Musings of the Artist: (Honest) Conversations with Montse Andrée

Ada Limón is the author of seven books of poetry, including Startlement: New & Selected Poems; The Hurting Kind, which was a finalist for the Griffin Prize; The Carrying, which won the National Books Critics Circle Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award; and Bright Dead Things, which was named a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Award. Limón is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named a 2024 Time Magazine Woman of the Year. She is the author of two picture books, In Praise of Mystery as well as And, Too, The Fox, and was the editor of the anthology You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World. She served as the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States.

Our conversation was much about nature, poetry, having empathy for the younger versions of ourselves, and the freedom of choosing your own path outside of societal expectations. 

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Madeleine Morlet is an Australian-born British-American artist. She is particularly interested in the concept of the female gaze, especially as it relates to motherhood and sexuality. Working primarily in medium format and 35mm film, she often combines portraits, landscapes, and close crops to explore character and place. Her photographic practice is grounded in research and, more recently, paired with creative nonfiction. We talked about her project and upcoming book The Body Is Not a Thing.

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Darius Atefat-Peckham is an Iranian American poet and essayist. He is the author of Book of Kin, which won the 2023 Autumn House Poetry Prize, and the chapbook How Many Love Poems (Seven Kitchens Press, 2021). He is also the editor of his mother Susan Atefat-Peckham’s posthumous poetry collection Deep Are These Distances Between Us (CavanKerry Press, 2023). 

We talked about and kindness, poetry, dogs, language, crying on planes… and a lot more!

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Odette England is an artist, photographer and writer. She has published five award-winning books and has two books coming out in 2025 including her first novella Isn’t X Beautiful. Odette received her Ph.D. in 2018 and was a 2022 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. She teaches at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design, and is working on her second novella, Once I Was A Photograph.

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Odette’s Website

Odette’s Instagram

Gabrielle Bates is a poet, visual artist, and co-hosts the podcast The Poet Salon. She is the author of the poetry collection, Judas Goat (Tin House, 2023).

Patrycja Humienik is a Polish-American writer, editor, and performance artist. Her poetry collection, We Contain Landscapes (Tin House, 2025) is out now.

This was such a deep, nourishing conversation on art, language and friendship. This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Anne Eder is an interdisciplinary artist and educator. Much of her work is experimental and research based, combining historic processes, science, and contemporary conceptual thinking. She is well known for her sustainable photographic practice, and for innovative discoveries regarding both photographic chemistry and integrating media. Throughout her career she has been an advocate for increased access to the arts, and the creation of public art is a dedicated part of her practice. She lives in New England and currently teaches at Princeton University, Harvard University, the Penumbra Foundation NYC, and the Griffin Museum of Photography among other places.

We talked about ephemerality, arts education, fairy tales, and how, as Anne says, imagination is a muscle.

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Kaveh Akbar is a poet, novelist and editor. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf, along with the chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic. He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine. His novel Martyr!, is a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist.

In this episode, we talked about identity, obsession in art making, fan mail, memory of language, writing dream sequences, and why animals are the best.

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Matthew Zapruder is a poet, editor, and teacher. He is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently I Love Hearing Your Dreams (Scribner 2024), as well as two books of prose: Why Poetry (Ecco, 2017) and Story of a Poem (Unnamed, 2023). He is editor at large at Wave Books, and from 2016-7 he held the annually rotating position of Editor of the Poetry Column for the New York Times Magazine, and was the Editor of Best American Poetry 2022. 

I was so happy to have the chance to talk to Matthew about his poetry and prose. We discussed revision, literary friendships, dreams and more.

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.

Amina Cain is Los Angeles based writer. She is the author of the novel Indelicacy (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020), and two collections of short stories, Creature (Dorothy, 2013) and I Go To Some Hollow (Les Figues Press, 2009). Her latest book is A Horse at Night: On Writing (Dorothy, 2022).

In this conversation we discuss friendship, writing, class, ambivalence around motherhood (an article she wrote on this can be found here), embracing the different versions of ourselves and more. A Horse at Night was one of my favorite books that I read this past year. It was a treat to have Amina on the podcast!

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward. 

Sue William Silverman is an award-winning author of eight works of nonfiction and poetry and  her most recent book is Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul. This conversation, just like her book, is centered around writing personal narratives. We discuss putting our most vulnerable selves on the page, the fluidity of memory, writing about other people and much more. If you are a writer of memoir and personal essay– or hope to be, then this is the episode for you!

This episode was audio produced by Katie McMurran. Music is by Madisen Ward.