Episode 29: I see a swimming poll in your future with return guest Liz Blood! Also we take a moment to honor the beautiful life and tragic loss of poet Jane Hoogestraat. A brief discussion of recent poetic activity and then a wonderful talk with Tatiana Ryckman and Liz Blood as they discuss how to go about finding the necessary information and inspiration in approaching a particular piece of writing. So Please give us a listen.

From the original PBS broadcast with discussion of Jane Hoogestraat’s book Bordern Lands.

Liz Blood is a writer, editor, and itinerant. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in Numero Cinq, Hunter Mountain, Delta Sky magazine, the Oklahoma Gazette, Art Focus magazine, and Oklahoma Today. In 2014, her personal essay, “Sway,” was awarded first place in the magazine column writing category by the Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists. Her essay “Bloodsport,” was recently published in Hunger Mountain. She lives in San Marcos, Texas with her boyfriend Will and his dog, Mini, where they chase cats and hike and jump in the river together.

Episode 28: Endlessly Endless Attempting. In this episode we offer a great talk by Richard Farrell from the cool waters and mysterious babble of River Pretty in the heart of the Ozarks. Rich talks about hair cuts, being worthy of life’s wonder, simply the process, the right words rightly arranged, words prone to spats and fits, keeping the faith in midst of the sheer feebleness of words and that “silence reminds us how radically inadequate language remains,” but we push forward and continue to endlessly attempt at capturing the moment. So wash your hair out, smooth out the cushions, let the dog in from the yard and give a listen:

Sign up for River Pretty.

Richard Farrell graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served on active duty until 1993. For a number of years, he was a high school teacher in San Diego before deciding to pursue writing fulltime. He completed his M.F.A. through Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010. He is currently a Senior Contributing Editor at Numro Cinq Magazine and the Non-Fiction Editor at upstreet. Rich teaches at Words Alive, PEN in the Classroom, San Diego Writers, Ink and at the River Pretty Writers Workshop in Missouri. His work, both fiction and non-fiction, has appeared or is forthcoming in Hunger Mountain, Numro Cinq, A Year In Ink Descant, New Plains Review and upstreet. He is currently at work completing a collection of short stories and a memoir on flying. He lives with his family in San Diego, CA. Click here to read an interview with Rich.

Check out Episode 27: Written in Small Objects with the Return of Andrew Marshall.

In this episode Tatiana and I get together and begin to determine the conversation going forward, the audience we can reach, the kind of small space we want to cultivate, and then Tatiana sits down with A.W. “Andrew” Marshall who recently published his first collection of stories, Simple Pleasures. They discuss reading for fun, allowing the process to ferment,  what she said, a passage of life in a series of stories, the good and the bad days, the objects tucked away and the imagination they influence. So whittle a figurine, squirrel away your attachments, and find the small spaces of your obsession.

Buy a copy of Simple Pleasures here.

Here’s what some brilliant people are saying about the book:

Simple Pleasures marks the debut of Andrew Marshall’s curiously addicting fiction.  In Marshall’s stories hearts can literally be touched, actually–grasped, and a rolling Head can terrorize a town. Here the power of sex both attracts and repels: lovers fall off a dizzy perch among branches, a plunge that alters the lives of others for decades; the accidental glancing touch of two strangers binds them to an increasingly disorderly life of physical pleasure; and the confluence of a cache of pornographic drawings and mistaken identity allow a man to escape his dreary life.  Surprises appear at nearly every turn in these intriguing, original stories, and Marshall orchestrates them beautifully.

—Philip Graham, author of How to Read an Unwritten Language and The Art of the Knock

Amidst the known and predictable elements of this world, A.W. Marshall’s fictions open up uncanny new spaces, ruled by the unexpected, the inexplicable. Thanks to mysterious encounters and turns of event, the very human characters in Simple Pleasures come to experience life as “weirder and full of more possibility” than before. I feel that way too after reading these stories, which startled and moved me with their mix of marvelous strangeness and genuine heartache. After a boy proves his claim that he can touch a girl’s heart—literally reach in and touch it—he muses, “‘Imagine if I can do this now, what I can do later.’” It’s hard not to wonder the same about Marshall himself, given the dark powers and brilliant promise he shows in this scary-good first collection.

