creative writing

ROBIN LUCE MARTIN ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Hi Everyone,

Robin and I have been good friends and writing buddies since we met at a writer’s conference in 2008. Since then, she has won numerous awards for her work and I am so thrilled to feature her brilliant writing here.

We did something a little bit different for this episode. We talked about two of her stories: “1969” featured at The New Orleans Review and “Through the Hole” a story up on PenDust Radio.

To get the most out of this podcast episode, it would be best to read and listen to these two stories first.

Many thanks to Elliot Bancel for his help editing this episode.

The podcast is available on:

Apple

Audible

Spotify

or wherever you get your podcasts!

Enjoy!

Kelly

Bio:

Robin Luce Martin’s honors for stories and novel excerpts include the Tennessee Williams Festival Story First Prize, San Francisco PEN John Keats Soul Awakening Story Competitions, Old Scores won the 2019 Novel Manuscript and Lizardmaid 2020 Eyelands International 3Rock prize. Out Like a Lion was short listed for the Dundee International Prize and the Del Sol First Novel Prize. In 2015 she co-founded the NY author reading series, https://yeahyouwriteevents.com/

Upcoming Classes:

The Poetics of Wrongness Essay One: Discussion and Generative Workshop April 8th 12-2pm

 / KFOR24 / EDIT

$30.00

In her first book of critical non-fiction, The Poetics of Wrongness, poet Rachel Zucker explores wrongness as a foundational orientation of opposition and provocation. Devastating in their revelations, yet hopeful in their commitment to perseverance, these lecture-essays of protest and reckoning resist the notion of being wrong as a stopping point on the road to being right, and insist on wrongness as an analytical lens and way of reading, writing, and living that might create openness, connection, humility, and engagement. Expanded from lectures presented for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series in 2016, Zucker’s deft dismantling of outdated paradigms of motherhood, aesthetics, feminism, poetics, and politics feel prescient in their urgent destabilization of post-war thinking. In her four essay-lectures (and an appendix of selected, earlier prose), Zucker calls Sharon Olds, Bernadette Mayer, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Alice Notley, Natalie Diaz, Allen Ginsberg, Marina Abramović, and Audre Lorde—among others—into the conversation. This book marks a turning point in Zucker’s significant body of work, documenting her embrace of the multivocality of interview in her podcasting, and resisting the univocality of the lecture as a form of wrongness in and of itself.

In this workshop, we’ll discuss the first essay in Zucker’s book during the first hour, and write a little bit ourselves during the second hour. People who would like to share their work are always encouraged to do so, but it is not required. Sign up here.

Poetry Pop-Up Workshop on April 19th: Sign up here.

Springfed Arts Six-Week Poetry workshop starts May 3rd. Sign up here.

Pick-Me-Up:

  1. This Centuries-Old Trick Will Unlock Your Productivity

Upcoming Classes: The Poetics of Wrongness Discussion and More!

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Hi Everyone,

I had some trouble with my store earlier this month, so I’m sending out this newsletter to let you know about some upcoming classes.

I’m offering three workshops on “The Poetics of Wrongness” in the coming months. For the first hour we will discuss one essay in the book and during the second hour we will generate some new writing and share work. See this link to sign up for one or more of these workshops. This workshop is limited to eight students.

I am also offering a Poetry Pop-Up workshop on April 12th. See this link for more information and to sign up. This workshop is limited to ten students.

The Poetics of Wrongness Essay One: Discussion and Generative Workshop April 8th 12-2pm

 / KFOR24 / EDIT

$30.00

In her first book of critical non-fiction, The Poetics of Wrongness, poet Rachel Zucker explores wrongness as a foundational orientation of opposition and provocation. Devastating in their revelations, yet hopeful in their commitment to perseverance, these lecture-essays of protest and reckoning resist the notion of being wrong as a stopping point on the road to being right, and insist on wrongness as an analytical lens and way of reading, writing, and living that might create openness, connection, humility, and engagement. Expanded from lectures presented for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series in 2016, Zucker’s deft dismantling of outdated paradigms of motherhood, aesthetics, feminism, poetics, and politics feel prescient in their urgent destabilization of post-war thinking. In her four essay-lectures (and an appendix of selected, earlier prose), Zucker calls Sharon Olds, Bernadette Mayer, Emily Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Alice Notley, Natalie Diaz, Allen Ginsberg, Marina Abramović, and Audre Lorde—among others—into the conversation. This book marks a turning point in Zucker’s significant body of work, documenting her embrace of the multivocality of interview in her podcasting, and resisting the univocality of the lecture as a form of wrongness in and of itself.

