Emerging Form

In this bonus episode of Emerging Form, our guest Amy Irvine surprises us right away when we ask to describe her writing practice. “Erotic,” she says. Find out what that means, and how you, too, might want to find your way toward that answer. We also talk about terrible writing advice from a therapist, Amy’s workspace, and the advice she would give her younger self. Mary Carr on Sacred CarnalityAmy IrvineAir Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & PlaceDesert Cabal This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Sometimes, a project just comes together in the most organic, meant-to-be way, and nothing can stop it. What’s that like? We explore that experience in this episode with our guest, Amy Irvine, who co-wrote Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Place with our previous guest, Pam Houston. We’ll talk about how the form emerged--what began as an epistolary exercise became a fully fledged book. We’ll talk about how creative endeavors can create friendships. We also talk about her previous book, Desert Cabal, about backlash against women writers and more. Amy Irvine won the Orion Book Award and Colorado Book Award for her memoir, Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land Her next book, Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, is a feminist response to Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire, and one of Orion’s “25 Most-Read Stories of the Decade.” It was also added to Outside Magazine’s Adventure Canon and named by Backpacker as one of its New Wilderness Classics. During the pandemic, Irvine co-authored Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & Placewith Pam Houston; the book is forthcoming in October 2020, as is Amy’s latest essay for Orion: “Close to the Bone.” Irvine teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University. In addition to frequently teaching for Orion Magazine, she has taught at Western Colorado University, the Free Flow Institute, Whitman College’s Semester in the West, the University of Utah’s Environmental Humanities Program at Rio Mesa, and Fishtrap’s Outpost. Irvine lives and writes off-grid on a remote mesa in southwest Colorado, just spitting distance from her Utah homeland.Amy IrvineAir Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics & PlaceDesert CabalDesert SolitairePam Houston This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

In this bonus episode, Rosemerry reads a poem from our episode 25 guest, Alison Luterman, and then presents a song from The Chain, one of the musicals that Alison discussed on the podcast. Links:The ChainIn the Time of Great FiresAlison Luterman This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

How can creative practice become a political act? In this episode of Emerging Form, we speak with poet, playwright, memoirist and lyricist Alison Luterman. We talk in depth about her musical The Shyest Witch--about how, when you work in so many genres, a form might suggest itself; how the project evolved from being about the 2016 election into broader feminist themes, how she worked with input from collaborators and actors; and how she, too, is evolving as an artist, learning a new skill even as she is at the top of her game in other creative realms. We also talk about artworks that inspired her, including Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues and how she deals with her political work becoming a lightning rod for contentious responses--“If I’m not going to speak up now, when am I going to?”Alison Luterman's four books of poetry are The Largest Possible Life; See How We Almost Fly; Desire Zoo, and In the Time of Great Fires. Her poems and stories have appeared in The Sun, Rattle, Salon, Prairie Schooner, Nimrod, The Atlanta Review, Tattoo Highway, and elsewhere. She has written an e-book of personal essays, Feral City, half a dozen plays, a song cycle We Are Not Afraid of the Dark, as well as two musicals, The Chain and The Shyest Witch. Alison performs with the Oakland-based improvisation troupe Wing It! and has given writing workshops all over the country, including at Omega and Esalen Institutes. She teaches memoir at The Writing Salon in Berkeley, and is available for private coaching in writing or creativity, both in-person or on-line. Show notes:Marie Howe on On Being/Write ten thingsWriting Naturally by David PetersenAlison LutermanAlison’s poem, “Some Girls” in the New York Times MagazineA sneak peak of the music video from Alison’s musical-in-progress The Shyest Witch. (Alison notes: The witch, Rebekah Vega, had to be their own cameraperson and used a tripod while filming.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Photo: Carla GreenIn what ways does collaboration strengthen the stories we tell? In this bonus episode, Catherine Saint Louis and Carla Green talk about a recent collaboration for Telescope, a podcast that tells stories about people living through COVID. Both our guests work for podcast production company Neon Hum, Catherine as Senior Editor and Carla as Producer. In the episode we’ll be discussing, “Rubber Bullets.” Catherine reported this story about Derrick Sanderlin and Carla was her editor. The story follows how Derrick--a man who had volunteered to work with the San Jose Police Department about implicit bias-- found himself trying to de-escalate tensions with the same police department during a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest and was shot with rubber bullets. We talk about how Catherine and Carla divided work, why trust is so important in collaborations, how details sometimes need to be separated from the dramatic arc of the story, how music can affect a listener and why one might choose not to use it, and how showing our humanness when we tell another’s story might be an essential piece to the story itself.Carla Green is a Neon Hum producer and journalist. Before coming to Neon Hum, she was the managing producer of the KCRW podcast UnFictional, where she reported and produced a bunch of different stories, including one where she trailed a juggalo across the country on a Greyhound bus. Since she moved to Los Angeles in 2016, she’s covered the city’s homelessness crisis in stories for radio, podcasts, and print.Catherine Saint Louis is the senior editor of podcasts for Neon Hum Media, an L.A. based podcast house founded by Jonathan Hirsch. Her latest podcast that she's edited is Smoke Screen: Fake Priest, a wild story about a man who pretended to be a priest for 30 years, stealing people's money and their faith. Fake Priest is a Neon Hum original as is Telescope, a podcast that tells stories about people living through COVID and later in our first season, the twin pandemics of racism and COVID. This year, she also edited Murder on the Towpath, an eight-episode podcast set in 1964 that features two women who never met but whose lives become linked one of them is killed. Past projects include: Sonic Boom, This Land, The Thing about Pam, Larger than Life, and Break Stuff. She lives in Brooklyn where she runs with a sweaty mask.Show notes:Neon Hum“Rubber Bullets” episode of TelescopeCatherine wants to encourage more POC to get into podcast editing and would love for anyone who is interested to get in touch. Catherine@neonhum.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Telling someone else’s story presents a host of pleasures and challenges. In this episode, we interview Catherine Saint Louis, senior editor of podcasts for Neon Hum Media, about “Rubber Bullets,” a podcast episode released on Telescope in early July 2020, about a man who had guided implicit bias workshops for the San Jose Police Department for years, then found himself trying to de-escalate the same police department at a Black Lives Matter protest. He was shot in the groin with a rubber bullet. We talk with Catherine about the process of creating the episode from conception to execution. We discuss how she considers the interview process to be “a journey” that the interviewer and interviewee embark on together, and how Catherine was able to move beyond the facts of Derrick’s story to deliver the heart of it by drawing on her own humanity. Catherine Saint Louis is the senior editor of podcasts for Neon Hum Media, an L.A. based podcast house founded by Jonathan Hirsch. Her latest podcast that she's edited is Smoke Screen: Fake Priest, a wild story about a man who pretended to be a priest for 30 years, stealing people's money and their faith. Fake Priest is a Neon Hum original as is Telescope, a podcast that tells stories about people living through COVID and later in our first season, the twin pandemics of racism and COVID. This year, she also edited Murder on the Towpath, an eight-episode podcast set in 1964 that features two women who never met but whose lives become linked one of them is killed. Past projects include: Sonic Boom, This Land, The Thing about Pam, Larger than Life, and Break Stuff. She lives in Brooklyn where she runs with a sweaty mask. Show notes:Jill U Adams’s delightful comicsLast Word On Nothing Neon Hum“Rubber Bullets” episode of TelescopeFake PriestCatherine Saint Louis interview about podcast editing on Servant of Pod with Nick Quah. Catherine wants to encourage more POC to get into podcast editing and would love for anyone who is interested to get in touch. Catherine@neonhum.