CBAW Loves...

Someplace Generous with Elaina Ellis and Amber Flame and Seema Yasmin

In this episode, we welcome Someplace Generous editors Elaina Ellis and Amber Flame and author/physician Seema Yasmin to discuss Someplace Generous- a vibrantly diverse and inclusive anthology of romantic short stories. Topics include the rules of writing romance, reading as a tool for empathy, and the power of telling romantic stories that engage new and different dynamics. Reference & Notes: Purchase 'Someplace Generous' on CBAW Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9781955905626 'The neurologist gives us permission' by Seema Reza: https://poets.org/poem/neurologist-gives-us-permission Correction from Elaina Ellis: "The author of 'A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon' was mistakenly noted in the discussion. It should be "Sarah Hawley." (Find the book here: https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9780593547922 ) About The Book: Someplace Generous--a vibrantly diverse and inclusive anthology of romantic short stories--can be described in one word: yes. Featuring stories by award-winning poets like Richard Siken, Rachel McKibbens, and Brionne Janae; acclaimed fiction writers like Temim Fruchter, Corinne Manning, and Max Delsohn; and popular thinkers like Jessica P. Pryde, Someplace Generous presents voices largely new to the genre of romance, each bringing a fresh take on what it means to tell a love story. This first book from Generous Press, a new imprint committed to changing the face of romance genre-fiction, is a collection of twenty-two never-before-published stories about joy, passion, and generous consent. In these pages, desire is centered and explored through queer, trans, Black, AAPI, Latinx, Jewish, disabled, and neurodivergent lenses, and the ages of authors and characters span generations. The brilliant authors herein have spun lush, poetic tales featuring characters and perspectives historically excluded from romance narratives. Through a variety of styles, lengths, and subgenres--ranging from flash-fiction to short stories, speculative to satire to romcom--there is something here for every kind of reader. The lovers in Someplace Generous--whether they are sapphic vampires or undercover super-heroes, teenagers, or middle-aged mamas--choose each other, and along the way, they choose themselves, too. Featuring twenty-two stories by twenty-two authors, Someplace Generous presents voices largely new to the genre of romance-fiction, each bringing a fresh take on what it means to tell a love story. About Our Guests: Elaina Ellis (she/her) is publisher and cofounder at Generous Press. She owns and operates A Trusted Reader, providing literary book editing services for brilliant writers of all stripes. For ten years she worked at the Pulitzer Prize-winning publishing house Copper Canyon Press where she served as editor. She is the author of Write About an Empty Birdcage, and has received support from Artist Trust, Mineral School, Vermont Studio Center, Jack Straw, Tent, 4Culture, and Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Amber Flame (she/her) is deputy publisher and cofounder at Generous Press. She is a multi-genre writer, educator, and arts administrator serving as program director for Hedgebrook, a premier writing residency for women-identified writers. She has served as a copyeditor, development editor, and general "fluffer" for all manner of texts. Her mission is joy. Flame is the author of the poetry collections Ordinary Cruelty and apocrifa; her writing has earned awards from Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, Jack Straw, Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, and YEFE NOF. Seema Yasmin is an Emmy Award-winning journalist who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, medical doctor, professor, and poet. She attended medical school at Cambridge University and worked as a disease detective for the US federal government's Epidemic Intelligence Service. She currently teaches storytelling at Stanford University School of Medicine, and is a regular contributor to CNN, Self, and Scientific American, among others.

CBAW Loves...City of Laughter featuring author Temim Fruchter

In this episode City of Laughter author Temim Fruchter joins hosts Seema and Amelia, returning guest Amber Flame, and CBAW community members Amy, Jaci, Leena, & Raye, for a conversation about fiction as a portal, imagined queer lineages, and writing as a way to wrestle with the reality of mortality and time. Don’t forget: We want to hear from you! Read the book and send in your thoughts to cbawloves@cbaw.org or share them on social media using the #CBAWLOVES hashtag. About City of Laughter (from the publisher, Grove Press) A rich and riveting debut spanning four generations of Eastern European Jewish women bound by blood, half-hidden secrets, and the fantastical visitation of a shapeshifting stranger over the course of 100 years. An ambitious, delirious novel that tangles with queerness, spirituality, and generational silence, City of Laughter announces Temim Fruchter as a fresh and assured new literary voice. The tale of a young queer woman stuck in a thicket of generational secrets, the novel follows her back to her family's origins, where ancestral clues begin to reveal a lineage both haunted and shaped by desire. Ropshitz, Poland, was once known as the City of Laughter. As this story opens, an 18th century badchan, a holy jester whose job is to make wedding guests laugh, receives a visitation from a mysterious stranger--bringing the laughter the people of Ropshitz desperately need, and triggering a sequence of events that will reverberate across the coming century. In the present day, Shiva Margolin, recovering from the heartbreak of her first big queer love and grieving the death of her beloved father, struggles to connect with her guarded mother, who spends most of her time at the local funeral home. A student of Jewish folklore, Shiva seizes an opportunity to visit Poland, hoping her family's mysteries will make more sense if she walks in the footsteps of her great-grandmother Mira, about whom no one speaks. What she finds will make her question not only her past and her future, but also her present. Electric and sharply intimate, City of Laughter zigzags between our universe and a tapestry of real and invented Jewish folklore, asking how far we can travel from the stories that have raised us without leaving them behind. Purchase: https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9780802161284 Bios Temim Fruchter is a queer nonbinary writer who was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish household. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland and has received first prize in short fiction from both American Literary Review and New South; she is a 2020 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award winner. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. https://www.temimfruchter.com/ Amber Flame is an artist and performer, whose work has garnered artistic merit residencies with Hedgebrook, Baldwin for the Arts, The Watering Hole, Wa Na Wari, Vermont Studio Center, and more. Flame's second book of poetry, apocrifa, launched May of 2023. Amber Flame is a queer Black dandy mama who falls hard for a jumpsuit and some fresh kicks. https://www.theamberflame.com/ City of Laughter on CBAW Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9780802161284

