Keep the Channel Open

Sarah Gailey's two recent novellas, River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow , were a huge amount of fun for me as a fan of both Westerns and speculative fiction. Our conversation covered both of those books, her serialized novelette The Fisher of Bones , as well as her Hugo-nominated column at Tor.com about the women of Harry Potter. In the second segment, Sarah talked to me about Lucius Beebe and Char...

Mari Ness is a speculative fiction writer and poet based in central Florida. I was recently turned on to Mari's work by a mutual acquaintance of ours, and I really enjoyed digging through her short stories and poetry. In our conversation we talked about her new book Through Immortal Shadows Singing , her experience working in the speculative poetry genre, and what she loves about revising fairy ta...

Alexander Chee is the author of two novels, Edinburgh and The Queen of the Night . I read the latter of the two last year and it was one of my favorite books of the year. I was pleased to get a chance to talk with Alexander about that book, as well as his essay "How to Write an Autobiographical Novel," which will be included in his forthcoming collection of the same name. In our wide-ranging conve...

Maggie Smith is a poet living and working in Bexley, Ohio. In 2016 Maggie's poem "Good Bones" became a viral hit—it's since been translated into nearly a dozen languages and was named by PRI as "the official poem of 2016." That poem is now the title poem of her latest collection, a book that I found deeply moving. I was pleased to talk with Maggie about her new book and her writing process. Then f...

Celeste Ng is a writer based in Cambridge, MA. Celeste's first novel, 2014's Everything I Never Told You , is, without exaggeration, one of the most important books of my life. When I read it in 2016, it gave me my first real glimpse at what representation in fiction could mean, and it was revelatory. Celeste's newest novel, which was just released this week, is called Little Fires Everywhere , an...

Kevin Miyazaki is an editorial and fine art photographer based in Milwaukee, WI. I've been a fan of Kevin's for some time now, both for his own work as well as his work highlighting and supporting the photographic community. We had a great conversation about his work and process, particularly about his use of image pairings and how effectively his photographs suggest a narrative, but with a sense...

Rizzhel Mae Javier is a photographer and installation artist based in San Diego, CA. I first met Rizzhel when we were both participating in the portfolio reviews at the Medium Festival a few years ago, and her stop-motion, flipbook-style pieces immediately caught my attention. More recently, Rizzhel was named one of the 2017 emerging artists by the SD Art Prize for her "Unmentionables" project, cr...

Jennifer DeCarlo is the director of jdc Fine Art, which was one of my favorite galleries in San Diego. Today, Jennifer splits time between San Diego and Chicago, and still works constantly championing the artists she represents. I've appreciated Jennifer's insight and eye for years, so I was pleased to have a chance to sit down and talk with her. We talked about her background and how she came to...

As a photographer, scott b davis is known for his stunning, shadowy platinum prints, which you really have to see in person to get the full effect. He's also the founder and executive director of the Medium Festival of Photography, which is not only one of my favorite events of the entire year, but also directly contributed to the genesis of this very podcast. In our conversation, scott and I disc...

Susan Rosenberg Jones is a photographer based in New York City. I've been a fan of Susan's for several years, starting with her series "Second Time Around," about her experience of being a newlywed in her 60's. We had a great conversation about that series as well as her series "Building 1," about the community in her apartment building. For the second segment, Susan and I talked about Neal Rantou...

Photographer Jess T. Dugan is one of my favorite contemporary portrait artists, whose work explores issues of gender, sexuality, identity, and community. Jess's 2015 book Every Breath We Drew is a favorite of mine, and I was pleased to be able to discuss that book with her, as well as her recent series To Survive On This Shore , photographs and interviews with transgender and gender non-conforming...

Kinsee Morlan is the engagement editor at Voice of San Diego, author of the Culture Report, and host of the San Diego Culturecast. As one of the main arts and culture writers in the region, Kinsee has a great view of the breadth of the arts scene here in San Diego, so I was excited to get a chance to talk with her. In our conversation we talked about her work with Voice of San Diego, what's great...