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Hello dear listeners! We are taking a short summer break. We’ve been putting out new episodes every week, and it feels like time to slow down for a moment and reflect. We’ll be back in August with some brand new regularly scheduled episodes. In the meantime, stay well. Thank you for your support. Christie & Rosemerry This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Putting your values into your art can be a courageous act, and in this episode we speak with poet and storyteller Sara Abou Rashed about the vulnerability and rewards that come from revealing our identity in our work. Rashed comes from Palestine but was born and raised in Syria before moving to Ohio in 2013. She is a senior at Denison University of Ohio and has performed her one-woman show, A Map of Myself, all over the country. Her show explores issues of identity, culture, immigration, belonging and finding home. She’s also given a TEDx talk and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. We talk about distinguishing between the self who creates the material and the self that presents it and also how audiences respond. Sara also gives us two “assignments” for how we, too, might find ourselves as we move forward in this time of uncertainty and unrest. We ask her these questions, and invite you to answer them as well on our substack page or our Facebook page:* How do you align your art with your values? * What role does art have in creating “the new normal?”Sara Abou Rashed’s website Sara’s show, Map of Myself Trailer for Map of MyselfHidden Treasures of a Refugee’s Journey TEDxColumbusimage of Sara via Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Could a book really save a life? Poet Aaron Abeyta is living proof. In this episode of Emerging Form, part of our miniseries about creativity and COVID-19, we talk with him about how Truman Capote helped transform him from trying to get kicked out of school to being the MFA Poetry Director at Western Colorado University. We also talk about his work as mayor in Antonito, Colorado, and how the pandemic is affecting the small town. We talk about his goal to give voice to others who don’t have one, how Pablo Neruda inspired him to be both poetic and political, and how a story from the Bible has helped guide him in the most difficult times. Show notes:  Aaron AbeytaIn Cold Blood by Truman CapotePablo NerudaAntonito, Coloradountitled or breathing in a time of covid--aaron a. abeytadust veils the valley like dust in springevery day windevery day this place a personificationof ache aching that is a fallingfrom this horizon into anotherpoverty does not create characterthis   the myth of some falselying book whose mirrors do notshine back at us nor for usin a denver hospital Robert Limon cleavesat life this breath then anotherbreath     his lonely isolationthe machine a dire metronomeperhaps one day   we willall point back to this isolationthe aloneness that wrought this lineor that line into air   and by airi mean human hearts   this is a prayerfor change for life and breathfor loved ones to recover   to breathewithout laboring or without thoughti am reading Auden   cross of the momenthe does not include in his collected the linewe must love one another or die the poemabsent altogether this windisn’t a lie   what seems broken   islies are less expensivethan anything we have saved  here among our hats and buttons  gathered then shelved toward what weknow will always come for us  we survive   our ancestors have made it sotheir voices   you hear them toothey ring of fidelity   liveendure be    persist returnbreathe yes fill your lungslet the wind breathe may dustswing from cottonwoods to waterto meadow   may we belifted from our veils   all of themlet   too   the brokenthose walking toward homein their swollen and inebriated daymay they   too here in this isolationserve as an aspect of truthwhy did he write these lineshe wrote them in isolationin the days where the dead multipliedbeyond the wars of books and storythe dead   the dying the swollenthe broken and the barely breathingthey are a form of truth   the livingache of this place   yesthe wind too brief breathsthat fluttered then flewas if being alone was abreath which formed itself  out of our requisite and stored faithinto song This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe

Hula hooping story tellers on street corners? That’s one topic of discussion in this episode of Emerging Form, part of our miniseries on how creatives are responding to the pandemic. We speak with our friend, author and adventurer Craig Childs, whose new book, Virga and Bone: Essays from dry places, is a celebration of the primacy of land. We talk about the pleasures and challenges of staying in one place, postcards to our pre-pandemic selves, what earthquakes have in common with pandemics and also how to place our present predicament in big time--both future and past. We talk about how cultures repeat themselves, how to move forward, and how to welcome what comes. Craig ChildsVirga and Bone: Essays from Dry PlacesCraig’s postcard to his 2010 self on Last Word on NothingChristie’s postcard to her 2010 self at Last Word On NothingRosemerry’s poem on resilience Christie's 100-mile habitat projectRose Eveleth’s Flash Forward episode: Imagine Better Futures This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit emergingform.substack.com/subscribe