In 2025, ARTWIFE Magazine is teaming up with The Inner Loop to bring you interviews with DC-area authors! In March, April, and May, then again in September, October, and November, join us on the third Tuesday of the month to hear from recently-published novelists, memoirists, and poets in the DMV. Today we meet Patricia Coral, author of the memoir "Women Surrounded by Water," which was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography. She holds a BA in Hispanic Studies from the University of Puerto Rico, an MA in Spanish from the InterAmerican University of Puerto Rico, and an MFA in Creative Writing from American University. Patricia writes creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, but frequently her words find their home in between. The former director of events for Politics and Prose Bookstore, she has contributed to numerous literary magazines and her work has been supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Purchase Women Surrounded by Water at https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814259252.html and use code CORAL for a 30% discount and free shipping!

Find more from Patricia on her website, www.patriciacoral.com, and find her on Instagram @_patriciacoral_

The Inner Loop creates inclusive and accessible opportunities for our diverse network of both emerging and established writers to connect with each other, to connect to their community, and to transform the written word into a shared experience through the act of reading aloud. They put on monthly readings in Washington, DC, market writers who published with small- to medium-sized presses, host writing retreats and residencies, and provide other special programming throughout the year. Check out upcoming events at theinnerlooplit.org.

@theinnerlooplit on IG
facebook.com/theinnerloopdc

Welcome to the CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT series on The ARTWIFE Podcast! Every other month, we're interviewing an artist whose work we've published in the magazine. Join us as we get to know our contributors and talk about the creative process and the life of the artist.

This month, we're joined by Julia Mallory, a poet, prose writer, visual artist, and founder. Read Julia's short story in ARTWIFE: https://www.artwifemag.com/short-stories/second-helping-of-grits

Find more from Julia at www.thejuliamallory.com and www.blackmermaids.com.

In 2025, ARTWIFE Magazine is teaming up with The Inner Loop to bring you interviews with DC-area authors! In March, April, and May, then again in September, October, and November, join us on the third Tuesday of the month to hear from recently-published novelists, memoirists, and poets in the DMV.

Today we meet Varun Gauri, author of the novel "For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus". Varun worked for more than two decades on development economics and behavioral economics. He now teaches at Princeton University and lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. His debut novel, For the Blessings of Jupiter and Venus, won the 2024 Carol Trawick Fiction Prize, was selected for NPR’s Books We Love 2024, and is a finalist for Foreword INDIES 2024 Book of the Year in General Adult Fiction.

Find more from Varun, as well as links to purchase his book:

https://www.varungauri.com/

https://spia.princeton.edu/faculty/vgauri

The Inner Loop creates inclusive and accessible opportunities for our diverse network of both emerging and established writers to connect with each other, to connect to their community, and to transform the written word into a shared experience through the act of reading aloud. They put on monthly readings in Washington, DC, market writers who published with small- to medium-sized presses, host writing retreats and residencies, and provide other special programming throughout the year. Check out upcoming events at theinnerlooplit.org.

@theinnerlooplit on IG

facebook.com/theinnerloopdc

The ARTWIFE Podcast is on spring break this month, so in honor of the current Venus retrograde we're re-injecting this episode from last fall into your feeds. Here she blows!

This month, we're taking a field trip! Join us as we depart from our usual fare of writing & writers and romp instead into the realm of performance, performers, and the life of the artist. We're joined by astrologer Wonder Bright, who helps us understand how the astrological signatures in Barbra Streisand's birth chart are influencing and describing the way Barbra makes her art. Topics include the intersections and overlaps between astrology and storytelling; the merits of an artist's first instinct (a.k.a. first draft) versus their subsequent attempts (a.k.a. revisions); and the evolution(?) over time of one of our culture's recurring narrative fixations, A Star is Born.

Wonder Bright is an astrologer living in Portland, Oregon. She works with her clients to help them use whatever sliver of free will they possess to embrace their fates and step more fully into their lives. She uses traditional techniques to arrive at thoroughly modern conclusions and has written about this for The Mountain Astrologer and www.astro.com. For more you can find her at www.starsofwonder.com.