—Ellen Lesser, author of The Shoplifter’s Apprentice and The Blue Streak

Simple Pleasures is a mysterium tremendum of stories like little boxes with secret drawers and hidden latches the reader opens with glee, trepidation, and increasing recognition that the great mysteries of existence are best mined in the small moments between humans.

—Mary Rickert, author of The Memory Garden and Map of Dreams

A.W. Marshall has lived in Oklahoma for the last eight years, but grew up on the beaches of Southern California. His work is published or forthcoming in Red Wheelbarrow, TheNewerYork, Fiction Attic, Austin Review, and Vestal Review.  In 2005, he wrote and directed the professional theater production of his play, Pan, with Long Beach Shakespeare Company.  In 2003, his play, Emptier, was produced at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood and directed by Kristin Hanggi.  He received his MFA in playwriting from University of Southern California and a MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts.  He is co-editor of Piece Meal, an online magazine that exclusively reviews poems and short stories from literary magazines.  For the last four years, he has been writing a novel about a half man, half rabbit in 1850’s California called Hendo.

Episode 26: A Grand Movement of the Mind and #SaveUAkronPressStaff

On this episode we begin with a call to friend of the show, Poet Emilia Phillips, where fills us in on some unfortunate events that have taken place with University of Akron Press and the University’s President Scott Scarborough. Then in the regular show we turn the podcast over to newly appointed and devastatingly brilliant, coconspirator, co-pilot across the sonic inter webs of space, time and words, co host extraordinaire Tatiana Ryckman! Tatiana sits down with writers John Proctor and Kate Senecal at the Young’s Residency and discuss finding space to write, the grand movements of the mind, 80s movies, the allowance of bad writing and creating the space of possibility for the written word. Several links follow also for where you can sign the petition and also let President Scarborough know what you think of his recent decision. So simmer down, keep it up, relax, let your voice be heard and give us a listen.

Episode 25: The Act of Making and Unmaking. So we’re back it would seem for reals this time. For those just joining us welcome, for those returning thanks for coming back! For the next few months we’ll be giving an insight into dearly kept Ozark secret, The River Pretty Writers Retreat! And in this episode we hit the ground running with a wonderful discussion with Lawrence Sutin, Mary Ruefle and Cole Closer! Essentially the masters of the universe give or take. We discuss all our own quarks and amoebas of writing and none of us really agree with one another, I mean we do, but we differentiate and this is what I always wanted the podcast to be. So if you’re new, this is what we’re doing from here on out, for veteran listeners this is the talk I always wanted. Um, oh god I say that a lot on the panel, but um is just a short arc from Om, and if we don’t get there in the panel we get close. So sit back or sit forward, unlace your shoes and tie them up again, and again, then take a breath wink at totem of your being and give a listen because it’ll be all right and alright. Enjoy now!

Mary Ruefle was born in Pennsylvania in 1952.  She is the author of many books.  Her website has been designed to allow readers to experience her erasure books, which can otherwise not be seen as they are old, friable, one-of-kind things.  It is also a way for prospective collectors and buyers to preview the books without handling.  The books will be changed eventually. Mary is a writer, or to use the parlance of our times, an artist.

