(Angela Super, Outspoken Bean, Katharine Coldiron, Johnny Payne, Icess Fernandez) Fantastic advice from the authors, poets, & industry professionals at #AWP20. This is part one of a three-episode series featuring Bloomsday Literary’s partnership with #AWP20 to bring you all the literary goings-on from this year’s conference.

Published Date: January 23, 2023

Transcription

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the AWP 2020 Podcast by Bloomsday literary and effing Shakespeare, hosted by Kate Martin Williams, Phuc Luu, and Lily Wolf, narrated by Michaeljulius Y. Idani.

Speaker 3:

And now you can go the other way. Hello, it's me.

Speaker 2:

First book's out. What was your writing process like for that? How did you get that first book written?

Kate:

It was a lot of crying.

Speaker 2:

Okay. Yeah, we hear that a lot on the show. We hear that a lot.

Kate:

Followed by Vicodin.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Kate:

And then three days of sleeping.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

Kate:

By nature, you are supposed to give information and rhetorical questions don't give information. They withhold it.

Speaker 1:

Why would anyone use rhetorical questions?

Speaker 3:

Oh, how ironic.

Kate:

Be real. Have we seen Jericho?

Speaker 3:

I mean, I wasn't going to go there, but have we seen Jericho?

Kate:

Shit. Look, I'm trying to write a question for you, and I just wrote Jericho Brown.

This is Angela Super, and she is at AWP today and this week to talk about her new book, Erebus Dawning, which is forthcoming this year. When does it come out?

Angela Super:

It comes out in August. I don't have an exact date. My publisher likes to keep me on my toes.

Kate:

Keep you interested. And who is the publisher?

Angela Super:

Ace on books.

Kate:

Nice.

Angela Super:

Yeah.

Kate:

And can you tell us a little bit about Erebus Dawning?

Angela Super:

It is about a space pirate who discovers she is an AI human hybrid and she has to go face to face with an oppressive queen to save her crew and family.

Kate:

Oh my gosh. And have you been writing this genre forever? Is this your chosen?

Angela Super:

Well, it kind of chose me, but I think...

Kate:

Tell me more about that. How did it choose you?

Angela Super:

Well, I'd like to thank my grandma who was passed away.

Kate:

Aw.

Angela Super:

Aw. It's very sad. But growing up visiting her in Bellingham, Washington, she had a stash of science fiction and fantasy books. And I didn't like going outside and playing with all the other cousins, I liked sitting inside and reading. And she was like, "Here, here's this fantasy book that I just read. You'll like it. It's Anne McCaffrey."

Kate:

Oh, nice.

Angela Super:

"Or it's Ursula Le Guin."

Kate:

Yes.

Angela Super:

And I fell in love with the science fiction and fantasy genres, and she was really the only one who was really okay with me not playing with other kids and just reading instead.

Kate:

Oh, that's fantastic. So Grandma, what was her first name?

Angela Super:

Her name is Bobby.

Kate:

Grandma Bobby.

Angela Super:

Grandma Bobby.

Kate:

We should thank all the grandma Bobby's in this world who put books in front of children and give them places to go and things to see.

Angela Super:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

A good legacy.

Kate:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Good legacy.

Angela Super:

Yeah. And she lent me my favorite book in the whole entire world, the Dispossessed.

Kate:

Oh, nice.

Angela Super:

And it's like the one thing that I forgot. I normally keep one with me so I can pass it off to some interesting person and so they can read it.

Kate:

Right. If they haven't read it before.

Angela Super:

Right.

Kate:

Well, that's fantastic. But you didn't bring any with you to AWP?

Angela Super:

I had so many things to remember for setting up for the 2020 debuts booth.

Kate:

Sure. Yeah. And if you're here at the show, we shouldn't give a shout out to that crew over there, every year organization. Do you guys reach out to new, how do debut novelists find you if there's a debut novelist who knows their books coming out in 2021 and wants to be involved?

Angela Super:

Well, right now I think it works by word of mouth, mostly.

Kate:

Okay.

Angela Super:

Because I found out because my CP and best friend, well bestie, one of my best friends, she's amazing. Sarah Bond, shout out to her. She just released her first book, Gravity's Heir.

Kate:

Oh, nice.

Angela Super:

And she told me about the 2020 debut group and got me in, and I've done that for a couple of my pub sibs at Ace on Books, who are debuts as well. And it just kind of feeds on itself.

Kate:

Right on.

Angela Super:

People telling each other about it. And from my understanding, the people who started the 2020 group kind of trained in the 2019 group and grew the 2020 group.

Kate:

Yeah, it's a great service because you guys get together and then get to share the table. So it's not like one person has to buy the table at the conference and then you guys get to all kind of market together and piggyback off of the momentum that you create together as a group. It's such a great idea. It's a little collective of debut novelists.

Angela Super:

Yeah. And actually we have AWP to thank for our booth because they set it up for us.

Kate:

That's fantastic. Good.

Angela Super:

So we were very, very fortunate that they invited us to be here.

Kate:

Well, thanks AWP. You seem to be one of those rare authors who is out there on Twitter doing good work. That's not fair. There are a lot of authors doing, there's a really good work.

Angela Super:

There's a lot of people doing good work out there on Twitter.

Kate:

But I want to talk about what you are doing, specifically with First Fridays and hashtag Prac pick. Did I say that right?

Angela Super:

Prac Pit and Fry first.

Kate:

I didn't say it right, I said it exactly wrong.

Speaker 1:

Five Pass quickly, Kate.

Angela Super:

I can't. And also the one that I don't have on my bio is Query Connection.

Kate:

Okay. Tell us about all three of those hashtags and why they are useful tools.

Angela Super:

Well, fry First is a first line themed weekly kind of game that I do. It's been on hiatus because of the debut stuff and because of preps for AWP for the last couple of months. But as soon as AWP is over, I'm starting it up again. But it gives people a place to share their work and just kind of be themselves and get positive feedback, get likes and retweets and things like that.

Kate:

Okay. So they just post a little bit of their work and then hashtag?

Angela Super:

Yeah. It started out with the first line of your entire novel, and then it's kind of evolved into the first line with or about love or the first line about music. And then it kind of evolved to a thematic topic kind of thing.

Kate:

Oh, cool.

Angela Super:

And I always go back to the first line of your book eventually, because it's a classic and everybody starts new projects, so it gives them a chance to share their new projects as well.

Kate:

Right on.

Angela Super:

Prac Pit is, that's very unfortunate that AWP happened at the same time that Pit Mad happened.

Kate:

Oh my gosh. Are they overlapping this year?

Angela Super:

Pit Mad is today.

Kate:

Oh my word.

Angela Super:

Because normally two days before a big pitch event, I do Prac Pit.

Kate:

Okay.

Angela Super:

Where we workshop your pitches for a pitch event. And there are rules, and I have that on my blog.

Kate:

Which is? Where do we find your blog?

Angela Super:

If you go to my website, ajsuperauthor.com, there's a little tab at the top that says "blog".

Kate:

Nice.

Angela Super:

And it's the Bloggy Blog because I couldn't figure out a good name for it and my-

Kate:

That's great. This is a very good name.

Angela Super:

Well, and you can subscribe to my newsletter there too. And it's the Newsy Newsletter you go. So yeah, it's very thematic.

Kate:

On point. On point.

Angela Super:

So I'll tweet out the rules and all of that stuff, but I normally spend a whole day like helping people with their tweets and their pitches and stuff like that.

Kate:

Can you tell maybe a new authors looking for agents what Pit Mad is about?

Angela Super:

Pit Mad is a pitch event that you write a short summary of your book.

Kate:

Usually one line.

Angela Super:

One line, 280 characters, and you include certain hashtags to identify your book to make it searchable for the agents and publishers. And you cross your fingers and hope for the best.

Kate:

So yeah, we imagine a slew of agents and publishers out there scrolling through Twitter to find things that sound interesting to them and hit you up on Twitter to see if they can get more.

Angela Super:

And Pit Mad has had some very big success stories.

Kate:

Sure. We had one on the show. Remember Kristen Ray? That's how she got her book deal.

Angela Super:

That's wonderful.

Kate:

In our first season, she's a middle grade. I always call her a middle grade author. She's a YA novelist. Sorry, Kristen. I know what you do. I read your work. I love you.

Speaker 1:

You guys are friends, too.

Kate:

And we're friends. Yeah. And so then that's kind of a service you're providing back to the writing community.

Angela Super:

Yeah. I figure I'm fairly decent. I mean, I'm not the end all be all advice on anything, by any means, but I can help where I can.

Kate:

Yeah. Do you have a number one hint or suggestion that you could share on the show for people listening?

Angela Super:

Don't use rhetorical questions.

Kate:

Okay.

Angela Super:

Because by nature you are supposed to give information. And rhetorical questions don't give information. They withhold it.

Speaker 1:

Why would anyone use rhetorical questions?

Angela Super:

How ironic.

Kate:

Oh, Phuc. Okay. So Angela, if people want to find more of your work and find out more about Prac Pit and God, is it first? No, it's not First Friday.

Angela Super:

Fly First.

Kate:

Fly First. Where do they go?

Angela Super:

Well, Fly First is just kind of out there. I don't really publicize it. Prac Pit is on my blog.

Kate:

And your Twitter handle is?

Speaker 3:

And my Twitter handle is allbrevitywit.com. I figure effing Shakespeare should find that interesting.

Kate:

I love it.

Speaker 3:

Did I say allbrevitywit.com? It's just allbrevitywit. That's just... Okay. Anyway.

Kate:

Yeah. All good. Like I said, I write speculative fiction and we were just talking at the breakfast table this morning about what sci-fi or just that whole world, it's funny, you get in the nitty gritty fantasy sci-fi, speculative fiction, but what that offers as a way of writing about this era while also writing about the future and future solutions. And you have a lot of great quotes on your website from Butler and Gwen and such. Let's talk about that.

Angela Super:

Oh yeah, that Asimov quote was so good.

Kate:

That Asimov quote. Oh, that was my favorite. I think I have it written down somewhere.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Can you read the Asimov quote?

Kate:

Yeah, yeah. Let me read it without dropping it. Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not. So I was wondering what you had to say about that.

Angela Super:

Oh, you know what's hilarious is I just started reading one of the debuts books. It's called Past This Point, and it's about a pandemic.

Kate:

Oh my word.

Speaker 3:

Wow.

Angela Super:

And so far it's kind of fabulous and kind of scary.

Kate:

Oh my goodness.

Angela Super:

So yes, science fiction and speculative fiction writers and even fantasy writers, we all have this habit of picking things that we see in our world and making them real. Or in Nicole Mabry's instance, possibly even writing them into existence. And one of the things that I like writing about is family and identity and how identity affects our sense of power. When in the future, how states and conglomerations become one big thing and how that affects.

Kate:

In the future is that, isn't that in the present?

Angela Super:

In the present. Wink, wink, nod, nod. And how that affects our identity as, what's the word I'm looking for, as individuals, as international people.

Kate:

Right. It considers global citizenship a lot.

Angela Super:

Yeah. Global citizenship. That's what I'm looking for.

Kate:

Yeah. And you were mentioning that you love reading Butler, who I think is one of those authors that just does an outstanding job of that. How do our identities change us? I just read Bloodchild and she deals a lot with gender, I would say too. And then how our identities change with relationship to the people around us in the future.

Angela Super:

And one of the things that I really stressed in my book on the gender front was that if you can't see a face, if somebody's in a helmet, their pronouns are they and them. So unless you hear a voice, unless they're very readily identified as male or female, their gender identifiers are much more fluid until they identify themselves.

Kate:

Which is really powerful for our era too. I mean, being at this conference is, everyone where we don't know. We don't know exactly how to identify them and opting for they/them pronouns, perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of fluidity between the two times, too.

Angela Super:

Yeah. And I did that very much on purpose.

Kate:

Yeah. That's powerful.

Angela Super:

Good.

Kate:

Well, thanks for being our first, our inaugural podcast. We are off to a great start. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.

Angela Super:

Yeah, thank you.

