Keep the Channel Open

Perry Janes’s debut poetry collection, Find Me When You’re Ready, follows its speaker from childhood in Detroit to young adulthood in Los Angeles, a coming-of-age story in five acts, told through a series of lyric moments. The poems in this collection confront childhood sexual abuse and the story of what it means to be a man, ultimately reaching toward healing and love. In our conversation we talked about what poetry and prose do differently, how masculinity is presented in these poems, and why it was important to both include trauma but not dwell in it. For the second segment, we talked about attention and how hard it can be to focus. (Recorded November 12, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Perry JanesFind Me When You’re ReadyBook Soup (Los Angeles, CA)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgNatalie Eilbert - IndictusAlexander Chee - How to Write an Autobiographical NovelPeter Ho DaviesLinda Gregg - “We Manage Most When We Manage Small”Monster (2023 film) Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Writer Sarah Gailey returns to the show for a discussion about their new novella, Have You Eaten? This serialized story follows four young queer characters as they traverse an America in the process of collapse, taking care of each other along the way. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about experimentation in fiction, vine-ripened tomatoes, cooking as an act of care, and what apocalypse means. Then for the second segment, we talked about why we re-recorded the second segment, sin-flattening and high-control groups, the necessity of interpersonal repair. (Episode recorded September 27, 2024 and September 30, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Sarah GaileyHave You Eaten?KoboApple BooksAmazonSarah Gailey - “STET”Keep the Channel Open - Episode 109: Sarah Gailey (When We Were Magic)Sarah Gailey - “Stone Soup #24: Mending Sauce”Sarah Gailey - “Pantry Cookies”Sabrina Imbler - How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

In the opening poem of Rachel Edelman’s debut collection, Dear Memphis, the speaker returns to their home city after a long time away, traversing a landscape that is both familiar and foreign, a place to which she belongs but also doesn’t. Over the course of the collection, Edelman asks questions about heritage and inheritance; about exile, diaspora, and migration; about home; about marginalization and privilege, oppression and complicity. In our conversation, we talked about acts of care, the importance of self-criticality, what poems do, and the necessary and the possible. Then for the second segment, we talked about corresponding via hand-written letters. (Recorded June 28, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Rachel EdelmanDear MemphisOpen Books (Seattle, WA)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgJacob Lawrence - The Migration SeriesMorgan Parker - Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At NightAlan Kurdi (The boy on the beach)emet ezellRachel Edelman & emet ezell - “The Correspondent’s Cheeks Are as a Bed of Spices”James Merrill - “Lost in Translation”AGNI 99 Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Writer, editor, and podcaster Jennifer Baker’s debut YA novel, Forgive Me Not, imagines a near-future America in which the juvenile criminal justice system has been “reformed” to allow young people to undergo grueling Trials instead of incarceration. It’s an incisive and powerful story about carceral justice, as well as a moving coming-of-age and family story. In our conversation we talked about writing about serious topics for younger readers, how she approached writing her characters, and why it was important for her to focus on systems rather than individual innocence or guilt. Then for the second segment we talked about finding inspiration in other art forms. (Recorded April 3, 2024.) SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Jennifer BakerForgive Me NotKew & Willow Books (Kew Gardens, NY)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgMinorities in Publishing podcastNana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Chain-Gang All-StarsKalief BrowderLionel TateSquid GameAnnie Proulx - “Brokeback Mountain” (short story)Brokeback Mountain (film)Rachel Eliza GriffithsNicholas NicholsTitus KapharKelsey Norris - House Gone Quiet Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Writer Rachel Lyon returns to the show to discuss her latest novel, Fruit of the Dead, a contemporary retelling of the Persephone myth in which a young woman is seduced by wealth and privilege in a story about addiction, class, sexual assault, and power. In our conversation, we talked about how malleable identity can be during adolescence and how that informed how she wrote the character of Cory, how family members do and don’t see each other, and why it was important for the characters in this story to have agency. Then for the second segment we talked about stages of life. (Recorded June 28, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Rachel LyonFruit of the DeadBroadside Bookshop (Northampton, MA)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgRachel Lyon - Self-Portrait with Boy Keep the Channel Open - Episode 79: Rachel Lyon (January 2019)The HoldoversCharles Baxter - First LightElizabeth Jane Howard - The Long View Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Introducing Hey, It's Me! I'm happy to announce a new podcast from me and my friend Rachel Zucker, Hey, It's Me! Here's the first episode as a bonus for KTCO listeners. Enjoy! Subscribe: Apple PodcastsPocket CastsOvercastRSSWeb