View Wonder's companion slide deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hDsHrdr1BiBA1Z7ueKM-n-B3-qZmrPp_/view

We recorded this episode before we learned of Kris Kristofferson's passing. He was incredible—so moving and effective—in the role of John Norman Howard. Rest peacefully, Mr. Kristofferson.

Welcome to the CONTRIBUTOR SPOTLIGHT series on The ARTWIFE Book Club podcast! Every other month, we'll be interviewing an artist whose work we've published in the magazine. Join us as we get to know our contributors and talk about the creative process and the life of the artist.

This month, we're joined by Jaina Cipriano, an experiential designer, filmmaker, and photographer. See Jaina's photo series in ARTWIFE: https://www.artwifemag.com/visual-art/the-empty-mirror-jaina-cipriano

Learn more about Jaina's work at the Arlington International Film Festival (https://aiffest.org) and Finding Bright Studios (https://www.findingbrightproductions.com).

We're starting 2025 with one of the best books we've read in awhile: The Coin by Yasmin Zaher. After a quick zip through the (bananas, unhinged, incredible) plot, we use the lens of this book to talk about the concept of artistic values and how important they are for clarifying and magnifying the work we make. Jump in!

Starting in February 2025, we invite you to join us weekly for The ARTWIFE Creative Hour! This is a free, virtual gathering for artists working in any medium to set aside an hour each week dedicated to our creative works-in-progress. Learn more and sign up for reminders here: https://www.artwifemag.com/the-creative-hour

In this short lil snack of an episode, we process some heavy shit and talk through the unique mixture of bleakness and hope stretching out ahead of us. Then Hannah runs down a list of her top 5 books & stories from the year, plus a few honorable mentions. Join us and find out if any of your favorite made the list.

It's our first-ever movie night on the pod! We're looking at Challengers, a perfect film about three self-loathing, deeply unwell people visiting psychosexual drama upon each other repeatedly for more than a decade. The stuff dreams are made of! But what does it have to do with writing? Well, everything. In this episode, we talk about the power of indoctrinating your audience/readers with sub-perceptual imagery and symbolism. We also look at the absolutely manic and a-chronological movement of this narrative through time and figure out how the hell it managed to work...and so successfully. Hop in!

There's still time to vote if you haven't yet done so! Find your polling place here: https://www.vote.org/polling-place-locator/. Learn about your rights and responsibilities if you need time off work to vote: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/business/voting-during-the-work-day-employers-law/index.html.

This month, we're taking a field trip! Join us as we depart from our usual fare of writing & writers and romp instead into the realm of performance, performers, and the life of the artist. We're joined by astrologer Wonder Bright, who helps us understand how the astrological signatures in Barbra Streisand's birth chart are influencing and describing the way Barbra makes her art. Topics include the intersections and overlaps between astrology and storytelling; the merits of an artist's first instinct (a.k.a. first draft) versus their subsequent attempts (a.k.a. revisions); and the evolution(?) over time of one of our culture's recurring narrative fixations, A Star is Born.

Wonder Bright is an astrologer living in Portland, Oregon. She works with her clients to help them use whatever sliver of free will they possess to embrace their fates and step more fully into their lives. She uses traditional techniques to arrive at thoroughly modern conclusions and has written about this for The Mountain Astrologer and www.astro.com. For more you can find her at www.starsofwonder.com.

View Wonder's companion slide deck: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hDsHrdr1BiBA1Z7ueKM-n-B3-qZmrPp_/view

We recorded this episode before we learned of Kris Kristofferson's passing. He was incredible—so moving and effective—in the role of John Norman Howard. Rest peacefully, Mr. Kristofferson.

This month we're back with another SHORTS episode...and we're doing things a little differently this time! Rather than look at the craft of an individual piece of work, we're turning our attention to the question of emotional depth & honesty in creative writing more generally. What does emotional presence *feel like* in a piece of writing? And what does it feel like when it's missing? Finally, and most importantly, how can writers avoid making work that relies on emotional approximation and instead create work with depth and longevity? Hop in and let's find out!