JULIE ANN STEWART ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Hi Everyone,

So glad to be back after a short hiatus!

I’m grateful to the Grosse Pointe Public Library for allowing me to use their recording studio for these next few episodes. It was fantastic, however there was a little bit of a learning curve…I apologize for a couple of staticky moments during this podcast. Luckily, it only happened when I was talking! Julie sounds fantastic–and that’s all that really matters…but I will add that I am producing this podcast on my own with no money for editing unfortunately. If you like it and would appreciate some better editing (as I would!) please feel free to donate. The donation button is featured in the right hand column on this page.

Before you listen, please read Julie’s story “The Ending” here.

Also, please read her blog spot here.

We will be discussing both!

This coming year I will be alternating podcasts with Q and A’s. The next Q and A will feature Michigan short story writer, Kevin Fitton, on February 15th.

I hope you enjoy this episode.

Listen on:

Anchor here

Spotify here

Apple Podcasts here

Audible here.

Thanks so much everyone.

Kelly

Books Julie mentioned

Black Milk: On the Conflicting Demands of Writing, Creativity, and Motherhood

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker

Julie Ann Stewart earned an MFA from Spalding University and has published stories in Good River Journal, Litro Magazine, PoemMemoirStory and Punch Drunk Press. In Sophie Speaks (http://julieandsophiespeak.blogspot.com/ ), Stewart explores the challenge of balancing creative and family life as she recopies Anna Karenina by hand as did Sophia Tolstoy for her husband. Now that their seven kids have flown the coop, she and her husband migrate between Indiana and Michigan.

Purchase Water and Blood from Dzanc here or on Bookshop here or Amazon here.

TONI ANN JOHNSON ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Hi Everyone!


I’m really looking forward to sharing this discussion with Toni Ann Johnson. I loved this collection! We will be talking about the story “Time Travel” winner of the 2021 Miller Audio Prize. Please listen to the story at the link below before you tune in to our podcast discussion.

This is the last post of 2022. Thanks so much to the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan and Pages Bookshop in Detroit for supporting us throughout the year. We will be on hiatus until February 2023. Please message me if there are any particular writers you would like to hear on the show.

Happy New Year!

Kelly


Bio: Toni Ann Johnson is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Her short story collection Light Skin Gone to Waste was published by the University of Georgia Press in the fall of 2022. She is also an accomplished novelist, screenwriter, and playwright. Having grown up in Monroe, New York, in one of the first Black families to live there, many of Johnson’s short stories reflect her experience as a person of color. Johnson’s essays and short fiction have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Emerson Review, Xavier Review, and many other publications. Her first novel, Remedy for a Broken Angel, was nominated for a 2015 NAACP Image Award. Her novella Homecoming won Accents Publishing’s novella contest and was published in May 2021. Johnson has won the Humanitas Prize and the Christopher Award for her screenplay of the ABC film Ruby Bridges, as well as a second Humanitas Prize for Crown Heights, which aired on Showtime Television. She also co-wrote the popular dance movie Step Up 2: The Streets. Johnson has been a Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab Fellow, A Callaloo Writer’s Workshop Fellow (2016), and she’s received support for her writing from The Hurston/Wright Foundation, The Prague Summer Program for Writers, and the One Story Summer Conference.


Flannery O’Connor series editor Roxane Gay says of the collection, “Toni Ann Johnson’s Light Skin Gone to Waste is one of the most engrossing short story collections I’ve read in recent memory. These interconnected stories about a black family living in a predominantly white suburb of New York City are impeccably written, incisive, often infuriating, and unforgettable. At the center of many of these stories is Philip Arrington, a psychologist who tries to reshape the world to his liking as he moves through it, regardless of the ways his actions affect the people in his intimate orbit. With a deft eye for detail, crisp writing, and an uncanny understanding of human frailties, Toni Ann Johnson has created an endlessly interesting American family portrait.”


**Content Warning: During our podcast discussion, a racial epithet is used by the author to describe a racist incident that happened to her. Adult content/profanity as well.

