Episodes
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96. An Announcement from KR
We’d like to thank you, listeners, for your continued support and engagement with our podcasts. For more than six years, we have endeavored to bring you enlightening and entertaining conversations with some of the brightest lights in literature. After a good deal of deliberation, the KR team has...
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95. Nadia Reiman
Fiction Editor Kirsten Reach talks with Nadia Reiman ’05 about producing “The Out Crowd,” the episode of This American Life that was awarded the very first Pulitzer Prize in audio reporting; her latest reporting on immigration; her time at Kenyon working for WKCO; and how she “baby bird-ed” an...
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94. Ruth Awad
Kenyon Review's Andy Grace interviews poet Ruth Awad about interviewing her father about his immigration experience, poetry as a historical document, and finding language for our interior worlds.
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93. Dawn Davies
KR poetry fellow Molly McCully Brown interviews Dawn Davies, the GLCA’s 2019 New Writers Award winner about her draw to the unreliable narrator, our nimble relationship with time and her book Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces.
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92. T. C. Boyle
KR's Editor David Lynn sits down with T.C. Boyle, recipient of the 2019 Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and talks about inhabiting questions through fictional characters, testing the limits of form, and creating art for art's sake.
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91. Analicia Sotelo
KR fellow Molly McCully Brown converses with poet Analicia Sotelo about poetry’s ability to address the rhetoric of power, produce empathy, and create a space for mystery without dogma.
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90. David Baker
KR's own Andrew Grace interviews poetry editor David Baker about eco poetry in light of today's cultural, political and environmental moment.
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89. Dinty W. Moore
Author and KR workshop instructor Dinty W. Moore sits down with KR's Elizabeth Dark to discuss creative nonfiction, the tackling of truth-telling, the evolution and significance of his work with the journal Brevity, and tension between being productive and slowing down.
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88. Erick Gordon and Brad Richard
Brad Richard and Erick Gordon, seasoned writers, educators, and instructors of our KR Writers Workshop for Teachers, discuss their indelible workshop moments and the way creative writing brings wonder to language and excitement to communication.
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87. Carl Phillips
Poet Monica Sok, a Peter Taylor Fellow during the 2019 Writers Workshops, interviews poet and workshop instructor Carl Phillips about vulnerability, vision, and his process of letting go of a writing project.
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86. Stewart O’Nan
Editor at large Katharine Weber talks to Stewart O’Nan
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85. Lauren Winner
KR’s Elizabeth Dark talks with author Lauren Winner about spiritual writing, Image Journal, and Lauren's fascination with objects, practices, and disciplines.
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84. LGBTQ+ Lit Conversation 2019
In recognition of National LGBTQ+ History Month, Timothy Bussey, Assistant Director of Kenyon's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion interviews lecturer Bilal Tajildeen about Stoker's Dracula, Baldwin's Giovanni's Room, and queer literature from the late 19th to mid-20th century.
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83. Tommy Pico
Kenyon students Claire Oleson and Brent Matheny talk with poet Tommy Pico about the similarities between poetry and screenwriting, what to do with writing advice, a his choice of his nickname/persona "Teebs."
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82. Emily Jungmin Yoon
Emily Jungmin Yoon and Eloisa Amezcua talk about failures as openings to possibilities, the poet's work of filling in history's gaps, and Emily's poetry collection A Cruelty Special to Our Species.
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81. Shara McCallum
Poet Shara McCallum talks to KR’s Anna Duke Reach about memory as an afterlife and reconstructing those we’ve lost through the language we use.
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80. Ed Skoog
Want to know what the past felt like? Read the poems. Kenyon College Visiting Assistant Professor of English Matt Suazo catches up with Ed Skoog about New Orleans, cooperating with language, and the textures of poetry.
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79. Meg Freitag
Kenyon Review Associate and Intern Trudy Wrona interviews Meg Freitag about her new collection of poems, Edith, a book that explores grief and trauma through poems addressed to Freitag’s dead bird.
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78. Sarah Weinman
KR editor at large Katharine Weber talks with author Sarah Weinman about Nabokov's Lolita, our fascination with crime and our capability toward misdeeds.
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77. Proof Casts A Shadow: A Conversation
Kenyon Review fellow Misha Rai sits down with Gabrielle Bellot and Nay Saysourinho to discuss narratives that address the language of citizenship, colonialism, labels, and identity.
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76. Kimiko Hahn
Poet Kimiko Hahn talks about the significance of translation and conceiving words as portals and playgrounds with her Peter Taylor Fellow Sylvia Beato-Davis.
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75. R. O. Kwon
Best-selling author R.O. Kwon talks with Kenyon Review editor at large Katharine Weber about Kwon’s timely novel, “The Incendiaries.” They also discuss the many paths to becoming a writer and the multiple forms a writer’s life takes.
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74. Rodger Kamenetz
Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus and The History of Last Night’s Dream, speaks with his KR Writers Workshop Fellow Jessica Kinnison about the primary imagination, the American worship of honing one’s craft, and writing from soul vs. writing from persona.
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73. Eric Gansworth
Eric Gansworth, the author of “Secret Identity” in the Mar/Apr Kenyon Review, speaks with Editor at Large Janet McAdams about the compartmentalization of narratives from marginalized communities and the value of creating art within multiple genres and modes.
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72. Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine
Writers Workshop fellow Robyn-Phalen Rayson converses with writer Ghassan Abou-Zeinnedine about the role of comedy, folklore, grief and politics in the crafting of a narrative.
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71. Hilary Plum
Elizabeth Dark, KR’s associate director of programs, talks with prose writer Hilary Plum about documentary fiction, the experience of reading the news, and the stories we choose to keep in our collected memory.
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70. Elizabeth Lowe and Katherine Hedeen
Edgar Garbelotto and Katrine Øgaard Jensen converse with translators Elizabeth Lowe and Katherine Hedeen about literary translation as a creative discipline, the Kenyon Review’s Translation workshop, and how they came to fall in love with literary translation.
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69. Katharine Weber
Elizabeth Dark, KR Associate Director of Programs, interviews Katharine Weber, KR Editor at Large, about her newest book Still Life with Monkey and writing novels that pose moral questions about loyalties and secrets.
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68. Afaa Michael Weaver
Afaa Michael Weaver is interviewed by his writers workshop fellow Alexandra Barylski, and they talk about being cultural stewards, staying grounded amidst the machinery of getting attention, and viewing the writing workshop as meditation.
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67. Nabila Lovelace
Poet Eloisa Amezcua interviews poet Nabila Lovelace about the act of naming, the identification of violence, and the use of language to make sense of the places in which we find ourselves.
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66. Solmaz Sharif
Poet and Peter Taylor Fellow Nathan Lipps talks with poet Solmaz Sharif, one of our writers workshop instructors about a poem’s audience, staying in the discomfort of a poem, and revising one’s beliefs within a workshop experience.
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65. Daniel Poppick
Daniel Poppick talks with KR’s own Andrew Grace about fragmented language, the life of a working poet, and his two collections of poetry, Police and Fear of Description.
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64. LGBTQ+ Lit: A Conversation
In recognition of National LGBTQ+ History Month, we present this bonus episode in which Timothy Bussey talks to Richie Hofmann, Juniper Jordan Cruz, and Claire Oleson about the importance of LGBTQ+ literature. Topics of discussion include queer readings of traditional novels, queer and trans...
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63. Adam Cayton-Holland
Adam Cayton-Holland talks with KR's own Katharine Weber about his new memoir Tragedy + Time, his career as a comedian, his sister's suicide, and the many influences from comic books to television that have shaped his sensibility along the path to his success.
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62. A. J. Verdelle
Yohanca Delgado talks to AJ Verdelle about facts, musical prose, and the ways in which the revision process is like getting dressed.
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61. Phillip B. Williams
Phillip B. Williams talks to Andy Grace about poetry vs. capitalism, poets vs. celebrities and why he is not writing any poems in 2018.
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60. Lewis Hyde
KR Editor David H. Lynn speaks with Lewis Hyde about his best-selling book The Gift, personal and cultural forgetfulness, and Hyde’s twenty-nine-year career at Kenyon. In addition to The Gift, Hyde is the author of Common as Air, Trickster Makes This World, and many other books.
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59. Margot Livesey
During a recent visit to the Kenyon College campus, novelist Margot Livesey talked to Visiting Thomas Professor of creative writing and Kenyon Review editor at large, Katharine Weber, about how we read novels, the teaching of fiction writing, and her latest book, The Hidden Machinery, essays on...
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58. Javier Zamora
Javier Zamora, author of the poetry collection Unaccompanied (Copper Canyon Press) and currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, talks with Andrew Grace of the Kenyon English faculty about immigration, advocating for undocumented poets, and what Salvadoran poets Americans should…
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57. Kim Blaeser
In this episode, Anishinaabe poet and former Wisconsin Poet Laureate Kimberly Blaeser speaks with Janet McAdams, Robert P. Hubbard Professor in Poetry at Kenyon College, about picto-poems, watery places, and Native writing in the twenty-first century.
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56. Nate Marshall
In this episode, Andrew Grace talks to poet and editor Nate Marshall about Seamus Heaney's sense of place, poetry as a team sport, writing rap lyrics vs. lyric poems, and, of course, Chicago
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55. Katherine Hedeen
Andy Grace and Kate Hedeen discuss the special section on new Cuban poetry in the Jan-Feb issue of the Kenyon Review, literary translation, and the KR's summer workshop: "The Translator's Voice".
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54. Colm Tóibín
Acclaimed author Colm Tóibín talks to KR editor David Lynn about his research process, teaching, and the struggle for Catalan independence.
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53. Saskia Hamilton
Kenyon professor of religious studies, Royal Rhodes, speaks to poet, editor and Kenyon alumna, Saskia Hamilton, about Robert Lowell, the importance of silence, and Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.
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52. Margot Singer
Earlier this fall, KR's own Elizabeth Dark sat down with Margot Singer to talk about Margot's book “Underground Fugue” and other subjects ranging from fear and the role of the fiction writer to a story's structure and fugues of all kinds.
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51. Junot Diaz
In this episode, Pulitzer-prize winner Junot Díaz talks to Kenyon College Associate Professor of English Ivonne M. García about expressing his political views on Facebook, an emerging New America, the significance of ghosts and the Gothic, and the fukú or the idea of being “cursed.”
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50. Nick White
In this episode, novelist Nick White talks with associate editor Kirsten Reach about Possum Neck, snow cones, “Friday the 13th,” queer readings of slasher flicks, and why writing is “a constant act of lying to yourself.”
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49. Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib
In this episode, poet and critic Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib debates with Andrew Grace on whether or not song lyrics should be considered literature. Ranging from considerations of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen to Lil Yachty and 2 Chainz, Abdurraqib explains the importance of taking popular music...
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48. Val Brelinski
In this episode, Val Brelinski, author of The Girl Who Slept with God, talks with Zoë Kontes about naming her characters, “cooking with gas” with Tobias Wolff, and her best editor—surprisingly, her son.
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47. Thomas Swick
In this episode, travel writer Thomas Swick speaks with Dan Laskin about the art and craft of travel writing, the literary qualities that distinguish travel literature from journalism, and the ways that both planning and serendipity produce compelling travel stories. Swick is the author, most...
About this show
Featuring interviews, discussions, and authors reading their works of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, essays, and reviews.
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The Kenyon Review
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