Chet'la Sebree, author of "Field Study" and "Mistress," discusses how to feel inspired when the world unfolds in surprising or disappointing ways. She speaks of her students at George Washington University, and how she's focused on reminding them that art matters especially in a time of tumult. To keep creating, she makes room for free writing, processing, and most of all, community. Her prompt asks you to see a different community through the lens of "we."

Of the many paths to publication, small press contests hold some fascinating opportunities. Co-hosts Rachel Coonce and Abi Newhouse talk with November Author’s Corner spotlight Luke Sutherland about his memoir winning the 2023 OutWrite Chapbook Competition. They discuss unexpected opportunities small press contests present, how they differ from traditional publishing, and how to maintain your agency in deciding which contest best fits your work. Luke reads from his memoir, Distance Sequence, and then they all pitch a pretend contest with experimental manuscript ideas that break the traditional book mold.

Welcome to the Inner Loop Radio in our latest segment of Just Checking where we bring you our sub-series by Leeya Mehta: Writers with Pets in Solariums.

In this fifth and last edition for the year, Leeya Mehta talks with her friend, non-fiction writer Rashmi Sadana. We are calling this episode: Maybe We Can All be a Little Like Luna: a Conversation with Rashmi Sadana.

Dr. Rashmi Sadana is an urban ethnographer and Berkeley-trained cultural anthropologist who has been writing about the city of Delhi for the last twenty years. Her most recent book is called “The Moving City” and tells the story of Delhi’s new subway system from the perspective of the people who ride it. It’s a story about the radical possibilities and concretized inequalities of the city. It’s also the author’s love letter to the city. Rashmi teaches at George Mason University and is otherwise at the beck and call of a gray tabby called Luna.

References to Books:

Rashmi Sadana, “The Moving City”

Rashmi Sadana, “English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India”

Dinaw Mengetsu, “SOMEONE LIKE US”

Yahica Dutt, “Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir”

Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste”

BR Ambedkar, “The Annihilation of Caste”

Writers are nothing if not ambitious, but what does success really look like for a writer? Gwydion Suilebhan, cultural critic, essayist, playwright, and Executive Director of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, joins us to discuss the journey, the destination, and the aftermath of what some consider literary success, and he proposes a different way to achieve writerly fulfillment. Plus, writers like to think of themselves as different in kind from other professions, but how different are we? We play a little game called Who Said It? to find out.

Tyrese Coleman, author of "How to Sit," discusses ways to feel inspired, including going on walks, getting outside, and using if-then writing prompts to tap into your creativity. She's working on creating routine to keep up writing habits, echoing Toni Morrison's routine of getting up early in the haunted hours to write. When is best for you to write? Coleman challenges you to take the time to find out.

We've all ridden the rollercoaster of emotions as writers--the joy when you actually *like* your work, and the despair when you overthink all of it. Co-hosts Rachel Coonce and Abi Newhouse talk with October Author's Corner spotlight, Nick Gardner, about feeling proud, feeling terrified, and how tapping into our childlike selves can actually help us breakthrough emotional turmoil. Nick reads us a part of his new book, Delinquents and Other Escape Attempts, which gave him particular grief while writing, and then they all play a game where they determine whether a piece of writing was written by a novice writer or a prestige one.

In this Just Checking In sub-series, Writers with Pets in Solariums, Leeya Mehta chats with Amanda Newell about balancing writing with life, her latest collection: Postmortem Say, and what horses have to teach us about life.

Amanda Newell lives on a farm in southern Maryland with a cat named Kit Kat and two horses, Eko and Ed. She's close enough to the Chesapeake to hear the waves breaking against the shore. She grew up riding and showing horses and still finds mucking stalls therapeutic. She also loves the other animals on the farm, including the foxes and deer, who sometimes dine together.

Newell is the author of Postmortem Say, published in 2024 by Cervena Barva Press. Her chapbook, I Will Pass Even to Acheron, was a 2021 winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships and/or scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Frost Place, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Amanda is currently an associate editor for the contemporary poetry journal Plume. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir about reconstructing her identity in the aftermath of the suicide of her ex-husband, a former prosecutor and judge. Her website is: www.amandanewellpoet.com

Okezie Nwoka, author of “God of Mercy,” discusses the difference between love and care, and how self love plays a role in creating art. Nwoka takes us through a writing prompt that invokes the wisdom of aphorisms—short expressions that, here, will capture ideas of loving oneself and others. He talks about writing strategies and routines, and how he surrenders himself to the moment of free expression.

Most writers have experienced feedback from a writer's workshop, a writing group, or from friends and family, and we're told it's a necessary part of writing. But what's the key to figuring out what level of feedback works for you? What qualifies as a "good" workshop? And most of all, what type of feedback will help us actually keep writing? Plus, you can help decide whether the feedback Courtney, Rachel, Dan, and David give each other in realtime is actually beneficial.

Today, TIL board member Leeya Mehta focuses on writing a personal essay, inspired by reading James Baldwin’s essay "The New Lost Generation." She talks about the way she is approaching this essay, which she’s calling “The Day After: Searching for Language for Another Lost Generation.”

Leeya suggests exploring the politics of language as an essay prompt, and asks what you notice about language, and how it is being used in popular culture. How you would like to question that language and soften it? You may disagree, and think language is too soft, that we need to turn up the volume. In her attempt at this essay, she’s reflecting on the topic she has set herself. She asks, what does “the day after” look like?