Maggie Smith is the author of the national bestsellers Goldenrod and Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change, as well as Good Bones, named one of the Best Five Poetry Books of 2017 by the Washington Post and winner of the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; The Well Speaks of Its Own Poison, winner of the 2012 Dorset Prize and the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal in Poetry; and Lamp of the Body, winner of the 2003 Benjamin Saltman Award....

Edward Hirsch is a celebrated poet and peerless advocate for poetry. Edward Hirsch’s first collection of poems, For the Sleepwalkers received the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University and the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets. His second collection, Wild Gratitude, won the National Book Critics Award. Since then, he has published eight additional poetry collections and five prose books on poetry, including A Poet’s Glossary and How to Read a Poem...

Megan Pinto is the author of Saints of Little Faith, her debut collection.  Her poems can be found in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Ploughshares, Lit Hub and elsewhere. She has won the Anne Halley Prize from the Massachusetts Review and an Amy Award from Poets & Writers, as well as scholarships and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, the Port Townsend Writers’ Conference and Storyknife.  Megan lives in Brooklyn and...

Tracy O'Neill is the author of the memoir Woman of Interest. Her novels include The Hopeful, one of Electric Literature's Best Novels of 2015; and Quotients, a New York Times​ New & Noteworthy Book, TOR Editor's Choice, & Literary Hub Favorite Book of 2020.  In 2015, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree and long-listed for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. In 2012, she was awarded the Center for Fiction's Emerging Writers Fellowship. She holds an MFA...

Charles Baxter is the author of the novels The Feast of Love, nominated for the National Book Award, First Light, Saul and Patsy, Shadow Play, The Soul Thief, and The Sun Collective, and the story collections Believers, Gryphon, Harmony of the World, A Relative Stranger, There’s Something I Want You to Do, and Through the Safety Net. His stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The O. Henry Prize Story...

Edwidge Danticat is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese’s Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner. She is also the editor of The Butterfly's Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays...

Elizabeth Strout is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lucy by the Sea; Oh William!, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Olive, Again; Anything Is Possible, winner of the Story Prize; My Name Is Lucy Barton; The Burgess Boys; Olive Kitteridge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Abide with Me; and Amy and Isabelle, winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award...

Richard Powers is the author of fourteen novels, including Bewilderment, The Overstory, and Orfeo.  He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Award.  He lives in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains. His new novel is called Playground. We talked about the ocean, plot and games, the structure of Playground, beguiling endings, water, play, the game Go, science and spirituality, immortality and talking to the dead. Learn more about your ad...

Dr. Alan Townsend is a scientist, author and Dean of the Franke College of Forestry & Conservation at the University of Montana. His writing has appeared in multiple national venues, including The Washington Post and Scientific American. Alan's nonfiction book is called This Ordinary Stardust.  He is a highly cited author of more than 140 peer reviewed articles, and received his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College, and a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University.  He is an...

Natalie Goldberg is the author of fifteen books, including Writing Down the Bones, which has sold over one million copies and has been translated into fourteen languages.  She co-edited a collection of talks by revered zen teacher Katherine Thanas, The Truth of This Life.  Her new book is Writing on Empty: A Guide to Finding Your Voice.   We talked about writer’s block versus losing the regular routines that sustain writing while the Covid pandemic was in full swing, her family history,...

Lorrie Moore is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, as well as the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for her achievement in the short story. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jessica Shattuck is The New York Times Bestselling author of the novels Last House, The Women in the Castle, a New York Times Bestseller, #1 Indie Next Pick, and winner of The New England Book Award; Perfect Life, and The Hazards of Good Breeding, which was a New York Times Notable Book, a Boston Globe Editor’s Choice Best Book of the Year, and a finalist for the 2003 PEN/Winship Award. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Guernica, Glamour, Open City, and The Tampa Review among other...

Kaliane Bradley is a British-Cambodian writer and editor based in London. Her short fiction has appeared in Somesuch Stories, The Willowherb Review, Electric Literature, Catapult, andExtra Teeth, among others. She was the winner of the 2022 Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize and the 2022 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize. Her novel is called The Ministry of Time. This was recorded live at Waterstone’s bookstore in London at the Crouch End locations. We talked about a book about time travel...

Carl Phillips is the author of 17 books of poetry, most recently Scattered Snows, to the North and Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020, which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. His other honors include the 2021 Jackson Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Award, a Lambda Literary Award, the PEN/USA Award for Poetry, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Academy of...

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 29 novels, including By Any Other Name, Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page.  Picoult’s books have been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries.  Picoult also wrote five issues of DC Comic's Wonder Woman. Picoult is the co-librettist for the stage musical adaptation of her two Young Adult...

Abby Geni is the author of the novels The Wildlands and The Lightkeepers and the short story collections The Last Animal and The Body Farm. Her books have been translated into seven languages and have won the Barnes & Noble Discover Award and the Chicago Review of Books Awards, among other honors. Geni is a faculty member at StoryStudio Chicago and frequent Visiting Associate Professor of Fiction at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. We talked about emotional intelligence,...

Jill Ciment is the author of Small Claims, a collection of short stories and novellas; The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist, Heroic Measures, Act of God, The Body in Question, and memoirs Half a Life and Consent. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Ciment is a professor emeritus...

Kevin Barry is the author of the novels Night Boat to Tangier, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize, Beatlebone, and City of Bohane as well as three story collections including Dark Lies the Island. His stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Granta and elsewhere. He also works as a playwright and screenwriter lives in County Sligo, Ireland.  His new novel is The Heart in Winter. We talked about the Irish in Butte, Montana, watching and writing westerns, Wuthering Heights,...

 Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist. He was born in Ara, and grew up in the nearby town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty and delicious mangoes. Kumar is the author of several books of non-fiction and four novels.  His new novel is My Beloved Life. Kumar lives in Poughkeepsie, in upstate New York, where he is the Helen D. Lockwood Professor of English at Vassar College. He serves on the board of the Corporation of Yaddo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Ada Limón the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her book Bright Dead Things was nominated for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Her most recent book of poetry, The Hurting Kind, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. As the 24th Poet Laureate of The United States, her signature project is called You Are Here and focuses on how poetry can help...

Tracy Chevalier is the author of 11 novels and the editor of one short story anthology.  Her books include Girl with a Pearl Earring, Falling Angels, Remarkable Creatures, At the Edge of the Orchard, and A Single Thread.  She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and lives in London.  Her new novel is The Glass Maker. We talked about feeling writing in the body, Tracy’s research process, adding a touch of magical realism to her work, her writing influences for this...

Tommy Orange is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts where he now teaches. An enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, he was born and raised in Oakland, California. His first book, There There, was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award. His new novel is Wandering Stars. He lives in Oakland, California. We talked about where creativity comes from, lightning strikes, creative writing, historical...

Lauren Camp is the author of eight poetry collections including Worn Smooth between Devourings, An Eye in Each Square, Took House, and In Old Sky among others. She is the Poet Laureate of New Mexico and was awarded a 2023 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Kenyon Review, Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, Missouri Review, and The Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day. We talked about being the Poet Laureate...

Stacey D’Erasmo is the author of the novels Tea, A Seahorse Year, The Sky Below, Wonderland, and The Complicities and the nonfiction books The Art of Intimacy and The Long Run.  She is a professor of writing and publishing practices at Fordham University. We talked about inspiration and creativity as lightning bolts and melting, abstract art, aging as an artist, breakthroughs, and longevity in art. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices