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. 

Ross Gay is the author of four books of poetry: Against Which; Bringing the Shovel Down; Be Holding, and Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude. In addition to his poetry, Ross has released three collections of essays—The Book of Delights (a New York Times bestseller), Inciting Joy, and his newest collection, The Book of (More) Delights.

This conversation, much like Ross’s work, is about joy, curiosity, belonging and caring for one another. It was, truly, one of my favorite conversations I’ve had in this space, and I’m thrilled to be able to share it.

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

Gregory Orr is a poet who is known to be a master of the short, personal lyric. About Gregory, Mary Oliver wrote “He speaks now, in these many short poems, which in their entirety are really one long poem, of mysteries, of those things –emotions, situations, mind and heart states–which are beyond the definitive.” 

Gregory is the author of more than 10 collections of poetry. He has also published a beautiful book about lyric poetry called Poetry as Survival along with a stunning memoir, The Blessing. His latest book of poetry is Selected Books of the Beloved.

In this conversation we talked about lyric poetry, anxiety, surviving trauma and the power of art to save a life.

In 2018 Gregory performed a poem-and-poems-set-to-music using his “beloved” poems, featuring the Parkington Sisters. We didn't get to discuss this during our conversation but you can check it out here: The Beloved Poetry & Music | Video
 

You can read more about Gregory on his website http://gregoryorr.net/. His wife, painter Tricia Orr's art can be found on her website, http://www.trishaorr.com/. 

Finally, you can listen to Gregory's conversation with Krista Tippett for the On Being podcast here.

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

Philip Metres is a poet, translator and director of the Peace, Justice and Human Rights program at John Carroll University. He is the author of ten books, including Shrapnel Maps, The Sound of Listening: Poetry as Refuge and Resistance, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Sand Opera.

Tomás Q. Morin is a poet, translator, and editor. His books include the collection of poems Machete and the memoir Let Me Count the Ways, as well as the poetry collections Patient Zero and A Larger Country. 

Both Philip and Tomás have received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among many other honors. 

I met Tomás and Philip through my MFA program and knowing they are friends I thought it would be fun to be in conversation with them together! We talked all about vulnerability and art, literature as a home and companion, form enacting subject in writing and the discovery that happens in the creative process.

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