The Lives of Writers

Michael talks with Bud Smith about heavy construction, making time to write, a new revision process involving a typewriter, his upcoming "major label debut," the social aspect of being a writer, Kurt Vonnegut, new projects, and more!Bud Smith works heavy construction and lives in Jersey City, NJ. He is the author of Teenager (forthcoming from Vintage in spring of ’22), Double Bird (Maudlin House, 2018), Dust Bunny City (Disorder Press, 2017), among others. His fiction has been published in The Paris Review, and The Nervous Breakdown. He is also a creative writing teacher and editor.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Amorak Huey about growing up in Alabama, his mother's house burning down, his father's writing, his path to poetry, his fourth book of poems Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications 2021), publishing, sitcoms, other writing projects, the trickiness of giving and receiving feedback on poetry, and more!Amorak Huey is author of four poetry collections: Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021); Boom Box (Sundress Publications, 2019); Seducing the Asparagus Queen (Cloudbank Books, 2018), winner of the Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize; and Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress Publications, 2015). In addition, he is co-author, with W. Todd Kaneko, of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, published by Bloomsbury Academic in January 2018, and the poetry chapbook Slash / Slash, forthcoming from Diode Editions in June 2021. Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Amy Fusselman about life before her first book, feeling more vulnerable now writing fiction, the embryo of her novel-in-progress, the option of hippos, video games, the dilemma of writing about people you know, fear & safety, being a cranky reader of fiction, and more!Amy Fusselman is author of four books: The Pharmacist’s Mate, 8, Savage Park, and Idiophone, which was a finalist for the Believer Book Award in 2018. She’s had essays appear in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Atlantic, and you can sign up for her really fun newsletter AMY AF through her website amyfusselman.com.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Aaron Burch about starting Hobart in the early 2000's, the phenomenon of HAD on Twitter, his forthcoming novel Year of the Buffalo, divorce, (lack of) ambition, and more.Aaron Burch is the author of the memoir/literary analysis Stephen King's The Body; the short story collection, Backswing; and the novella, How to Predict the Weather. He is the Founding Editor of HOBART and its recent off-shoot literary magazine HAD.Podcast theme: "Special Sause" by DJ Garlik & Berholet used with permission from Bertholet. 

Michael talks with Marie Conlan about anti-memoir, intergenerational trauma, contextualizing yourself in a lineage, expecting a child, building a house on a mountain, and more.Marie Conlan's first book Say Mother, Say Hand is out now from Half Mystic Press. She's a Midwest poet living and writing in Colorado, where she is a co-collaborator with the .OFF collective and Nocturne Lucid Writing Workshops. She was named a finalist for the Noemi Press Book Award in 2017 and 2018, a finalist for the Airlie Press Prize in 2018, and a finalist for Metatron’s 2018 Rising Authors Prize. She earned her MFA at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Betholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Heather Sweeney about finding oneself as a writer/artist, wading through the muck of social media, and all sorts of things in between.Heather Sweeney is a writer, teacher, and visual artist in San Diego. She's also the author of the collections, Dear Marshall, Language is Our Only Wilderness (Spuyten Duyvil Press) and Call Me California (Finishing Line Press). Her chapbooks include Just Let Me Have This (Selcouth Station Press), Same Bitch, Different Era: The Real Housewives Poems (above/ground press), and most recently, The Book of Likes (The Hunger Press). You can find her on Instagram and at www.heathercsweeney.com.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik and Bertholet's "Favorite Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael & Ryan talk with Tyler Gillespie about Florida, interviewing the kind of people who wrestle alligators, writing essay vs. poetry, balancing it all, and Gay Days at Disney.Tyler’s new book, The Thing about Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State (University of Florida Press), is available now. He is a fifth-generation Floridian, a poet, and  an award-winning journalist who has written for GQ, the Guardian, the Nation, VICE, and Salon. His previous book was Florida Man: Poems.

Michael & Ryan talk with Jennifer Calkins about her novel Fugitive Assemblage (The 3rd Thing, 2020), evolutionary biology, environmental law, aliens, viruses, personal hauntedness, and more.This is our first podcast under our new name, The Lives of Writers.Podcast theme: Dj Garlik and Betholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael and Ryan talk with Erin Slaughter and Lena Ziegler, editors of The Hunger, about collaboration and confession in their ongoing co-authored memoir project and in their individual work as PhD candidates.In this episode, we were still using the name, The Autofocus Literary Podcast.Podcast theme: Dj Garlik and Betholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks to David Shields, Nick Toti, and Rachel Kempf about The Very Last Interview (Shields's forthcoming book), film-adapted by Toti and Kempf and released this month. Shields is the author of over twenty books including Reality Hunger, Other People, How Literature Saved My Life, The Trouble with Men, That Thing You Do With Your Mouth, etc. While The Very Last Interview will not be released until early 2022 by New York Review Books, Toti released the 30 minute short earlier this month via Vimeo. In this episode, we were still using the name, The Autofocus Literary Podcast.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik and Bertholet "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.