"I found myself reflecting on the dilemma that artists who pen memoirs must face when writing explicitly about actual people whom they had sexual relations with."

"I’ve been teaching a course called the Award-Winning Short Story, which is a workshop where we’ve been studying some of the guidelines of what might make a story stand out..."

This is a SPECIAL EPISODE of Sad Me of the Past, where we invite young writers from the Iowa Youth Writing Project (IYWP) to talk about a ghost story they created for the Ghosts on the Radio haunted audio anthology.

On this episode, author Madeline McDonnell shares all sorts of secrets with us from being admonished in Middle English, reading in trees, dramatic countdowns to playing an evil Jack-o-lantern in a 3rd grade play with Mindy Kaling, starting three books at the same time, and the importance of friends.

"And then I wake up, open the windows, make my coffee, think about places I’ve been and people I’ve loved. I send good morning messages, sometimes I teach Spanish classes, sometimes I go to the store to buy food for the week."

On this episode, we have bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld in the studio! Curtis talks with us about the perils of boarding school, getting good juju from a used car, how her family really feels about her writing, and her new short story collection Show Don’t Tell.

"If you can make a single sentence do the work of 3 sentences or a paragraph—then, you’ve probably written a compelling sentence. In flash every word communicates."

Josh Parkinson reads a short story he wrote in high school. This absolute banger involves a fly, a car crash, and a response from the local authorities that you won’t see coming. Is it worth an hour of your time? We think so. It did win 3rd place in 1991.

On this episode, we are joined by Gina Welch, award winning Castle Rock screenwriter. We explore Gina's decision to ditch the mullet and reinvent herself in 8th grade, her obsession over Twin Peaks and impressing her English teacher Mr. Gould and the joy of entertaining people with story.

On this episode we have Ada Zhang in the studio with us to share an early piece of work and discuss her journey to become a writer. We also talk about being a theater kid at Texas football schools, her flight from business major to writer and blogging at its peak.

Lila Byock stops by the studio to talk about her time writing for the acclaimed series Watchmen and her current projects. We discuss growing up in Missoula, Montana, fact-checking at The New Yorker, the magical powers of Cheerios, her transition to TV writing and the collaborative nature of a writers' room. 

Bret Anthony Johnston joins us to talk about his new book We Burn Daylight, his time as a graduate student at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and what he’s working on now. For his piece from the past, Bret shares one of the many stories he published in Chicken Soup for the Soul years ago (they paid!).