Guest curator Hema Nataraju and her daughter Meera read submissions from kids from all around the world, choosing five short stories and poems about "the future." Guest host Eden Hawkins stepped in, so the entire episode features ONLY children's voices. Enjoy!

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Drew Hawkins talks with Grant Faulkner about his new book, "The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story."

Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the co-founder of 100 Word Story. His stories have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including Tin House, The Southwest Review, and The Gettysburg Review, and he has been anthologized in collections such as Norton’s New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction and Best Small Fictions. His essays on creativity have been published in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Lit Hub, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. He serves on the National Writing Project’s Writer’s Council, Lit Camp’s Advisory Council, and Aspen Words’ Creative Council. He’s also the co-host of the podcast Write-minded.

WA "Drew" Hawkins is a writer and journalist in New Orleans. You can find his work in The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Scalawag Magazine, HAD, No Contact, Rejection Letters, and in other places on the internet.

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This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

 Ada Calhoun is the New York Times–bestselling author of Why We Can't Sleep, St. Marks Is Dead, Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give, and Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me— featured on the TODAY Show, named one of the best books of 2022 by Oprah Daily and Vogue, and called "molten with soul" in a New York Times rave.

M.M. Kaufman is a fiction writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and works on the team for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, the Miller Aud-cast, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.

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This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

Megan Abbott is the Edgar-winning author of the novels The Turnout. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The Believer. Her stories have appeared in multiple collections, including the Best American Mystery Stories of 2014 and 2016. Her work has won or been nominated for the CWA Steel Dagger, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and five Edgar awards.

M.M. Kaufman is a fiction writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and works on the team for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, the Miller Aud-cast, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.

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This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

Antoine Wilson‘s new novel, Mouth to Mouth, recently named one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2022, is out from Avid Reader (Simon + Schuster) in the US and Canada, and from Atlantic Books in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Wilson is also the author of the novels The Interloper and Panorama City. His writing has appeared in The Paris Review, Quarterly West, and Best New American Voices, among other publications. He is a contributing editor at A Public Space.

M.M. Kaufman is a fiction writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and works on the team for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, the Miller Aud-cast, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor's choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Buzzfeed, Nylon, and Guernica, among others. Rojas Contreras has received numerous awards and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, VONA, Hedgebrook, The Camargo Foundation, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. She is a Visiting Writer at Saint Mary’s College.

Dylan Evers is a third culture kid interested in amplifying stories from the margins. She graduated with her MFA from the University of New Orleans and won a few awards for her thesis. When she’s not tending to her small children and large dogs, you can find her reading copious amounts of flash and working on her first novel. You can find her on Twitter at @dyl_evers.

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This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

Erika T. Wurth’s literary-horror novel, White Horse, is with Flatiron/Macmillan. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals including Buzzfeed, Boulevard, Lithub, The Writer’s Chronicle, and The Kenyon Review. She is a Kenyon and Sewanee fellow, and a narrative artist for the Meow Wolf Denver installation.

M.M. Kaufman is a fiction writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and works on the team for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, the Miller Aud-cast, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

A former National Book Award finalist and winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, Jess Walter is the best-selling author of seven novels, two book of short stories and one nonfiction book. His work has been translated into 34 languages, and his fiction has been selected three times for Best American Short Stories, as well as the Pushcart Prize and Best American Nonrequired Reading. His stories, essays and journalism have appeared in, Harper's, Esquire, Playboy, McSweeney's, Tin House, Ploughshares, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many others.

Drew Hawkins is a writer and journalist in New Orleans. His work has appeared in The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Scalawag Magazine, Southerly, No Contact, Rejection Letters, HAD, and other publications. You can follow him on Twitter at @WAdrewhawkins.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

Brendan Nicholaus Slocumb was born in Yuba City, California and was raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in music education, concentrations on Violin and Viola. While at UNCG, Brendan was the concertmaster for the University Symphony orchestra and served as the principal violist. He performed with numerous small chamber ensembles, including flute and clarinet choirs, and in the BESK string quartet.

M.M. Kaufman is a fiction writer based in Georgia. She is a Fulbright Scholar and earned an MFA in the University of New Orleans’ Creative Writing Workshop. She is currently the Managing Editor at Rejection Letters and works on the team for Micro Podcast. Her fiction is published with The Normal School, Hobart, Metonym Journal, Sundog Lit, Daily Drunk Mag, (mac)ro(mic), HAD, Olney Magazine, the Miller Aud-cast, Pine Hills Review, and elsewhere. Find her on Twitter @mm_kaufman and on her website mmkaufman.com.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is part of an interview series for Miami Book Fair, where members of Team Micro interview authors appearing at the fair about their work. For more information about their programming and to check out the incredible roster of authors appearing this year, visit miamibookfair.com. And be sure to follow them at @miamibookfair and #MiamiBookFair2022 for more updates.

Tajja Isen is the editor-in-chief of Catapult magazine and the author of the essay collection Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service. Braiding cultural criticism with personal narrative, the book is about how industries—like entertainment, media, and publishing—have gotten very canny about speaking the language of social justice but don’t always follow through.

Kirsten Reneau is a writer, teacher, and interviewer. She received her MFA from the University of New Orleans in 2021 and lives there now with her dog. Her personal work can be found online at http://www.kirstenreneau.com.

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