The Lives of Writers

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Kaycie Hall interviews Puloma Ghosh.

Kaycie Hall is the lead editor of our online journal Autofocus. She's also a writer and literary translator, whose work has appeared in Peach Mag, Neutral Spaces, Triangle House Review, and other journals. 

Puloma Ghosh is the author of the debut short story collection Mouth (Astra House, 2024). Her work has appeared previously in One Story, CRAFT Literary, Cutleaf, and other publications. 

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Full conversation topics include:

-- starting a new job after a layoff

-- balancing writing and illustration

-- elementary school notebooks

-- the short story collection MOUTH

-- putting together a collection after an MFA

-- being generous to a past self

-- Puloma's story "The Fig Tree"

-- story changes through drafts

-- elements of horror and supernatural

-- Puloma's stories "Anomaly" and "Natalia"

-- ordering the stories

-- working on novels

-- green M&M fanfic

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Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Joshua James Amberson interviews Tomas Moniz.

Tomas Moniz is the author of the novels Big Familia and, most recently, All Friends Are Necessary. He also edited the popular Rad Dad and Rad Families anthologies. He currently teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program. 

Joshua James Amberson is the author of Staring Contest: Essays About Eyes, How to Forget Almost Everything: A Novel, a series of chapbooks, and the long-running Basic Paper Airplane zine series. He lives in Portland, Oregon where he runs the Antiquated Future online variety store and record label.

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FULL CONVERSATION topics include:

-- engaging with an audience post-publication

-- a book tour / honeymoon

-- working with a bigger press for the 1st time

-- zines and zine community

-- working on multiple projects

-- trying and failing to sell a book

-- growing up as not a reader or writer

-- the path to early zines and RAD DAD

-- writing and receiving letters

-- the new novel All Friends Are Necessary

-- editorial collaboration

-- playing with best and worst selves in fiction

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Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Erin Slaughter interviews Jenny Irish.

Jenny Irish is the author, most recently, of Hatch. She is also the author of the hybrid collections Common Ancestor and Tooth Box, the short-story collection I Am Faithful, and the chapbook Lupine.

Erin Slaughter is the author of the short story collection A Manual for How to Love Us and the poetry collections The Sorrow Festival, and I Will Tell This Story to the Sun Until You Realize That You Are the Sun. Her memoir, The Dead Dad Diaries, will be out with Autofocus Books in the fall of 2025.

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Full conversation topics include:

-- growing up in Maine / living in Arizona

-- an abandoned house in the woods

-- childhood imagination and stories

-- an unexpected MFA

-- working in academia

-- Jenny's recent essay in Salon, "Teacher Spice"

-- inhabiting a body

-- society's grading of appearance

-- scrutiny of the body in the workplace

-- Jenny's new book of poetry, Hatch

-- responding to the Trump presidency

-- the decision to have or not have a child

-- a metal womb and a cast of characters

--the violent division in America

-- the decision to stay in or leave academia

-- genre and hybridity

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Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

In today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Sara Rauch interviews Ursula Villarreal-Moura.

Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self Crippling and Like Happiness. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines including Tin House, Catapult, Prairie Schooner, Midnight Breakfast, Washington Square, Story, Bennington Review, Wigleaf Top 50, and Gulf Coast. 

Sara Rauch is the author of the book-length essay XO, from us at Autofocus Books. She’s also the author of the story collection, What Shines from it, from Alternating Current Press. Her book reviews and author interviews have been featured in the LA Review of Books, Newcity Lit, Lambda Literary, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.

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Conversation topics include:

-- teaching college English remotely

-- bilingual teaching with AmeriCorps

-- learning to read like learning to drive

-- the switch from poetry to fiction

-- endometriosis

-- finding a community through flash

-- selling a novel that didn't sell

-- the debut novel Like Happiness

-- two timelines

-- not writing in third person

-- ambiguity

-- stories we tell ourselves

--looking away

-- healing in the right environment 

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Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Jason McCall interviews Brooke Champagne.

