which they enrich, color, and shade each other, the manner in which they take on new properties and dimensions when read in conjunction. Dinah Lenney is the author of The Object Parade and Bigger than Life, and, with Judith Kitchen, edited, Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction. She serves as core faculty in the Bennington Writing Seminars and the Rainier Writing Workshop, and as the nonfiction editor at Los Angeles Review of Books.Emily Rapp Black is the author of Poster Child: A Memoir, and The Still Point of the Turning World, which was a New York Times bestseller. Her work has appeared in Salon, Slate, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Redbook, O the Oprah Magazine, and other publications. She lives in Palm Springs and teaches in the UCR Palm Desert MFA Program in Writing and the Performing Arts.Chris Daley’s work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, DUM DUM ZINE, and The Collagist, where “Thoughts on Time After Viewing Christian Marclay's ‘The Clock’” first appeared. She teaches academic writing at the California Institute of Technology and, as Co-Director of Writing Workshops Los Angeles, offers creative nonfiction workshops for students at all levels. Chris has a Ph.D. in English from the City University of New York Graduate Center. Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, nonfiction and journalism. Her book of poems include Scattered at Sea (Penguin, 2015), and Dearest Creature (Penguin, 2009) which was named a New York Times Notable Book, and was short listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. Her previous twelve books include Ghost Girl, Medicine, Crown of Weeds, Nerve Storm, and Bitter Angel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. She was the 2010 guest editor of the yearly anthology Best American Poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, Poetry several volumes of Best American Poetry and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. She currently teaches in the MFA Writing Program at the University of California at Irvine.Tod Goldberg is the author of a dozen books, including, most recently, Gangsterland. His nonfiction, criticism, and essays have appeared widely, including in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and Best American Essays. He lives in Indio, CA where he directs the Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside. Jim Krusoe has published five novels and two books of stories, Blood Lake and Abductions. His first novel, Iceland, was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2002. Since then, Tin House Books has published Girl Factory, Erased, Toward You,and Parsifal. Jim teaches writing at Santa Monica College as well as in Antioch's MFA Creative Writing Program. He has also published five books of poems. His latest novel, The Sleep Garden, is due out this winter from Tin House.

Known as the Rainier Writing Workshop, Pacific Lutheran University's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program challenges its students to consider difficult questions relating to artistry, self-awareness and commission. “What are your goals as a student and maker of literature, as an artist contributing to the conversation about the urgent matters of our time? What is the work you want to do, the work that is specific to your experience, talent, and imagination?” In our latest podcast, we pose these questions and others to a pair of RWW faculty members and acclaimed creative writers, Rick Barot and Ann Pancake. Learn More About the Rainier Writing Workshop at www.plu.edu/MFA Podcast Conversation Outline: 2:40 Ann discusses her “Stranger Genius Award in Literature” nomination and Rick shares what it was like to have a poem recently published in the New York Times. 5:25 Rick and Ann are asked “literature favorites” questions ranging from who their favorite poets are to the novels that had the greatest influence on each of them as teenagers. 18:00 Discussion of the many different ways creative writing can be used as a vehicle to “contribute to urgent matters of our time.” 35:00 Rick and Ann reflect on the cultural climate of the publishing industry and publishing paradigms that affect minority writers as well as writers from non-traditional places. 42:00 Discussion about PLU’s Rainier Writing Workshop. Specifically, the backgrounds, goals and writing styles of many of the students who seek out the program. 46:20 Rick and Ann share what writing projects they are currently working on.

Please join us this afternoon as students in the University of Southern California's Master of Professional Writing program read from their work. Readers include Autumn McAlpin, Stephanie Abraham, Brianna J.L. Smyk, Annalouise Carter, and Mellinda Hensley. They will be joined by faculty member Dinah Lenney. Hailing from Memphis, TN, Autumn McAlpin is now a writer, director, and producer working in LA as she completes her MPW degree at USC. Autumn has worked as a freelance columnist for The Orange County Register for nine years, and she is the author of Real World 101: A Survival Guide to Life After High School, Amazon's top-selling graduation gift book in 2011 and 2012. An award-winning filmmaker, Autumn is the writer and producer of the upcoming feature film Waffle Street, starring James Lafferty, Danny Glover, and Julie Gonzalo. She has two other features in development. Stephanie Abraham is an essayist, media critic, blogger and business writer. Her writings have appeared in Bitch, Role Reboot and Mizna. She is currently working on her first memoir. Visit her at StephanieAbraham.com. Brianna J.L. Smyk is the nonfiction editor of the Southern California Review and a student in USC's Master of Professional Writing program. A fiction and nonfiction writer, Brianna holds a master's in art history and was the lead arts writer for NolaVie in New Orleans. AnnaLouise Carter is a prose and poetry writer living in South Los Angeles. Originally from Oregon, she graduated with a degree in English from Stanford University, and has also studied at Oxford and the University of Salamanca. She has been published in xoJane and Christianity Today, and shares a home with her husband, two housemates, and an overweight black cat. Mellinda Hensley is a fiction writer at MPW and the Editor-in-Chief of the Southern California Review. She earned her Bachelor's Degree in Writing and Journalism at the University of Evansville in Indiana, and has been published in The Boiler Journal, LA Magazine, the Review Review, The Ohio River Review, and also currently contributes to the blog Smash Cut Culture.Dinah Lenney is the author of a collection of essays, The Object Parade (Counterpoint Press), and Bigger Than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published as part of the American Lives series at the University of Nebraska Press. Her essays and reviews have appeared in a wide range of publications and anthologies including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, AGNI, Creative Nonfiction, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, and Brevity.com. Dinah is the senior nonfiction editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books and serves as core faculty for the Bennington Writing Seminars, the Rainier Writing Workshop, and in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. www.dinahlenney.com (@dinahlenney on Twitter).

