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SR Pod/Vod Series – Authors Talk: Author James McAdams

Cass Murphy

James McAdamsToday we’re proud to feature James McAdams as our twenty-fourth Authors Talk series contributor.
As James so succinctly puts it, this Talk encompasses “a few things I find very promising and distressing about writing and publishing in the year 2016.”

These things include:
–the steadily decreasing word count max on internet publications, and how this shifts stories and their aesthetics;
–flashy lead sentences vs starting out slow, and the challenges of getting published while keeping artistic vision;
–and how art impacts technology generally – which, as James so rightly notes, is the way it’s always been.

His is a smart, necessary conversation, and especially interesting to consider through the lens of online literary magazines like SR. As one illustration of the depth of this Talk, there were more quotes than usual that couldn’t fit in this introduction, all of them articulate, clever, and representative of the flavor of the whole podcast. As another illustration, the following lines describe some of the issues James speaks about with typical thoughtful consideration:

“There’s literally so much amazing writing being published out there that we can’t read it all; we literally don’t have the time, and it’s anxiety-inducing to think about all the great stories and magazines and multimedia installations on the web that I’d love to know about…. And this makes me feel guilty about saying, ‘you should, out of this vast library, select my story to spend your precious time on.’”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #210.

You can read James’s story “Nobody’s Children” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to him read it aloud in SR podcast #209.

 

More About the Author:
James McAdams has published fiction in decomP, Literary Orphans, One Throne Magazine, TINGE Magazine, Carbon Culture Review, per contra, and B.O.A.A.T. Press, among others. Before attending college, he worked as a social worker in the mental health industry near Philadelphia. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Lehigh University, where he also teaches and edits the university’s literary journal, Amaranth.

 

About the Authors Talk series:
For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Recording: Author James McAdams

Cass Murphy

James McAdamsThis Tuesday, we’re proud to feature SR contributor James McAdams reading his story “Nobody’s Children” on our podcast.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #209.

You can follow along with “Nobody’s Children” in Superstition Review, Issue 16.

James’s Authors Talk podcast was announced Friday April 15th, podcast #210.

More About the Author:
James McAdams has published fiction in decomP, Literary Orphans, One Throne Magazine, TINGE Magazine, Carbon Culture Review, per contra, and B.O.A.A.T. Press, among others. Before attending college, he worked as a social worker in the mental health industry near Philadelphia. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate in English at Lehigh University, where he also teaches and edits the university’s literary journal, Amaranth.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Authors Talk: Author Rena Lesué-Smithey

Cass Murphy

Today we’re proud to feature Rena Lesué-Smithey as our twenty-third Authors Talk series contributor, taking viewers behind-the-scenes of her own writing process in her vodcast “Keep Calm and Chew Gum.”

The vodcast opens with an examination of nonfiction writing, which Rena says incorporates “the moments in your life that haven’t faded,” and which may benefit both the writer and the reader. She then runs the gamut of situations that she and other writers often face while writing, exploring each methodically yet lightheartedly. She talks about regular “brain dumping” into a journal, the importance of tuning out distractions, and her dog Spike. She covers the stage she finds herself in her own writing career, an MFA program from which she gathers valuable feedback about her work, and jokes about stress gum-chewing: “I didn’t even realize that was a part of my process until I started making this podcast.”

Rena’s vodcast is a thoughtful exploration of the world in which a writer works, a topic that becomes richer with every participant.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #208.

You can read Rena’s nonfiction piece “The Passenger” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in SR podcast #207.

 

More About the Author:
Rena Lesué-Smithey teaches high school English and youth writing camps at BYU. In 2011, she was a Central Utah Writing Project fellow and editor for the Utah English Journal. She has five years of experience as a journalist, including three as a correspondent for The Daily Herald, and this summer she’ll finish her MFA in Creative Nonfiction through Cedar Crest College’s pan-European program. Her prose has appeared in Touchstones, Warp & Weave, Segullah, Ruminate, and Gris-Gris. Rena was a semi-finalist for the 2016 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and a finalist in the 2015 Heather Campbell Prose Contest. Rena grew up in Texas, Nevada, Missouri, and Mississippi and now resides in Utah with her husband, two kids, and their dog, Spike.

