Sunday SubDays

This week on Author Up , we’re joined by Melissa Balmain , award-winning poet, humorist, journalist, writing instructor, and editor-in-chief of Light , America’s longest-running journal of comic verse. Melissa’s poetry and prose have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, McSweeney’s, Rattle , and numerous literary publications. Her collections include the award-winni...

This week on Author Up , we’re joined by Ronit Plank , award-winning author, essayist, editor, writing instructor, and creator of the celebrated podcast Let’s Talk Memoir . Ronit Plank ’s work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous literary publications. She’s the author of the memoir When She Comes Back and the award-winning story collection Home Is a...

Poet and teacher Eric Colburn joins Author Up to discuss his Quippy Choice Award poem, “Ode to Bric-a-Brac,” and the writing life behind it. We explore his return to poetry, a summer spent writing a sonnet every day, and the fun of working with rhyme and meter. Eric shares how different poems arrive, what revision looks like, and how teaching literature informs his approach to writing. Eric’s poem...

On this episode of Author Up , we get to know Tamarah and Ben Rockwood of Bainbridge Island Press , an independent poetry publisher based in Washington’s Puget Sound. Tamarah leads the press’s editorial work, while Ben handles operations and design. Together, their work spans full-length poetry collections, the XPRESS chapbook series , and POETICS , alongside a broader commitment to poetry and lit...

Poet and Quippy Choice Award recipient Alex Price joins Quibble Lit editor Garrett Souliere on Author Up for a conversation about her writing and the experiences behind it. From her background in journalism and book criticism to teaching creative writing and working on a farm, Alex’s life has brought her into many different relationships with language. Her literary work includes reviews for The Ec...

Join poets Anne Louise Phillips, L.Lois, JeFF Stumpo, and Garrett Souliere as they play a poetry drafting game built around the rhetorical device of zeugma … and our humble attempts to understand and use it poetically. Thank you, poets, for playing with me. This is a really fun device that you’ll begin seeing everywhere once you know it. This is our second episode of Draft and Craft and our second...

Amber Byers , author and founder of Tadpole Press , joins Quibble Lit editor Garrett Souliere on Author Up for a conversation about finding a creative path and helping others find theirs. From her background in law to her work as a writer, editor, and 100-word contest judge, we explore the experiences behind Tadpole Press and its commitment to creativity and community. We look at the start of Ambe...

Welcome to Draft & Craft , Quibble Lit ’s new premium writing gameshow podcast—a little writing group and prompt challenge in your pocket. The idea grew from advice we hear often on Author Up : find a writing group. Draft & Craft brings some of that shared energy, encouragement, and discovery to anyone with a pen, a half hour, and a little curiosity. Discover new voices, laugh or play along, and w...

This week on Author Up , we welcome poet and Quippy Choice Award winner Oak Morse for a conversation about the craft, career, and creative possibilities of poetry. A recipient of the 2025 Larry Levis Post-Graduate Award and the 2024 A Public Space Writing Fellowship, Oak’s work has appeared in POETRY, Electric Literature, Black Warrior Review, Obsidian , and numerous other publications. His poetry...

This week on Author Up , we’re joined by poet Erica Miriam Fabri and Quibble poetry editor Lisa Lois . Erica Miriam Fabri is a poet, writer, and educator whose work has moved across the page, performance, and a wide range of creative spaces. She is the author of two poetry collections, Dialect of a Skirt , published by Hanging Loose Press, and most recently Morphology , winner of the 2024 Jack McC...

Kelsey Britt is a writer, sexuality educator, and trauma-informed yoga instructor whose work brings poetry, storytelling, mindfulness, and the body into conversation with one another. Her poems and short fiction have appeared in Gulf Coast, Anodyne Magazine, Wild Roof Journal, Variant Literatur e, and elsewhere. In this episode, we talk about finding a writing voice, what poetry can access that ot...

This week’s guest on Author UP is Anne Louise Phillips, a Mississippi-based author of children’s and middle-grade fiction, poet, & poetry editor at Quibble Lit . Anne Louise and I first “met” in 2024, back when her poem “Overheard” was published in Issue 7: Simple. Little. Scribble . She reached out to ask about volunteering in 2025, and has been a big part of our wonderful poetry team ever since....

We’re excited and delighted to share some news: Sunday SubDays will from here on be known as Author Up. “Sunday SubDays” has been a truly marvelous experience, as I continue learning more career insights from writers each week. The name, however, is a remnant from an earlier form of the idea. We believe the name “ Author Up” will serve our guests, current listeners, and new audience members as a m...