Miller Aud-cast Episode 38: Toni Ann Johnson

Please listen to our discussion on:

Anchor

Toni ann Johnson on “Let’s Deconstruct a Story”

Spotify

Apple Music

Amazon

or wherever you get your podcasts!

Toni Ann Johnson’s book, Light Skin Gone to Waste is available at Bookshop here or Amazon here.

Featured book on a white wooden table

GEORGE SAUNDERS ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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George Saunders

Hi Everyone,

Well, I’m not going to lie. It was one of the top ten thrills of my life speaking with George Saunders. I was so excited, I thought I might spontaneously combust partway through the interview. But he could not have been more unpretentious, kind, and engaging. I learned so much from him, and hope you do too! Every story he writes reminds me that we are all multifaceted and precious, despite our flaws–what a gift to focus on our shared humanity, especially these days.

Thanks are in order:

I am so grateful to George Saunders. He agreed to this podcast as a benefit for Pages Bookshop in Detroit.

The Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan bought ten copies of Liberation Day for their patrons from Pages Bookshop, so this was a great community collaboration.

In addition, my gratitude to fellow writers Jenn Goddu, Linda Downing Miller, Ellen Birkett Morris, Suma Rosen, Julie Ann Stewart, Laura Hulthen Thomas, and Gloria Whelan for their incisive questions, and for participating in the class!

Please read “Mother’s Day” before listening to our discussion. It’s available in his new book, Liberation Day, or in The New Yorker, or for free as a New Yorker Fiction Audio Selection.

And feel free to enjoy the episode on

Anchor

Apple

Amazon Music

or wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out this wonderful article (one of many!) about this new collection: The sweet humanity

Next month I’ll be talking to Toni Ann Johnson author of Light Skin Gone to Waste about a story from her Flannery O’Connor Award-winning collection.

Thanks for tuning in, everyone.

Kelly

PS: We had some technical difficulties. At one point you might hear some garbage trucks in the background, at another point we got cut off mid-sentence (talking about the hot hands) and had to continue that conversation near the end of the recording, but I managed to edit out most of it, and then I handed it over to podcast engineer, Andrew Mason, at Upwork who managed to clean up the rest. Thanks, Andrew!

PSS: If you would like a transcript of this conversation, please contact me.

Bio: George Saunders is the author of nine books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Man Booker Prize, and the story collections Pastoralia and Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2006 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. In 2013 he was awarded the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction and was included in Time’s list of the one hundred most influential people in the world. He teaches in the creative writing program at Syracuse University.

His book is available from Pages Bookshop in Detroit, Bookshop, or Amazon.

Featured book on a white wooden table

SELENA ANDERSON ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Selena Anderson

Hi Everyone,

Sorry this post is arriving a little late in the day, but I came home on Thursday to rain in the dining room and kitchen courtesy of a broken pipe in the upstairs bathroom–it’s been quite a weekend.

I loved talking to Selena Anderson about her Best American Short Stories (2020), “Godmother Tea!”

Please read the story below and then enjoy the podcast. I cannot wait to read her first collection sometime in the near future.

All best,
Kelly

Please read here:

Godmother Tea, Oxford American

Godmother Tea PDF

Please listen here on Anchor or here on Spotify.

Please contact me if you would like a transcript.

Bio: Selena Anderson is a writer from Texas. Her stories have appeared in Fence, BOMB, Conjunctions, The Baffler, Oxford American, and The Best American Short Stories 2020. She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, The Henfield/TransAtlantic Prize, and The Texas Emerging Star Award. She is working on a novel.

LYDIA CONKLIN ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Hi Everyone,

This is a special edition of “Let’s Deconstruct a Story” recorded live on June 24, 2022, at Pages Bookshop in Detroit featuring Lydia Conklin in conversation with the novelist, Lillian Li, about her short story collection Rainbow Rainbow and specifically about the story “Sunny Talks” which first appeared in “One Story” in January of 2022.

You will love this conversation! Lillian Li (author of “Number One Chinese Restaurant”) was such an amazing interviewer! It made me think I should have guest interviewers on the podcast more often. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Because this is a live recording, the sound quality is a little bit wonky and if you would like the recording transcribed just reach out to me and I will be happy to send one to you!

