The Lives of Writers

Guest host Jeff Alessandrelli talks with Eileen Myles about living between New York and Marfa, poetry as daily (and not daily) practice, sobriety, vernacular writing, putting together a new and selected, their new poetry collection A WORKING LIFE, aesthetic criticism, touring, Bobby Vee, translators, and more.Eileen Myles' books include Pathetic Literature, For Now (an essay/talk about writing), Evolution, Afterglow (a dog memoir), I Must Be Living Twice: new and selected poems, Chelsea Girls, and most recently A Working Life. The Trip, their super-8 puppet road film, can be seen on YouTube. Eileen has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was recently elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York and Marfa, TX.Jeff Alessandrelli is the director/co-editor of Fonograf Editions and BUNNY. fonografeditions.comPodcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Tyler Gillespie about finishing a dissertation, living again and building community in Florida, growing up queer in a Southern Baptist community and becoming a reader and writer, holding onto faith outside of that context, getting sober, concurrent interests in poetry and journalism, his new poetry collection the nature machine!, working on a comedy EP during lockdown, his relationship (and podcast) with his grandmother, Britney Spears and celebrities as metaphor, incorporating multimedia into the new book in harmony with form and content, blending smart with funny with thoughtful with playful with emotional in a poem, surprise, and more.Tyler Gillespie is the author of the nature machine! (Autofocus Books, 2023), The Thing about Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State (University Press of Florida, 2021),  and Florida Man: Poems (Red Flag Poetry, 2018). He's a fifth-generation Floridian and currently teaches at Ringling College of Art + Design. Find out more at TylerGillespie.com.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Guest host Jeff Alessandrelli talks with Arda Collins about feeling freer about writing after having kids, becoming a poet, hiding her prose, Charles Simic, working on documentaries, the Iowa workshop, her first collection IT IS DAYLIGHT (2009), her new collection STAR LAKE (2022), the years between the books, the links between the books, and more.Arda Collins is the author of Star Lake (2022) and It Is Daylight (2009), which was awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, A Public Space, Colorado Review, jubilat, and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the Sarton Award in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Jeff Alessandrelli is the director and co-editor of Fonograf Editions and its imprint, BUNNY.Find Autofocus Books at autofocuslit.com/books.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Guest host Mike Nagel talks with D.T. Robbins about boredom, imagination, death, the new story collection BIRDS AREN'T REAL (Maudlin House), endings, beginnings, process, knowing and not knowing what you're doing, and more.D.T. Robbins is the author of Birds Aren't Real, out now from Maudlin House, and This Is What Happens When You Leave Me Alone, from Rejection Letters Press, which he founded. He lives and works in Southern California with his family.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission form Bertholet.

Michael talks with John Cotter about a pending move, the influence of monologues and Spalding Gray, theater and recitation, early adventures in poetry, life and writing through his first novel, the gravity of Ménière's disease on his life thereafter, his new memoir LOSING MUSIC, honestly approaching the question of suicide, multi-faceted memoirs, memory/scene work, and life now.John Cotter is the author of the memoir Losing Music, published by Milkweeds Editions, portions of which have appeared in Raritan, Catapult, Indiana Review, and Guernica. His novel, Under the Small Lights, was published by Miami University Press in 2010, and his fiction, essays, criticism, and theater pieces have appeared–or will soon– in New England Review, Epoch, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Georgia Review, Adroit, The New York Times, and Commonweal.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Jeff Alessandrelli about the nonprofit book press/record label Fonograf Editions, feeling like more of a reader than a writer, supporting the work of other writers, his poetry collection FUR NOT LIGHT, the non-autobiographical "I," his novel or fictional essay or literary collage AND YET, writing about sex, desire, and the fluid self, the process of collaging in the work of other writers, and more.Jeff Alessandrelli is the author of six books, most recently the poetry collection Fur Not Light and the novel And Yet. His poetry and prose have been published in places like The American Poetry Review, Gulf Coast, and Prairie Schooner, and his reviews and interviews in The Rumpus, Kenyon Review, Rain Taxi, and more. He directs the nonprofit book press/record label Fonograf Editions.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.  fonografeditions.comautofocuslit.com/books

Michael talks with Hilary Plum about small presses, the recent news around Catapult and Elizabeth Koch, her first three books, her essay collection HOLE STUDIES, editing, writing about illness, pop culture as entrance into larger ideas, form as content, form as container, returning to poetry after four prose books, and more.Hilary Plum (she/her) is the author of several books, including the forthcoming poetry collection Excisions (Black Lawrence Press, 2023), the essay collection Hole Studies (Fonograf Editions, 2022), and the novel Strawberry Fields (Fence, 2018), winner of the Fence Modern Prize in Prose. She teaches at Cleveland State University and in the NEOMFA program, and she serves as associate director of the CSU Poetry Center. With Zach Savich she edits the Open Prose Series at Rescue Press. Recent work has appeared in Astra, The Rupture, Granta, American Poetry Review, Cleveland Review of Books, College Literature, and elsewhere. Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.Get Hole Studies (Fonograf Editions, 2022) here.Check out the catalog at Autofocus Books here.

Michael talks with Chelsea Hodson about moving to Sedona, the Morning Writing Club, her new imprint Rose Books, the influence of Giancarlo DiTrapano and Tyrant Books, creative risk, life and writing in New York while working on her first essay collection TONIGHT I'M SOMEONE ELSE, the story of her chapbook PITY THE ANIMAL, the pull toward writing intimate work artfully, ambiguity, a novel in progress, and more.Chelsea Hodson is the author of the book of essays Tonight I'm Someone Else and the chapbook Pity the Animal. She is the publisher and editor of Rose Books, and she founded the Morning Writing Club. She has taught at Bennington College and she co-founded the Mors Tua Vita Mea workshop in Sezze Romano, Italy. She has been awarded fellowships from MacDowell Colony and PEN Center USA. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Frieze Magazine, Hazlitt, i-D, and elsewhere. She lives in Sedona, Arizona.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Matthew E. Henry about teaching high school, becoming drawn to the immediacy of poetry, advanced degrees in poetry and theology and education, a chapbook leading to his first full-length poetry collection, teaching and learning in mostly white educational spaces, a book as a prompt for recurring forms to access content, writing in conversation with the work of Langston Hughes, narrative arc and lyric depth in poetry, sarcasm as a poetic tool, and more.Matthew E. Henry is the author of the Colored page (Sundress Publication, 2022), Teaching While Black (Main Street Rag, 2020), and Dust & Ashes (Californios Press, 2020). He has two collections forthcoming in 2023 from New York Quarterly Books and Harbor Editions. MEH is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Danny Caine about living in two places at once, the story of the Raven Book Store, making a life as a bookseller, his book HOW TO RESIST AMAZON AND WHY, becoming a poet by accident, writing about corporate and commercial landscapes, his trilogy of previous poetry collections, his new collection PICTURE WINDOW (Autofocus Books), getting more personal about domestic life, the notes for a poem as poem, poetry as life lens, titles as prompts, writing groups, and more.Danny Caine is the author of the new poetry collection, Picture Window (Autofocus Books, 2023). He's also the author of the poetry collections Continental Breakfast, El Dorado Freddy's, ​and Flavortown, as well as the book How to Resist Amazon and Why. The Midwest Independent Booksellers Association awarded him the 2019 Midwest Bookseller of the Year award. He's a co-owner of the Raven Book Store, Publishers Weekly's 2022 bookstore of the year. You can buy a copy of Picture Window from Autofocus Books here.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik and Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.