LITerally Podcast

"Intimidating and Illuminating," as quoted in the most recent article in SLUG Magazine, is the only way to describe our conversation with Author Espido Freire, along with Isabel Asensio, Professor of Spanish, and Electra Gamon Fielding, Associate Professor of Spanish. Her extensive, impressive, and accomplished bio is below the podcast. We were so fortunate to talk with the 2018-19 Hurst Artist/Scholar-in-Residence at Weber State University.

Thank you, again, Isabel, for inviting us along.

We harvested just the smallest yield from the bounty of writing experience that came together to talk writing before our Utah Humanities Book Festival LITerally reading.

In conjunction with The Utah Humanities Book Festival, this was a group podcast featuring many of our local and national guests. Our local readers for the evening: Kase Johnstun, Sian Griffiths, J.A. Carter Winward, Danielle Susi, Chadd VanZanten, Brad Roghar (Ogden Poet Laureate), Alison McLennon, Amanda Luzzader, and Michael McLane. Our Oregon writers who joined us: Sean Davis and Deborah Reed.

We got poetry. We got prose. We got a performance piece. And there is so much more in our podcast with J.A. Carter-Winward. If you're easily offended, this isn't your episode. But if you're not, you will be entertained. Thanks, JA, for joining me and Brandon for the podcast. We got LIT (eral).

Paul Rowley talks to us about his first chapbook, one that gives a picture of living always on the borders -- the borders between the expectations and realities of growing up as Native American, though this is just the catalyst for a much deeper discussion about the place of art in our time.

Teresita Dovalpage, writing about food and murder and what it's like to wrap them together in Cuba, made us laugh. Teresita opened up on the LITerally Podcast about being a writer, a native Cuban, and what it's like write a crime novel, which, to me, felt like a literary crime novel because of the beautiful prose!

Ryan Sharp, a poet and a hell of a good guy, read some old and new poetry for us at LITerally. It was great to talk with him and hear him talk about what all this means in this crazy world of ours, and where we belong in it and how our voices view it and interpret it and shape it. And a shout out to the OAC!

Misty Bell Stiers, debut author, enlightened us on so many things Wicca and life and love and family when she joined us to talk about her new memoir, 'Witch Please'. I smile the whole podcast!

We flipped the mic this time. Emmy-Nominated producer and filmmaker Trevor Baierl interviewed me about my book Beyond the Grip of Craniosynostosis. It's the most honest (somewhat reluctantly) I've ever talked about the congenital birth defect.

If you listen, I only ask that you listen until the very end, please. It all comes back around. You'll learn way too much about me and Trevor, for sure.

I hope you enjoy.

On our inaugural 30 minutes with Sean, we talked about his forthcoming book about the history or Oregon Fire Fighting, what it means to be a writer in this political climate, the Mall of America, and side-by-side stationary bikes in a fifth wheel. Every month, join us here, and, mom, I say the "F" word a couple times in this one, so you may want to cover your ears a couple times.

It's possible to have a podcast that is funny, off-the-wall, and very poignant at the same time. This is what we found when Sian Griffiths and I interviewed Tabitha Blankenbiller about her book Eats of Eden. the podcast has been timed perfectly, specifically addressing what it means to attend AWP, which is coming up this week in Tampa, FL.