In this week’s episode, I talk to fiction writer Teresa Carmody about the joys of making books, the patterns needed for experimental work, and approaching the musicality of writing like meditation.

Photo by Jared Alan Smith.

In this week’s episode, I chat with my friend Terry Ann Thaxton about poetry, parents, mortality, yard work, mud, and the underrated useful of writing prompts for professional writers. We were tired, but we laughed a lot.

John King and Terry Ann Thaxton at Jack Kerouac's house in Orlando. Jared Silvia is saying something behind us. Photo by Katherine J. Parker.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

In this week’s episode, I speak with the war veteran, journalist, and novelist Elliot Ackerman about composition and revision strategies, and the emotional access points from our own experience to the stories we tell.

[caption id="attachment_23972" align="alignnone" width="4416"]Photo by Huger Foote.[/caption]

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Episode 347 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

This week is a cornucopia of poetry conversation with Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Billy Collins!

Juan Felipe Herrera

Billy Collins

TEXTS DISCUSSED

Here's a present, something I acquired when collecting bootlegs in the 1990s. I hope you enjoy it while I get over this damned cold.

In this week’s episode, I talk with Vanessa Blakeslee about the new story anthology, A Very Italian Christmas, from New Vessel Press.

In our discussion, we manage to talk about yuletide loneliness, poverty, despair, prostitution, elk herds, Christmas, fascism, prostitution, friendship, Paul Auster's screenplay for Smoke, and David Sedaris's classic essay, "Dinah the Christmas Whore."

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

Check out Vanessa and I talking about A Very French Christmas from last year.

Check out my interview with Davis Sedarisback on episode 50.

In this week’s episode, I talk to poet and memoirist Linda Buckmaster about how our subjects sometimes choose us, the wondrous weirdness of Florida, and how the find form in the flux of composition.

TEXT DISCUSSED

In this week’s episode, I am joined by Dale Lucas, Tom Lucas, and Elise McKenna for a deep dive into Stephen King's 1981 treatise on the horror genre, Danse Macabre.

Photo by Katherine J. Parker.

TEXT DISCUSSED

Photo by Katherine J. Parker.

NOTES

Check out Don Peteroy's amazing essay on how to read the entire Dark Tower series while still having a life.

In this week’s episode, I talk to fiction writer Jane Ridgeway about our stories and characters choosing us instead of the other way around, the delicious problem of historical fiction, and what teenagers today like to read, among other topics.

[caption id="attachment_23534" align="alignnone" width="2048"]Jane Ridgeway by Steve Erwin.

This week, I interview Dale Lucas, the author of the Fifth Wardand Doc Voodooseries of novels about exploring ethics in long-form narrative, world-building (and when to stop), how to keep writing the novel in maddening isolation, and other stuff, too.

Books Discussed

NOTES

Check out Dale's essayabout having Simon Vance perform the audiobook of his novel, The Fifth Ward: First Watch.