Kate:

We are here with Outspoken Bean and he does all of this already.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I used to. I used to. Yeah.

Kate:

Are you not doing it anymore?

Speaker 4:

Not really. Not sound engineering, no.

Kate:

No.

Speaker 4:

I'm kind of poetry full time now.

Kate:

Tell us about it.

Speaker 1:

That's awesome.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah. So, hi y'all.

Kate:

Hi.

Speaker 4:

I'm Bean. Hi. Thank y'all for having me. What is this called? AWP On the air or...?

Kate:

Effing Shakespeare Podcast Live.

Speaker 1:

Effing Shakespeare.

Speaker 4:

All right. There we go.

Kate:

At AWP, we're partnered with AWP this year.

Speaker 4:

That's so awesome.

Kate:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Congrats. Congrats.

Kate:

Thanks. It is pretty exciting.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I'm a poet based, I'm a performance poet, producer of experiences based in Houston, Texas, from the small town, I'm sure no one has ever heard of, called San Antonio.

Speaker 1:

We're here, heard of it.

Kate:

We're all here.

Speaker 4:

Oh wow. Wow. How'd that happen? Oh my gosh.

Kate:

The magic of time travel.

Speaker 4:

Everybody, everybody's heard of it. Even coronavirus.

Kate:

Even coronavirus.

Speaker 4:

Too soon. My bad.

Kate:

That's okay. We were talking about it being the zombie apocalypse just a minute ago, so it's all fair game.

Speaker 4:

Oh, my gosh. What would y'all do in the zombie apocalypse? What's your weapon? What's your weapon of choice?

Kate:

Poetry.

Speaker 4:

Okay. That's good. I will not be using that one. What about you, Lily? Okay.

Speaker 2:

I'm definitely archery and hiding. Hiding is my main tactic.

Speaker 4:

Archery and hiding and then get in. Yeah.

Kate:

My greatest fear is having to take a life or something.

Speaker 4:

I love that. Yeah. What about you?

Speaker 1:

I got bottle gin and a panic room.

Speaker 4:

A panic room.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm joining him.

Speaker 1:

I'm safe. I'm safe.

Speaker 4:

You're hiding, right?

Speaker 1:

I'm safe.

Speaker 4:

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

And I'm drinking through it.

Kate:

I just know I'm in the right place.

Speaker 4:

There it is.

Kate:

I'll just entertain. You drink your gin. Bean, what are you going to be doing in the zombie apocalypse?

Speaker 4:

My skill would be a MacGyver. That would be, you know what I'm saying, get some things and be like, put it together, create traps.

Kate:

Some bubble gum and potatoes.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Creating traps and stuff like that. The zombies would never see it coming. Especially since most of them are blind. I don't know how people get caught. I don't know.

Kate:

Is that a, that's a characteristic of zombies?

Speaker 4:

I mean.

Speaker 2:

Echo location or something.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, they look blind. Come on. Things are deteriorating. Come on, man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

You think they've got 2020 vision? They're like, hold on, I don't have my reading glasses.

Kate:

Absolutely.

Speaker 4:

But anyway, what y'all want to talk about?

Kate:

I want to talk about what you're doing in Houston with the poetry scene.

Speaker 4:

Man. A lot of stuff. So my life has always been kind of like a puzzle and me a bunch of pieces and I'm putting this puzzle together and I'm trying to convince people to see the picture. And that's how I kind of view my life as a performance poet. I work for Writers in the Schools.

Kate:

A great organization.

Speaker 4:

Yes. An amazing organization.

Kate:

Tell us what they do.

Speaker 4:

For the past 36 years, they have been sending poets and writers of all mediums into schools to teach creative writing to young people. And the byproduct is they'll pass the stupid test. But the product idea of it is for them to, is really for young people to use this wonderful organism that's in their head, in their brain. And to be analytical thinking and to think ahead and to develop a story, to develop a true thought, to be eloquent with it. That's how I see it. That's what I tell people, what Writers in the School does. It's a form of evolution has changed, but we're going to do it through our young people that when we go into the classroom, it's at high quality, high caliber.

Kate:

And I've seen the work that they do, that these young people do under people like your tutelage. That's amazing.

Speaker 4:

Thank you.

Kate:

It's so inspiring.

Speaker 4:

Thank you.

Kate:

I love seeing it happen.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of fun.

Kate:

So, you're doing WITS and then what else? What are the other?

Speaker 4:

And then I am an entity of myself, outspoken Dean as a, I'm a poet and a performer and I also produce events and stuff. And so one of the things I do is pass it on. Every month I do, it's like a curated open mic where I bring in different artists from around the country into this art gallery. And we do art stuff and charge people to come in to participate. That's one thing I do. I do five minute poems, festivals, and markets where I am.

Kate:

And on Insta.

Speaker 4:

On Instagram.

Kate:

You doing the five minutes stuff.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I'm trying to be consistent.

Kate:

Love it.

Speaker 4:

Thank you so much. I'll do one.

Kate:

Love it.

Speaker 4:

It looks like I'm probably going to be doing it here at AWP.

Kate:

I swear to God, every time I open my feed, I'm like, "There's Bean."

Speaker 4:

I got to get on it.

Kate:

He's doing his work.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. And my five minute poems have been really... Thank you for that.

Kate:

Yeah, they're great.

Speaker 4:

My five minute poems have been, it started as kind of something to do for Harvey, actually. It was, Harvey happened. Fresh Arts was asking me if I could donate my talents somehow for another non-profit. And I was like, "Sure. I just do five minute poem." I just kind of set it whimsical and then I did it and I got some other people involved to do it with me. And we had a long line. It was a fun lot of fun. And after it was done, I asked them, I was like, "Yo, how much money did we make? How much money was made?" I was thinking it was going to say like $100. They're like, "Wow, we made $700."

Kate:

Nice.

Speaker 4:

I was like, "Never again. You made seven. Okay. All right. I'm missing something out. I'm missing something here.: I will never. What? Oh my gosh. Where are the terms, who agreed to this? I was happy those people were helped, but I was like, "No, I need to figure out how to do this." But I use it as a-

Kate:

It's an open door for something.

