Ursa Short Fiction

Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton dive into the short stories of the acclaimed new collection A Calm & Normal Heart, with its author, Chelsea T. Hicks. 

Hicks is a member of the Osage Nation, and the collection, published in June 2022 by Unnamed Press, also incorporates her ancestral language of Wazhazhe ie (which translates to “Osage talk”). The collection opens with a poem in the orthography, along with the Latinized spelling and English translation.

Read the full episode transcript.

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Chelsea T. Hicks is a model, author and current Tulsa Artist Fellow. She is a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation 2021 LIFT Awardee and her writing has been published in McSweeney’s, Yellow Medicine Review, the LA Review of Books, Indian Country Today, The Believer, The Audacity, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is a past Writing By Writers Fellow, a 2016 Wah-Zha-Zhi Woman Artist featured by the Osage Nation Museum, and a 2020 finalist for the Eliza So Fellowship for Native American women writers. 

Her advocacy work has included recruiting with the Virginia Indian Pre-College Outreach Initiative (VIP-COI), Northern and Southern California Osage diaspora groups, and heritage language creative writing and revitalization workshops. She authored poetry for the sound art collection Onomatopoeias For Wrangell-St. Elias, funded by the Double Hoo Grant at the University of Virginia, where she was awarded the Peter & Phyllis Pruden scholarship for excellence in the English major as well as the University Achievement Award (2008-2012). The Ford Foundation awarded her a 2021 honorable mention for promotion of Indigenous-language creative writing. She is planning an Indigenous language creative writing Conference for November 2022 in Tulsa, funded by an Interchange art grant. 

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Co-hosts Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton speak with writer William Pei Shih, author of the Ursa Original “Happy Family,” a story about a lost childhood, a struggling restaurant, and a bygone era of Chinatown. (Warning: This episode contains “Happy Family” spoilers.) 

Read the transcript.

“Your character has to fail in telling their story,” Shih says. “I think that's one of the beautiful things about fiction. It truly is the messiness of life.”

Shih’s stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Best American Short Stories 2020, VQR, McSweeney’s, and The Southern Review, among many other publications. He spoke with Philyaw and Walton about his approach to writing and developing characters, how “Happy Family” first came to life, and how hearing the audio version changed his storytelling approach. 

This episode is sponsored by Catapult: Award-winning classes by writers, for writers. Ursa listeners get 20% off upcoming online classes with the coupon code URSA20. Go to catapult.co/classes.

Additional production support for this episode by Veronica Smith.

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Content warning: This story contains an intense depiction of abuse / physical violence.

An Ursa original audio story: “Happy Family,” by William Pei Shih. It’s the story of a lost childhood, a struggling restaurant, and a bygone era of Chinatown. 

Read along at ursastory.com/happy 

Interview with William Pei Shih.

“Happy Family”

Written by William Pei Shih

Story edited by Dawnie Walton

Audio story produced, directed, and sound designed by Alicia Qian

Illustrated by Christina Chung

Music by Jiro Yoshioka

Performed by Aria Song

Audio Engineering: David Verdugo (Demun Studios) and Deon Vozov (LA Voiceover)

Executive Producers: Dawnie Walton and Mark Armstrong

Distributed by Lit Hub Radio

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Acclaimed authors Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies) and Dawnie Walton (The Final Revival of Opal & Nev) introduce Ursa Short Fiction, a new anthology podcast dedicated to celebrating short stories, with a spotlight on underrepresented voices. Join us for author interviews, book club chats, and audio stories from some of your favorite writers and emerging talent.

Transcript: https://ursastory.com/introducing-ursa-short-fiction-podcast/

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Heads of the Colored People, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

How to Sit, by Tyrese Coleman

The World Doesn’t Require You, by Rion Amilcar Scott

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by ZZ Packer

The work of J. California Cooper

The Women of Brewster Place, by Gloria Naylor

12 Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis

The Travelers, by Regina Porter

Claire of the Sea Light, by Edwidge Danticat

You are Free, by Danzy Senna

The Office of Historical Corrections and Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, by Danielle Evans

The work of Edward P.Jones

I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat, by Christopher Gonzalez

Milk Blood Heat, by Dantiel W. Moniz 

Introducing Ursa: A Letter from Co-Founder and Editorial Director Dawnie Walton

A Love Letter to Short Stories, by Deesha Philyaw

The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, by Dawnie Walton

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, by Deesha Philyaw

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