Plume: A Writer's Podcast

In this episode, which marks the last from Plume's first season, Melanie interviews the delightful writer Melanie S. Hatter. They talk about work/life/writing balance, writing retreats, and Melanie's award-winning novel, Malawi's Sisters. At the end of the episode, Melanie (Unruh) gives important updates on Plume's new structure and relaunch, including some exciting new Patreon changes.

Melanie S. Hatter's website

Melanie on Twitter

This Is What America Looks Like (the new anthology Melanie is in)

Mastin Kipp (the speaker who organized the writing retreat in Bali)

As many of you know, Plume’s co-founder, Jennifer Simpson, passed away suddenly in December.  In this special recording, Jenn's friends and family read her essays, blogs, and poems to honor her beautiful work, as well as her generous spirit. 

• Karin Zirk: “42 Years of Title IX: Where Are We Now?” 5:59
• Debby Simpson: “First Dance” 8:17
•  Cindy Sylvester: “After, We Were Birds” 9:27
•  Nora Hickey: “Dead Deer” 12:17
•  Jennifer Lynn Krohn: “Jennifer Simpson Is Writing This Book Because” 15:10
•  Samantha Tetangco and Merimee Moffett: “Playing with Words” 16:33
•  Caroline Tompkins: “Letter to My Mother on the Anniversary of Her Death” 22:04
•  Cynthia Patton: “Jennifer Simpson Doesn’t Write Because/Jennifer Simpson Writes    Because” 24:00
•  Melanie Unruh: “Love Letter to My Memoir” 27:54
•  Marie Landau: “Mother’s Day Shouldn’t Be About Grief” 31:58
•  Julie Tinney: “Best Night Ever” 35:13
•  Dawn Sperber: “What the Heck Is a Metaphor Anyway?” 37:42
•  Nari Kirk: “WTF: If Not Now, When?” 40:01
•  Katie Simpson: “Musing on Silence” 43:18
•  Judy Reeves: “Letter from My Mother or More About God or Untitled” 45:28
•  Amy Wallen: “Chapter 35: Je Sais”
•  Jill Badonsky: “Poem from the Awe-manac”
•  Jennifer Simpson: “You Like Play Chalk?”

Melanie gives some Plume updates at the top of the show and the rest of the episode is an interview with Tierna Unruh-Enos, the associate publisher and managing editor of The Paper, a weekly alternative newspaper in Albuquerque, and the producer and creator of the podcast The Mesa. They talk about politics, representation in media, creativity in journalistic writing, and yes, men's fragile egos, among other things.

Links

Tierna on Twitter

The Mesa on Twitter

The Mesa podcast

The Paper

Melanie and Jennifer unpack the idea of writer's block, discuss dream-boarding your story ideas, chat about books and writing and setting descriptions, and share a writing prompt. They interview Felecia Caton-Garcia, who shares a heartbreakingly beautiful excerpt from her novel in progress.

Links

Plume Zoom Writers' Support Group (free!) Registration

Is It Real? 25 Famous Writers on Writer's Block

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Drought by Felecia Caton-Garcia

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

The Searcher by Tana French

In this episode, Melanie and Jennifer talk about writing conferences after Melanie shares her experience of recently attending her first fully online one, which included speed dates with editors and agents. They chat with poet Jennifer Lynn Krohn about horror movies, giving advice to her younger self, and if the word "zeitgeist" is actually meaningful.

Links

Jennifer Lynn Krohn's website

Follow Jennifer on Twitter

Follow Jennifer on Instagram

Philadelphia Stories

Push to Publish Conference

Taos Summer Writers’ Conference

 SCBWI

AWP conference

A Room of Her Own

 Coffin Bell

 Molotov Cocktail

 Suspiria 

Octavia E. Bulter

Ursula K. Le Guin

The Pinch 

This Is How You Lose the Time War  by Max Gladstone and Amal El-Mohtar

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo

You Have a Match by Emma Lord

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

 Calypso by David Sedaris

Melanie and Jennifer discuss the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how writers are necessarily political. Melanie interviews Danielle Hanson, a rad, Atlanta-based poet, whose poetry is oddly synchronous with a story-in-progress excerpt Jennifer shares about people's ashes that attend parties (Yes, you read that correctly). This one is a wild ride of puppetry, feminism, diversifying your reading list, activism, shipping fictional princes and first sons, and more!

CW: Brief references to sexual assault

Links

Danielle’s website

Danielle on Instagram and Twitter

1619 podcast by The New York Times

History of American Slavery podcast by Slate

The Poet Salon

Sundress Press

Doubleback Books

Jericho Brown

Boom! Laywered podcast

The New York Times on RBG's complex legacy

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan 

If Cats Disappeared from the World by Genki Kawamura

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

On this episode of Plume: A Writer's Podcast, Melanie and Jennifer discuss Jesmyn Ward's heartbreaking essay that came out recently in Vanity Fair, which delves deeply into COVID-19 loss and grief, as well as how it connects to racism in the U.S. They also talk about everything from food memoirs to the new trailer for the Rebecca adaptation. Writer Samantha Tetangco sits down with them (on Zoom, anyway) to talk about identity, sexuality, race, and all the ways these subjects intersect with writing. They also reveal some exciting news about team Plume!

CW: racism and COVID-19 deaths

Links

Sam's website

Mass MoCA

Sam's essay in The Sun

Lisa See's The Island of Sea Women

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca

Padma Lakshmi's A Place at the Table

Padma Lakshmi's show

On this episode of Plume: A Writer's Companion podcast, Melanie & Jennifer talk about writing censorship and tourism, as well as family pushback on hard truths; discuss books they're reading; and talk about writing projects and conferences. They have a lovely chat with the writer Donna Miscolta, who reads from her forthcoming book Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories. This episode's writing prompt was inspired by an Angie Rubio story.

Links

Donna's website  

Donna on Twitter and Instagram 

Angie’s report card story

When the de La Cruz Family Danced book trailer

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

 Kathleen Alcalá

On this episode of Plume: A Writer's Companion podcast, Melanie & Jennifer talk about rejection letters; discuss Lovecraft Country and Misha Green’s new adaptation of the book for HBO; and share their current writing and not writing projects. Melanie’s cat stops in to say hello and Jenn offers some great writing prompts about the moon. They chat about everything from myths to phone banking with Karin E. Zirk, an impressive mythologist and the author of Falling From the Moon, which was released earlier this year.

Links

Karin's website

Karin on Twitter

On this episode of Plume: A Writer's Companion podcast, Melanie & Jennifer talk about a 4-year-old with a forthcoming poetry collection; share a book review of Watchmen; and discuss their attempts to write and edit during this strange time we're all living through. They chat about everything from metaphors to politics with Sue William Silverman, an engaging memoirist, who also reads an excerpt from her new memoir, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences.

LINKS

Sue William Silverman

Her website

Sue on Instagram