The Inner Loop Radio: A Creative Writing Podcast

With guest host and podcast intern Abi Newhouse, Courtney and Rachel discuss the highs and lows of MFA programs. To pay or not to pay? What did we gain? What advice would we give those considering MFA programs? We interview George Mason University MFA grad, Rajpreet Heir, to talk it all out, plus we give titles to pretend overdramatic MFA theses.

Continuing our celebration of National Poetry Month, poet and professor Peter Struckfus tells us everything we need to know about prose poetry and answers the question, “What is poetry?” C&R write Coronavirus Postcards, plus we hear from local poets Gary Fincke, Alexander Booth, and Phillip Matador!

April is #NationalPoetryMonth, a tradition that has celebrated the role of poets in our culture since 1996. This year perhaps more than ever the unmistakable poetry in everything is important to people not just in America but across the world. This episode features a conversation with DC’s 2019 Youth Poet Laureate, Gabriela Orozco, and readings from local poets Don Illich and Israfel Sivad, plus s...

This week we’re celebrating Women’s History Month by highlighting some of the most badass women in writing. Joining us on the show are local ladies of lit Loyalty Bookstore’s Hannah Oliver Depp and MoonLit DC’s Kristen Zory King, who will also be helping us share ways to stay inspired during the COVID-19 quarantine.

Whether you’re an aspiring screenwriter or a writer who has always dreamt of adapting their own work, screenwriter and teacher Kevin Downs has some tips and insight for you! Plus, we hold a live reading of an adapted screenplay by James Skinner with the help of Ian Smolka and Diana Veiga!

Some writers shy away from writing about sex, while others go a little overboard. How do you strike the balance and write the perfect steamy scene or poem? Poet Lindsay Bernal joins us with her tips and a few steamy poems of her own, C&R play a little dice game, and we hear a few pieces about desire from local writers Ellen Roche, Sean Felix, Nicole Tong, Jesse Adam Wang, and Taylor Johnson.

February is for love… or is it? What is it about love, and the loss of it, that makes us want to pick up a pen and write? Essayist Randon Billings Noble shows us how past lovers can be haunting, and we hear breakup stories from Joe Osmundson and Samantha de Trinidad. Plus, in honor of the Oscars, we vote on the best breakup scenes in literature!

Repetition in writing can be used to change the meaning of a word or a phrase, making your words even more powerful. It can create tension, emphasis, or even absurdity, and it always adds a little music to your piece. So how can you incorporate repetition into your writing? Prolific Poet Sarah Ann Winn tells us how, and she gives Courtney and Rachel a little writing assignment. Plus, we hear how r...

We’re ramping up a new year and a new decade of writing resolutions -- and one of them is to sell out (in a good way)! We discuss what makes manuscripts appealing to publishers, and, perhaps more importantly, local bookstores. Joined by Gwen Hunter of Solid State Books, we also consider what roles smaller booksellers can play in popularizing your pages. Finally, we remember that rejection is growt...

As 2019 draws to a close and we get ready for the new year, let's talk about writing endings. A story is only as good as its ending. Essayist and creative nonfiction giant, Jo Ann Beard joins us to discuss how to pack an ending with a punch! Plus, Courtney and Rachel rewrite the Christmas classic: T'was The Night Before Christmas.

Food is what we all have in common. And often it’s what brings us all together around the holidays. Writing about food can be a vehicle for staging a scene, accessing difficult topics, or exploring the world around us, and food writing as a genre has taken on new meaning. Washington City Paper food editor Laura Hayes, and food journalist Susan Lutz, tell us how it goes beyond what's on the plate....

Art has been inspiring writers for centuries. But what’s the value in it? Local community organizer - or social sculptor - Philippa Hughes of The Pink Line Project gives us her take on the conversation that can happen between disciplines. Then she joins Courtney and Rachel for an art-inspired writing session! Plus, we hear art-inspired pieces from Jennifer Clements and Jennifer Atkinson.

Happy Halloween, litwits! Feeling inspired to write your first thriller? You’ll need to know all about how to use suspense in your writing! But suspense isn’t just for Stephen King, it’s useful in any genre. Whether it appears in a plot twist or the space between two lines of a poem, suspense is key to hooking and surprising your reader. Thriller-writer Tara Laskowski talks about building tension...

