The Lives of Writers

Guest host Sara Rauch talks with Kristine Langley Mahler about space-out time, her work with Split/Lip Press, discovering creative non-fiction, finding a writing community online, submitting to lit mags, her essay collection CURING SEASON, formal experimentation and structure as processing elements, immersion and vulnerability, adolescence, and more.Kristine Langley Mahler is the author of the debut essay collection Curing Season: Artifacts (WVU Press, 2022). She directs Split/Lip Press. Her next book, A Calendar is a Snakeskin, will be out with us here at Autofocus sometime next year.Sara Rauch is the author of XO (Autofocus Books, 2022) and What Shines from It: Stories (Alt Current, 2020). sararauch.comPodcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Ryan Rivas about the story of Burrow Press, finding his way as a writer, the Orlando literary community, the making of the mixed media book NEXTDOOR IN COLONIALTOWN (Autofocus Books, 2022), neighborhood photography, Colonialtown, the suburban gothic, selecting and arranging found text from nextdoor[dot]com, whiteness, the book as art object, and more.Ryan Rivas is the author of Nextdoor in Colonialtown (Autofocus 2022). He is the Publisher of Burrow Press, and the Coordinator of MFA Publishing at Stetson University’s MFA of the Americas creative writing program. A Macondo Writers Workshop fellow, his work has appeared in The Believer, The Rumpus, Literary Hub, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012, and elsewhere.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause"

Michael talks with Ashley Farmer about getting into the arts and writing, previous books in fiction and poetry, her essay collection DEAR DAMAGE, a life changing act in the family involving a gun after a severe accident, the inclusion of found forms and conversational transcripts in the collection, compassion, restrained vs. lyrical prose, feedback from family on writing that's about them, factual vs. felt truth, and more.Ashley Farmer is the author of the essay collection Dear Damage  (Sarabande Books, 2022), the story collection Beside Myself (reissued by Apocalypse Party Press, 2022), and the poetry collection The Women (CCM, 2016). Her work has been published in places like Gay Magazine, TriQuarterly, The Progressive, Santa Monica Review, Buzzfeed, Flaunt, Nerve, Potomac Review, Gigantic, Salt Hill Journal, DIAGRAM, and elsewhere.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Jody Keisner about coming to creative non-fiction from academic writing, her collection UNDER MY BED AND OTHER ESSAYS, writing and researching about personal fears and anxieties, adoption, writing as a false sense of control, writing about family and loved ones, chronic illness, and much more.Jody Keisner is the author of Under My Bed and Other Essays, which is out now from University of Nebraska Press. Her essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Los Angeles Review of Books, Fourth Genre, Brevity, The Rumpus, The Normal School, Essay Daily, and many more. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Linden Review.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Elisa Gabbert about writing time, her poetry column for NYT, reading and writing about classics, an ongoing interest in language and thinking, life before her first book, tricking yourself into finding a voice or style or mode, her previous books, her new poetry collection NORMAL DISTANCE, mixing the abstract and the concrete, creating poems from previous notes and tweets, writing essay vs. writing poetry, lineating a poem (or not), making containers and forms, and more.Elisa Gabbert is the author of six books of poetry, essays, and criticism, including The Self Unstable, The Unreality of Memory, and most recently, the poetry collection Normal Distance, which is out today from Soft Skull Press. She writes the On Poetry column for the New York Times, and her work has appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Believer, and many other venues.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Ander Monson about his many literary projects, a love of machines, integrating the web into early books, image/text, his path to nonfiction, the process of writing PREDATOR: A MEMOIR (Graywolf Press), the cultural importance of the movie, implicating himself in his exploration of contemporary masculinity, returning to the things you love at 14, controlled writing that captures spontaneity, and more.Ander Monson is the author of nine books, including Predator: A Memoir, A Movie, an Obsession, which is out today from Graywolf Press. He is the hand behind many projects in the literary community, including DIAGRAM, New Michigan Press, Essay Daily, and March Xness, and he directs the MFA program at the University of Arizona.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Jackson Bliss about language as consolation, time in the Peace Corps, writing three books in different genres about mixed-race identity, the choose-your-own-adventure memoir DREAM POP ORIGAMI, crafting his blended style of writing, writing the choices after each piece in the book, the influence of video games and music, the self as text, numbering, and more.Jackson Bliss is a mixed-race/hapa author of three books, all published in the past year: the story collection COUNTERFACTUAL LOVE STORIES & OTHERE EXPERIMENTS (Noemi Press), the novel AMNESIA OF JUNE BUGS (7.13 Books), and and the memoir DREAM POP ORIGAMI (Unsolicited Press). His stories & essays have appeared in publications like The New York Times, Tin House, Ploughshares, Columbia Journal, Guernica, Longreads, and more. Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Janelle Cordero about painting, the library, poetry with a sense of return, her newest collection IMPOSSIBLE YEARS, a poem working or not, poetry as portraiture, fear of death, the natural world, clarity and conversation, genre confusion, and more. Janelle Cordero is the author of four books of poetry: Two Cups of Tomatoes (2015), Woke to Birds (2019), Many Types of Wildflowers (2020), and Impossible Years (2022), the latter three all from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press. She’s an interdisciplinary artist and educator who lives in Spokane, WA.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Holly Pelesky about reading aloud, becoming honest, co-founding Vast Chasm, editing other writers, writing direct address, the making of CLEAVE, slim volumes, revision as self examination, taking the personal risk of being honest in your art, her fundamental upbringing, the anxiety of promoting a book about yourself, and more.Holly Pelesky is the author of the fourth Autofocus book, CLEAVE, which is out today so go ahead and check that out. She’s also the author of the poetry chapbook, QUIVER, from Picture Show Press in 2019, an MFA recipient from the University of Nebraska, and a co-founder of the literary magazine Vast Chasm. She lives in Omaha.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Michael talks with Meg Tuite about growing up in a family of readers, A Confederacy of Dunces, the beginnings of writing and publishing, early books, risk, sentences as worlds unto themselves, her newest book WHITE VAN, focusing on dark or uncomfortable material, the effect of suicide on her family, language that works on multiple levels, new work, and more.Meg Tuite is author of many books of varying forms, including a novel-in-stories, Domestic Apparition (San Francisco Bay Press), a short story collection, Bound By Blue, (Sententia Books) Meet My Haze (Big Table Publishing), and most recently White Van (Unlikely Books). Her work has been published in over 600 literary magazines and over fifteen anthologies. She teaches workshops for Bending Genres, where she is also an editor.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.