All Write Already!

Lindsay Hunter, is the co-founder and co-host of the groundbreaking Quickies! reading series, a monthly event that focused on flash fiction. Her first book, Daddy’s, a collection of flash fiction, was published in 2010 by featherproof books, a boutique press in Chicago. Her second collection, DON’T KISS ME, was published by FSG Originals in 2013 and was named one […]

After our (longer than anticipated) hiatus, we’re finally, finally back with a brand new episode! Christine Sneed was one of our earliest guests (way back on Episode 9) and we were so pleased to have her back for a conversation about her new novel, Paris, He Said. Christine Sneed is the author of three books, the story collection Portraits of […]

Today we’re making All Write Already! history with our first return guest! Amina Gautier won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her debut story collection At-Risk. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Antioch Review, Glimmer Train, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, Southern Review, and StoryQuarterly. Gautier has been awarded scholarships and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Illinois Arts […]

It’s our 50th episode! We’re celebrating by talking to Cristina Henríquez, author of the story collection Come Together, Fall Apart, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, and the novels The Book of Unknown Americans and The World in Half. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The American Scholar, Glimmer Train, Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, AGNI, and Oxford […]

Jac Jemc’s first story collection A Different Bed Every Time is newly out from Dzanc Books. Her novel My Only Wife was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award. Jac is the poetry editor for decomP and nonfiction editor for Hobart. In 2014 she was named […]

The 25th Chicago Humanities Festival is now over! We saw so many things that made us smarter. After we saw the things that made us smarter, we cornered the presenters and performers and asked them to talk to us some more. On this bonus feature, you’ll hear from the likes of poet Anne Waldman, New […]

Today’s guest, Leslie Jamison is the author of a novel, The Gin Closet, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Prize, and an essay collection, The Empathy Exams, which was a New York Times Best Seller. Her work has appeared in the Believer, Harper’s Magazine, Oxford American, A Public Space, and […]

Today’s guest, Rebecca Coffey, is a novelist, science journalist, and humorist. She contributes regularly to Scientific American and Discover magazines. She blogs on assorted subjects including sexuality, relationships, social media, and psychology for Psychology Today, and is a frequent contributor to Vermont Public Radio’s drive-time commentary series. Her humor has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, […]

Today’s guest Laila Lalami was born and raised in Morocco. She is the author of the short story collection Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and the novel Secret Son, which was on the Orange Prize long list. Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los […]

Eula Biss is the author of three books: On Immunity: An Inoculation, Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and The Balloonists. Her essays have appeared in The Believer and Harper’s. Biss’s work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature […]

Today’s guest, Peggy Shinner is the author of You Feel So Mortal / Essays on the Body (University of Chicago Press, April 2014). Her work has appeared in BOMB, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, TriQuarterly, Fourth Genre, Bloom, and most recently on Salon. Newcity, Chicago’s cultural weekly, named her one of the Lit 50 2014: Who Really Books in […]

We’re back from summer break! We’re tanned and ready to get back to a fall full of new podcasts. Okay, so maybe we’re not tanned, but we can’t think of a better way to kick off fall than with today’s guest, James Klise. Klise is the author of The Art of Secrets, which Booklist named to its […]

We’re taking a summer break from our usual format to talk about what we’ve been reading on the beach (or, in Willy’s case, what he’s been reading everywhere but the beach). Karen has been busting through a summer reading list that includes Roxane Gay’s latest novel An Untamed State, Christina Henríquez’s The Book of Unknown Americans, […]

Summer has us in the mood to take a break from our usual format, so today we’re bringing you three stories from the other show we spend our time working on: Essay Fiesta! Regular listeners have heard us talk about Essay Fiesta, but for those who don’t know, Essay Fiesta is a monthly reading series that takes place at […]

Today’s guest, Miles Harvey, had so many great things to say that we decided to skip our usual top-of-show bantering in order to bring you an extended interview. Miles is the editor of a recently published oral-history collection, How Long Will I Cry?: Voices of Youth Violence, which the Chicago Tribune called “incredibly rich and compelling.” He wrote a play, also called […]

Today’s guest, Johanna Stein, is a writer, producer, director, and actor. Johanna’s work has appeared on Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, PBS, CBS, HBO, The Oxygen Network, VH-1, The Disney Channel, and all across the World Wide Internets, where her comedy shorts, PSAs and Yahoo! web series “Life of Mom” have been viewed millions of times. In addition to […]

Today’s guest, Jeff Miller is an expert-level jaywalker from Kent, Ohio, and is a top scorer in coffee drinking. Jeff regularly performs at live lit events all over Chicago. His first novel, The Nerdy Dozen, will be out in June.  Jeff stopped by our studio to talk about putting his writing in the microwave, why you really should not […]

Angela Narciso Torres’s first book of poetry, Blood Orange, won the 2013 Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry. Recent work appears in Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, and Cream City Review. A graduate of Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Angela has received fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, Ragdale […]

For today’s show, we’re reaching into archives again to bring you an interview with Samantha Irby. When we talked to Sam, it was way back in 2012, and she had only recently started working on her book. That book became Meaty, which came out last fall from Curbside Splendor, and it has been hugely successful. […]

Today’s guest Kate Harding is a co-author of The Book of Jezebel and Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere and author of the forthcoming Asking For It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture–And What We Can Do About It. As a freelance writer, Kate has published work in outlets including Salon, Jezebel, The Guardian, The L.A. Times and the […]