Little Oracles

Something's brewing: Find out how flânerie recharged my creative brain and taught me a little bit about grace.  Resources Other ways to reset your creativity:  S04:E02 | Reconnect: On Prompts, Cross-Pollination, and Creative Elasticity S04:E04 | Reframe: On Commitment as Self-Care and How to Kick Inertia's Ass S04:E07 | Refract: On Mirror Rot, Idiosyncratic Inspo, and Hailing the New Yea...

What do Biggie Smalls, the Queens of Disco, and the poetry community have in common?  Find out in this episode, wherein we talk about remixing ourselves as a way to recontextualize, reimagine, and regenerate our creative work. Resources Lovelorn , my line-lifting solo poetry RPG (Part IV of the Western Cantos) The poetry of Deadliest Catch: S04:E07 | Refract: On Mirror Rot, Idiosyncratic Inspo, an...

It's a booktastic megasode! Nearly 20 minutes of big book energy, opening with books that made me go "mmm" in 2024, and closing with what I'm excited to read in 2025. (Could this be the soft relaunch of the Asynchronous Book Club? Yeah, why not!) As ever, check content warnings before you pick up anything we discuss here on the podcast; reading should be a refuge, not a trigger...

Let's talk about mirror rot! And also how it inspired me to write this episode all about the agnosticism of inspiration, and how your idiosyncratic log of the year (whether it's in your phone's notes app, your watch history, your box of ticket stubs) can not only help you reflect on the year that's gone, but also take you into the new one with a cache of cool curios to fuel you...

Let's burn your vision board! Not really! (But kind of?) In this episode, we're talking about taking space, practicing grace, and reminding ourselves of why we make what we make ... and for whom, and why it's not the best move to let your calendar control your creative work. Heavily inspired by a great Bluesky thread about making art for yourself by game designers Sean and Navi Drak...

Happy Booksgiving! We're inaugurating a new Jolabokaflod-inspired holiday, Little Oracles style ... because gifting a book is cool as hell. Featuring five books I won't flinch about giving to fabulous friends (and fellow weird-fiction freaks). If an Egyptian Cannot Speak English by Noor Naga Grief Is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird The Friend...

In this final installment of the season-opening three-parter, we look at personal obligation (in a good way) and how to say goodbye to creative stasis with a handful of stagnancy-busting strategies (and even some creative prompts!). Until next time, as always: take care, keep creating, and stay divine! <3 Resources Episodes one and two of this three-parter: S04:E01 | Retread: On Coming Back to...

In this spontaneous emergency episode in response to the 2024 U.S. election, I'm calling out your creative spirit: in times like these, we need mourners, we need menders, we need makers. We need your creative revolution. We'll resume our three-part series about coming back to creativity next week, but until then, as always: take care, keep creating, and stay divine. <3 Resources Episo...

In part two of the season-opening three-parter, we're talking about the power of prompts, ways to cross-pollinate your creativity, and how creative elasticity makes you an even mightier maker. Until next time, take care, keep creating, and stay divine. <3 Resources Episode one of this three-parter: S01:E01 | Retread: On Coming Back to Creativity + Five Fave Creepy Reads Vide-Poche: Pockets...

We're back, baby ... back to basics, that is. In this first episode of a season-opening three-parter, we talk about rereading as inspiration mining; leaning into complementary crafts to prime the proverbial creative pump; and five of my fave creepy reads, just in time for Halloween week (plus two bonus boogedy-boos just for you):  Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm (trans. Saskia Vogel) At the Edge...

Welcome to Little Oracles Season Four: Remake. In this season, we’re returning to our roots, reminding ourselves of what kindles our creative fire, rebelling against inertia and insecurity, rediscovering how to make what we make, and rejoicing in why we make it. It’s a season of introspection and reinvention; it's a season of elegy, of big book energy, and creative euphoria. It’s Little Oracl...

Welcome back to our final episode of the Divinations miniseries, featuring an ongoing conversation in poems with poet Sandra Yannone. I'm sharing my poem-in-progress, "Sortition," inspired by Sandy's poem from Episode 6 , and by the Little Oracles poetic fragment "bone," part of the original Little Oracles multimedia digital installation at www.littleoracles.com/exhib...