Speaker 4:

Oh yeah. Yeah. And one, it helps me write, and then also it's a sense of directly communicating and talking to people, collecting emails. I believe emails are still powerful. If Mark Zuckerberg wants your email, I want your emails. And so he still wants them, I still want them. Right. And so it's a way for me to collect emails and to connect with people.

Kate:

That's a good point.

Speaker 4:

And I really love the joy that people get after I do it, even, especially if they're skeptical of like, because now I write and perform the poem under five minutes. I've done it so often and I've kind of created this whole process.

Kate:

That's the shit that's so exciting about what you do.

Speaker 4:

Oh, we can cuss. Okay.

Kate:

It's called Effing Shakespeare.

Speaker 4:

I didn't think about it.

Kate:

We can.

Speaker 4:

I didn't think about it. I didn't think about it.

Kate:

But it is, it's exciting shit because it's different than just opening a book of poetry.

Speaker 4:

For sure.

Kate:

Which, the thing that turns me on about the work that we do is getting to be in community with people in a real way, not in the "Oh, we're giving back to the community way" with the quote marks. And it's super exciting to see it take different forms.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I agree.

Kate:

And reach different people that way.

Speaker 4:

It has to.

Kate:

Oh, my God, it has to.

Speaker 4:

I feel like, and even with five minute poems, I was, at one point I wouldn't take a picture. I would only take pictures of the poems that I liked. And people waiting in line, they start noticing it and they're like, "Why didn't you take a picture of mine?" And so then I started to take a picture of all of them.

Kate:

Okay. So tell me the process, what's happening?

Speaker 4:

So what happens is you walk to my table, right? Kate walks up to my table and I have a bowl of words. And you pick three words out of there. Or you say, you give me three words, which I actually prefer. So you give me three words. I have a sand clock, like the hour glass, but that's not called an hour glass. That's called a sand clock, people. We're learning, it's called a sand clock. All right.

Kate:

Writers in the Schools, right?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. You know what I mean? Yo, get it right. All right, well, the school parts specifically.

Kate:

Yes.

Speaker 4:

All right. And so you have this, I have a sand clock that's set for five minutes. You flip that, Kate, you would flip it over. And that would indicate for me to start, and I write a poem incorporating those elements, those three words into it. Sometimes people give me topics as well. And then before the last grain of sand goes down, I would've had written and performed the poem. I have really good handwriting. My handwriting is immaculate. All right. It is pretty. And now I age paper and I'm using aged paper that I do myself with coffee and tea.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow.

Kate:

Nice.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So it's a whole, and then I make it a scroll now. Right. So like you getting a scroll, you know what I mean?

Kate:

You're a piece of art.

Speaker 1:

Transcendent, the art forms.

Kate:

Do you know how many poetry nerds are out here listening to this drooling? They want this, they want access to this.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, you got to come get it. Come to Houston or bring me out. Bring me out. You know what I mean? I travel, y'all.

Kate:

I love it. And then you take a picture and you post it.

Speaker 4:

I take a picture and I post it. Well, no, I don't post them now because I'm, I'm actually making a book of them right now. Yeah. I'm in the process of doing the self-publishing, making this book. It's a coloring book. It's like-

Kate:

Shut up.

Speaker 4:

Who? Yeah. I have an artist. And so I'm doing that right now and I'm really excited about it.

Kate:

This is so cool.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. So that's like, those are some of the things other than performances, I still perform. I still do, if a college brings me out or I don't know, I'm open to be booked.

Kate:

Awesome.

Speaker 1:

That's good to know.

Kate:

Where can people find that book once it's done?

Speaker 1:

It'll be on my website. It'll be on.

Kate:

Which is?

Speaker 1:

I'm outspoken be...

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:25:04]

Speaker 4:

Be on my website, it'll be on-

Kate:

Which is?

Speaker 4:

Outspokenbeam.com. Outspoken. It's all spelled correctly because I'm not that poet. And it will be... And I'll just pretty much be hustling out because I'm doing it self-publishing right now.

Kate:

That's awesome.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Speaker 5:

Well, I have a question on behalf of the youth.

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Speaker 5:

 And since you're doing-

Kate:

The youths.

Speaker 5:

Yes, the youths. Maybe I'm on the later end of that I guess. But since you do a lot of youth advocacy, what is ways for youth writers to break out into the writing world, like a fence we should be going to, things we should be trying?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, for sure. So in Houston, right now is slam season. So we have the Youth Poetry Slam Team, which I'm the coach of. We have the Youth Poetry Slam Team that we're every-

Kate:

What? When are you sleeping, dude?

Speaker 4:

I slept last night.

Kate:

You did? That's crazy. How are you doing all this?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I wish I was type A because I'm not. But if I'm type A, it would be a little more organized. But I'm not type A. I don't know. I only know type A and I guess that's indication that I'm not type A because I feel type A person with know the other types. I just like, I'm not type A, am I type Q? I don't know actually.

Kate:

No. The Type A people don't care about the other types.

Speaker 4:

But they know them. They know them. I actually care.

Speaker 6:

They get fixated on their own type.

Kate:

I'm just saying. I've heard tell.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I don't even... but they feel like they would know it. I don't know what they are, but I want to know. Anyway, I'm tangenting.

Kate:

That's all right. You're talking about-

Speaker 4:

Metaphor Houston Slam Team is being formed right now and we are in the midst of our 10 year anniversary of Space City Poetry slams.

Kate:

Holy crap.

Speaker 4:

10 years.

Kate:

That's fantastic.

Speaker 4:

I started it 10 years ago. I can't believe it. It's crazy.

Kate:

You started it?

Speaker 4:

Yes. Space City Slams. I started that. Yeah. 10 years ago. And me and Debra-

Kate:

I was going to say that's how you met. Met Deborah.

Speaker 4:

No, no. I met her beforehand. I met her before that. We were friends before that. I brought her on.

Kate:

He's talking about the inimitable. Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton who is sadly not going to be here because she's doing her amazing event-

Speaker 4:

Her loreto.

Kate:

... at the Houston Grand Opera.

Speaker 4:

Yes. Awesome.