For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet Amorak Huey joins me to discuss Layli Long Soldier’s 2017 poetry collection, Whereas. In our conversation, we talked about the way the poems confront language, what language means in the context of forced assimilation, and how the poems engage with both history and contemporary reality. (Recorded March 26, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Amorak HueyWhereasGathering Volumes (Parisburg, OH)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgPurchase Dad Jokes from Late in the PatriarchyCongressional Resolution of Apology to Native AmericansBetween the Covers - Layli Long Soldier : WhereasR. F. Kuang - Babel Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

For this KTCO Book Club conversation, I’m joined by writer and group facilitator Martha Crawford for a discussion about Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s 2023 memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds. In our conversation, Martha and I talked about different ways of knowing, how to read across cultures without being extractive, storytelling as healing, and what identity means in the context of forgetting. (Recorded March 9, 2024) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Martha CrawfordThe Man Who Could Move CloudsThe Collected Works Bookstore (Santa Fe, NM)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgVine Deloria, Jr.Hildegard of BingenThomas Merton - “The Door That Ends All Doors” Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Writer and friend José Pablo Iriarte returns to the show to discuss their debut middle-grade novel, Benny Ramirez and the Nearly Departed. In our conversation, we talked about building stories without antagonists, writing for young readers, and what makes coming-of-age stories such an enduring phenomenon. Then for the second segment, we talked about the importance of storytelling in creating empathy and connection in our incredibly divided society. (Recorded April 6, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: José Pablo IriarteBenny Ramírez and the Nearly DepartedWhite Rose Books (Kissimmee, FL)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgKeep the Channel Open - Episode 23: José IriarteJosé Pablo Iriarte - “Proof by Induction”José Pablo Iriarte - “The Substance of My Lives, the Accidents of Our Births”José Pablo Iriarte - “Secrets and Things We Don’t Say Out Loud”José Pablo Iriarte - “Life in Stone, Glass, and Plastic”José Pablo Iriarte - “Spirit of Home”Becky Chambers - A Psalm for the Wild-BuiltA. S. King’s Instagram postCeleste Ng - Everything I Never Told YouRyka Aoki - Light From Uncommon StarsA. S. King - Attack of the Black Rectangles Transcript Episode credits Podington Bear

Sarah Rose Etter is a writer based in Los Angeles, CA. In Sarah’s latest novel, Ripe, a young woman is trapped in a dream-job-turned-corporate-nightmare at a cutthroat Silicon Valley tech startup. Her bosses are capricious and cruel, the city she lives in is crumbling under late capitalism, and everywhere she goes she is followed by her own personal black hole. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the relationship between her surrealist fiction and poetry, why visual art is important to her, and what it means for a character to have agency. Then for the second segment we discussed dead authors, reading in translation, and creative insecurity. (Recorded March 2, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Sarah Rose EtterRipeSkylight Books (Los Angeles, CA)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgSarah Rose Etter - The Book of XKeep the Channel Open - Episode 89: Julia Dixon EvansTommy PicoLilliam RiveraKristen ArnettSarah Rose Etter - “Unpublishable: Censored Emails from Noam Chomsky”Alina SzapocznikowVija CelminsNylon - “Sarah Rose Etter’s Ripe and the Rotted Underbelly of Capitalism”Sarah Rose Etter - “Inside the Cardboard Box of My Heart”Mark RothkoLouise BourgeoisDonald JuddSarah Rose Etter - “Girl, What Is Wrong With You?”ParasiteUncut GemsSarah Rose Etter - “Subglacial Rivers, A Love Poem, Because… & Either/Or”Crane Brinton - The Anatomy of RevolutionBrandon Taylor - “living shadows: aesthetics of moral worldbuilding”Tove Ditlevsen - The Copenhagen TrilogyLouise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine Transcript Episode Credits: Podington Bear

