The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast

Christina Anderson, a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize recipient for Drama, talks with Michael Kelleher about Wallace Shawn's seminal, strange, and recently-revived 1990 monologue The Fever . Christina Anderson is a playwright, tv writer, screenwriter, and educator. Her work has been produced across the country including theaters such as Berkeley Rep, Goodman Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Portl...

Karen Solie, recipient of a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, talks with prize director Michael Kelleher about Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer's Selected Poems . The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast is a production of Literary Hub Hosted by Michael Kelleher Theme music by Dani Lencioni Produced and edited by Drew Broussard See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privac...

The new season of The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast kicks off with Lucy Sante, recipient of a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-fiction, talking with Prize Director Michael Kelleher about the long-out-of-print and tremendously influential An Anthology of New York Poets , edited by Ron Padgett and David Shapiro. The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast is a production of Literary Hub Hosted by Micha...

Winter comes once again to an end, or something close to it — and so too does our winter mini-series, with Marina Carr (recipient of a 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama) chatting with prize director Michael Kelleher about Virginia Woolf's 1927 novel, To the Lighthouse . Marina Carr was born in 1964 and grew up in County Offaly. She graduated from UCD in 1987. Her plays include  Low in the...

The winter mini-season rolls on with Michael R. Jackson, recipient of a 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, talking to prize director Michael Kelleher about Sam Greenlee's 1969 cult-classic novel, The Spook Who Sat By the Door. Michael R. Jackson is the writer and composer of the Pulitzer and Tony-winning A Strange Loop as well as White Girl in Danger. Most recently, he wrote the libretto for C...

Our winter season continues with Adina Hoffman (recipient of a 2013 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction) chatting with Michael Kelleher about Georges Perec's magical and mercurial and maddening An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris , translated by Marc Lowenthal. Adina Hoffman is the author of House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood, My Happiness Bears No Relation to Happin...

To kick off our Winter Mini-season for 2026, Geoff Dyer (recipient of a 2015 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction) joins Prize Director Michael Kelleher for a conversation about Xiaolu Guo's riotous and moving A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers . Geoff Dyer is the author, most recently , of Homework: A Memoir as well as four novels and many other non-fiction works. Dyer has won the S...

In the final episode of the 2025 season, Mike talks with 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction recipient Anne Enright about J.G. Farrell's 1970 novel, Troubles . Anne Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works. She has published three collections of stories, collected as  Yesterday’s Weather,  one book of non-fiction,  Making Babies,  and eight novels, includin...

Mike talks with Rana Dasgupta, recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize in Nonfiction, about the pleasures of the 1958 novel The Leopard as well as its Visconti-directed film adaptation and how both projects reflect on our present tenuous moment. Born in Canterbury, United Kingdom, Rana Dasgupta has lived in the United States, India, and France. His work includes Tokyo Cancelled (2005), a collec...

Anthony Vahni Capildeo, recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, talks with Michael Kelleher about the interesting details of Kimberly Campanelo's An Interesting Detail . Anthony Vahni Capildeo was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and lives in the UK. One finds a sacred wonder and delight in language in every poem in each of their nine collections and eight chapbooks. Capildeo studie...

Prize Director Michael Kelleher talks to 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama recipient Roy Williams about Dael Orlandersmith's 2002 play Yellowman . Roy Williams has written fifteen plays since The No Boys Cricket Club premiered at Theatre Stratford East in 1996. Williams’s many accolades include the Visionary Honours Award (2022), the Writers Guild of Great Britain Award (2011), the Alfred Fago...

Patricia J. Williams, recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-fiction, talks with Michael Kelleher about Martha S. Jones's The Trouble of Color. Patricia J. Williams was born in Boston, Massachusetts. A longtime former “Diary of a Mad Law Professor” columnist for The Nation , Williams is also the author of six books of nonfiction including most recently The Miracle of the Black Leg . A...

Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini, recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Drama, talks with Michael Kelleher about Bola Agbaje's 2007 Olivier-award-winning play Gone Too Far! Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini is the author of Muscovado , Little Miss Burden , and the Olivier-award-winning Sleepova . Ibini is the recipient of the Inevitable Foundation x Loreen Arbus Elevate Collective Award (2024), a Critics’ Cir...

