The New England Review bills itself as a “snapshot of the literary moment,” which for my guest Elizabeth Kadetsky means great writing, of course, but also work that’s relevant to today and showcases a writer able to get out of her or his own head by getting out into the world at large. Fittingly, this episode jumps in locale from Greece to India to Sudan and, finally, to New York City. In every case, a reckoning is taking place—a chance to ponder objects, people, events to try and grasp their value and meaning. In Greece as explored by Joseph Pearson in “The Island That Eats Its People,” a treacherous local landscape doesn’t prove to be nearly as daunting as the war-torn Syria some refugees the writer encounters have come from. In “Stories: South Sudan by Adrie Kusserow,” the key is realizing that as a NGO worker in Africa and a witness to the trauma-aid being insufficiently offered to refugees relocated to Vermont, she’s an outsider always. The episode also includes two pieces by Kadetsky outside the scope of NER: “The Goddess Complex” about looted art that makes its way from India to NYC, and my guest’s fascination with her own experiences with graffiti bombing and the documentary Downtown 81 co-starring the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and the singer Debbie Harry from Blonde.

Elizabeth Kadetsky has been a Fullbright Scholar and serves as a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Penn State. Her collection of essays, The Memory Eaters, was published by University of Massachusetts Press in 2020. Kadetsky is NER’s Creative Nonfiction Editor.

Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc.

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