Brooke Champagne is the author of Nola Face:  A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy.  Her writing appears widely in literary journals and has received various awards, including the inaugural William Bradley Prize for the Essay for her work “Exercises.”  Her essays have been selected as Notables in several editions of Best American Essays.  She is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Prose. She lives with her husband and children in Tuscaloosa, where she is an Assistant Professor of English in the MFA Program in creative writing at the University of Alabama.

Jason McCall is the author of the essay collection Razed by TV Sets (Autofocus, 2024) and the poetry collections What Shot Did You Ever Take (co-written with Brian Oliu); A Man Ain’t Nothin’; Two-Face God; Mother, Less Child (co-winner of the 2013 Paper Nautilus Vella Chapbook Prize); Dear Hero, (winner of the 2012 Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize and co-winner of the 2013 Etchings Press Whirling Prize); I Can Explain; and Silver. He and P.J. Williams are the editors of It Was Written: Poetry Inspired by Hip-Hop. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami. He is a native of Montgomery, Alabama, and he currently teaches at the University of North Alabama.

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Conversation topics include:

-- finding time

-- 20+ years of teaching

-- reading turning into writing

-- Nola Face: A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy

-- trying to quit writing

-- putting together an essay collection

-- time's role in craft

-- approaching the page in different stages of life

-- sports and new projects

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Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Mike Nagel interviews Andrew Bertaina.

Andrew Bertaina is the author of the essay collection The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place, out now from Autofocus Books, and the short story collection One Person Away From You (2021), which won the Moon City Short Fiction Award. 

Mike Nagel is the author of Duplex and Culdesac (Autofocus Books, 2022 and 2024). He also wrote the music for this podcast and a column called The Unintentionalist for the literary magazine Little Engines.

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Full conversation topics include:

-- selves on the page

-- hyperfocusing

-- The Body Is A Temporary Gathering Place

-- reading as a pathway to writing

-- grading your own writing

-- essays vs. fiction

-- modes of essays

-- mind as setting

-- representing others in an essay

-- representing yourself in an essay

-- a good catalyst

-- what goes in and what goes out

-- speed

-- writing and not writing every day

-- getting and not getting stuck

-- valuing the reader

-- the essay "On Trains" specifically

-- gratitude

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Podcast theme music also provided by Mike Nagel. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode ofThe Lives of Writers, Jeff Alessandrelli interviews Mallory Smart.

Mallory Smart is the author of the books I Keep My Visions to Myself, The Only Living Girl in Chicago, I Want to Feel Happy But I Only Feel _____, and The Writer. She's the editor-in-chief of Maudlin House  and host of the podcast Textual Healing, where you can find a recent episode with the roles of this conversation reversed and hear Mallory interview Jeff.

Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of several books, including the poetry collection Fur Not Light. His novel And Yet was reissued this year by Future Tense Books. He is also the director and co-editor of the small presses Fonograf Editions and Bunny Presse.

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Full conversation topics include:

-- Chicagoland

-- growing up in Chicago

-- writing in high school

-- four siblings

-- history and philosophy

-- logic and therapy

-- writing a poetry collection

-- the preference for narrative

-- the story of Maudlin House

-- relationships with authority

-- writing a first novel

-- maladaptive daydreaming

-- an app that forces you to write

-- a novel in two weeks

-- fear of saying the wrong thing

-- pressure and nostalgia

-- editorial and publicity

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Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Aaron Burch interviews Josh Denslow.

Josh Denslow is the author of the collection Not Everyone Is Special (7.13 Books) and the novel Super Normal (Stillhouse Press). Some recent stories have appeared in The Commuter, Okay Donkey. Pithead Chapel, and The Rumpus. He is the Email Marketing Manager for Bookshop.org, and he has read and edited for SmokeLong Quarterly for over a decade.