Mike sits with Sigrid Nunez, recipient of a 2025 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction, to discuss F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and whether or not it really is "the Great American Novel." Sigrid Nunez is the author of ten books, including the National Book Award-winning novel The Friend (2018), which has been celebrated by the New York Times as one of the 100 best books of the 21st Century....

To kick off the new season of The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast , host and prize director Michael Kelleher is joined by Tongo Eisen-Martin, recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, to discuss Ayi Kwei Armah's 1979 novel The Healers . Tongo Eisen-Martin was San Francisco’s eighth Poet Laureate (2021-2024). He is the author of three collections of poetry: Blood on the Fog (2021), sel...

For the final episode of the 2025 Winter Season, Mike talks with Helen Green, recipient of a 2016 Windham-Campbell Prize for Non-fiction, about Henry Green's Party Going . They celebrate the joys of the NYRB Classics sale, the mysteries of Australian Rules football, and the joys of this ensemble novel. Helen Garner writes novels, stories, screenplays, and works of non-fiction. In 2006 she received...

Mike chats with Dionne Brand, recipient of a 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, about the timely power of José Saramago's Seeing . READING LIST: Seeing by José Saramago, tr. Margaret Jull Costa • Blindness by José Saramago, tr. Margaret Jull Costa • Saramago's Nobel Lecture Dionne Brand is the award-winning author of twenty-three books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her twelve books...

Mike chats with Olivia Laing, recipient of a 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction, about the strange and confounding (and wonderful) pleasures of Charlotte Brontë's Villette . READING LIST: Villette by Charlotte Brontë • Suppose a Sentence by Brian Dillon • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson •  The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy •  The Tra...

André Alexis (recipient of a 2017 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction) joins Michael Kelleher to kick off the 2025 winter season of the podcast with a vibrant discussion of Martha Baillie's memoir, There Is No Blue . TW: the book and this episode include discussion of suicide and abuse. Reading list:  There Is No Blue by Martha Baillie • The Search for Heinrich Schlögel by Martha Baillie • Fal...

Kathryn Scanlan (recipient of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction) talks with Prize Director Michael Kelleher about legendary New Yorker journalist Joseph Mitchell's famous double-profile of New York fixture Joe Gould, the perils of running out of ideas, and the blurry line between fiction and reality. Reading list: Joe Gould's Secret by Joseph Mitchell • "Joe Gould's Teeth" by Jill Lepore •...

m. nourbeSe philip (winner of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry) talks with Prize Director Michael Kelleher about Kamau Brathwaite's tremendous collection, Born to Slow Horses , the lineage of Brathwaite's complex and playful work, and her own poetic connections to Brathwaite's writing. Reading list: Born to Slow Horses by Kamau Brathwaite • Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys •  The Lonely Lond...

Sonya Kelly (recipient of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Drama) joins Michael Kelleher to admire and contemplate Jeremy Leggatt's translation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly . They discuss film adaptations, writing emotions, keeping audiences happy, and more. Reading list: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby, tr. by Jeremy Leggatt • The...

Jen Hadfield (winner of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry) joins Michael Kelleher to wade through Annie Dillard's dense yet rewarding classic, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek . They discuss difficult reading experiences, poetic attempts to unlock the ineffable and immense, the book's intense relationship to the natural world and how that has impacted Hadfield's own work, and more. Reading list: Pil...

Christina Sharpe (winner of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Non-Fiction) joins Michael Kelleher to rave about 2018 Fiction prize-winner John Keene's Counternarratives . They discuss the pleasures of Keene's playful prose and his deep engagement with stirring questions of truth and history. Reading list:  Counternarratives by John Keene • Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe • The Adventures of Huc...

Christopher Chen (winner of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Drama) joins Michael Kelleher to talk about the eternally fascinating Jorge Luis Borges story, ""Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Timelines slip, worlds collide, and Borges's lasting impact is felt. Reading list:  "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges • Italo Calvino • Rosicrucianism • Caught by Christopher Chen • Borges, Betwee...