Kate:

Deborah's doing awesome back in Houston. So you knew her and then?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I knew we needed something like an event that can be branded and used to get people excited about it. And I was like, Space City. Great. Space City Youth Poetry Slam, right? And it's a series, right? And so it's evolved. And when writers in the schools took up Metaphor Houston, they essentially took in Space City's writers as well. This is our 10 year anniversary. We had our first. And all of the slams for young people they're free to come watch. They're free to join. We say we only take 15. We're lying. If you show up, you can slam. You need two poems, two original poems. They do not have to be memorized. It helps if they are, right? And we have judges. If you want to be a judge. Kate, you what I'm saying? If you want to be a judge, I'm looking for some far semifinals.

Kate:

Sign me up.

Speaker 4:

So we have preliminaries, we have semifinals, and then we have finals. Finals will be the seventh, I believe, in April.

Kate:

Fantastic.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I think that's when.

Kate:

Yeah. We had IO on the show and he had just got back. I think he showed up to record and he just got back from judging.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Kate:

And he just could not stop talking about how amazing. He was just tearing his hair out because people were doing odes to socks.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Kate:

And it was like, fantastic.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, it's awesome.

Kate:

It's amazing.

Speaker 4:

It's awesome. It's really, it's impressive. It's impressive. Oh, and right now I'm also coaching the Prairie View slam team as well. I forgot about that. Going to Cup Tea.

Kate:

That's amazing.

Speaker 4:

You know what I mean? I'm missing Coachella for these kids.

Kate:

Oh my God.

Speaker 4:

I'm not lying.

Kate:

This is sacrifice.

Speaker 4:

I have my Coachella tickets bought.

Kate:

What?

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I bought them last year before I found out.

Kate:

This is sacrifice.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Kate:

Do the kids know?

Speaker 4:

Oh man. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Kate:

And they love you for it.

Speaker 4:

Yo, listen, when they mess it up, I was like, y'all, I am not going to Coachella, dude. We got it. Yo, we got it. Okay. I'm like, listen, you need to finish these poems because I'm missing Coachella second weekend because of y'all.

Kate:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

You know what I saying?

Kate:

Listen, here's a question. So what does that do for your work when you're out here with these kids and when you're doing Five Minute Poems and when you're-

Speaker 4:

Well with Five Minute Poems, that's a direct-

Kate:

That's a direct line.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, that's a direct line because it's my work, right?

Kate:

Right.

Speaker 4:

And one man's trash-

Kate:

It's exercising that muscle.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. One man's trash is another man's treasure. My trash is my treasure. That's how... It doesn't matter if I don't like it or not. You know what I'm saying? It's mine, right? So it's essentially, that's a direct line. But indirectly what coaching does, especially with Prairie View, because I'm not being paid to do it. Right? Prairie View, I'm essentially volunteering my time to do so. What that does is, one, I love seeing growth in other people in this craft if they want to continue doing it or seeing the growth of them as human beings essentially. To not just grow up to be a shitty person. You know what I'm saying? I feel like Poetry Slam does really well in being a DNA to help strengthen other parts of... Yeah.

Poetry Slam specifically, when you go through the process it's like accountability, and yeah, there's like the editing and revising and practice, but it's like-

Kate:

All that craft bullshit.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah. All that craft bullshit. But it's also like being responsible, being accountable, learning to follow up, learning how to make a dollar stretch, right? I booked them for an event on Tuesday. This past Tuesday. It was in Galveston and they're in Prairie View. That's a two hour drive. And they're broke college students and we were only getting paid $50. So in my head I'm like, hey, we didn't get paid anything when we went to places. When I was in their situation I was like, I didn't get paid anything, but okay.

Kate:

When I was a youth standing at the fence nobody paid me shit.

Speaker 4:

I'm standing at the fence. You know what I'm saying? So they're complaining, or one of them in particular is how much we going to make. That's not even worth it. We can't take two cars. And I'm like, don't take two cars, take one, take one car. It's only four of y'all.

Kate:

Just map out.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah. Take one car. And they're like, "How are we supposed to make this money?" I was like, "Sell your books." They're like, "Nobody wants to buy paper." I was like, "Yeah, they do. Yeah, they do." Now the reason why she said that is because they did not do the due diligence of trying to make a chat book look presentable. So they would have to deal copies and Xerox it in and do it themselves. I was like, yo, you got to sell the dream. Your kids essentially. Yeah. Yeah. You're trying to get somewhere, say, we're trying to get somewhere, buy our books. We'll sign it.

Kate:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

I wind up telling them, you're doing it because you're booked right? The way this world was and you need to make more than $50. They came back with 175.

Kate:

Shit.

Speaker 4:

I'm like, good. And then they're like, oh, we're so glad we did it.

Speaker 6:

That's awesome.

Speaker 4:

I'll be really glad when you shut up because I'm missing Coachella. Hurry up.

Kate:

Oh my gosh. I love it.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Kate:

Dude, we could talk to you all day. Do you want to just hang out all day for the rest of the day?

Speaker 4:

I mean, why not? I mean, y'all kicking me off. Y'all got no more questions?

Kate:

No, what else we have?

Speaker 6:

Can we end with a five minute poem?

Speaker 4:

A five minute poem or a poem?

Speaker 6:

Or a poem.

Speaker 4:

Because this is... You know what I mean? I have a face for radio. I get it. You know what I mean? Five minute poems, so part of it is like the action and me writing it.

Speaker 6:

Oh, okay. No, no, no. Let's do a poem.

Speaker 4:

Okay, cool.

Speaker 6:

Could we give you words that you could put together or something?

Kate:

You can recite whatever you want.

Speaker 6:

Yeah. Or something-

Speaker 4:

I can freestyle. I can freestyle. I can do that. But I would rather do another poem.

Speaker 6:

Okay. Yeah.

Kate:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

I would rather do a poem-

Kate:

Let's do it.

Speaker 4:

... that I have prepared and perfected.

Speaker 6:

Okay.

Kate:

Let's do it.

