situation / story

(TW: Sexual Abuse)

It was like Christmas for me, so it's Christmas (or whatever holiday you celebrate) for you! I'm dropping this episode a day early because I just cannot wait for it to exist in the world. Listen in as Sophia Shalmiyev and I discuss Elizabeth Warren, male and female archetypes in literature, Riot Grrrl feminism, anti-capitalism, immigration, white flight, and the mental breakdowns of memoir, among other things. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did!

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Listen in as Eva Hagberg and I talk about her recently-gone-paperback memoir HOW TO BE LOVED: A MEMOIR OF LIFESAVING FRIENDSHIP (2019). In our conversation you can expect the same realness and transparency with which she comes to her writing, a mark of the vulnerability she has cultivated since surviving a brain hemorrhage, heart surgery, and learning to live with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. We take on capitalism, mental health, recovery from alcoholism, writing, reconnecting with the body after physical trauma, and what friendships can look like when you let your guard down and choose to see that folks have been there all along, loving you.

Eva Hagberg’s writing has appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, Wallpaper*, Wired, and Dwell, among other places. She is the author of HOW TO BE LOVED: A MEMOIR OF LIFESAVING FRIENDSHIP (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Feb 5, 2019), and holds degrees in architecture from UC Berkeley and Princeton as well as a PhD in Visual and Narrative Culture from UC Berkeley.

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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

Listen to me and poet/activist ellie swensson talk about her book SALT OF US. We cover everything from the patriarchy of the beat generation, to what it means to live in a white body, grow up queer in the South, and much more. Oh, and poetry, yeah, we talk about the craft a little bit, too. Not to be missed!

ellie recently published her first collection of poetry via Punch Drunk Press. She is a queer, southern ex-pat and earned her MFA from my alma mater Naropa University in 2015. She is the founder and co-director of Bolder Writers Warehouse, a mobile writers’ community resource. Her poems are published in a handful of places you may know, but she prefers her words alive in the mouth and the body.

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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

DISCLAIMER: My editor sucks! (Hint: it's yours truly...) In a couple of short clips, it sounds like I am interrupting my guest, but I most certainly assure you I am not, and if you are ever to come on this show, I will indeed also not interrupt you. (Learning curve, here...) Thank you for your forgiveness.

For my fifth episode, I sat down with Georgia-based writer, Jordan Rothacker, to talk about his latest collection: Gristle: weird tales, published in 2019 by Stalking Horse Press. Rothacker is the author of three novels: The Pit, and no Other Stories, And Wind Will Wash Away, and My Shadow Book by Maawaam. Rothacker attended Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY before going on to receive a Masters in Religion and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Georgia. His essays, fiction, poetry, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in The Believer, Heavy Feather Review, Guernica Magazine, LitHub, and many more.

Listen in as Jordan and I discuss the naivety of youth, men writing women, reverse engineering of stories, penis-fencing worms, and much more!

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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

Happy new year! 2020 has already proven to be a whirlwind and we’re only a week in! If you are hoping to take a break from the ever-increasingly frightening and disheartening world news, you came to the right place. For my fourth episode, I sat down with Mary Harpin. She is a Denver-based poet, a medium, and a consultant for global Fortune 500 companies. You can find her work in Terrain, Fourteen Hills, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. We talked about her first full-length collection of poems: SHADOWRISE. To learn more about her work and purchase her collection, check out http://www.maryharpin.com.

Listen in as Mary and I discuss contacting spirits, mass shootings, how the Laws of Physics apply to love, and much more...

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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

(TW: Sexual Abuse)

For my third episode, I sat down with Denver-based novelist Steven Dunn. Shortlisted for Granta magazine’s “Best of Young American Novelists,” Dunn is the author of two books from Tarpaulin Sky Press: water & power (2018) and Potted Meat, which was a co-winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Awards, a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, and has been adapted for a short film entitled The Usual Route, from Foothills Productions. Steven was born and raised in West Virginia, and after 10 years in the Navy he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from University of Denver. Listen in as we discuss penises on submarines, growing up in poverty, and Ikebana as writing instructor!

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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

In the second episode of The Situation & the Story, I sit down with multi-genre author Hillary Leftwich to discuss her new collection, GHOSTS ARE JUST STRANGERS WHO KNOW HOW TO KNOCK (Civil Coping Mechanisms Press). Our conversation takes some dark twists and turns, similarly to her collection. We not only take on death, grief, loss, and regret, but also how to make the most of your writing and your life. Thanks for tuning in.

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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

Just in time to Give Thanks, I sat down with poet, educator, and creative coach Tara Shea Burke to talk about her recently published collection of poetry, Animal Like Any Other (Finishing Line Press, September 2019). My fellow Libra and I discuss the writing process, the world of academia, what it's like to navigate self-doubt, and writing as women in a patriarchal society. 

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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