This episode is part of a series of podcasts offered in collaboration with the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan. The GPPL has committed to purchasing ten books by each author this season to give to their patrons! If you are a short story writer who has tried to make money in this game then you know what a big deal their support is to us! My hope is that other libraries will follow the GPPL’s lead and be inspired to buy books by these talented short story writers. I will be contacting many libraries this year to suggest this programming. Please feel free to do the same if you enjoy this podcast.

This podcast is also supported by Pages Bookshop in Detroit, and we would be extremely grateful if you purchased the book online through Pages. Local bookstores won’t survive without help from customers like you!

Thanks, everyone! See you on August 15th with Selena Anderson and “Godmother Tea.”

Kelly

Please listen here on Anchor:

or here on Spotify. (You can also find this podcast on four other platforms)

Bios:

Lydia Conklin is an Assistant Professor of Fiction at Vanderbilt University. Previously they were the Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Fiction at the University of Michigan. They’ve received a Stegner Fellowship in Fiction at Stanford University, a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, three Pushcart Prizes, a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a Creative & Performing Arts Fulbright to Poland, work-study and tuition scholarships from Bread Loaf, and fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Djerassi, Hedgebrook, the James Merrill House, the Vermont Studio Center, VCCA, Millay, Jentel, Lighthouse Works, Brush Creek, the Santa Fe Art Institute, Caldera, the Sitka Center, and Harvard University, among others. They were the 2015-2017 Creative Writing Fellow in fiction at Emory University. Their fiction has appeared in Tin House, American Short Fiction, The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming from The Paris Review. They have drawn graphic fiction for Lenny Letter, Drunken Boat, and the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and cartoons for The New Yorker and Narrative Magazine. Their story collection, Rainbow Rainbow, will be published in June 2022 by Catapult in the US and Scribner in the UK.


Lillian Li is the author of the novel Number One Chinese Restaurant, which was an NPR Best Book of 2018, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Granta, One Story, Bon Appetit, Travel & Leisure, The Guardian, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

Please purchase a copy of Rainbow Rainbow here from Pages or here from Bookshop.

MAURINE OGBAA ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Maurine Ogbaa

Maurine Ogbaa

Hi Everyone,

“Let’s Deconstruct a Story” is a podcast where we read and discuss one short story with the author. For this episode, please read “Goodbye” by Maurine Ogbaa, first published in Agni. 

**Please note we will be talking about suicide on this episode.**

This summer I am posting two episodes with writers who have not yet published their first short story collections. This podcast is dedicated to the work of Maurine Ogbaa and on August 15th I will be posting a conversation with Selena Anderson about her short story “Godmother Tea,” which was chosen for the Best American Short Stories anthology in 2020. I’m thrilled to highlight the work of these two new voices!

“Let’s Deconstruct a Story” is offered in collaboration with the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan. The GPPL has committed to purchasing ten books by each author this season to give to their patrons. If you are a short story writer who has tried to make money in this game then you know what a big deal their support is for us! My hope is that other libraries will follow the GPPL’s lead and be inspired to buy books by these talented short story writers. I will be contacting many libraries this year to suggest this programming. Please feel free to do the same if you enjoy this podcast.

Next up in the published authors series is Lydia Conklin on August 1st.

This podcast is also supported by Pages Bookshop in Detroit, and we would be extremely grateful if you purchased any of the books featured here through Pages. Local bookstores won’t survive without help from customers like you!

“Let’s Deconstruct a Story” is available on six platforms. Please listen to the podcast on your preferred platform or on Anchor or Spotify below.

I hope you enjoy this episode!

Please listen here on Anchor.

Or here on Spotify.

Kelly

Bio:

Maurine Ogbaa is a writer-scholar. Her current project is a short fiction collection which broadly examines intimacy, reconciliation, maturation, and intraracial diversity through stories about Nigerian Americans in Houston, Texas. Stories from this collection have been published in Callaloo, AGNI, and Prairie Schooner, which awarded her the 2020 Glenna Luschei Award. An alumna of the Tin House Summer Workshops, Rivendell Writer’s Colony, and the Pan-African Literary Forum (Ghana), she will be a writer-in-residence at Jentel Arts Residency in summer 2022.

Previously, Maurine earned an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Houston. Currently, she teaches graduate and undergraduate prose workshops and literature seminars at The University of Texas at Dallas.