Lawrence Sutin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 12, 1951. His parents, Jack and Rochelle Sutin, were Holocaust survivors who fought as Jewish partisans in Poland during World War Two. He graduated from St. Louis Park High School in Minnesota and then earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and English from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Harvard University. Since 1984 he has been a full-time writer and teacher, publishing books in multiple genres including biography, memoir, history and the novel. He is also currently working in the field of text-and-collage erasure books. He currently is a professor in the Creative Writing and Liberal Studies Programs of Hamline University and teaches in the low-residency program of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has been married to Mab Nulty, a psychologist, since 1990. He has three children, Ceallaigh Anderson (stepdaughter), Brennan Vance (stepson), and Sarah Sutin (daughter). He also has a part-beagle part-German shepherd dog, Murphy. He tries to lead a quiet life devoted to writing, family, friends, reading and listening to music. It doesn’t always work out quietly but he does the best he can.

Cole Closser holds an MFA in Sequential Art from the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. His first graphic novel, Little Tommy Lost (Koyama Press), was named one of the ten best graphic novels of 2013 by A.V. Club (the Onion), and nominated for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in the category of Best Publication Design at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con. Cole is an Assistant Professor of Art & Design at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri—and is a regular guest faculty member at the River Pretty Writers Retreat in Tecumseh, Missouri, where he leads a workshop in sequential art/graphic narrative. Cole’s work has been featured in such publications as Regular Show from Boom Studios, Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream from Locust Moon Press, and The Dreadfuls from Rotland Press. Cole’s forthcoming graphic novel Black Rat will debut this September at the Small Press Expo, from Koyama Press. Cole is generally a nice guy, but don’t jive talk him. He enjoys reading books with funny pictures, watching old cartoons, and wrestling alligators. Cole likes cats.

Episode 24 And who shall wear the starry crown?

This is the beginning of a special series of episodes with readings and talks recorded at the River Pretty Writers Retreat. The first of these was recorded last spring during River Pretty 6, and then recently when I was able to attend during River Pretty 7. They are unruly, they are bucolic, they are full of passion and rivers and mountains and verve. I have told you before, you need to get your self to River Pretty Writers Retreat. Whether you’re a novice, an old hand, a passerby or dyed in the wool, LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE and then go check out Riverpretty.org sign up for the retreat, donate some money, be kind. For now check out these readings from Chaz Miller, Steve Rucker and D Gilson.

Chaz Miller has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in Moon City Review, Ozarks Watch, Bayou Magazine, and The Southern Review.

Steve Rucker received his M.F.A in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and his M.A. in Writing from Missouri State University, where he taught creative writing. He has published his work in Numro Cinq, Elder Mountain, and Upstreet (“A Terminal Chord” was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays of 2013 anthology), and his essay regarding the life and work of Raymond Carver appears in Research Guide to American Literature: Contemporary Literature 1970 Present. Steve writes from a well-lit front room in Springfield, Missouri.

D Gilson is an Ozark boy whose poetry, essays, and scholarship explore the relationship between popular culture, sex, and literature. In the past year he’s published Crush, a collection of poems and essays with Will Stockton. His first chapbook Catch & Release, won the Robin Becker Prize from Seven Kitchens, and his second, Brit Lit, is now available from Sibling Rivalry. A graduate of the MFA program at Chatam University, he is currently a PhD student in American Literature & Culture at the George Washington University.

Back like your monthly paycheck, check out Episode 23: The Effects of a Tandem Kayak with the indomitable poet and editor extraordinaire Caitlyn Paley. We discuss Misty, the art of knuckling, confronting the zeitgeist, women in small press publishing, submission as art as process, the needs of the magazine when the work has its own suspense, looking fear in the face so you can get all Caitlyn Paley about it, and generally how readers destroy the words that they read. And in What’s On My Desk, I get all fifth generation immigrant Chuck Norford on Lee Busby’s ” The Origin’s of Blackbird.” So clip your toenails, dry out your moist clothing line, engage the bottle and the class, but either way give us a listen without end.

Caitlyn Paley is the founder and editor-in-chief of 491 Magazine. Her work has appeared in The Austin Review, Metazen, Moria Poetry Journal, Shampoo, andOtoliths, among others. Caitlyn received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Also check out the work of Lee Busby, order now, 5th Generation Immigrant.