The poems in Abbie Kiefer’s debut collection, Certain Shelter , are, in my reading, about aftermath. They are about grief and loss, whether that is the loss of the speaker’s mother to cancer or her hometown’s changing landscape. But they are also about change and rebirth, and both the anxiety and the possibility of an unknown future. In our conversation, Abbie and I talked about television as a touch point in her poems, how memory is layered, and how ephemerality is central to the human experien...
Feb 26, 2025•58 min•Ep. 159
The paintings in Marisa DeLuca’s series Spectre document the changing urban landscape of the city she lives in—Oceanside, California—mourning spaces made ephemeral by the forces of gentrification. In our conversation we talked about the difference between painting and photography, how process affects the ontology of an art object, how audiences make meaning, and the intersection of art and activism. Then for the second segment, Marisa and I talked about spirit of place and the importance of the ...
Jan 29, 2025•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 158
In the wake of this year’s election, I found myself feeling a lot of things, but most of all that what sustains us through difficult times is always relationships and community. So I reached out to some past guests of the show and invited them to share some updates about where they are, who they’re connected to, and how they’re thinking about their work right now. At the end of the episode, I close by sharing a clip from the latest episode of Hey, It’s Me. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Cast...
Dec 25, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 157
Perry Janes’s debut poetry collection, Find Me When You’re Ready , follows its speaker from childhood in Detroit to young adulthood in Los Angeles, a coming-of-age story in five acts, told through a series of lyric moments. The poems in this collection confront childhood sexual abuse and the story of what it means to be a man, ultimately reaching toward healing and love. In our conversation we talked about what poetry and prose do differently, how masculinity is presented in these poems, and why...
Nov 27, 2024•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 156
Writer Sarah Gailey returns to the show for a discussion about their new novella, Have You Eaten? This serialized story follows four young queer characters as they traverse an America in the process of collapse, taking care of each other along the way. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about experimentation in fiction, vine-ripened tomatoes, cooking as an act of care, and what apocalypse means. Then for the second segment, we talked about why we re-recorded the second segment, sin-flatteni...
Oct 30, 2024•1 hr 52 min•Ep. 155
In the opening poem of Rachel Edelman’s debut collection, Dear Memphis , the speaker returns to their home city after a long time away, traversing a landscape that is both familiar and foreign, a place to which she belongs but also doesn’t. Over the course of the collection, Edelman asks questions about heritage and inheritance; about exile, diaspora, and migration; about home; about marginalization and privilege, oppression and complicity. In our conversation, we talked about acts of care, the ...
Sep 25, 2024•1 hr 27 min•Ep. 154
Writer, editor, and podcaster Jennifer Baker’s debut YA novel, Forgive Me Not , imagines a near-future America in which the juvenile criminal justice system has been “reformed” to allow young people to undergo grueling Trials instead of incarceration. It’s an incisive and powerful story about carceral justice, as well as a moving coming-of-age and family story. In our conversation we talked about writing about serious topics for younger readers, how she approached writing her characters, and why...
Aug 28, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 153
Writer Rachel Lyon returns to the show to discuss her latest novel, Fruit of the Dead , a contemporary retelling of the Persephone myth in which a young woman is seduced by wealth and privilege in a story about addiction, class, sexual assault, and power. In our conversation, we talked about how malleable identity can be during adolescence and how that informed how she wrote the character of Cory, how family members do and don’t see each other, and why it was important for the characters in this...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 152
Introducing Hey, It's Me ! I'm happy to announce a new podcast from me and my friend Rachel Zucker, Hey, It's Me! Here's the first episode as a bonus for KTCO listeners. Enjoy! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Pocket Casts Overcast RSS Web...
Jul 10, 2024•1 hr
For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet Amorak Huey joins me to discuss Layli Long Soldier’s 2017 poetry collection, Whereas . In our conversation, we talked about the way the poems confront language, what language means in the context of forced assimilation, and how the poems engage with both history and contemporary reality. (Recorded March 26, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts |...