Women of the Post- featuring discussion with author, Joshunda Sanders

In this episode, we welcome Women of the Post author, Joshunda Sanders for a conversation with Seema, Amelia and particpants from CBAW's More Than One Story program. Our discussion includes stories about the real-life women who inspired the characters in the novel, what it means to exist in a place that was not designed for you, and what has (and has not) changed in the military since WWII. Don't forget: We want to hear from you! Read the book and send in your thoughts to cbawloves@cbaw.org [cbawloves@cbaw.org] or share them on social media using the #CBAWLOVES hashtag. We will read or play your comments on a future episode!About Women of the PostInspired by true events, Women of the Post brings to life the heroines who proudly served in the all-Black battalion of the Women's Army Corps in WWII, finding purpose in their mission and lifelong friendship.1944, New York City. Judy Washington is tired of having to work at the Bronx Slave Market, cleaning white women's houses for next to nothing. She dreams of a bigger life, but with her husband fighting overseas, it's up to her and her mother to earn enough for food and rent. When she's recruited to join the Women's Army Corps--offering a steady paycheck and the chance to see the world--Judy jumps at the opportunity.During training, Judy becomes fast friends with the other women in her unit--Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce--who all come from different cities and circumstances. Under Second Officer Charity Adams's leadership, they receive orders to sort over one million pieces of mail in England, becoming the only unit of Black women to serve overseas during WWII.The women work diligently, knowing that they're reuniting soldiers with their loved ones through their letters. However, their work becomes personal when Mary Alyce discovers a backlogged letter addressed to Judy. Told through the alternating perspectives of Judy, Charity and Mary Alyce, Women of the Post is an unforgettable story of perseverance, female friendship and self-discovery. Purchase Women of the Post on our Bookshop affiliate storefront: https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9780778334071 [https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9780778334071] Author Bio Joshunda Sanders is an award-winning author, journalist and speechwriter. A former Obama Administration political appointee, her fiction, essays and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies. She has been awarded residencies and fellowships at Hedgebrook, Lambda Literary, The Key West Literary Seminars and the Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing. Women of the Post is her first novel. Follow her on Instagram at https://instagram.com/joshunda/ [https://instagram.com/joshunda/] About More Than One Story More Than One Story (MTOS) is a monthly online writing and creative arts workshop partially funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs’ SSG Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant. In these special workshops, artists and writers help participants connect across shared experiences of service as women and non-binary people by writing poems, stories, journaling, narratives, and creating visual arts such as paintings and meditative art. No experience with art making or poetry is necessary. Learn more at cbaw.org/mtos/ [http://cbaw.org/mtos/]