For this KTCO “Book” Club conversation, writer Maggie Tokuda-Hall returns to the show to talk about the game Baldur’s Gate 3. In our conversation, Maggie and I talked about what it’s like to experience a story with so many branching paths, how player choices reflect the player’s personality, as well as some standout storytelling moments from the game. (Recorded February 9, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Maggie Tokuda-HallPurchase Baldur’s Gate 3Purchase The Siren, the Song, and the SpyPreorder The Worst RoninPools of DarknessUnlimited AdventuresIcewind DaleBaldur’s Gate 2Octopath TravelerThe Last of UsThe Adventure ZoneDungeons & DaddiesNeil NewbonRoger Ebert - “Video games can never be art”The Brothers SunSarah Lotz - The Impossible Us Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Olatunde Osinaike is a poet based in Atlanta, GA. In his debut full-length poetry collection, Tender Headed, Olatunde explores Black masculinity, both celebrating and interrogating it in his sonically virtuosic poems. We talked about his approach to poetry, what poetic lineage means to him, and the silences inherent in patriarchy. Then for the second segment, we talked about departure albums and André 3000’s New Blue Sun. (Recorded January 20, 2024.) Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Olatunde OsinaikeTender Headed44th and 3rd Booksellers (Atlanta, GA)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Akashic Books (publisher)Olatunde Osinaike - Upcoming EventsBonus Reading for Patreon SubscribersOlatunde Osinaike reads “Being Human Takes a Lot of Nerve”Etheridge Knight - “The Sun Came”Gwendolyn Brooks - “truth”Paul M. Angle - “We Asked Gwendolyn Brooks about the Creative Environment in Illinois”André 3000 - New Blue SunAmerican FictionThey Cloned TyroneTristan HarrisKnives Out Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

For this KTCO Book Club conversation, poet and podcaster Rachel Zucker returns to the show to discuss Eugenia Leigh’s poetry collection Bianca. In our conversation, we talked about our approaches to talking about books with their authors, how form shapes how we take in intense subject matter in a poem, and how a book can be a means of connection. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Rachel ZuckerBiancaPrint (Portland, ME)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgEugenia LeighJames Schuyler - “This Dark Apartment”Jack Kornfield - “Transform Your Life Through Jack Kornfield’s Most Powerful Stories: A 10 Hour Journey” Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Gerardo Sámano Córdova is a writer and artist from Mexico City. In his debut novel, Monstrilio, Gerardo draws from both horror and literary fiction traditions to tell a story about grief, family, and self-acceptance. In our conversation, Gerardo and I talked about genre expectations, genre fiction as a site of art, and what it means to be monstrous. For the second segment, we talked about the tension between fulfilling your own artistic vision and creating work that will sell. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Gerardo Sámano CórdovaMonstrilioBooks Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgPaul Semel - “Exclusive Interview: ‘Monstrilio’ Author Gerardo Sámano Córdova”At Home with Literati: Gerardo Sámano Córdova & Kelly LinkCrimeReads - “Horror Does a Body Good, or, the Story of My Teeth”Chuck TinglePetite MamanPetite Maman - Official Trailer Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is a writer based in the Bronx, NY. In his debut novel, Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana presents us with a dystopian future America where convicted prisoners fight each other to the death in a televised bloodsport. The book is both a blistering critique of the US carceral system and an insistence on the inalienable humanity of every person. In our conversation, Nana and I talked about what satire and dystopia open up for him as a writer, why it’s important to him to implicate both the reader and himself in his work, and how he thinks about prison abolition. Then in the second segment, we talked about the seductive nature of success as an artist in a capitalist society. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Nana Kwame Adjei-BrenyahChain-Gang All-StarsThe Lit Bar (Bronx, NY)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgKendrick Lamar - “The Art of Peer Pressure”Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - Friday BlackMetroidvania (game genre)@america_is_the_bad_placeKeep the Channel Open - Episode 128: Anahid NersessianJohn Keats - “To Autumn”Starship Troopers (1997 film)John Gardner - The Art of FictionTa-Nehisi Coates - “Killing Dylan Roof”Kadhja Bonet - The Visitor Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Rachel Zucker is a writer, podcast, and teacher based in New York and Maine. Her latest book, The Poetics of Wrongness, is a collection of essays (originally written and performed for the Bagley Wright Lecture Series) delving into her own poetics, motherhood, the history of confessional poetry, and the ethics of “say everything” poetry. In our conversation, Rachel and I talked about wrongness as a stance against moral purity, about addiction to doubt, and about poetry as an opportunity to create outside of capitalism. Then in the second segment, we talked about her new project, the Commonplace School for Embodied Poetics. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Rachel ZuckerThe Poetics of WrongnessPrint (Portland, ME)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgCommonplaceCommonplace - Episode 110: The Poetics of WrongnessAdrienne Rich - Of Woman BornJoyelle McSweeney - “Wrong Poets Society”Alice Notley - DisobedienceAlice Notley - “The Poetics of Disobedience”Liz Lerman’s Critical Response ProcessJulia Cameron - The Artist’s WayHenrik Ibsen - A Doll’s HouseA Doll’s House (2023 Broadway production) Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