About the Authors Talk series:
For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Recording: Author Rena Lesué-Smithey

Cass Murphy

Rena Lesue-SmitheyThis Tuesday, we’re proud to feature SR contributor Rena Lesué-Smithey reading her nonfiction piece “The Passenger” on our podcast.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #206.

You can follow along with “The Passenger” in Superstition Review, Issue 16.

Rena’s Authors Talk went up on April 8th, podcast #207.

More About the Author:
Rena Lesué-Smithey teaches high school English and youth writing camps at BYU. In 2011, she was a Central Utah Writing Project fellow and editor for the Utah English Journal. She has five years of experience as a journalist, including three as a correspondent for The Daily Herald, and this summer she’ll finish her MFA in Creative Nonfiction through Cedar Crest College’s pan-European program. Her prose has appeared in Touchstones, Warp & Weave, Segullah, Ruminate, and Gris-Gris. Rena was a semi-finalist for the 2016 VanderMey Nonfiction Prize and a finalist in the 2015 Heather Campbell Prose Contest. Rena grew up in Texas, Nevada, Missouri, and Mississippi and now resides in Utah with her husband, two kids, and their dog, Spike.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Authors Talk: Author Darrin Doyle

Cass Murphy

Darrin DoyleToday we’re proud to feature Darrin Doyle as our twenty-second Authors Talk series contributor, discussing his story “Big Winner” in his podcast “Better in a Character.”

It’s a detailed and thoughtful discussion from start to finish, kicking off with a smart deviation of a recognizable concept – “This story began as a lot of my pieces do, with an opening line…and that opening line now is deleted forever, but it was enough to get me into the story.” – and concluding by twisting writers’ perception of what makes an interesting character: “in some ways, a character not changing can be as compelling as a character undergoing a change.”

In between, Darrin explores the other elements of his story that stayed in, including “characters who aren’t warm and fuzzy” and the writing techniques and influences he used to create, as he puts it, a believable fairy tale. Then there’s the humorous, true, and frightening premise that the story hinges on, that “an older woman who is set in her ways can create some conflict.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #206.

You can read “Big Winner” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to Darrin read it aloud in SR podcast #204 or #205 (to play #204, ‘get’ and access in My iTunes U).

 

More About the Author:
Darrin Doyle’s most recent book is the story collection, The Dark Will End the Dark (Tortoise Books). He is the author of the novels The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo (St. Martin’s Press) and Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet: A Love Story (LSU Press). He lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan and teaches at Central Michigan University.

 

About the Authors Talk series:
For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Recording: Author Darrin Doyle

Cass Murphy

Darrin DoyleThis Tuesday, we’re proud to feature SR contributor Darrin Doyle reading his story “Big Winner” on our podcast.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #204 or #205 (to play #204, ‘get’ and access in My iTunes U).

You can follow along with Darrin’s work in Superstition Review, Issue 16.

Also check out Darrin’s Authors Talk podcast (#206), announced April 1st.

More About the Author:
Darrin Doyle’s most recent book is the story collection, The Dark Will End the Dark (Tortoise Books). He is the author of the novels The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo (St. Martin’s Press) and Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet: A Love Story (LSU Press). He lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan and teaches at Central Michigan University.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Authors Talk: Author Brianna Bjarnson

Cass Murphy

Brianna BjarnsonToday we’re proud to feature SR contributor Brianna Bjarnson as our twenty-first Authors Talk series contributor with her podcast “Writing the Human.” In it, she discusses her non-fiction piece “Gone” and touches on writing “as a process, craft, and compulsion.”

Brianna’s Authors Talk covers these things with great breadth and purpose. She begins by addressing the importance of being read to as a child, through which she herself “discovered the world of stories.”

She then discusses her process behind writing “Gone,” and shares her philosophies on writing to discover and getting “at the heart of what it is to be human.”
“I think that any writing you do no matter the genre – even if you come to it with a plan – it should change somehow and end up surprising you, or it probably isn’t any good.”

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #203.

 

You can read Brianna Bjarnson’s nonfiction piece “Gone” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in SR podcast #202.

 

More About the Author:
Brianna Bjarnson is a multi-genre writer whose childhood daydreaming once caused a frustrated, second-grade teacher to bite her. Since then, she has better learned how to positively channel her overactive imagination. Brianna teaches and tutors writing in the alluring San Francisco North Bay, where she enjoys getting lost in the woods with her dog.