Speaker 4:

During the night, I feel my moon looks up to me. Even from down here, my moon doesn't judge my gravity because he pulls for me. He knows the power behind preposition, positioning soul between midnight. Yet before dawn, my moon whispers to me saying, find a way to keep your head above the clouds. Wow. Your feet, your souls, and your soul remains grounded. However, never underneath it my moon always knows what's best for me despite wherever I am standing. The best parts of my nearby is somewhere in my insides. My moon y'all is a proclamation. He always knows how to make his exclamation point stating, each day coming should be seen as an unto until we are all up on. Then go into it. And I send that off as a prayer to my brother, my late brother. And he responds saying, bruh, I know that you're cozy in.

Arms stretch wide to an attainable sky. We don't get too much information up here, but I here for the past 11 years, you've been letting everyone know where your name Outspoken Bean came from. Yeah. That's a bet. I mean, since we just shooting the breeze, tell me, have the Saints finally won a Super Bowl yet? Say bruh. Our scope is enscape. So escape as much as you think you can, bruh. I don't have too much advice for you, but could you tell my daughter Larinique that the weight of royalties? Well, those are crowns and the best ones are handmade. Say bruh. I know that you're cozy in. Arms stretch wide on attainable sky, and every time you are in front a set of eyes give all of you, every ounce of you from me to you, bruh. That's it.

Speaker 6:

Oh, so good.

Kate:

Those kids are lucky to have you, man.

Speaker 6:

Yes. Yes.

Speaker 5:

So you write it all down first or do you just kind of freestyle out loud and then write it down?

Speaker 4:

Nah, I just little both, but I usually am writing and talking. So those are two different poems that I brought together. The first one that's called Solidify All, and I wrote it with the moon as a she. Originally, I wrote the moon as a she. I was writing it. I do this thing called Midweek Stanzas where I released a video for 10 weeks at a time. And my producer, the first line that came to my head was, I feel my moon looks up to me, and then just the rest came out. Then the second one is called Say Bruh, and it's to my brother who passed away 12 years ago, February. And I don't know, it's kind of like if he was to talk back to me. Last year, it was 11 years. If he was to talk back to me 11 years, what were some things that he would possibly say in his speech pattern? And then I changed the pronoun of she to he because it felt like it would be him.

Speaker 5:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

And I connected. Yeah. I just connected. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Kate:

Thank you. Thanks for being on the show and sharing your love and your poetry.

Speaker 4:

This is awesome. Thank y'all. Thank y'all for the work you're doing.

Kate:

Oh man.

Speaker 4:

Appreciate it.

Kate:

We are here right now. We are gathered here in this moment to celebrate Katherine Coldiron, who brings an amazing book to the table. We had a chance to review briefly because AWP is in constant motion and people are here and people aren't here, and you're here. So now we get to talk about it. Nobody at home saw me doing big arms and all kinds of gestures around that, but I was doing them, and I want to talk about Ceremonials.

Katherine Coldiron:

Okay. I'm Ready.

Kate:

Which is a tribute, sort of.

Katherine Coldiron:

Sort of.

Kate:

Tribute is probably the wrong word.

Katherine Coldiron:

I say it's inspired by,

Kate:

It's inspired by Florence and the Machine.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes.

Kate:

Which I'm so excited to hear you talk about.

Katherine Coldiron:

Well, the idea for me was when I listened to the album, I felt like there was a story in the album that the text of the album wasn't telling. It seemed like it was all in subtext and I wanted to tell it. So I feel like the album and the book both have ghosts, and girls, and a school, and obsessive love, and betrayal. But other than that, it's my own story kind of tacked on top of the album. People have asked me if it stands alone, and I don't know the answer to that. I hope that it does. I just wanted to anticipate that next question.

Kate:

Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. It makes my job so much easier.

Katherine Coldiron:

You just do a self interview.

Kate:

I'm thinking... I just finished reading Hanif Abdurraqib's Non-Fiction Collection. It's not a collection, it's a book called Go Ahead In the Rain which is about A Tribe Called Quest.

Katherine Coldiron:

I reviewed that actually.

Kate:

You did?

Katherine Coldiron:

Yeah.

Kate:

Oh my God. So I'm like telling you shit you already know.

Katherine Coldiron:

No, no, no. I reviewed like a hundred books last year, so it's fine.

Speaker 6:

Where is your review found? In what format?

Katherine Coldiron:

I was freelance. So the review of that book was in Book and Film Globe, or maybe it was Rock and Roll Globe, I can't remember. But if you search Coldiron Abdurraqib I think that's the only review. No, I've written another review of his, but yes, just have a look there.

Kate:

Yeah. Yeah. What was striking to me was that that book made me want to go back and do the whole discography.

Katherine Coldiron:

I did the same thing.

Kate:

Did you really?

Katherine Coldiron:

Because I was not that familiar with the Tribe Called Quest.

Kate:

I wasn't either. I knew the big songs and that's it. I mean, the best a writer can hope for, because he obviously had an audience that wasn't me for sure. And to write in such a way that would commit a person to go back. And so ceremonials doesn't have to... I don't think you have to know.

Katherine Coldiron:

I don't think you do. One of my early readers was Christopher Higgs, who's a writer, a much more famous writer than I am. He had no idea that it was based or that it was inspired by the album. And then he interviewed me fairly recently at Skylight Books. And so he went back and tried to listen to the album and he said he got 30 seconds into the first song before he was like, I can't. I can't. I have to just take the book by itself.

Kate:

Oh, he just wanted to keep it in his capsule. Oh my gosh.

Katherine Coldiron:

Which I'm shocked at that because he's usually a very crossmedia kind of guy, but he was not interested.

Kate:

Wow. But then the flip side is true too. Yeah?

Katherine Coldiron:

Oh, I think so. I mean, there are a hell of a lot more Florence and the Machine fans than there are fans of mine. So happy with that.

Speaker 5:

Well, you were telling me a little bit about how you got the art from your book, and that's really cool. Even more multimedia-

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes.

Speaker 5:

... in the information age. How did you do that?