It’s back to school season and it’s time to get back to work, writers! Emily Mitchell joins Rachel and Courtney to discuss how teaching can inspire writers, Indigo Eriksen talks about the learning process of teaching, and Rachel and Courtney demonstrate the power of writing prompts for Inktober!

As we officially transition to fall, we're relfecting on the summer writing residency season. We will discuss the value of writing residencies, and what it means to establish spaces and places dedicated to artistic creation and collaboration. We will hear from special guest Amanda Phillips, the site director at Woodlawn Pope-Leighey Estate, where we host summer writing residents annually. We'll al...

The heaviness of summer can bring up those heavy feelings of nostalgia, but when is it time to stop musing and put those feelings on the page? J.M. Tyree, author, film critic, and nonfiction editor of the New England Review, joins Rachel and Courtney to discuss just that, as well as how we weave the past and the present into a narrative. Rachel and Courtney delve into their own pasts, Samantha de...

Summer days are long, but the summer seems to fly by as vacations fade in the rearview mirror. How do we handle time in writing? When it comes to pacing, talking about time itself, or capturing an era, time can be a powerful tool on the page. Washington DC legend, E. Ethelbert Miller joins Courtney and Rachel to wax poetic on the poetry of time, and Kate Heller joins the fun as our resident Improv...

How does the world around you inspire your writing? What does it mean to be a nature writer? Are eco-poetics inherently eco-politics? Courtney and Rachel delve into the nuances of a multifunctional genre with Poet Rachel Adams, who reminds us to listen to the world around us, ecopoems from Jennifer Wallace and Jennifer Atkinson, and a live exercise after Walt Whitman.

Spring flowers are ready to bloom, and so is your newest creative writing project. But where do you begin? How do you overcome a blank page? Courtney and Rachel demonstrate how to enter a story through objects. Poet Dan Brady and fiction writer Sam Nelson tell us how they start a new project. Plus, we indulge in some spring poems by Jordi Rozenman, Benjamin Brezner, and Nicki Avena.

Love is in the air, and everyone wants to write about it. Love may be a powerful motivator for writing, but it's also one of the most difficult things to write about. How do you convey love without being cliché or melodramatic? Rachel reads some of her teenage poetry, Courtney talks about bleeding hearts, Peyman Allahverdizade loves loving, Alis Sandosharaj struggles to love her dark skin, and Tay...

Happy New Year and happy resolution season! Instead of starting a new project this year, why not resolve to finish one? Poet Nicole Tong and fiction writer Caroline Bock join us to discuss what gets in the way of finishing a writing project and how to push through those writerly ruts. Rachel and Courtney do a "live" exercise, and we hear from DC writers Benjamin Brezner, Carolyn Supinka, and Mary...

Just in time for the holidays, Rachel and Courtney discuss home. How do we write about home? What are some ways to convey the essence of home? What writing tools can we use to use home as setting, a catalyst, or its own character? Courtney introduces us to her dog Remy, and Rachel offers up a symphony of sound. Plus we hear from DC writers Nadia Prupis, Daniel Knowlton, Nicole Tong, and Garrett Sc...

With Halloween on the horizon and the 200th Anniversary of Frankenstein this month, we discuss monsters, ghosts, and grief in writing. Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson joins us to explore how ghosts present themselves in our writing, and how writing can be a way to work through grief and death. No tricks this episode, but we have a special treat with Dan Knowlton and Kate Heller!

As we settle down for the Fall and turn our focus back to writing and being productive, how do we establish good writing habits? And how do we stay inspired, and keep writing even when it's hard? Inner Loop veteran Leeya Mehta tells us how she can be constantly productive, and Ellen Roche talks about her sonnet-a-day project. Plus, we hear from local writers Sam Mahone, Jennifer Clements, J.G. McC...

This month we discuss travel as inspiration for writing, whether it be travel writing per se, essays or poems about travel experiences, or fiction based in exotic places. Returning home from her 52nd country and her latest tour of the US, Rachel Louise Snyder shares her expertise on travel-inspired writing. Plus, we hear from local writers Kate Heller, Sherrie Flick, Toni Tileva, Joel Goldberg, Je...