Today we have Srikanth Reddy, poet and editor at the Paris Review, in the studio to discuss his early writing, his formative 3rd grade acrostic poem ABRAHAM LINCOLN, skipping school to review movies for the Chicago Tribune, deliberately losing a Spelling Bee, + more.

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.

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.

"I mean this book took me more than 10 years -- I started it while I was at Iowa!" We discuss his journey from apathetic high school student to a highly recognized journalist and author, as well his tips, tricks and inspiration for aspiring writers everywhere. 

In today's podcast, poet and translator Dan Beachy-Quick talks with us about his early writing days, and his current Greek translations.

"Before coming to Iowa, I was living in New York City, desperately wanting to write but spending most of my waking hours in an office job."