For our latest KTCO Book Club episode, writer Sarah Gailey joins us for a discussion of H. A. Clarke’s YA novels The Scapegracers and The Scratch Daughters. In our conversation, Sarah and I talked about the ways Clarke’s novels subvert genre expectations, about the quality of teen girls’ rage, and about why these books are “capital-I Important.” Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Sarah GaileyThe ScapegracersLoyalty (Washington, DC)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgThe Scratch DaughtersLoyalty (Washington, DC)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgJust Like HomeLoyalty (Washington, DC)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgSubscribe to The Personal Canons CookbookThe CraftSarah Gailey - When We Were MagicMaggie Tokuda-Hall - SquadEuphoriaHow different generations react to a gay character being introducedHolly Black - The Cruel PrinceMark Russel & Mike Feehan - Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Dayna Patterson is a poet, photographer, and textile artist based in the Pacific Northwest. The poems in her latest collection, O Lady, Speak Again, use the voices of the women characters from Shakespeare’s plays to talk about patriarchy, motherhood, sexuality, religion, heritage. In our conversation, Dayna and I discussed her creative process and how she finds her way into a poem, her use of persona in O Lady, Speak Again, and how and why she interrogates that same device within the collection. The in the second segment, we talked about play, and how it interacts with the creative process. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Dayna PattersonO Lady, Speak AgainVillage Books (Bellingham, WA)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.org Keep the Channel Open - Episode 120: Kazim AliKeep the Channel Open - Episode 137: Gabrielle BatesNaPoWriMoOthello, Act V, Scene iiJorie GrahamThe Winter’s TaleEmily Dickinson - “Tell all the truth but tell it slant”Rachel Zucker - The Poetics of WrongnessKristiana KahakauwilaJehanne DubrowMike Sakasegawa - Sheets: A Love LetterBruce Beasley - Prayershreds Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

Joshua Burton is a poet and educator based in Houston, TX. The poems in Joshua’s debut collection, Grace Engine, ask what grace means in a hostile world of lynchings, mental illness, self-hate, and suicide. These poems offer no solace, yet nevertheless reach toward beauty and peace. In our conversation, Joshua and I talked about what a grace engine is, processing shame through poetry, and what can be unlocked by returning to the same subject in multiple poems. Then for the second segment, we talked about creating mythology as a way of honoring those whom history may have overlooked. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Joshua BurtonGrace EngineBrazos Bookstore (Houston, TX)The Book Catapult (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgGrace EngineJeff Buckley - GraceMono no awareLynching of Jim McIlherronLynching of Mary TurnerLynching of Laura and L. D. NelsonRoyal RobertsonWilliam O’NealKeep the Channel Open - Episode 108: The Craft of the Literary Podcast InterviewJoshua Burton - Fracture AnthologyRoland Barthes - Camera LucidaToni Morrison - Song of SolomonLupe Fiasco - DROGAS Wave Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear

For our latest KTCO Book Club episode, media critic Mel Thomas joins us for a conversation about Holly Black’s YA fantasy novel The Cruel Prince. In our conversation, we discuss the ways that craft in YA fiction is often dismissed or overlooked by both critics and readers, the dynamics of abuse and trauma in the novel, and being able to enjoy art on multiple levels. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Pocket Casts | Stitcher | Goodpods | TuneIn | RSS Support: Support our Patreon | Review on Apple Podcasts | Review on Podchaser Share: Tweet this episode | Share to Facebook Connect: Newsletter | Email | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube Show Notes: Mel ThomasThe Cruel PrinceCarmichael’s Bookstore (Louisville, KY)Mysterious Galaxy (San Diego, CA)Bookshop.orgDavid Eddings - The BelgariadUrsula K. Le Guin - A Wizard of EarthseaNicole Kornher-Stace - Archivist WaspKameron HurleyStephen R. Donaldson - The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Sarah J. Maas - A Court of Thorns and Rosesboygenius - the record Transcript Episode Credits Podington Bear