Plume: A Writer's Podcast

In this episode, we’ve pulled back the curtain on what happens behind the scenes of a literary magazine. It’s a great one for those of you who’ve never worked on a literary magazine before or perhaps you are just starting to submit your work for the same time as it offers some advice for what to do, some insight into what editors look for, and some sense of the labor involved in putting out a literary magazine to the public.

Blue Mesa Review (open for fall submissions until 9/30/21!)

Electric Literature

Boulevard

The Audacity

In this episode, Sam and Melanie talk with September featured writer, Paula Treick DeBoard, about low residency MFA programs, balancing writing and teaching, publishing industry labels for writing by women, and more! Plus, Paula reads her compelling letter of encouragement.

Join our Patreon for access to an upcoming bonus segment from this episode, in which Paula talks about her riveting novel excerpt, featured in this month's Digital Plume.

Paula Treick DeBoard is a fiction writer in Northern California, with roots throughout the Midwest. She is the author of four novels, including Here We Lie (Park Row Books, 2018) and holds an MFA from the University of Southern Maine. Since 2015, she has taught writing at the University of California, Merced. Her street cred with students begins and ends with an appearance in 2016 on a Comic-Con panel called “Sweet Dreams Aren’t Made of These: Horror and Thriller Writers Bring You Their Worst Nightmares.” If it wasn’t for her husband and two dogs, she would probably get more writing done. Or maybe not.

Writers to Read

Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The Wolf Wants In by Laura McHugh

These Women by Ivy Pochoda

We asked and you answered! By popular vote, our Patreon community members chose this roundtable topic. In this discussion, Sam, Melanie, Dawn, and guests Jameela F. Dallis, Cynthia Patton, and Cassie McClure talk about the tricky nature of writing about real people, others’ reactions to their work, writing through grief,  deciding who owns a story, and more.

TW// Intimate partner violence and Coronavirus deaths, 

Learn more about our multi-talented panelists!

• Jameela’s website 
• Cynthia’s website 
• Cassie’s website 

 
Follow us on social media!

• Plume on Instagram
• Plume on Twitter
• Plume on Facebook

In this episode, Sam and Melanie talk with August featured writer, Lisa D. Chavéz , about poetry, creative nonfiction, writing through trauma, MFA programs, and more!

CW: sexual assault, trauma, and PTSD

Lisa D. Chavéz has published two books of poetry, Destruction Bay and In An Angry Season, and had poems anthologized in Floricanto Si!: U.S. Latina Poets, Camino del Sol:  Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing, and elsewhere.  Her essays have appeared in Arts and Letters, The Fourth Genre and other magazines, and in anthologies including The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity, and An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on their Poor and Working Class Roots.  She grew up in Alaska, and now lives in the mountains of New Mexico with a pack of Japanese dogs. She is currently the Director of Creative Writing program at the University of New Mexico.

In this roundtable discussion, Sam, Melanie, and guests Casandra López, Erin Adair-Hodges, and Suzanne Richardson talk about the role of feminism in writing today, living and writing intersectional feminist lives, writing the body, writing as an act of reclamation, and more.

TW// Physical assault, sexual assault, violence against women, disordered eating, gun violence, genocide, & colonialism

Casandra's website

Erin's website

Suzanne's website


Recommended Books & Writers

Living a Feminist Life by Sarah Ahmed

Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendal

Thick & Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom

The Reckonings by Lacy M. Johnson

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

Sisyphusina by Shira Dentz

Bad Feminist and Not That Bad by Roxane Gay

Bone Black by bell hooks

Gloria Anzaldua,  Audre Lorde, Anias Nin,  Sapphire, and Marilyn Chin

Shout-outs from Suzanne:

Shoutout to The Feminist Press in general and the good work they do, but in particular my friend Joey Vallese’s Queer Horror Anthology that is in progress and will be out in 2022. It's a nonfictional essay collection about being queer and what connection and echoes that has with horror film. 

Shoutout to my editors over at No Contact: Guarra Shekar, Eliot Alpern, and Natty Berry.

Three Things 

Co-editor Daniel Shank Cruz—we’re working on a D&D Anthology together titled Roll 4 Initiative.

In this episode, Sam and Melanie talk with July featured writer, Cynthia Sylvester, about writing dialogue, finding and defending your voice, the confluence of music and storytelling,  writing about the southwest from a Diné perspective, compiling her new cross-genre collection, and more.

Cynthia Sylvester recently completed a collection of short stories and poems, The Half-White Album.  Work from this debut book has appeared in ABQ in Print, Leon Literary Review, Lunch Ticket, As Us Journal, and Bosque – the Magazine.  In 2012 she received the Native Writer Award at the Taos Writers Conference.  She lives in Los Ranchos, New Mexico. 

Writers to Read

Robin Rosen Chang

Kevin McIlvoy

Lisa Lenard-Cook

In this roundtable discussion, Sam and guests Marlena Chertock, Belinda Kremer, and Summer Wood talk about what it means to be a queer writer, navigating the publishing industry and workshops designed by and for straight white men, using their voices to uplift communities and shed light on oppression,  the genealogy of queerness, and so much more.

CW// forced sterilization

Summer's website

Marlena's website

OutWrite

Belinda's summer poetry class

Confrontation Magazine

In this episode, Melanie and Sam chat with June featured writer Elsa Valmidiano about writing Filipino heritage. They talk about her story "Down the Rabbit Hole", the inadequacy of labels, and the role of forgotten shamans.  Elsa reads her letter of encouragement and shares some dazzling writers we should be reading now.

Elsa's website

We Are No Longer Babaylan

Elsa on Instagram

Writers to Read

• Adrienne Oliver
• Trinidad Escobar
• Janice Lobo Sapigao
• Anna Vangala Jones 

CW: Miscarriage

In Plume's first roundtable discussion, Melanie chats with writers and moms, Julia Halprin Jackson, Christina Socorro Yovovich, and Jennifer Jordán Schaller. They discuss dual identities, juggling writing and parenting in the midst of the pandemic, writing about and for their children, current projects, and more.

Julia's website

Play on Words

Christina's recent essays: "Taking Time" and "Mom Talk: Choosing Third Grade"

Jennifer's website

Gregory Martin's Treadmill Journal

Welcome to season two, Plumesters! In this episode, Melanie and Sam chat with May featured writer Tia Clark about narrative structure, intersectionality, short story collections, writing fellowships, and the passage of time as it relates to our writing. Tia reads their letter of encouragement, shares excellent writing advice, and gives us a heads up on writers we should be reading now.

Tia on Twitter

Tia's website

Dantiel W. Moniz

Annell López Instagram & Twitter

Kristin Sanders

Jami Attenberg

The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellowships