All Write Already!

On episode 17, we welcome Samuel Park, the author of This Burns My Heart, which was chosen as a best book of the year by Kirkus Reviews, Amazon, BookPage, and NPR.org. It was also one of the Today Show’s “Favorite Things” and a People magazine “Great Read in Fiction.” Samuel is also the author of the novel Shakespeare’s […]

Our guest, J.W. Basilo, is a guy who never learned how to shut up. He is also a writer, performer, playwright, comedian, musician, and educator from Chicago whose work is equal parts poignant and perverse, hilarious and heart-wrenching. His often raucous stage act, a Vaudevillian mash-up of poetry, music, comedy and storytelling, has earned him a […]

Today’s guest, Amina Gautier, is the winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her short story collection At-Risk. More than seventy-five of her stories have been published, appearing in Antioch Review, Best African American Fiction, Glimmer Train, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, and Southern Review among other places. Her stories have won the […]

On this episode, we’re skipping our typical banter (because who cares what Karen thinks?) and giving you an extended interview with satirist James Finn Garner. James had a lot of great insights to share about the publishing industry and self-publishing in particular. James’s first book, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, sold more than 2.5 million copies in […]

Today’s guest is Keith Ecker! Keith is a creator of Essay Fiesta and Guts & Glory, two of Chicago’s most well-known Live Lit events. He has performed his writing throughout Chicago at such shows as The Printers Row Lit Fest, the Chicago Writers Conference, Write Club, Story Club, This Much Is True, 2nd Story, The […]

Today’s guest, Patricia Ann McNair, has lived 98 percent of her life in the Midwest. She’s managed a gas station, sold pots and pans door to door, tended bar and breaded mushrooms, worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and taught aerobics. Patricia’s short story collection, The Temple of Air, was awarded […]

Jen Bosworth is a performer and writer from Evanston, Illinois. She is currently planning a tour for her one woman show Why Not Me, which had its first run in November-December 2012 at Stage 773 in Chicago. (The show also features live music from Briar Rabbit, whose song “Numbers” is featured in this episode.) Jen […]

Our guest today is attorney and award-winning journalist Randy Richardson. Randy serves as president of the 400-member Chicago Writers Association. His most recent novel, Cheeseland, was chosen as a 2011 Evie Fiction Finalist. His essays have been published in the anthologies Chicken Soup for the Father and Son Soul, Humor for a Boomer’s Heart, The […]

Our guest today is the very prolific Christine Sneed. Christine’s first book, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry, won AWP’s 2009 Grace Paley Prize, was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize in first fiction. Portraits also won Ploughshares’ Zacharis Award for a first book and was named one of the […]

We’re ditching our usual format today to bring you holiday-themed stories from two of our favorite guests, Shannon Cason and Stephen Markley. Shannon Cason is the Moth Chicago Grandslam Champion. You can find him at live lit events all over Chicago (check out shannoncason.com for a listing of all his upcoming appearances), including Do Not […]