The Object Parade (Counterpoint) This new collection of interconnected essays marches to a provocative premise: what if one way to understand your life was to examine the objects within it? Which objects would you choose? What memories do they hold? And lined up in a row, what stories do they have to tell?  For tonight's reading, Dinah Lenney will be joined by Los Angeles Times book critic (and author himself) David Ulin. In recalling her experience, Dinah Lenney's essays each begin with one thing -- real or imaginary, lost or found, rare or ordinary, animal, vegetable, mineral, edible. Each object comes with a memory or a story, and so sparks an opportunity for rue or reflection or confession or revelation, having to do with her coming of age as a daughter, mother, actor, and writer: the piano that holds secrets to family history and inheritance; the gifted watches that tell so much more than time; the little black dress that carries all of youth's love and longing; the purple scarf that stands in for her journey from New York to Los Angeles, across stage and screen, to pursue her acting dream.  Read together or apart, the essays project the bountiful mosaic of life and love, of moving to Los Angeles and raising a family; of coming to terms with place, relationship, failures, and success; of dealing with up-ended notions about home and family and career and aging, too. Taken together, they add up to a pastiche of an artful and quirky life, lovingly remembered, compellingly told, wrapped up in the ties that bind the passage of time.  Dinah Lenney is the author of Bigger than Life, published in the American Lives Series at the University of Nebraska Press, and excerpted for the “Lives” column in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. She serves as core faculty for the Bennington Writing Seminars and for the Rainier Writing Workshop, and in the writing program at the University of Southern California. She has played a wide range of roles in theater and television, on shows such as ER, Murphy Brown, Law and Order, Monk, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Sons of Anarchy. She lives in Los Angeles. 

Sarah Arvio’snight thoughts: 70 dream poems & notes from an analysis(Knopf 2013) is a hybrid book: poetry, memoir and essay. Her earlier books areVisits from the SeventhandSono: cantos(Knopf, 2002 and 2006). She has been awarded the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Guggenheim and Bogliasco Fellowships, among other honors. For two decades a translator for the United Nations in New York and Switzerland, she has also taught poetry at Princeton. A lifelong New Yorker, she now lives in Maryland, near the Chesapeake Bay. In a review ofnight thoughts, Grace Cavalieri writes, "Who does not love the nighttime mind with its full disclosure, lack of censor—metaphor, innuendo, enchantment, intensity? Sarah Arvio breaks the codes through psychoanalysis and converts her thoughts to poems. [...] From the uncomfortable silence of the psyche’s tundra, Arvio wrings out her truth."Lia Purpurais the author of seven collections of essays, poems and translations, most recently,Rough Likeness(essays) andKing Baby(poems). Her new collection of poems,It Shouldn't Have Been Beautiful, comes out next year with Viking Penguin. Her honors include a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, National Endowment for the Arts and Fulbright Fellowships, three Pushcart prizes, the Associated Writing Programs Award in Nonfiction, and the Beatrice Hawley, and Ohio State University Press awards in poetry. Recent work appears inAgni,Field,The Georgia Review,Orion, The New Republic,The New Yorker,The Paris Review,Best American Essays, and elsewhere. She is Writer in Residence at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County, a member of the core faculty at the Rainier Writing Workshop, and teaches at writing programs around the country, including the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference. She lives in Baltimore, MD.Read poems by Sarah Arviohere.Read poems by Lia Purpurahere,here,here, andhere.Recorded On: Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Students from the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work, joined by author and faculty member Dinah Lenney. Dinah Lenney is the author of Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published by the University of Nebraska in Tobias Wolff's American Lives Series. She co-authored Acting for Young Actors and her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Creative Nonfiction, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Dinah holds a BA from Yale, an MFA from Bennington, and a certificate from the Neighborhood Playhouse School where she studied with Sandy Meisner. She teaches nonfiction for the Rainier Writing Workshop, as well as in the Bennington Writing Seminars. A working actor, she recurred on NBC's critically acclaimed ER for 15 years, and has guest-starred in television series too numerous to mention.

Students from the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing program will read from their work, joined by author and faculty member Dinah Lenney. Dinah Lenney is the author of Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, published by the University of Nebraska in Tobias Wolff's American Lives Series. She co-authored Acting for Young Actors and her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Creative Nonfiction, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Dinah holds a BA from Yale, an MFA from Bennington, and a certificate from the Neighborhood Playhouse School where she studied with Sandy Meisner. She teaches nonfiction for the Rainier Writing Workshop, as well as in the Bennington Writing Seminars. A working actor, she recurred on NBC's critically acclaimed ER for 15 years, and has guest-starred in television series too numerous to mention.