Tucker Leighty-Phillips [Host: Emily Costa]

On today's episode of The Lives of Writers, Emily Costa interviews Tucker Leighty-Phillips.

Tucker Leighty-Phillips is the author of Maybe This Is What I Deserve, which won the 2022 Fiction Chapbook Contest from Split/Lip Press and was published this year. His work has appeared in Smokelong, X-R-A-Y, Wigleaf, HAD, Booth, and elsewhere. 

Emily Costa is the author of Until It Feels Right (Autofocus Books, 2022). Her work can be found in X-R-A-Y, Hobart, Barrelhouse, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. She is currently working on a novel sort of about her father's video store, as well as a book of short stories.

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PART ONE, topics include:

-- working for an Appalachian arts and culture organization

-- getting a puppy just after the flood in Kentucky this summer

-- reading earlier but not writing until later

-- traveling around with bands

-- graduating with a BA at 28 and going into an MFA for the stipend

-- Tucker and Emily getting published early on in similar places

-- preferences of writing short or long

-- fun and play

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PART TWO, topics include:

-- winding down promotion for Tucker's award-winning chapbook

-- writing childhood and kids in fiction

-- grocery stores and critters sneaking into the book

-- the truths in Tucker's fiction

-- reclaiming past shame

-- correlation/causation of writing and healing

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PART THREE, topics include:

-- the media Tucker consumed while writing the stories

--  the worst season of Frasier

-- Columbo and the types of tv shows in your life

-- more about Tucker's work with Appalshop

-- new projects

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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.