Keep the Channel Open
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...
info_outline Episode 147: KTCO "Book" Club - Baldur's Gate 3 (with Maggie Tokuda-Hall)Keep the Channel Open
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: | | | | | Support: | | Connect: | | | | Show Notes: Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: ...
info_outline Episode 146: Olatunde OsinaikeKeep the Channel Open
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: | | | | | Support: | | Connect: | | | | | Show Notes: Purchase...
info_outline Episode 145: KTCO Book Club - Bianca (with Rachel Zucker)Keep the Channel Open
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: | | | | | Support: | | Connect: | | | | | Show Notes: Purchase Bianca: | | Episode Credits Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa Music: Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo
info_outline Episode 144: Gerardo Sámano CórdovaKeep the Channel Open
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: | | | | | Support: | | Share: | Connect: |...
info_outline Episode 143: Nana Kwame Adjei-BrenyahKeep the Channel Open
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...
info_outline Episode 142: Rachel ZuckerKeep the Channel Open
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...
info_outline Episode 141: KTCO Book Club - The Scapegracers (with Sarah Gailey)Keep the Channel Open
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: | | | | | | Support: | | Share: | Connect: | | | | | Show Notes: Purchase The Scapegracers: | | Purchase The Scratch Daughters: | | Purchase Just...
info_outline Episode 140: Dayna PattersonKeep the Channel Open
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....
info_outline Episode 139: Joshua BurtonKeep the Channel Open
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....
info_outlineMaggie Smith is a poet and essayist based in Bexley, Ohio. Maggie’s new book Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change was born out of a difficult life change; it both discusses and is an example of resilience and hope in the face of an unknown future. In our conversation, we talked about the book’s origins in a series of social media notes-to-self, about becoming an essayist after having been a poet for so long, and about finding agency through language. Then for the second segment, we talked about community and connection via social media.
(Conversation recorded September 10, 2020.)
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Show Notes:
- Maggie Smith
- Maggie Smith - Keep Moving
- Literati Books - At Home With Literati - Maggie Smith & Molly Spencer (October 8, 2020)
- Books Are Magic - Maggie Smith: Keep Moving w/ Rebecca Soffer (October 14, 2020)
- Gramercy Books - A Virtual Conversation about Resilience: Maggie Smith and Saeed Jones (October 15, 2020)
- Maggie Smith - Upcoming Events
- Keep the Channel Open - Episode 49: Maggie Smith
- Maggie Smith - Good Bones
- Maggie Smith - “At Your Age I Wore a Darkness”
- Maggie Smith - “Tracking the Demise of My Marriage on Google Maps” (NYT Modern Love)
- Sabrina Orah Mark - “Happily” (The Paris Review)
- Angel Olsen - Whole New Mess
- Tove Jansson - The True Deceiver (upcoming KTCO Book Club pick)
Transcript
Episode Credits
- Editing/Mixing: Mike Sakasegawa
- Music: Podington Bear
- Transcription: Shea Aguinaldo