Katherine Coldiron:

So my editor sent me some suggestions for art that she found on Instagram that she thought would be good for the cover. And unfortunately I didn't like any of them. And she said, "Well, why don't you go on Instagram and have a look?" And I went, "Okay." Because I hate Instagram. And I found this... I don't remember which image I found first, but I found this artist, Mariana Magana Delio, and she provided the cover and then a bunch of the illustrations that are in the book. And they were all pre-made. People have asked me if the book was illustrated afterward. And no, we found these illustrations. We thought they were amazing. They went along with the book really nicely. So my editor acquired them and now they're part of the book.

Kate:

Oh my gosh, that's so cool.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yeah.

Kate:

That's amazing. And did you have any contact with the artist?

Katherine Coldiron:

I didn't. My editor must have obviously, but I did not.

Kate:

Okay. So cool.

Katherine Coldiron:

I thanked her in the acknowledgements.

Speaker 5:

Oh, that's beautiful.

Katherine Coldiron:

Thank you.

Kate:

Are you still working with Vita?

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes.

Kate:

Tell us about the amazing work that Vita does.

Katherine Coldiron:

I will.

Kate:

[inaudible 00:41:51] count. Yeah.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes. So for those who are not familiar with Vita at all, every year they go through most of the major publications in English, I think. And they count the bylines of people who write stories, essays and reviews, and then the books that are reviewed in a given publication and they figure out what the genders, basically. Like how many books by women are reviewed in the New York Review of books, and how many essays by men are written in Harpers, and how many non-binary writers appear in the Paris Review. And so they do this count and then they release the results. I think it's like six months after the year ends.

And this count has been going on for quite a few years now, and it invariably shows that the representation for women and non-binary authors is unbelievably poor in our best... In our finest publications in English it's pathetic. And so Vita's bringing attention to that. They do a lot of other literary citizenship stuff. It's so diverse that I don't know a lot about it. Also, I was just recently brought on board to do something that's kind of siloed from Vita's main job, so I don't know a lot about it, but oh my goodness. Their work is amazing and tireless, and it's all volunteers.

Kate:

There is a chapter in the literary publishing in the 21st Century, which just a great book for anyone who wants to get kind of a lay of the land. There's contributors for each chapter, and I think there's maybe 14 chapters. Kevin Prufer is one of the editors out at U of H, and Aaron Billu, and I'm blanking on the other author of that article, which will link to an episode notes, I apologize. The other article of that chapter writes a great take explaining the origin story for Vita, which is so cool. It's a great place to start if you want to know more about that in addition to the things that you just mentioned. Can you talk about the other thing that you're doing for them?

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes. The first issue of the Relaunched Vita Review, which is a separate whole publication, just came out three days ago on March 2nd. And it features poetry and short fiction and a little bit of creative nonfiction, and one interview, which was my responsibility. That was the only thing I had to do was bring in this interview.

Kate:

Nice.

Katherine Coldiron:

And I did, it's with Lidia Yuknavitch, conducted by Kelly Thompson and-

Speaker 5:

Oh my God.

Kate:

We were just talking about Lidia in the car on the way over here.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yay. Yeah, she's terrific.

Speaker 5:

Verge is so good. Verge is amazing.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yeah. So the new Vita review is out now. I think we're doing them quarterly, so the next one will be in a couple of months. And I'm the reviews and interviews editor, so if you want to pitch me, you can.

Kate:

Congrats. That's so cool.

Katherine Coldiron:

Thank you.

Kate:

So you're reading pitches. How do you go about finding the next person for your interviews?

Katherine Coldiron:

Because I've been working mostly as a book critic for the last two years. I'm all plugged into that scene, familiar with a bunch of other critics and ton of indie presses and indie magazines, so it's not too difficult. We always have difficulty finding reviewers of color in any publication that I work for. Finding books that are fascinating that I want to cover by writers of color and finding people that I want to interview that are writers of color is, that's totally easy. But finding people who can do the critical work is so difficult. Part of the problem is-

Kate:

Why do you think that is?

Katherine Coldiron:

Well, I think part of the problem is that Vita and the other publication that I do editing for at Barrelhouse, neither of them are paying markets for reviews or interviews. And so when I do a call for reviewers of color, they believe that I'm asking for free work specifically from writers of color, that I'm trying to specifically exploit writers of color. And that's not true. No one gets paid. I don't get paid. But we always want critics of color and we just don't have a budget.

Kate:

Yeah, yeah. Well, talk about that hustle then. So how are you getting paid?

Katherine Coldiron:

I have a different job. We all have day jobs.

Kate:

I don't mean to put you on the spot, but it is something that we don't talk about often.

Katherine Coldiron:

Totally.

Kate:

I mean, I think there's a sort of groundswell that people are starting to talk about it, but unless you are up on the high list, if you're a middle lister, you do have a day job.

Katherine Coldiron:

Absolutely.

Kate:

You're doing something else and the rest of this is your passion.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yeah. Yeah. It's important to me to say that. I do have a job, but I also, my husband has a very good job, so he pays for a whole lot of my life, and I am happy to admit that to anyone who asks because that is part of my privilege. And I wish that writers were better paid and more commonly paid in this moment, in this cultural moment, but that's just not where we are right now.

Kate:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I would like to turn to something I found in my little dive into your world. If you were a fan of listicles...

Katherine Coldiron:

If.

Kate:

If you were of the product of a particular moment in time, and listicles was your jam, Katherine has this great list of top five underrated craft books.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes. I loved writing that list.

Kate:

It's so fun. And we talk about craft books all the time on the show, and so I don't even know when you wrote it into relationship to today, but if you want to talk about some of those books. The Steve Oman book is amazing.

Katherine Coldiron:

I wrote it like two years ago, so I'm pretty sure I remember the five books.

Kate:

You have a better memory than I do because I don't remember what I ate yesterday.

Katherine Coldiron:

Well, these books were five that I recommend all the time that no one's ever heard of, because people recommend Stephen King's on writing constantly. They recommend Bird by Bird constantly.

Kate:

Yeah, right.