Aaron Burch is the author of the essay collection A Kind of In-Between and editor of How to Write a Novel: An Anthology of 20 Craft Essays About Writing, None of Which Ever Mention Writing, both from Autofocus Books. He's also the author of several other books, including the novel, Year of the Buffalo. He is currently the editor of Short Story, Long and the co-editor of WAS (Words & Sports) and HAD. 

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Full conversation topics include:

--moving the family to Barcelona

-- learning a new language

'-- formative places and home

-- degrees of nostalgia

-- moving around and reading

-- going to film school & LA

-- the desire to share creative work

-- discovering the literary world

-- rejection and beginning attempts to publish

-- the publication of Josh's novel, Super Normal

-- lots and lots of drafts and versions

-- humor adding to the reality of fiction

-- superheroes outside of Marvel

-- Josh's story "Infinite Possibilities Outside the Screen"

-- quality and fun

-- channeling a voice

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Podcast theme music  by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's his music project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Teresa Carmody interviews Kristen E. Nelson.

Kristen E. Nelson is a queer writer, performer, and community builder. In addition to In the Away Time (Autofocus Books, 2024), she is the author of the length of this gap (Damaged Goods, August 2018) and two chapbooks: sometimes I gets lost and is grateful for noises in the dark (Dancing Girl, 2017) and Write, Dad (Unthinkable Creatures, 2012). She has published creative and critical writing in Feminist Studies, Bombay Gin, Denver Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Tarpaulin Sky Journal, Trickhouse, and Everyday Genius, among others. Kristen is the founder of Casa Libre en la Solana, a non-profit writing center in Tucson, Arizona, where she worked as the Executive Director for 14 years and the co-founder of Four Queens with Selah Saterstrom. Kristen is currently a Ph.D. student and graduate student instructor at the University of California – Santa Cruz in the Literature Department’s creative/critical writing concentration.

Teresa Carmody’s writing includes fiction, creative nonfiction, inter-arts collaborations, and hybrid forms. She is the author of three books and four chapbooks, including Maison Femme: a fiction (2015) and The Reconception of Marie (2020). Her work has appeared in The Collagist, LitHub, WHR, Two Serious Ladies, Diagram, St. Petersburg Review, Faultline, and was selected for the &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing and by Entropy for its Best Online Articles and Essays list of 2019. Carmody is co-founding editor of Les Figues Press, an imprint of LARB Books in Los Angeles, and director of Stetson University’s MFA of the Americas. Her forthcoming book A Healthy Interest in the Lives of Others is out early next year with Autofocus Books.

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Full conversation topics include:

--  the first event for In the Away Time

--  imperfect queer and trans narratives 

-- calling in community

-- projects conceived in love

--other voices in In the Away Time

-- getting a PhD later in life

-- hybridity and divinations

-- the limits of the body

-- constraint and the autobiographical

-- the timescape of In the Away Time

-- the roles we play in our own disasters

-- autotheory and autoethnography

-- knowing when the form is the form

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Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Emily Adrian interviews Justin Taylor.

Justin Taylor's most recent book is the novel Reboot. He is also the author of the memoir Riding with the Ghost, the novel The Gospel of Anarchy, and two story collections: Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever and Flings. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, the Oxford American, and the Sewanee Review.

Emily Adrian is the author of several novels and the forthcoming memoir Daughterhood. Her work has appeared in Granta, Joyland, EPOCH, Alta Journal, and Los Angeles Review of Books. 

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Full conversation topics include:

-- growing up as a child actor

--  always wanting to be a writer

-- a father who read and read into his work

-- editing a couple Donald Barthelme anthologies

-- the leadup to his first few books

-- the new novel REBOOT

-- the role, limits, and manipulation of realism in his work

-- inviting the supernatural

-- the show within the novel

-- a bottle chapter

-- The Hungry Tiger

-- Dawson's Creek

-- Judy Blume moments for middle aged men

-- writing a short story again

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Podcast theme music provided by Mike Nagel, author of Duplex and Culdesac. Here's more of his project: Yeah Yeah Cool Cool.

The Lives of Writers is edited and produced by Michael Wheaton, author of Home Movies.