Fall for the Book Podcast

Richard Washer, resident playwright at The Rose Theatre Company discusses his new play, Dubliners in Exile after actors perform a scene. In the play, James Joyce wakes up disoriented from a deep sleep to a timeless world at once strange and yet familiar where he knows something important needs to get done quickly, but he can’t remember what it is. As he searches for clues, an ever-changing procession of circumstances and characters distract and confuse him. Will he remember in time?

Jesse DeLong and Beth Gilstrap infuse every word of their poetry and prose with atmospheric tension, using nature to explore what it means to be human. DeLong’s poetry collection The Amateur Scientists Notebook uses scientific tables, field guides and more to draw the natural world together with philosophy, memory, and family. Gilstrap’s Deadheading and Other Stories intertwines her Southern Gothic narratives with nature — whether the characters are eating it or healing through it.

Heather Young discusses her novel, The Distant Dead, set in the high desert hills. Called “electrifying, ambitious, and crushingly beautiful,” by Kirkus Reviews, Young’s novel is a taught literary thriller which tackles the opioid epidemic, poverty, and deeply buried secrets.

Two writers examine pressing issues of identity, legacy, and historical memory in their work. Poet Sandra Beasley writes through the lens of Washington D.C. and Virginia’s history to examine race, politics, disability advocacy and more in her collection Made to Explode: Poems. Chris Stuck’s debut short story collection Give My Love to the Savages tackles the taboo with grit, humor, and gripping language that propels readers through his work.

Celebrate Children's Book Week with Megan Wagner Lloyd, author of Allergic, and Paper Mice, and Nadine Poper, author of Porcupette and Moppet talk the art and craft of writing kids' books, and the little known facts of the children's book publishing world!

Arthur Sze sat down with Kara Oakleaf and Suzy Rigdon to discuss revisiting fifty years' worth of poetry in his latest collection, The Glass Constellation, finding freedom within structure, and the importance of poetry in daily life.