Jun 26, 2024•55 min•Ep. 151
For this KTCO Book Club conversation, I’m joined by writer and group facilitator Martha Crawford for a discussion about Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s 2023 memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds . In our conversation, Martha and I talked about different ways of knowing, how to read across cultures without being extractive, storytelling as healing, and what identity means in the context of forgetting. (Recorded March 9, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn...
May 29, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 150
Writer and friend José Pablo Iriarte returns to the show to discuss their debut middle-grade novel, Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed . In our conversation, we talked about building stories without antagonists, writing for young readers, and what makes coming-of-age stories such an enduring phenomenon. Then for the second segment, we talked about the importance of storytelling in creating empathy and connection in our incredibly divided society. (Recorded April 6, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Pod...
Apr 24, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 149
Sarah Rose Etter is a writer based in Los Angeles, CA. In Sarah’s latest novel, Ripe , a young woman is trapped in a dream-job-turned-corporate-nightmare at a cutthroat Silicon Valley tech startup. Her bosses are capricious and cruel, the city she lives in is crumbling under late capitalism, and everywhere she goes she is followed by her own personal black hole. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the relationship between her surrealist fiction and poetry, why visual art is important t...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 148
For this KTCO “Book” Club conversation, writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall returns to the show to talk about the game Baldur’s Gate 3 . In our conversation, Maggie and I talked about what it’s like to experience a story with so many branching paths, how player choices reflect the player’s personality, as well as some standout storytelling moments from the game. (Recorded February 9, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | ...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 147
Olatunde Osinaike is a poet based in Atlanta, GA. In his debut full-length poetry collection, Tender Headed , Olatunde explores Black masculinity, both celebrating and interrogating it in his sonically virtuosic poems. We talked about his approach to poetry, what poetic lineage means to him, and the silences inherent in patriarchy. Then for the second segment, we talked about departure albums and André 3000’s New Blue Sun . (Recorded January 20, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts...
Jan 31, 2024•56 min•Ep. 146
For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet and podcaster Rachel Zucker returns to the show to discuss Eugenia Leigh’s poetry collection Bianca . In our conversation, we talked about our approaches to talking about books with their authors, how form shapes how we take in intense subject matter in a poem, and how a book can be a means of connection. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review ...
Nov 29, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 145
Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a writer and artist from Mexico City. In his debut novel, Monstrilio , Gerardo draws from both horror and literary fiction traditions to tell a story about grief, family, and self-acceptance. In our conversation, Gerardo and I talked about genre expectations, genre fiction as a site of art, and what it means to be monstrous. For the second segment, we talked about the tension between fulfilling your own artistic vision and creating work that will sell. Subscribe: Apple ...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 144
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a writer based in the Bronx, NY. In his debut novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars , Nana presents us with a dystopian future America where convicted prisoners fight each other to the death in a televised bloodsport. The book is both a blistering critique of the US carceral system and an insistence on the inalienable humanity of every person. In our conversation, Nana and I talked about what satire and dystopia open up for him as a writer, why it’s important to him to implicat...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 143
Rachel Zucker is a writer, podcast, and teacher based in New York and Maine. Her latest book, The Poetics of Wrongness , is a collection of essays (originally written and performed for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series) delving into her own poetics, motherhood, the history of confessional poetry, and the ethics of “say everything” poetry. In our conversation, Rachel and I talked about wrongness as a stance against moral purity, about addiction to doubt, and about poetry as an opportunity to creat...
Jun 28, 2023•1 hr 47 min•Ep. 142
For our latest KTCO Book Club episode, writer Sarah Gailey joins us for a discussion of H. A. Clarke’s YA novels The Scapegracers and The Scratch Daughters . In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the ways Clarke’s novels subvert genre expectations, about the quality of teen girls’ rage, and about why these books are “capital-I Important.” Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts...
May 24, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 141
Dayna Patterson is a poet, photographer, and textile artist based in the Pacific Northwest. The poems in her latest collection, O Lady, Speak Again , use the voices of the women characters from Shakespeare’s plays to talk about patriarchy, motherhood, sexuality, religion, heritage. In our conversation, Dayna and I discussed her creative process and how she finds her way into a poem, her use of persona in O Lady, Speak Again , and how and why she interrogates that same device within the collectio...
