Arts Calling

Hi there, Episode 100, woohoo!!! Today I am honored to be arts calling Alvaro Saar Rios and Mabelle Reynoso! Alvaro Saar Rios is a Texican playwright living in Chicago. His plays have been performed in New York City, Mexico City, Hawaii, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee and all over Texas. He has received playwriting commissions from various organizations, including Kennedy Center, Chicago Children’s...

Hi there, Today I am thrilled to be arts calling Uzo Chijioke! ( https://writers.coverfly.com/profile/uzochijioke ) Uzo Chijioke is a Nigerian American author / screenwriter with a background in pharmacy. Having done what he was "supposed to do" as the first son to immigrant parents, he's lived a life centered around duty and structure, even spending over a decade in the US Army. As such...

Hi there, Today I am thrilled to be arts calling Audra Kerr Brown! ( audrakerrbrown.wordpress.com ) Audra Kerr Brown lives with her husband and two children at the end of a dirt road in Iowa. Her work has appeared in the Best Small Fictions (2018, 2021 editions) and Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fiction List. Former managing editor of New Flash Fiction Review, she is now the founding creator and arc...

Hi there, Today I am thrilled to be arts calling Tommy Dean! ( https://tommydeanwriter.com ) About our Guest: Tommy Dean is the author of two flash fiction chapbooks Special Like the People on TV (Redbird Chapbooks, 2014) and Covenants (ELJ Editions, 2021), and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press, 2022). He lives in Indiana, where he currently is the Editor at  Fractured Li...

Hi there, Today I'm so overjoyed to be arts calling Laurie Marshall! ( www. SeeLaurieWrite.com ) About our Guest: Laurie Marshall is an award-winning writer and artist in Northwest Arkansas. Her debut flash fiction collection is coming in April 2023 from ELJ Editions . Her words and art have been published in print and digital literary journals and included in anthologies including  Snow Crow  fro...

Hi there, Today I'm so overjoyed to be arts calling Shannon McLeod! ( shannon-mcleod.com ) About our Guest: Shannon McLeod is the author of the novella Whimsy (Long Day Press, 2021) and the essay chapbook Pathetic (University of Indianapolis Etchings Press). Her writing has appeared in Tin House Online, Wigleaf, Hobart, Joyland Magazine, Cosmonauts Avenue, and Prairie Schooner, among other publica...

Hi there, Today I'm so overjoyed to be arts calling Jen Soong! ( jensoong.com ) About our Guest: The daughter of Chinese immigrants, Jen Soong grew up in New Jersey and now resides in Northern California. An alum of Tin House and VONA, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Audacity, GAY MAG, Jellyfish Review, Witness and Waxwing. She earned her MFA in creative writing from UC Davis. He...

Hi there, Today I'm so excited to be arts calling Steven D. Schroeder!! About our Guest: Steven D. Schroeder’s third book of poetry is Wikipedia Apocalyptica (swallow::tale press, 2022). His second book, The Royal Nonesuch (Spark Wheel Press), won the Devil’s Kitchen Reading Award from Southern Illinois University. He edits the literary magazine $ (Poetry Is Currency) . His poetry is available fro...

Hi there, Today I'm thrilled to be arts calling Audrey Cefaly and Carolyn Messina ! About our Guests: Audrey Cefaly ( https://www.audreycefaly.com ) is an alumna of the Playwrights' Arena cohort at Arena Stage, a recipient of the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers Conference, and a Dramatist Guild Foundation Traveling Master. She is published by Concord Theatricals , Smith & K...

Hi there, Today I'm thrilled to be arts calling Patrick Lugo! ( plugoarts.com ) About our Guest: Patrick Lugo is a freelance illustrator, comics artist and writer is also Senior Designer of KungFuMagazine.com & Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine. His self-published graphic novel A TIGER’s TALE was funded on kickstarter overnight. The 2021 anthology Speculative Fiction for Dreamers included a comic which...

Hi there, Today I am excited to be arts calling Shahab Zargari ( bio.site/shahab ) and Mo Milan ( linktr.ee/momilan ) to discuss Shahab's album, AI, and the collaborative process! New Oddities now available here: https://gcrecords.bandcamp.com/album/new-oddities About the New Oddities Album: Shahab Zargari has been sampling and remixing music since the start of his band Kill the Scientist in 1989...

Hi there, Today I am excited to be arts calling John Becker! ( jouskaproductions.com ) About our Guest: John Becker has juggled life in film, theatre, and music with teaching the arts to children and adults. He has won three Individual Artist's Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council. He was asked to write a play for the One-Minute Play Festival at Round House Theatre. His musical, Everything...

Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling Anuradha Bhowmik! ( www.anuradhabhowmik.com ) About our Guest: Anuradha Bhowmik is a Bangladeshi-American poet and writer from South Jersey. She is the 2021 winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for her first collection  Brown Girl Chromatography  (Pitt Poetry Series, 2022). Bhowmik is a Kundiman Fellow and a 2018 AWP Intro Journals Proje...

Hi there, Today I am so thrilled to be arts calling Samantha Silva! ( samanthasilvawriter.com ) About our Guest: Samantha Silva is an author and screenwriter based in Idaho. Over her career, she’s sold film projects to Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema. Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft is her second novel. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in One Story and LitHub. A s...

Hi there, Today I am so lucky to be arts calling Donna Spruijt-Metz! ( donnasmetz.com ) About our guest, in her own words: I am a poet, translator, and Professor of Psychology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. My first career was as a professional flutist. My first full length,  General Release from the Beginning of the World , was officially born on...

Hi there, Today I am overjoyed to be arts calling Jim Clayton! About our Guest, Jim Clayton ( https://jimclaytonjazz.com ): DownBeat Magazine called Jim Clayton’s music “warm and happy… tender and soulful.” He calls it a blend of bebop and New Orleans, the city he considers a second home. His repertoire is a mix of jazz standards, reimagined pop classics, and his own memorable writing. Jim’s last...

Trigger warning: The novel we discussed contains themes of crimes against minors. -- Hi there, Today I am honored to be arts calling Zephaniah Sole! About our Guest: Zephaniah Sole is a Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Author Fellow as well as an alum of VONA and Tin House. His fiction has appeared in Epiphany, Gargoyle Magazine, Collateral Journal and Vestal Review, among other pub...

Hi there, Today I am ecstatic to be arts calling Laury Leite! Laury Leite is a writer. He has published articles, essays, interviews and chronicles in various literary magazines. His short stories have appeared in several anthologies. In 2017, he published En la soledad de un cielo muerto  (Ediciones Carena; La Pereza Ediciones, his first novel, which was translated into English under the title Ni...

Hi there, Today I am excited to be arts calling Bri Stokes! About our guest: Bri is a writer, poet, producer, curator and editor who hails from South Central Los Angeles. She served as Assistant Art Editor for the London-based Hecate Magazine, and as Poetry Editor at Storyteller’s Refrain. She is also the Managing Editor of SKEW Magazine, an independently owned and operated Black and Queer Arts &a...

Hi there, Today I am honored to be arts calling memoirist Camille U. Adams! About our guest: Camille U. Adams is a memoirist from Trinidad and Tobago. She earned her MFA from CUNY and is a current Ph. D. Candidate who holds a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship at her program. Camille is an alum of Tin House Summer Workshop and Kenyon Writer’s Workshop. Camille has received a fellowship from Roots Wounds...

Heads up: A few swears in this one. Hi there, Today I am psyched to be arts calling poet, musician, and my dear friend Dominique Gordon! We are talking about the collaborative process behind his band DOMO JUJU and have a quick conversation about his latest album, SANE. Now available wherever you listen to music: https://songwhip.com/domojuju/sane Follow the band on Insta: https://www.instagram.com...

Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling actress and writer Julia Duffy! About our guest: Julia Duffy grew up in Colorado before receiving her Bachelor’s of Music in Vocal Performance from New York University in 2020. Graduating into a pandemic gave Julia the time to begin podcasting and producing her audio drama, Things (Un)Said. Currently based in New York City, Julia enjoys cosplaying...

Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling writer and filmmaker Tara Stillions Whitehead! About our guest: A native Southern Californian, alumna of University of Southern California’s historic School of Cinematic Arts, and graduate of San Diego State University’s MFA writing program, Tara Stillions Whitehead ( https://tarastillionswhitehead.net ) is a filmmaker and writer teaching in Centra...

Hi there, Today I am overjoyed to be arts calling Lynne Jensen Lampe! About our guest: Lynne Jensen Lampe ( lynnejensenlampe.com ) writes poetry about family, mental illness, and societal expectations. Following and breaking rules. Stigma. Soon after Lynne was born, her mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and (what was then called) manic-depression and sent from the air base in Newfoundland to...

Hi there, Today I am so happy to be arts calling Monica Macansantos! About our guest: Monica Macansantos ( monicamacansantos.com ) is a former James A. Michener Fellow for Fiction and Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned her MFA in Writing. She also holds a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington, International Institute of Modern Let...