situation / story

Listen in as the wonderful Michele Filgate and I discuss her anthology WHAT MY MOTHER AND I DON'T TALK ABOUT (Simon & Schuster, 2019) on Mother's Day. And Italy, a lot of conversation about Italy. Beyond that, we tackle immense loss, mother figures, the editing process, and more.

Currently, Michele is an M.F.A. student at NYU, where she is the recipient of the Stein Fellowship. Her work has appeared in countless publications including The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, The Rumpus, Salon, and O, The Oprah Magazine. She teaches creative writing at NYU and is the founder of the Red Ink series.

Find links to her work here:

http://www.michelefilgate.com/

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For my 17th episode, I sat down with brilliant Denver-based poet Andrea Rexilius. Andrea is the author of Sister Urn (Sidebrow, Spring 2019), New Organism: Essais (Letter Machine, 2014), Half of What They Carried Flew Away (Letter Machine, 2012), and To Be Human Is To Be A Conversation (Rescue Press, 2011),  as well as the chapbooks, Séance (Coconut Books, 2014), and To Be Human (Horseless Press, 2010). Her creative and critical writing is featured in the following anthologies: Anne Carson: Ecstatic Lyre (U of Michigan P), The Volta Book of Poets (Sidebrow Books), Sixty Morning Talks: Serial Interviews with Contemporary Authors (Ugly Duckling Press), and Letter Machine Book of Interviews (Letter Machine Editions). She is Core Faculty in Poetry, and Program Coordinator, for the Mile-High MFA in Creative Writing at Regis University. She also teaches in the Poetry Collective at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado.

This episode is very dear to my heart, as Andrea entered into a space of such vulnerability and openness around the life and death of her sister Andrea Erki. We explore loss and grief, the entanglements of living, and the ways in which poetry can create a language of connection where no words could do so before.

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Tune in to hear poet, artist, and comic Sommer Browning and I discuss the nature of reality, what makes comedy funny, the meaning of art & life, and what separates humans from animals; you know, just the small stuff.

For my 16th episode, I sat down with my favorite poet on the planet, Sommer Browning. Sommer is a poet and writer living in Denver. Her books include Backup Singers (Birds, LLC; 2014), Either Way I'm Celebrating (Birds, LLC; 2011), Poet-Librarians in the Library of Babel (Litwin Books, 2018), You're on My Period (Counterpath, 2016), and several others. She is the founder and director of GEORGIA, a non-commercial art space she runs out of her garage when it's warm. She works as a librarian at Auraria Library.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

For my 15th episode, I sat down with someone who, for me, was a life-changer and a game-changer: poet, essayist, and scholar Adrianne Kalfopoulou. She lives and teaches in Athens, Greece where she currently heads the English and Modern Languages Dept. at Deree College. Lucky for me, she is also a poetry and nonfiction faculty mentor in the low residency Mile-High MFA program at Regis University. She has taught in the Masters Program of the Englisches Seminar at the University of Freiburg, the Graduate Writing Program at New York University, and writing workshops at the University of Edinburgh, and the Aegean Arts Circle on the island of Andros. Her scholarly work has focused on 19th and 20th century American literature, and more recently Ralph Waldo Emerson’s influence on Sylvia Plath's poems.

Listen in as we discuss personal history, immigration in the era of Trump, the importance of voting for a not-so-ideal candidate, pain pornography, letting a piece of writing lie fallow, travel & identity, and so much more. Adrianne is truly a brilliant scholar and thinker of our time, there is something for everyone in this episode -- not to be missed.

Find Kalfopoulou's works below:

http://www.adriannekalfopoulou.com/publications.html

Here is her essay we discuss on the episode:

https://superstitionreview.asu.edu/issue24/nonfiction/adriannekalfopoulou

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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/situationandstory/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

Listen in as the brilliant Cameron Dezen Hammon and I discuss god v. religion, patriarchy, and a whole lotta craft! 