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

 

 

SR Pod/Vod Series – Recording: Author Brianna Bjarnson

Cass Murphy

Brianna BjarnsonThis Tuesday, we’re proud to feature SR contributor Brianna Bjarnson reading her nonfiction piece “Gone” on the SR podcast.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #202.

You can follow along with Brianna’s work in Superstition Review, Issue 16.

Also check out Brianna Bjarnson’s Authors Talk podcast (#203), announced March 25th.

 

More About the Author:
Brianna Bjarnson is a multi-genre writer whose childhood daydreaming once caused a frustrated, second-grade teacher to bite her. Since then, she has better learned how to positively channel her overactive imagination. Brianna teaches and tutors writing in the alluring San Francisco North Bay, where she enjoys getting lost in the woods with her dog.

 

SR Pod/Vod Series – Author Talk: Poet Laurie Filipelli

Cass Murphy

laurie-filipelli-bw-600Laurie SToday we’re proud to feature SR poetry contributor Laurie Filipelli and poet Laurie Saurborn in the twentieth installment of our Authors Talk series.

Fittingly, their podcast “’Potalk’ with Lauries: Memory and Nostalgia in Poetry” returns again and again to the idea of using memories as building blocks to create something new. This includes what, why, and how we remember, and also how these can be used to create art. In one instance, the Lauries laugh about the potential of getting confused by the embellished bedtime stories parents tell their children.  In another, Laurie Filipelli talks about her poem “Warrior” and the emotional connection to her father, a former POW – simultaneously recalling an earlier conversational thread about how “whether the memory is factual or imagined, it’s the emotional resonance of whatever our earlier experiences were” that influence us today.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #201.

You can read Laurie Filipelli’s poem “Warrior” in Superstition Review Issue 16, and listen to her read it aloud in podcast #200.

 

More About the Authors:

Laurie Filipelli is the author of a collection of poems, Elseplace, released by BrooklynArts Press in 2013. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming at apt, BOAAT, Coldfront, The Pinch, Redheaded Stepchild, The Rumpus, Salamander, So and So, and Xavier Review. She is the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship, and lives in Austin where she works as a writer, editor, and writing coach.

Laurie Saurborn is the author of two poetry collections, Industry of Brief Distraction (Saturnalia Books, 2015) and Carnavoria (H_NGM_N BKS, 2012), and a limited-edition chapbook, Patriot (Forklift, Ink.). A 2015 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship recipient, she is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Her poetry, fiction, essays, photographs, and reviews have appeared in publications such as American Microreviews & Interviews, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, Mississippi Review, Narrative Magazine, The American Reader, The Rumpus, and Tupelo Quarterly. She has been awarded residencies at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts, and Madroño Ranch: A Center for Writing, Art, and the Environment. Laurie teaches creative writing at the University of Texas, Austin, where she also directs the undergraduate creative writing program. (Pictured right. Photo credit Patti James.)

 

About the Authors Talk series:

For several years, we have featured audio or video of Superstition Review contributors reading their work. We’ve now established a new series of podcasts called Authors Talk. The podcasts in this series take a broader scope and feature SR contributors discussing their own thoughts on writing, the creative process, and anything else they may want to share with listeners.

SR Pod/Vod Series – Recording: Poet Laurie Filipelli

Cass Murphy

laurie-filipelli-bw-600This Tuesday, we’re proud to feature SR contributor Laurie Filipelli reading her poem “Warrior” on our podcast.

You can listen to the podcast on our iTunes Channel, #200.

You can follow along with Laurie’s work in Superstition Review, Issue 16.

Her Authors Talk podcast with Laurie Saurborn was released March 15, #201.

More About the Author:
Laurie Filipelli is the author of a collection of poems, Elseplace, released by Brooklyn Arts Press in 2013. Her poems and essays have appeared or are forthcoming at apt, BOAAT, Coldfront, The Pinch, Redheaded Stepchild, The Rumpus, Salamander, So and So, and Xavier Review. She is the recipient of a Yaddo fellowship, and lives in Austin where she works as a writer, editor, and writing coach.