Welcome back to our sixth (and penultimate!) episode of the Divinations miniseries, featuring an ongoing conversation in poems with poet Sandra Yannone. In this episode, Sandy shares her poem-in-progress, "By Years the Obstacles, at Night the Scars," inspired by my "Articles of Incorporation" from Episode 5: Pockets, Tooth Fairies, & the Surreal Real , as well as by the Lit...

Welcome back to our fifth episode of the Divinations miniseries, featuring an ongoing conversation in poems with poet Sandra Yannone. In this episode, I read my poem-in-progress, "Articles of Incorporation," inspired by Sandy's "Ecdysis Sonnet" from Episode 4: Shells, Learning to Listen, & the Lyric You , as well as by the Little Oracles lexical fragment "pocket,&...

Welcome back to our fourth episode of the Divinations miniseries, featuring an ongoing conversation in poems with poet Sandra Yannone. In this episode, Sandy's shares her "Ecdysis Sonnet," inspired by my poem from Episode 3: Lakes, Cosmic Convergence, & the Scientific Sublime , as well as by the Little Oracles lexical fragment "shell," which you can view as part of the...

Welcome back to our third (and numerically auspicious, so says Sandy) episode of the Divinations miniseries, featuring an ongoing conversation in poems with poet Sandra Yannone. In this episode, I share my poem "Hereafter," after Ada Limón's "After the Fire," and inspired by Sandy's poem from Episode 2: Twine, Maps, & the Meta-Meta , as well as by the Little Oracl...

In our second episode of the seven-part Divinations miniseries, poet Sandra Yannone and I dig into her work-in-progress poem, "The Stars on the Snake River," inspired by the Little Oracles lexical fractal "twine," part of the original Little Oracles multimedia digital installation, which is back on view at littleoracles.com/exhibit . We talk about the liminality of travel and c...

Our first Divinations miniseries, featuring working poet Sandra Yannone, is here! I’m so thrilled to share the first episode of this seven-part miniseries, which chronicles our collaborative conversation in poems, in which Sandy and I debut work in progress, unpack poems, and dig into creative practice and process. In this episode, Sandy and I preview what’s in store for this short (and oh-so-swee...

Hard to believe we're closing out Season Two: Play as Practice, but here we are! This season has been such an amazing few months of imagination and experimentation and collaboration, and I'm so grateful to all of you who show up week after week to hang out in our little corner of curiosity and creativity here on the Internet. Season Three heralds a new miniseries to round out the year (f...

It's our first-ever miniseries! Over seven episodes, Little Oracles: Divinations chronicles an ongoing conversation in poems between poet Sandra Yannone and yours truly. We'll debut poems in progress, discuss the creative process, and dig into what it means to collaborate with and draw inspiration from other thinkers, makers, and creators.  I'm so excited to share this super-special...

Remember back in S02:E18 , how I said I was haunted by friendship? Well, this episode is the culmination of one of those friendly hauntings, featuring a new short fiction piece by yours truly, with an original soundscape by the unmatched, ultra-marvelous Kaitlin Bruder — performer, graphic artist, producer, and co-creator of the Thin Places Radio podcast.  Collaborating with Kaitlin was a dream, a...

Welcome to another horror-licious Creative Chat, featuring the inimitable Shannon Joy Rodgers, an Emmy-wining writer, performer, inline skater, director, editor — she kinda does it all.   After seeing Shannon’s slyly comedic horror short, A Moment of Your Time — which is currently running the festival circuit before its wider release — I couldn’t wait to have her on the podcast to talk all kinds o...

This week, I’ve got some haunted Little Reviews for all you ghouls and goblins out there! We’re discussing three books about passing through the veil  — perfect for this ghastly, ghostly time of year:  Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda (trans. Polly Barton) This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno Bad Cree by Jessica Johns A NOTE ON CONTENT & SPOILERS I highly encourage you to look into con...

Welcome to a very special horror-forward Creative Chat with the amazing Kristen O'Neal: author of Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses , and the co-creator of the Thin Places Radio podcast (TPR). After an amazing chat with Kristen and her TPR collaborator Kaitlin Bruder back in Season One, I wanted to invite her back on the podcast to talk more about why she finds comfort in horror, her th...

It’s October, and for me, that means chill autumn vibes, maybe decorating with a skeleton or two, and cozying up with some of my favorite haunted reads. It also means I’m kicking off a micro-series of episodes, dubbed Hauntings: five episodes all about reaching through the veil, or that cozy-haunted feeling of a cherished memory, or the comfort of horror. (More on that in one of our Creative Chats...