The New River Podcast

In this episode, Lauren and Makenzie speak with Abu Bakr Sadiq, author of the poetry collection Leaked Footages , which won the 2023 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, among other awards. He is published in Boston Review, Poetry Ireland Review , The Fiddlehead, Mizna, and elsewhere. We spoke to Abu Bakr about his collaboration with Leo Flores, who we interviewed in the last episode of t...

Lauren and Makenzie sat down with Dr. Leonardo Flores, chair of the English department at Appalachian State University and president of the Latin American Electronic Literature Network. Leo has published a plethora of research in the areas of electronic literature, focusing on e-poetry, digital writing, and the history and strategic growth of the field. He is a past contributor to The New River Jo...

In this episode, host Kas Anderson is joined by Professor Andrew Demirjian, an interdisciplinary artist and educator at Hunter College in New York City who focuses on creating relationships between image, sound, and text that challenge contemporary media conventions. From interactive installations to audiovisual performances, Demirjian’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of the Moving Image, E...

Today's Episode was recorded in the Fall of 2025, when Lexi, Lauren, and Season One host, Piper Fitzgerald took a deep dive into the archives of The New River Journal in order to explore the shifting zeitgeist of e-literature and the challenge of digital decay. Also, Lauren interviews Nurain Ọlàdéjí, first-year poet in the MFA program at Virginia Tech, and your hosts offer new installments of...

A new season of the New River Podcast means a new crop of Virginia Tech Creative Writing MFA students will take the helm, both as editors of The New River Journal and as hosts of the podcast. Season two also ushers in new evolutions for both journal and the podcast, as the former begins accepting traditionally formatted poetry and prose submissions, and the latter broadens its focus to include obs...

Brit, Piper, and Amanda discuss their visit to the New River (the body of water, itself), which they undertook in an attempt to connect with the inspiration for the naming of the New River journal.

In this episode, our hosts get to know the editorial staff of the New River. Amanda speaks with student editors William Shaw and Grace Turner, while Piper sits down with Soham Patel, the faculty Editor-in-Chief of the New River.

The New Media Workshop is a course designed to teach graduate creative writers to work across genres and formats, particularly those that engage with technology. For one of our classes, Isabel Li, a past contributor to The New River visited the class via Zoom to talk about her process in creating electronic literature. In this episode, hosts Piper, Brit, and Amanda present and discuss a recording...

Amanda and Piper, editors of the New River Journal and hosts of the New River Podcast, invite listers behind the scenes as the student editors finalize selections for inclusion in Issue 49, published during the spring of 2025. Production Note: At the time of recording and for the publication of the issue discussed, The New River was operating under a policy requiring editors to reject traditional...

The podcast team introduces the journal, describes the editorial process, and engages with the question, "What is electronic literature?" Brit digs into the history of the journal in conversation with its founder, Ed Falco.

Welcome to the New River Podcast, a companion to The New River, a journal of electronic literature and digital art.