Katherine Coldiron:

But yeah, these five were ones that I thought needed more attention. The first one is Steve Almond's book, which is called, This Won't Take But A Minute Honey. And it's only available from one place, the Harvard Bookstore, and it's a print on demand book. So you have to order it online. It takes three weeks or whatever, but it's incredibly short. It's I think 30 pages. And it's just this really clever brief craft book that is super helpful and it explains things like why you shouldn't use dialogue tags other than said and why you shouldn't... It's a great book. Another one is a book called Thanks and Sorry and Good Luck by Lee Klein, which is actually for sale at the Barrelhouse table right now.

Kate:

I'm going to follow you over there tonight.

Katherine Coldiron:

It's from Barrelhouse Books and it's collected rejections from Eye Shot Magazine, which is no longer in print, but it doesn't offer any information about the submissions. It just offers the rejections.

Kate:

Doesn't that sound amazing? It's so cool because this-

Speaker 5:

It's such a good idea. You can dive into that and get a lot of material.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes. And the random stuff that's in there is so funny. It's like, do not submit stuff about teeth. Stop submitting stuff about teeth.

Speaker 5:

Oh my God.

Katherine Coldiron:

You are still submitting stuff about teeth. Stop. It's great. It's an amazing book.

Speaker 5:

That's a very specific rejection.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes. Yeah, they're great. One of them is Plato, which is a really weird book.

Kate:

Which looks fucking weird.

Katherine Coldiron:

It's super weird.

Kate:

Yeah.

Katherine Coldiron:

It's great for prompts because it's from the early 20th century. So for the record, a lot of the plots are racist and outdated, but you can also replace them like Madlibs, which is very entertaining. And it's basically a mathematical algorithm for setting up a plot of a fast moving book. So you get a thriller and you get... I'm going to sound like a crazy person explaining it. You're going to have to look it up, you guys. It's called Plato and it's cool. It's a good book.

Kate:

Yeah. It looks so appealing. It looks like such a great teaching tool.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes.

Kate:

Like endless sort of applications. You could talk about why this is racist and how we should not do this.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes.

Kate:

And what do we do? How do we mine for the gold in this section or whatever?

Katherine Coldiron:

Well, and also it's got a lot of obsolete stuff, like people who can't get in contact with each other, which now we all have phones. So it adds to questions like, okay, what do we gain from setting something in the past? What do we gain from setting something in the present? I mean, it is-

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:50:04]

Katherine Coldiron:

From setting something in the past, what do we gain from setting something in the present? I mean, it is such a cool book. I don't remember the other two.

Kate:

I don't have it in front of me, but we're just going to direct our listeners to go find your work. We can lead them to your other stuff, too.

Katherine Coldiron:

It's on Craft Magazine, I believe. But yeah, it's on my website, kcoldiron.com.

Kate:

Nice. So you're doing reviews. What other freelance work are you doing? Or is that enough? If you did 100 books last year, that's a lot.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yeah, I did a lot last year.

Kate:

Are you going to do 100 books this year?

Katherine Coldiron:

No, no, no. I'm cutting way down on my reviewing, because it was just way too much.

Kate:

Well, and you have a book to promote.

Katherine Coldiron:

That too.

Kate:

Yeah.

Katherine Coldiron:

Right now, I am cutting back on freelance. I work with horses during the day, and that's making me so happy that I'm not sad enough to write. I mainly write hybrid essays right now, and it's very, very difficult to find good markets for that, especially because mine are so long. If you have a 1,200 word hybrid essay, no problem. If you have a 5,000 word hybrid essay, less so.

Kate:

Give us an example of one that you're working on. A long-form hybrid.

Katherine Coldiron:

I'm just finishing up a collection of essays that each essay entails film criticism, fiction, and memoir, so they all wrap up together. I'm writing about The Misfits, the movie from 1961, and the Myth of the American West and horses and kind of what happens when you try to shove a big personality into a tiny little box. So it's an idea essay, so there are nine others like that in this collection.

Kate:

Very cool. So if you're out there, and you're a publisher, and this is the thing, this is the exact thing that you're looking for, you should make your way to Katharine Coldiron.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yes, please.

Kate:

Oh my gosh. Speaking of finding places for different genre, how'd you find your way to Kernpunkt? Am I saying that right?

Katherine Coldiron:

I think so. Kernpunkt. This is true. In late 2018, I tweeted that I was very disappointed that Ceremonials had been turned down by so many presses, because I didn't know where to go next, because it was too short for some presses and it was too long for others, and it was too experimental for this... No one wanted it. And I tried, it was a complaint, but it was as nice as I could make it. It was kind of, my heart is breaking because I love this book so much and no one wants it. And Kernpunkt tweeted back and they were like, "We want to see your manuscript."

Kate:

Oh my gosh.

Katherine Coldiron:

I know. And then they accepted it.

Kate:

That's the freaking Cinderella story of Twitter.

Katherine Coldiron:

I don't think that would ever happen. I can't believe it happened that way, but it really did.

Kate:

That's fantastic. We hear all kinds of publishing journeys on the show and a simple tweet, I don't know that we've gotten that publishing story. Have we, Fu?

Fu:

I don't think so.

Kate:

Producer Larry, can you weigh in?

Larry:

That a simple tweet...

Kate:

Can you check your Rolodex in your head?

Larry:

Fulfilled a dream of one author?

Katherine Coldiron:

I think a lot of people resonated with the feeling of heartbreak, because they knew this manuscript was good, and that was kind of what I was trying to say.

Kate:

Yeah, no, and I can think of four authors I know who are in that same place, and you just never know what's going to come around the next day. Keep doing it.

Katherine Coldiron:

Yeah.

Kate:

Keep your ass in the chair. Keep tweeting.

Katherine Coldiron:

Keep complaining. That's what I learned.

Fu:

Put those complaints out there.

Katherine Coldiron:

Can you guys tell me a little bit about, am I allowed to say it on the air? Shakespeare?

Fu:

Yeah, sure.

Katherine Coldiron:

Fucking Shakespeare. Tell me about this because I'm already on board, but I don't know anything about the podcast.

Kate:

So we started this podcast-

Katherine Coldiron:

Here I am on the podcast.

Kate:

Four seasons ago. We're the Four Seasons. We are the Four Seasons of literary podcasts. Luxury end podcast, guys.

Lily Wolf Meyer:

You're not going to be ab