Shadow // Yaddo

Read. Listen. Tinker. Walk a mile in another’s narrative, with artists as your guide. Broadcasting hope, resistance, humor and curiosity — Shadow // Yaddo is a new podcast hosted by Elaina Richardson.

Scars On The Soul 05/07/2025

Scars On The Soul John Kelly and Paul Lisicky on storytelling, subversion, and a voice that still breaks our hearts—Joni Mitchell. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/36474785

Art Grows Out of Life 03/27/2025

Art Grows Out of Life Composers Paul Austerlitz and Daniel Thomas Davis on vodou pilgrimages, lake vibes, life as collaboration, playing the hurdy-gurdy, and more. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/35887310

Space on Wheels 11/06/2024

Space on Wheels A.S.M. Kobayashi on hanging out with archivists, navigating space on wheels, playing with audio, finding transcendence in everyday objects, and more. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/33820478

Understructure 09/09/2024

Understructure Ron Baron on limitless exploration, the history of the urn, hands as tools, and embracing brokenness. PLUS: Preview Laurie Anderson's Amelia. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/32973282

Real Time 08/02/2024

Real Time Masterful novelists Rebecca Makkai and Porochista Khakpour on her latest, Tehrangeles, plus parodies, parables, short attention spans, diaspora drama, K-pop, and more. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/32293292

Icons 07/01/2024

Icons Walk on the wild side, with two phenomenal biographers: Cynthia Carr on Candy Darling—dreamer, icon, superstar—and Brad Gooch on pop-art activist Keith Haring. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/31966332

Carson Comeback! 06/04/2024

Carson Comeback! Revel in all things Carson McCullers, the wunderkind writer who catapulted to fame in 1940 with the publication of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. On tap: Mary V. Dearborn, author of the biography Carson McCullers: A Life; and Suzanne Vega. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/31600562

Secret Studio Lives 03/27/2024

Secret Studio Lives Audio from 1890, the symbolic power of pizza, blue suede shoes, thinking like a vulture, and more in our season roundup of favorite moments, with Nafis White, Chris Rush, Alexi Worth, Odili Donald Odita, Daron Hagen, Sam Lipsyte, Will Hermes, Lee Clay Johnson, David Gates, Brian Evenson, Ilana Boltvinik, Martha McPhee and Edgar Oliver. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/30569758

Hair's Breadth 01/04/2024

Hair's Breadth Interdisciplinary artist Nafis M. White on unraveling history, finding resilience and beauty in loss, and enlisting raw materials like hair to explore power and identity. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/29343748

Somewhere 12/14/2023

Somewhere Leonard Bernstein—the conductor and composer known globally for his charisma and style—comes roaring back into the public discourse. We celebrate Lenny’s relationship with Yaddo via a conversation with one of his mentees, acclaimed composer Daron Hagen. PLUS: Edgar Oliver, “the poet laureate of New York’s dispossessed” (The New York Times), performs an excerpt of his latest one-man show, Rip Tide, an ode to The Pyramid Club, which offered an early haven for artists and outcasts in New York City’s downtown, late ’70s scene. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Ned Rorem. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/29078213

Form, Scale, Medium 11/23/2023

Form, Scale, Medium Art converges with nature, meticulous work that spans decades and continents, making the impossible possible and more, with a feature on internationally acclaimed sculptor Martin Puryear. PLUS: Preview Missy Mazzoli’s “Dark with Excessive Bright”—nominated for a Grammy, fingers crossed! /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/28773683

Understory 11/09/2023

Understory Forest restoration, how families avoid reality, coming to terms with trauma, healthy ecosystems and more, with luminous storyteller Martha McPhee, author of five novels and the long-awaited memoir, Omega Farm. PLUS: A recap of the Yaddo Artist Reunion! Contributing artist: Joseph Keckler. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/28560689

A Tear in the Veil 10/26/2023

A Tear in the Veil Ghosts, artificial intelligence, horror, estrangement and more, with acclaimed writers Vauhini Vara (The Immortal King Rao, This Is Salvaged) and Brian Evenson, author of a dozen books of fiction, including Altmann’s Tongue and The Open Curtain. Contributing artist: Joseph Keckler. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/28434650