Monstrilio with Tarfia Faizullah

Episode 8: Monstrilio, featuring a discussion with Tarfia Faizullah. In this episode, we discuss Gerardo Sámano Córdova's debut novel Monstrilio. Don't forget: We want to hear from you! Read the book and send in your thoughts to cbawloves@cbaw.org or share them on social media using the #CBAWLOVES [https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/cbawloves] hashtag. We will read or play your comments on a future episode! Grieving mother Magos cuts out a piece of her deceased eleven-year-old son Santiago's lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her family's decaying Mexico City estate. Eventually, Monstrilio begins to resemble the Santiago he once was, but his innate impulses--though curbed by his biological and chosen family's communal care--threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life. A thought-provoking meditation on grief, acceptance, and the monstrous sides of love and loyalty, Gerardo Sámano Córdova blends bold imagination and evocative prose with deep emotional rigor. Told in four acts that span the globe from Brooklyn to Berlin, Monstrilio offers, with uncanny clarity, a cathartic and precise portrait of being human. Tarfia Faizullah is the author of two poetry collections, REGISTERS OF ILLUMINATED VILLAGES (Graywolf, 2018) and SEAM (SIU, 2014). Tarfia’s writing appears widely in the U.S. and abroad in the Daily Star, Hindu Business Line, BuzzFeed, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post, Poetry Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, Oxford American, the New Republic, the Nation, Halal If You Hear Me (Haymarket, 2019), and has been displayed at the Smithsonian, the Rubin Museum of Art, and elsewhere. The recipient of a Fulbright fellowship, three Pushcart prizes, and other honors, Tarfia presents work at institutions and organizations worldwide, and has been featured at the the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh, the Library of Congress, the Fulbright Conference, the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice, the Radcliffe Seminars, NYU, Barnard, UC Berkeley, the Poetry Foundation, the Clinton School of Public Service, Brac University, and elsewhere. Tarfia’s writing is translated into Bengali, Persian, Chinese, and Tamil, and is part of the theater production Birangona: Women of War. Tarfia’s collaborations include photographers, producers, composers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists, resulting in several interdisciplinary projects, including an EP, Eat More Mango. In 2016, Tarfia was recognized by Harvard Law School as one of 50 Women Inspiring Change, and is a 2019 USA Artists Fellow. Born in Brooklyn, NY to Bangladeshi immigrants and raised in Texas, Tarfia currently lives in Dallas.

In the Shelter with Amber Flame and Ben Weakley

Episode 7: In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World, featuring discussion with Amber Flame & Ben Weakley In this episode our guests Amber Flame & Ben Weakley chat with us about Pádraig Ó Tuama’s ‘In The Shelter.’ Topics include faith, reconciling contradictions within the self, and finding shelter in one another. Don’t forget: We want to hear from you! Read the book and send in your thoughts to cbawloves@cbaw.org [cbawloves@cbaw.org] or share them on social media using the #CBAWLOVES hashtag. We will read or play your comments on a future episode!About “In the Shelter: Finding a Home in the World” [https://bookshop.org/a/79565/9781506470528] From master storyteller and host of On Being’s Poetry Unbound, Pádraig Ó Tuama, comes an unforgettable memoir of peace and reconciliation, Celtic spirituality, belonging, and sexual identity. “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” Drawing on this Irish saying, Ó Tuama relates ideas of shelter and welcome to our journeys of life, using poetry, story, biblical reflection, and prose to open up gentle ways of living well in a troubled world. In the Shelter introduces Corrymeela, the Northern Ireland peace and reconciliation community Ó Tuama led for many years, and throughout the book he reveals the power of storytelling in communities of conflict. From the heart of a poet comes a profound look at the landscapes we all try to inhabit even as we always search for shelter, a place we can call home. An instant spiritual classic in Ireland and Britain, now brought to a US readership.About Our GuestsAmber Flame [https://www.theamberflame.com/] is an interdisciplinary creative, activist and educator whose work has garnered residencies with Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, and more. A former church kid from the Southwest, Flame’s work is published widely and explores spirituality and sexuality, cross-woven with themes of grief and loss, motherhood and magic, and interstitial joy. A 2016 and 2017 Pushcart Prize nominee and Jack Straw Writer Program alum, Amber Flame’s first full-length poetry collection, Ordinary Cruelty, was published in 2017 through Write Bloody Press. Flame was a recipient of the CityArtist grant from Seattle’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs to write, produce and perform her one-person play, Hands Above the Covers. In early 2018, Flame co-curated the art installation Black Imagination at Core Gallery in Seattle. Her first solo exhibit debuted in 2019 with a project entitled ::intrigue:: 8, a multimedia installation, through Jack Straw Production’s Artist Support and New Media Gallery fellowships. Hugo House’s 2017-2019 Writer-in-Residence for Poetry, Flame’s second book of poetry, titled apocrifa, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Flame has created and implemented programming for more than 15 years, working in education equity, Black media, youth empowerment, and with women and youth impacted by incarceration. Recently named Program Director for Hedgebrook, she continues to work as a writing instructor while working on a third collection of poetry, remounting her full-length play, developing a few nonfiction anthologies, and raising her daughter. Amber Flame is a queer Black mama just one magic trick away from growing her unicorn horn. Ben Weakley [https://jbenweakley.com/] spent fourteen years in the U.S. Army, beginning with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and finishing at a desk inside the Pentagon. He writes poetry and prose about the enduring nature of war and the human experience for veterans, their families, and anyone who would help them bear witness to war and its aftermath. A believer in the power of words to empower and heal, Ben leads writing workshops for Active Duty Military, Veterans, their families and caregivers, as well as Frontline Health Care Workers and other communities of ordinary people bearing witness to a difficult world. Ben lives in the Tri-Cities of Northeast Tennessee with his wife, two children, and a well-meaning but poorly behaved hound-dog.