Apr 28, 2023•58 min•Ep. 140
Joshua Burton is a poet and educator based in Houston, TX. The poems in Joshua’s debut collection, Grace Engine , ask what grace means in a hostile world of lynchings, mental illness, self-hate, and suicide. These poems offer no solace, yet nevertheless reach toward beauty and peace. In our conversation, Joshua and I talked about what a grace engine is, processing shame through poetry, and what can be unlocked by returning to the same subject in multiple poems. Then for the second segment, we ta...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 139
For our latest KTCO Book Club episode, media critic Mel Thomas joins us for a conversation about Holly Black’s YA fantasy novel The Cruel Prince . In our conversation, we discuss the ways that craft in YA fiction is often dismissed or overlooked by both critics and readers, the dynamics of abuse and trauma in the novel, and being able to enjoy art on multiple levels. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Rev...
Feb 22, 2023•57 min•Ep. 138
Gabrielle Bates is a poet based in Seattle, WA. Throughout Gabrielle’s debut collection, Judas Goat , there is a feeling of quiet, that the poems are almost being whispered to you. And yet it is not a soft or comforting quiet that these poems bring, but rather one that often contains a sense of menace. In our conversation, Gabrielle and I talked about that disquieting feeling, the slipperiness of memory, the poetics of attention, and how important narrative to her poetics. Then for the second se...
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 137
Abby Minor is a writer based in central Pennsylvania. In her debut book of poems, As I Said: A Dissent , Abby combines the historical narrative of Ann Lohman—a 19th-century abortion provider in New York City—with personal and family history, creating a collection of poems that challenge the typical notion of an abortion story. In our conversation, Abby and I talked about her approach to documentary poetry, why it was important to her to push back against conventional abortion discourse, and how ...
Dec 14, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 136
Molly Spencer is a poet based in Michigan. The poems in her collections In the House and Hinge engage with chronic illness, divorce, domesticity, motherhood, and the ways that our lives don’t always work out the way we expected them to. In our conversation, we talked about dissolution, the uses of poetry, ways of knowing, and speaking unlovely truths. Then for the second section, we talked about attention—both the kind of attention we’d like to cultivate in our own lives, and what kind of attent...
Nov 16, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 135
Luther Hughes is a poet based in Seattle, WA. The poems in Luther’s debut collection, A Shiver in the Leaves , are tender, erotic, vulnerable, erudite, at times dark, and at times ecstatic. In our conversation, we talked about power dynamics in sexual encounters, different forms of love, and writing as a way of understanding oneself. Then in the second section, we talked about why so many sex scenes in popular media are so strange. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Sti...
Oct 26, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 134
André Ramos-Woodard is a photographic artist originally from Texas and Tennessee. In their series BLACK SNAFU , André combines photographs celebrating Blackness with appropriated illustrations from racist cartoons as a way of confronting the history and present reality of American racism. In our conversation we discussed appropriation, questions of audience and community, and mental health. Then in the second segment, we talked about what inspires us outside of the visual arts. Subscribe: Apple ...
Oct 05, 2022•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 133
Amanda Marchand is a Canadian, New York-based photographer. Amanda’s Lumen Notebook series is a body of elegant and strikingly beautiful images that nevertheless layer deep meaning within their seemingly simple compositions. In our conversation, Amanda and I talked about her process in creating these photograms and how working within strict constraints allows her to explore the technique more fully. We also discussed how she uses photography to facilitate connection and presence, and the duality...
Aug 31, 2022•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 132
Fatemeh Baigmoradi is a photographic artist originally from Iran. In her series It’s Hard to Kill , Fatemeh works with archival family photos from Iran, using fire to obscure or destroy portions of the image—connecting to the way that her own family and many others burned their photos after the Iranian Revolution to protect themselves or others in the photos. In our conversation we talked about the relationship between photography and memory, censorship, and how violence, healing, and cleansing ...
Jun 22, 2022•54 min•Ep. 131
