READ TO ME with Becky Karush

On READ TO ME, we practice the most fundamental skill of writing — how to listen for what works on the page. (And then understand why.)

Today, I read the poem "Abuela Sestina" from Memorias from the Beltway by Mauricio Novoa. Then we get to love how perfectly the poetic form of the sestina serves this complex, country-hopping, bi-lingual, danger-filled, love-filled, bird-filled story.

READ TO ME podcast is supported by READ TO ME Literary Arts. Here, you get the space, time, community, and method to grow as a writer and a reader. You have a gift, no matter how much you doubt it. Now's the time to use it. Find the program that's right for you at readtomepod.com.

We read a selection from one of Mary Ruefle's beguiling essays, "TK NAME." Then we love the craft of it using the principles of Gateless Writing.

If I offered you a space where you could write and read your writing within a safe community, a space where you could grow as a writer, a space where you could break through your creative blocks, would you join me? If you're tired of working in a bubble, then you're ready for Read To Me Gateless Writing Salons. Join at readtomepod.com.

Your host Becky Karush got to be in a writing salon with author Jodi Paloni the other day, and man, was it dizzyingly hot-damn amazing to hear her work. In this episode, we read from Jodi's short story collection, THEY COULD LIVE WITH THEMSELVES. We see how secondary characters mirror each other to show the inner life of the main character. We learn how the short story is like both a bar band at a distance and a whale call heard above the water.

Join us this summer to write your book. Or blog post! Or journal! At READ TO ME Literary Arts salons, workshops, and coaching sessions, we know you can write amazing things — and so you do. www.readtomepod.com

In this episode, we read the lyrics of Wedding Song, from the Tony- and Grammy-winning musical HADESTOWN by Anais Mitchell. We get to love up the song's questions, the dares, the seduction, the reckless hope, the promises, the love.

The episode was an experiment, too — the fifth-ever episode, the first with a live studio audience, the first reading lyrics. We didn't not know what we'd find on the road. (But now we know, and it was fun. No tragedies, just joy.)

Join us this summer to write your book. Or blog post! Or journal! At READ TO ME Literary Arts salons, workshops, and coaching sessions, we know you can write amazing things — and so you do. www.readtomepod.com

Today we get to talk to my friend Emily Bass, the debut author of the extraordinary book TO END A PLAGUE: America's Fight to Defeat AIDS in Africa. This book is…

• An essential history of a U.S. government program.

• A history of the evolution of AIDS activism, and human dignity activism, in the US and in several African nations, Uganda in particular.

• A history of some of people in whose bodies both the virus and the drug treatment lived.

• A history of the potential and the limits of foreign developmental aid.

And the book is a love letter to "people without visible power having enormous power." And also a legislative thriller and a medical thriller and a heartbreaker and a roadmap for dealing with pandemics!

Em and I talk about writing puzzles, the work of managing decades of reporting, why she shows up in the narrative, and what PEPFAR and AIDS can teach us about handling the next plague.

Enjoy!

Join us this summer to write your book. Or blog post! Or journal! At READ TO ME Literary Arts salons, workshops, and coaching sessions, we know you can write amazing things — and so you do. www.readtomepod.com

I met author Emily Bass in 1996, right around the time she was meeting AIDS activists in New York City.

I met Em when we were summer camp counselors together.

Neither of us knew that we'd become longtime friends. Neither of us knew that she was right at the inception of a 20-plus year journey to research, report, and write her book, her first book, her book that's out this week, the book called TO END A PLAGUE: America's Fight to Defeat AIDS in Africa.

Today, we get to celebrate Emily and her book — and read an excerpt from a stunning chapter called Small Heavens. Here we're in Uganda in the early 2000s, just as PEPFAR, a massive American program to deliver AIDS drug treatment in Africa, is rolling through. From vivid sensory details to a global understanding of foreign aid to a reverence for the bodies that live these events, Emily gives us the world. Let's go read with her.

Join READ TO ME this summer to write your book. Or blog post! Or journal! At READ TO ME Literary Arts salons, workshops, and coaching sessions, we know you can write amazing things — and so you do. www.readtomepod.com

Today we get to talk to the numinous and luminous Barbara Newman, author of the brand-new, to-be-published-on-July-27 young adult fantasy novel, THE DREAMCATCHER CODES. In this book, four girls, powered by the elements of earth, air, fire, and water, and secret messages from mystical dreamcatchers, join forces on a quest to recover a stolen piece of the coveted Crystal Horseshoe.

We had a rollicking time reading from the book in our last episode — and now we get to hear from Barbara! Catch our beautiful conversation about writing, dreams, the earth, intuition, and daughter.

Join us for our online Summer Writing Salons. We know you can write amazing things — and so you do! www.readtomepod.com

This week, we enter the realm of the mystical, the brave, and the female — and learn how to write a story as epic, as timeless, as magisterial and intimate from its very first words. And not just that. In the young adult fantasy novel THE DREAMCATCHER CODES by Barbara Newman, we get to hear a story written with LIFE as its enduring value, and magic as its flair. Plus, we get a semi-spiritual reckoning at an Indigo Girls concert.

Come write your stories! Join us at the READ TO ME summer writing salons at www.readtomepod.com.

Meet Sari Rosenblatt, extraordinary writer, teacher, observer, candy connoisseur, conversationalist, interviewee. Author of the acclaimed short story collection FATHER GUARDS THE SHEEP, Sari here talks about the family history inside the book, the life of work that came before book publication, and the many many many revisions that go into a single story. (80! Or more!)

Sari, I adore you to the moon. Thank you for this wild and beautiful talk.

Join the READ TO ME Salons — writing, reading aloud, and listening with generous, discerning attention that opens up your most brilliant work. www.readtomesalons.

Sari Rosenblatt is a consummate short story writer. Just look at Daughter of Retail, the lead story in her new collection, FATHER GUARDS THE SHEEP.

Place — she's got it. Pacing — she's got it. High and low stakes twisting around each other — she's got it. Character voice — she's got it. Pee-your-pants-funny — she's got it. That strange floating feeling like your scalp has detached from your skull that you get at the end of an exceptional short story — she's got it.

VERNA PIXLEY IN NEED OF A BRA — she's got it.

I really, really hope you treat yourself to this episode. Discovering Sari's work is like biting into great chocolate, or finding out that someone mailed you money.

Plus, you can hear why a beautiful young man and I didn't kiss in 1994.

But really, listen for this story that will knock your knickers off.

Join us for our Read to Me Summer Writing Salons! Come see for yourself what it's like to write knowing that your work will be loved for its incontrovertible strength. www.readtomepod.com/gateless-writing-salons