True Song 08/10/2023

True Song On the Black roots of the banjo, the godfather of bluegrass, novelist as bandleader, and more, with a trio of talented musicians and writers: Celebrated author, bass player and literary outlaw Lee Clay Johnson in conversation with the incomparable David Gates, powerhouse on guitar, vocals, pedal steel, and author of several works of knock-out fiction. PLUS: Preview the new documentary featuring supernova Rhiannon Giddens. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/27713454

Blue Is the Cure 07/20/2023

Blue Is the Cure Explore liminal worlds with three phenomenal Yaddo artists: Painter Elliott Green and the writer and artist Chris Rush on landscapes of the mind, blue suede shoes, outsider empathy and more. Plus: Eleni Sikelianos performs an excerpt of the title poem from her latest collection, Your Kingdom. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Last Train Home, Claude Debussy, Josef Sikelianos and Kat White. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/27522333

Wild Side 07/06/2023

Wild Side On music, the ’90s, and NYC cool: Bestselling novelist Sam Lipsyte (The Ask, Home Land, No One Left to Come Looking for You) in conversation with esteemed music critic, journalist and author of the forthcoming magnum opus, a biography of Lou Reed, Will Hermes. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/27391806

All a Canvas Holds 06/22/2023

All a Canvas Holds Every art form has its own language, a puzzle to unlock. One of the great joys of life is having a conversation with an artist who can decipher the code for us and allow us to see paintings anew. For this episode, we visit art galleries with two phenomenal Yaddo artists: Odili Donald Odita—the Nigerian American abstract painter whose vibrant large-scale paintings and site-specific installations mirror the mixed realities of life—and Alexi Worth, the acclaimed critic and painter whose work explores what it means, in our digitally supersaturated environment, for pictures to be “mindmade and handmade.” Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Veterinarian, The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Special thanks to and . /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/27239658

Hear Now 06/01/2023

Hear Now Archival audio, a love story, new tech, and more! Hear some of the first sounds ever recorded: The New York Public Library (NYPL) digitized rare wax cylinders from Yaddo’s archive and made them available for the first time in more than 130 years. We’ll chat with the NYPL team who made this happen. PLUS: The Lazours will be headlining our Summer Benefit on June 22. Contributing artist: Joseph Keckler. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/27020064

Trash! 05/18/2023

Trash! Shadow Yaddo hosted by Elaina Richardson is out now! Tres—Ilana Boltvinik and Rodrigo Viñas—is an art research collective based in Mexico City. They explore the implications of garbage on critical ecosystems, relying upon artistic inquiry, science, anthropology, and archeology, among other disciplines. Their exquisitely beautiful and challenging work ranges from tracking plastics in the ocean to mining for precious metals in abandoned electronic devices as well as the study of vultures and our reckoning with space trash. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Beck, New York Dolls. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/26883504

Snow Day! 12/08/2022

Snow Day! Celebrating the conclusion of Season 2, with a behind-the-scenes take on Shadow // Yaddo. Plus: A few of our favorite moments featuring Moby, Terry McMillan, Mark Morris, Elizabeth Strout and more dazzling talents. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, John Coltrane, Patricia Towers, Colm Tóibín, Dona Ann McAdams, Saudi Burton, Fred Hersch, Dean Haspiel, Pat Palermo, Danielle Spencer, Javier Barboza, Danyel Smith. Shadow // Yaddo is on a short winter break, returning early 2023. See you soon! /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/25270266

Divine Dissonance 11/17/2022

Divine Dissonance Inhabiting the space between two places, forms or cultures and exploring the tensions that dissonance creates: Celebrated author Gish Jen on post-Nixon China, finding humor in heartbreak, and her intuitive approach to writing virtuosic fiction. Syrian writer Ayad Awwadawnan on the hopes, dreams and humanity of refugees and his own journey to asylum. PLUS: New music from The Lazours! Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Daniel Lazour, Patrick Lazour. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/25051560

Above & Beyond 11/04/2022

Above & Beyond Here are two of the hardest working artists we know: Sculptor Harry Leigh on the decades of discipline that saw him through more than half a century of making art, plus his new show in Berlin. And Acclaimed filmmaker Javier Barboza on growing up in East L.A., turning talent into gold, and building a better world. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Billy Strange, Kid Frost, Delinquent Habits, Eartha Kitt, Kinto Sol. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/24900429