This week, we’re joined by poet JeFF Stumpo , author of these are the waterfalls in my head , winner of the 2026 Granite State Poetry Prize and published this spring by Yas Press. JeFF has had one of those wonderfully winding writing lives: slam poet and organizer, bookstore owner, adjunct professor, the author of five chapbooks, a spoken-word album, and a growing body of poems that seem equally a...

This week, Quibble is joined by Emily Broadmore , founder and editor-in-chief of Folly , an award-winning independent New Zealand indie publisher with a taste for bold, beautiful and provocative art. Folly is one of ChillSub’s Best Lit Mags of 2025 (#6 overall for “Bold and Weird”) and was a 2023 Runner-Up for CLMP’s Firecracker Awards. We’ve been fans of Folly for years, so this was an awesome op...

This week on Author Up , we’re joined by poet, fiction writer, and editor Andres Cordoba, and winner of the 2026 Quippy Award for Best Lyricism with his poem “Monica #43.” Andres is a 2025 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow whose work has appeared in Harvard Review, Gandy Dancer, and Epiphany . He earned his MFA in poetry from Brown University and is now pursuing fiction at NYU...

The Diamond Quill is a writing community built around a community-driven monthly poetry contest, bringing writers together to create, share, and celebrate one another’s work. This week on Author Up, I sit down with Bryce, founder and the one-man team behind The Diamond Quill to talk about how the project began, what they’ve learned from building a creative community, and why giving writers a chanc...

This week on Author Up , we’re joined by poet Lauren Richkus , whose poem “ Job Title: Entertainer ” won Quibble Lit ’s Quippy Award for Most Humorful . We talk about her Quippy-winning poem, Lauren’s path to writing, humor as a tool, and the importance of community. And halfway through, Lauren shares an exciting announcement! Follow Lauren’s work at Lauren Richkus and on Instagram at @Laurenrichw...

This week, Author Up welcomes Brett Van Emst—founder of Midnight Mind Magazine and creator of Lit Mag Week , a new collaborative initiative making its debut September 28–October 2. Bringing together independent literary magazines, writers, editors, and readers, Lit Mag Week is a straightforward idea with an ambitious aim: to celebrate the publications that keep contemporary literature alive. Brett...

This week we’re joined by Sophia Lucia: experimental poet, performer, musician, and producer of Freak Show Cabaret . Sophia’s poem “Get Me Out ” was selected for a Quippy Categories Award for Best Sonic Experiment . The piece moves with voice, pressure, humor, confession, performance, and a kind of live-wire theatricality that makes the poem feel distinctly alive. Our conversation widens into Soph...

In this Sunday SubDays conversation, Quibble Lit welcomes Adam Shove , poet and founder of Dark Thirty Poetry Publishing . This episode looks at Adam’s path as an artist, creator, and builder: where Dark Thirty began, what the work has taught him, and what he wants to help bring forward next. Adam has a big heart and sharp wit, and it was a real pleasure chatting together. Thank you for listening,...

In this Featured Voice conversation, we welcome to the show Rochelle Potkar , winner of our Quippy Category Award for Best Use of Silence with her poem “Bedrock.” Rochelle is a poet, fiction writer, screenwriter, playwright, critic, editor, and mentor whose work moves across genres and literary communities. Her writing brings attention to image, silence, memory, philosophy, and the lived textures...

Content note: This episode includes discussion of school violence. In this episode of Sunday SubDays , we’re joined by poet, mediator, facilitator, and Chicago ACT Collective member Hilesh Patel , whose poem “Apples and a cold slice of pizza, eaten arc first” won Quibble’s Most Heartbreaking Quippy Award. The poem is devastating in its restraint: ordinary school details — apples, pizza, math, a ch...

This week’s guest is a new friend and artist of many talents - we’re delighted to welcome on Canadian poet & photographer Carella Keil . Carella’s photograph “Frog Prince” is featured as the cover art for JUNGLE , Quibble Lit’s upcoming 8th print volume ( which goes live in July!) Additionally, Carella’s poetry collection - “ Undercover Butterfly ” debuted this May (published by Dark Thirty Poetry...

This week on Sunday SubDays , Quibble Lit sits down with Dré Pontbriand , poet and Quippy winner for “ Porcelain Playground Barbie . ” Dré and I have a ton of fun as we talk about the making of her award-winning poem and what it means to write toward transformation. Dré’s work is vivid, intimate, and brave, with lines that lift through beauty, rupture, and reclamation and a distinct voice that fee...