Rachel Hulin is a photographer and writer based in Providence, Rhode Island. I first came to know Rachel's photographic work several years ago, and when I saw that she'd recently published her first novel, I snapped up a copy as quickly as I could. In our conversation we talked about her book, Hey Harry Hey Matilda , about working in multiple creative disciplines, and the differences between photo...

Dr. Becky Senf is the Chief Curator at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona, and the Norton Family Curator of Photography, a joint appointment between the Center and the Phoenix Art Museum. In our conversation, Dr. Senf and I talked about her work at the Center, and what the breadth and depth of the Center's archival collection enables in terms of researching and understanding th...

Brandon Taylor is a writer and a Ph. D. candidate in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. One of my favorite contemporary writers, Brandon's short stories are marvelously crafted, understated and emotionally charged, while his personal essays and cultural critique are insightful and often lyrical—all of it is just a joy to read. In today's conversation, Brandon and I talked about h...

Jonas Yip is a photographer and musician in the Los Angeles area, not to mention a friend of mine. I first met Jonas several years ago at the first Medium Festival of Photography, where we immediately hit it off. As he puts it in his bio, Jonas is "more interested in capturing feeling than in capturing detail," something that I've always found to be true about his work. For today's show we talked...

Barbarella Fokos is a writer and filmmaker based in San Diego, CA. I came to know Barbarella's work through The Artist Odyssey where, as one of the executive producers, she creates documentary films about artists and their processes and motivations. In our conversation, we talked about her work with The Artist Odyssey as well as her previous work, including her Emmy-winning show Art Pulse TV. I wa...

Paul Turounet is a photographer who lives and works in the San Diego area. Paul's work focuses on the border region between the United States and Mexico, which is a topic that is always relevant here in San Diego, but which has taken on even greater import over the past few months. Using forms from traditional darkroom prints to artist books to site-specific installations, Paul's photography encom...

Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib is a poet from Columbus, Ohio. For today's episode I was pleased to talk to Hanif about his 2016 book The Crown Ain't Worth Much , one of my favorite reads of 2016. The poems in this book are an intensely personal account of his experiences growing up in Columbus, and in our conversation we talked about Hanif's approach to writing from experience, and how art can engender e...

José Olivarez is a poet living and working in Chicago, Illinois, and is also co-host of one of my all-time favorite podcasts, The Poetry Gods. In our wide-ranging conversation we talked about how The Poetry Gods came to be, toxic masculinity in the poetry world, and how discovering poetry allowed José to find his artistic voice. In the second segment, we talked about beginnings and endings. (Conve...

Ginger Shulick Porcella is the Executive Director of the San Diego Art Institute, an experimental, bi-national contemporary arts center in San Diego, CA. In the three years since Ginger has been leading SDAI, it has grown to become one of most vibrant, innovative art spaces in San Diego, something that has been exciting for art-minded folks in San Diego, like me. In our conversation, Ginger and I...

Christina Riley is a photographer and musician currently based in Seaside, California. When I first saw Christina's 2014 book Back to Me , I was immediately blown away by the emotional power and authenticity of the photographs. We talked about Christina's experience with bipolar disorder, her photographic process, and what it's like to move from Ontario, Canada to a small coastal community in Nort...

Rachael Short is a fine art photographer based in Carmel, California. After graduating from the Brooks Institute, Rachael had a thriving wedding and portrait photography business, which ended in 2010 when she was in a car accident that broke her neck and left her paraplegic. Nowadays, Rachael uses her iPhone as her primary tool, and makes beautiful platinum prints from her iPhone images. I talked...

Matt Eich is a documentary and editorial photographer based in Charlottesville, Virginia. I've been a fan of Matt's work for several years now, and I was excited to get the chance to talk about his four-part project The Invisible Yoke . We talked about his approach to documentary photography, how he reckons with and avoids stereotypes in his work, and what he hopes the work can accomplish. For the...

Alexander Kohnke is a San Diego-based artist and graphic designer (originally from Germany) whose work incorporates a variety of different disciplines and genres, from printmaking to drawing to photography. Alex and I had a great conversation about his artistic process, especially about the value of randomness and how that interacts with intention. In the second segment we talked about politics. S...