And One Last Note:

Julia Glass visiting Pages Bookshop this past week. Her new book, Vigil Harbor, is terrific! I highly recommend it. 

She also had some summer reading recommendations for us, so I thought I would pass them on to you. Enjoy! 

The Golden Season

Homeland Elegies

Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau

Uncertain Ground: Citizenship in an Age of Endless, Invisible War

https://www.pagesbkshop.com/book/9780593299241

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

Five Tuesdays in Winter (Also you can listen to the podcast episode of my interview with Lily King.)

ELLEN BIRKETT MORRIS ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Hi Everyone,

I’m thrilled to welcome Ellen Birkett Morris to the show today.

Please read her story “Inheritance” before listening to our discussion.

(Content warning: sexual assault and suicide)

During our talk, Ellen also mentioned a book by Ron Carlson called “Ron Carlson Writes a Story” which is out of print unfortunately but you might find a used copy here.

Next month, Rion Amilcar Scott will record his episode with me on June 28th from 6-7pm. Pages Bookshop in Detroit is sponsoring this virtual event; if you would like to sign up for it, you may register here:

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqceqqpj4oH90WB1dmqCvRaHNT-DQkmzUU

** Please read (or listen to) Rion Amilcar Scott’s New Yorker story, “Shape-ups at Delilah’s,” beforehand.

Many thanks to the Grosse Pointe Public Library and Pages Bookshop in Detroit for their support of this podcast. Please let your local schools, libraries, and bookstores know about “Let’s Deconstruct a Story,” if you find the material valuable. LDAS is a labor of love, but every donation helps, and we are deeply grateful for them.

My conversation with Ellen Birkett Morris is available on Anchor and Spotify below but also at several other places including Apple Podcasts.

Anchor:

Spotify:

 

Enjoy!

Kelly

Bio: A native of Louisville, Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of LOST GIRLS, a short story collection, and SURRENDER, a poetry chapbook. LOST GIRLS is a finalist for the 2021 Clara Johnson Award for Literature and winner of the Pencraft Award for short stories. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Queens University – Charlotte. Her short stories have appeared in Antioch Review, Shenandoah, South Carolina Review, Upstreet, and elsewhere.

Purchase “Lost Girls” from Bookshop or Amazon. Thanks!

LILY KING ON “LET’S DECONSTRUCT A STORY”

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Hi Everyone!

 

This month I”m happy to host Lily King who will be discussing the title story from her new short story collection “Five Tuesdays in Winter.”

The short story collection Five Tuesdays in Winter is available at most libraries throughout the United States or for purchase through Bookshop and Amazon.  The title story “Five Tuesdays in Winter” was first published in Ploughshares in 2005, and may also be available here.

I’m so sorry a PDF was not provided by the publisher this time. I believed it would be available in PDF form, but I was mistaken. Grove Atlantic does not own the serial rights.

Despite my disappointment, I am very grateful to have a writer of Lily King’s caliber on the podcast, and I wanted to make this episode available to listeners anyway.

It is best to read the story before listening to our discussion.

And then listen to our discussion:

Here on Anchor:

Or here on Spotify:

Or wherever you get your podcasts!

Lily King is the award-winning author of five novels. Her most recent novel, Writers & Lovers, was published on March 3rd, 2020, and her first collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter, was released on November 9, 2021. Her 2014 novel Euphoria won the Kirkus Award, The New England Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. Euphoria was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review. It was included in TIME’s Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014, as well as on Amazon, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, and Salon’s Best Books of 2014.

Upcoming Episodes:

May 1: Sara Majka
June 1: Ellen Birkett Morris
July 1: Maurine Ogbaa
August 1: Selena Anderson
September 1: Jacob M. Appel
October 1: Peter Ho Davies
November 1: Peter Orner
December 1: Toni Ann Johnson

**

This is the second “Let’s Deconstruct a Story” podcast offered in collaboration with the Grosse Pointe Public Library in Michigan. The GPPL has committed to purchasing ten books by each author this season to give to their patrons! If you are a short story writer who has tried to make money in this game then you know what a big deal this is! My hope is that other libraries will follow the GPPL’s lead and be inspired to buy books by these talented short story writers. I will be contacting many libraries this year to suggest this programming. Feel free to do the same if you enjoy this podcast!

Cheers!

Kelly