Showing Stories 10/20/2022

Showing Stories Boom, pow, bang! Nerd-out with the cool kids of comix: Emmy- and Ringo- award winning artist and writer Dean Haspiel in conversation with acclaimed painter and cartoonist Pat Palermo on the quotidian life, faux bravado, truth as prism—and all you never knew about Spiderman. PLUS: Superstar novelist and TV writer Victor LaValle on how his discovery of comic books led to, well, books in general, both reading and writing. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Prince. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/24746967

Keep On 10/06/2022

Keep On Patricia Towers—extraordinary editor, formidable poker player and supreme Virgo—in conversation with bestselling novelist Elizabeth Strout on process, persistence and her new novel, Lucy by the Sea, hailed by The Guardian as the “most nuanced and intensely moving Lucy Barton novel yet.” PLUS: A dip into the archive, celebrating “Yaddo firsts”—composer George Walker and poets Etheridge Knight and Gwendolyn Brooks. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Duke Ellington. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/24601920

Big Bad Books 09/23/2022

Big Bad Books Banned Books Week: Let’s celebrate and safeguard, come hell or highwater, our freedom to read! Bestselling novelist Colm Tóibín on Salman Rushdie’s work and activism, the history of censorship in Ireland, and the slippery slope that is book banning. PLUS: Ariel Schrag, whose YA anthology Stuck in the Middle made the list of “Top 100 Most Banned Books of the Decade.” Contributing artists: Amitava Kumar, Joseph Keckler; Billy Bragg & Wilco; Tom Paxton, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/24469524

State of Mind 09/08/2022

State of Mind Time to get out of the hammock, and into the intellectual groove, with a discussion on narrative medicine, a field of study that applies skills used in analyzing literature to medicine, and the impacts of storytelling on our health, work and lives. Andrew Solomon is a writer and lecturer on politics, culture and psychology; winner of the National Book Award; and an activist in LGBTQ rights, mental health, and the arts. He is the author of several books, including The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression and Far from the Tree. He’ll be in conversation with Danielle Spencer, scholar, writer, artist, and the author of Metagnosis: Revelatory Narratives of Health and Identity and co-author of The Principles and Practice of Narrative Medicine. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, The Decemberists. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/24310812

Summer Break! 06/02/2022

Summer Break! We’re incredibly grateful to all who’ve listened and contributed to our “little podcast that could,” which began in September 2020 and now has listeners on every continent! Before we take a short summer break, we put together a highlight reel with a few favorite moments. See you in August for more Shadow // Yaddo! Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Sly and The Family Stone, Lauren Groff, Sheila Heti, Sarah Manguso, John Sims, Lynn Freed, Marianne Boruch, Doug Wright, James Lapine, Patricia Towers and David Sedaris. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/23297927

“Interrogate & Celebrate”, with Danyel Smith 04/28/2022

“Interrogate & Celebrate”, with Danyel Smith Danyel Smith on her new page-turner, Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop. With a self-described “lust for loud,” Danyel has spent decades as a reporter and editor on the music beat at major publications. This is the book she was born to write, braiding her own stories of ambition, doubt and heartbreak with those of the Black female artists she heralded. Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Whitney Houston, The Dixie Cups, Mary J. Blige, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/22934801

Jazz Hands, with Mark Morris and Fred Hersch 04/07/2022

Jazz Hands, with Mark Morris and Fred Hersch We’re betting on these virtuosic minds to power a post-pandemic renaissance: Mark Morris, “the most successful and influential choreographer alive” (The New York Times), and “living legend” (The New Yorker) Fred Hersch, jazz pianist and composer, on primal improvisation, ’60s tunes, the return to live performance, embracing the gay, and more. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/22714241

The Real Deal, with Terry McMillan 03/17/2022

The Real Deal, with Terry McMillan As an antidote to Orwellian doublespeak, we’re highlighting Yaddo artists whose work radiates authenticity: Bestselling novelist Terry McMillan on kicking booze to the curb, finding joy in a library, and writing clean prose with a clear head. PLUS: Theater superstar and songwriter extraordinaire Shaina Taub shares new music. Apocalypse party, anyone? Contributing artists: Joseph Keckler, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Shaina Taub’s new album, , comes out April 1. /episode/index/show/shadow-yaddo/id/22474997

Shadow // Yaddo

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