Let's Have a Renaissance: The DateKeepers Podcast with Itto and Mekiya Outini

Tom Levy is a London-based painter. He holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and has shown paintings in museums and galleries in the US and the UK, including at the UN building. In this episode, we discuss his artistic practice and preoccupations, and he offers a word of advice to others who, like him, are reeling from a terrible loss.  

Derrick Austin is a poet and ekphrastic writer with two poetry collections published and a third in progress, all with BOA Editions. He holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and has been a Cave Canem fellow, an Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholar, a winner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and a winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, among others. In this episode, we discuss his journey from writing poetry to trying his hand at ekphrastic nonfiction, the challenges involved in putting together a poetry collection, the importance of having a good relationship with your publisher, and how to publish a debut. 

Jeremy Podgursky’s compositions synthesize a deep awareness of the classical canon with sensibilities shaped while playing in indie rock bands, and his music has earned support from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Fromm Music Foundation Commission, the Copeland House Residency, the Mizzou New Music Festival, and elsewhere. In this episode, Jeremy shares how his persistent struggle against imposter syndrome ultimately pushed him to new creative heights, and we discuss political polarization, its corrosive effects on creative communities, and whether art for art’s sake can still be made.

Brendan Isaac Jones is an author, father, husband, Fulbright scholar, and MacDowell fellow. His first novel, The Alaskan Laundry, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and his second, Whispering Alaska, by Penguin Random House. He’s now at work on a memoir about his Fulbright year in Siberia. In this episode, we discuss the memoir, the difference between provincialism and parochialism, and how a kid born in Colorado and raised in Philadelphia became an Alaskan writer. 

Joyce Kozloff’s career as a visual artist spans decades, during which her work has explored preoccupations including cartography, women, the decorative arts, and war. She’s created numerous public and transit art installations and received support from the MacDowell Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy in Rome, the Rockefeller Foundation, and others. In this episode, we discuss Joyce’s latest project, an installation piece that spotlights the human cost of international conflict, as well as her earlier projects and collaborations, and she shares her advice for young artists just setting out on their creative careers. 

A former division-one athlete and musician, Jeff Bender now writes fiction, comedy, and screenplays. He earned his MFA from Columbia University, and his work has appeared in The Iowa Review, McSweeney’s, Guernica, The Offing, and elsewhere. He’s also received support from residencies including the Edward F. Albee Foundation and Jentel, among others. In this episode, we discuss his current projects, a novel-in-progress about two former athletes struggling to navigate life after graduation, and a TV pilot about a priest struggling with romantic temptation, both informed by Jeff’s overlapping and oxymoronic identities: liberal, Catholic, comedy writer, ex-wrestler, and suburban dad.

Timothy Nolan is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, actor, and educator. He earned his MFA in playwriting at Pace University and has been named an Indie Theater New Person of the Year. He now lives in Brooklyn with his wife, screenwriter Susannah Nolan. In this episode, we talk about ghosts: what they are, where they come from, how they differ from memories, what they tell us about ourselves, and why the theater needs them. 

What if someone in your family is a monster? In this episode, we read one of our stories, “The Bghlt el-Kaboor,” originally published in Afritondo and inspired by a popular Moroccan folktale, which explores this very question. 

Emma Binder has published short fiction in The Michigan Quarterly Review, The Indiana Review, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere and has received support from The Vermont Studio Center, Jentel, The Anderson Center, and Writing by Writers. In this episode, we discuss Emma’s latest literary venture, a novel-in-progress, as well as the narrative elements you need to hook readers and keep them from walking away.

Robert Ray Morgan is the author of dozens of novels, biographies, short stories, and poetry collections, including the bestsellers Gap Creek: A Novel and Boone: A Biography. Born in 1944 on a farm in rural North Carolina, he went on to teach for fifty-one years at Cornell University and earn heavyweight honors including a Guggenheim, an NEA grant, and a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship. In this episode, he offers some words of advice for up-and-coming writers and recalls his exhilarating journey from Appalachia to the Ivy League.