For my 14th episode, I sat down with Cameron Dezen Hammon, a writer and musician living in Houston. Her essays, poems, and stories have appeared in Guernica, The Rumpus, Ecotone, The Houston Chronicle, The Butter, NYLON, The Literary Review, Brevity's Nonfiction Blog, Columbia Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her writing has been anthologized in The Kiss: Intimacies from Writers from W.W. Norton, and My Caesarean: Twenty Mothers on the Experience of Birth by C-Section and After from The Establishment, and honored as notable in The Best American Essays 2017. She earned an MFA from Seattle Pacific University. Cameron is the host of The Ish podcast, conversations from the liminal spaces of life, and co-founder of the Houston-based literary reading series “The Slant.” This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession is her first book.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

The Sopranos, Coronavirus, anti-heroes, really fucking well-rounded characters, male toxicity, being a working artist who has to work, and Anne Carson... a few of the things Laura Bogart and I discuss on The Situation & the Story Podcast. Her gorgeous novel, DON'T YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU, was released today by Dzanc Books. Please check it out! We need to help our community members' whose events have been cancelled due to COVID-19. This is one of my favorite conversations!

Laura is a nonfiction writer who focuses on personal essays, pop culture, film and TV, feminism, body image and sizeism, and politics (among other topics). She is a featured contributor to The Week and DAME magazine; her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, SPIN, The AV Club, Vulture, and Indiewire (among other publications). DON’T YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU is her first novel.

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This episode is sponsored by
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

Listen in as award-winning poet and essayist Kathryn Winograd & I discuss her stunning & philosophical essay collection, SLOW ARROW: UNEARTHING THE FRAIL CHILDREN, published today by Saddle Road Press! We delve into death, hidden worlds and histories, the nature of time, her downright brilliance on craft, and much more. This is a special conversation. It felt like I got my own personal craft talk, and now I wish I had had Kathy as another mentor at Mile-High MFA. Enjoy our talk.

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This episode is sponsored by
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Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/situationandstory/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

For my 11th episode, I sat down with Katharine Coldiron at AWP2020 in San Antonio, TX. I initially had big plans to interview many of our fearless feminist writers on-site, but coronavirus ultimately won out when so many presses and attendees cancelled their trips, and then I came down with a heinous cold that I’m sure had attendees double-taking me during panels. All of it was worth it considering I got to chat with Katharine about her new novella, CEREMONIALS (2020, KERNPLUNKT Press). Katharine's work has appeared in Ms., Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, LARB, The Rumpus, and many other places. Find her at kcoldiron.com and on Twitter @ferrifrigida.

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This episode is sponsored by
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

(TW: Sexual Abuse, Depression, Suicidal Ideation)

For my 10th episode, I sat down with Kari L. O'Driscoll to talk about her memoir TRUTH HAS A DIFFERENT SHAPE. Kari is a writer and mother of two living in the Pacific Northwest. Her work has appeared in print anthologies on mothering, reproductive rights, and cancer, as well as online in such outlets as Ms. Magazine, ParentMap, The Manifest-Station, and Healthline. She is the founder of The SELF Project, an organization whose goals are to help teenagers, teachers, and caregivers of teens recognize the unique challenges and amazing attributes of adolescents and to use mindfulness and nonviolent communication to build better relationships. You can find her at www.kariodriscollwriter.com. Listen in as we discuss mothering, memory, grief, teenagers, and even Jack Kevorkian. 

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This episode is sponsored by
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com

Be a fly on the wall for my conversation with the brilliant Erin Khar as we dig deep into mental health, addiction, and why we do the things we do, through the lens of her beautiful & painful memoir STRUNG OUT: ONE LAST HIT AND OTHER LIES THAT NEARLY KILLED ME. Her book is out this coming Tuesday, 2/25, so if you don't want any spoilers, don't tune in until after you read!

Erin is known for her writing on addiction, recovery, mental health, relationships, parenting, infertility, and self-care. Her weekly advice column, Ask Erin, is published on Ravishly. Her personal essays have appeared in SELF, Salon, HuffPost, Marie Claire, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and others. She's the recipient of the Eric Hoffer Editor's Choice Prize and lives in New York City with her husband and two kids.

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This episode is sponsored by
· Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/situationandstory/support

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit situationstory.substack.com