Keep the Channel Open

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 to...

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 activis...

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 clos...

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 tal...

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 mea...

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 marginalizati...

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...

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,...

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

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 Podca...

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. (Re...

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 empa...

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 ta...

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...

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...

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 | Po...

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 ten...

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 talk...

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...

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 | Poc...

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 per...

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 ca...

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  | ...

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...

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 documentar...