READ TO ME with Becky Karush

CONTAINED by Abigail Braithwaite, is a slimline book of writing and illustrations, about 4" high by 11" wide, and representing the shape of the contained it was conceived in. The retro-fitted shipping container the is Abigail's writing studio. How…cool!

In OTHER WISE by Mary-Lou Bagley we see the complicated, strained relationship between Emily Donne and her emotionally manipulative mother, not just through the words but through the movement of these two bodies. Their physicality brings their relationship into action, as awkward and painful as it is.

SPREE WEEK DAY 2, we dive straight in at Chapter 1 of THE YEAR OF NEEDY GIRLS by Patricia Smith. Here, the stakes of the entire novel are set with a sure hand, in just three pages. Here we meet Deidre, one half of the main couple of Deidre and Sara Jane. Deirdre is a teacher in a town that's just been cleaved through the heart — even though no one quite knows it yet.

It's SPREE WEEK — a new author every day for a week! We kick it off with HOPE FROM DAFFODILS by Karen Coulters. It's our first ever romance writing on READ TO ME. Come hear Sophie and Brady meet-cute. True love can't be kept down!

In this episode, I spoke to Jo Ann Beard. JO ANN BEARD!

We talked about book covers becoming the faces of old friends. About the thin line between panic and inspiration, anxiety and excitement. About the perfect friend, the one who can listen, really listen, and love on your work.

Come listen and see why after the interview I called all my writing pals to revel in how much fun it was.

What do you do when you have been uncreated, when you have sunk into a place where the body is a prisoner and the mind, even in sleep, is wild with seeing. What do you do when you've moved through that sort of pain?

Spoiler alert! This excerpt we read from FESTIVAL DAYS the author JO ANNE BEARD, does not give us the answer.

And neither do I.

That's for your to mull over, sit with, experience and maybe come up with an answer. And then again, maybe not. Either is ok.

Come listen and mull with me. Link in bio.

In this episode we talk to Samantha Kolber, poet and author of 'Birth of a Daughter'. We featured the title poem last week, be sure to listen and meet me back here!

We talk about how darkness can make you happy. We talk about how to tame 'the beast'! We talk about how a four year old becomes the youngest ever cover artist.

Enjoy!

In birth, who is born? The child? The mother? The space between the two? Or the poem she will write? In Samantha Kolber's poem BIRTH OF A DAUGHTER, the answer is yes.

In today's episode, we see how a string of couplets, a constellation of near rhymes, and three gloriously smart questions make birth bigger and tougher, more connected and more free, born and reborn.

Plus, a melancholy communion with the land!

Meet Aliza Eliazarov, author and creator of ON THE FARM: Heritage and Heralded Animal Breeds in Portraits and Stories. (We featured the book last week.) You'll hear how Aliza came to photograph animals, what it's like to set up a portrait studio in a barn, what it feels like to connect with an animal just before the shutter clicks.

it's a huge honor to learn from a photographer. My favorite thing is to talk to artists in other disciplines to learn how they do their magic. (And maybe that helps us do our own on the page!)

Photography and podcasts? Not natural dance partners.

But ON THE FARM by Aliza Eliazarov makes heritage and heralded farm animals into movie stars…into the muses for Dutch masters…into demigods carved into stone temples

So, today, we're taking a leap. A leap like a goat to the top of a barn.

Today, we're loving a photograph.

Specifically, we are going to listen to a photograph — and in doing so, fall in love with an angora goat named Chamomile.