Tiny Desks, Tiny Cups, and A Big World of Miniatures

Inclusive Design, the New Granfalloon, and our Latest Recs

Kay Sargent on neuroinclusive interior design. This summer’s Granfalloon. And your hosts talk about a few items you should check out. If you want.

Tiny Desks, Tiny Cups, and A Big World of Miniatures

Kayte Young goes to the biggest miniatures show in the Midwest and comes back to Bloomington to ask a friend: why make miniature things? Tyler Lake brings us an obituary for the Orbit Room. And a Tiny Desk entrant raps in Louisiana Creole.

Miniatures – It's a Big World

Kayte has a friend who is into miniatures. She makes them herself, pottery mostly, but she also goes to shows and connects with miniaturists all over the world. She wanted Kayte to check out the biggest miniatures show in the Midwest, the Dick Bishop International in Chicago. She said it was mind blowing.   Kayte went to the show. And it was indeed very impressive. But what she found most compelling was her friend Amanda’s practice of making miniature objects and what her involvement in the world of miniatures means to her.

Karol Lagodzki on Controlled Conversations, Covering Arts isn't Futile, and the Foolins' a Tiny Desk Contest Hopeful

This week on Nice Work we talk with writer Karol Lagodzki about his novel Controlled Conversations, set during a period of martial law in Poland in the early 1980’s. We check in with one of WFIU’s Local Favorites from the NPR Tiny Desk Contest: Bloomington band The Foolins, and we preview the Mini Midwest Print Fest.

Kismet, Bloomington’s Newest Literary Magazine (as far as we can tell)

The Kismet Magazine put out their first issue in September, 2024. The physical copy is a booklet stitched together with black thread. On the cover is a black and white image of planet Earth with roots or tentacles coming out of the South Pole, a couple of orbital rings, and a pagoda-like building on the North Pole. Other, smaller, tentacular Earths float around it in space. Open it up and you’ll see, in large letters, “DEAR EARTHLINGS...” Kismet started because its publishers—specifically M.J. Woods and Bry Best—had noticed a lacuna in the world of speculative fiction magazines. They longed for a magazine that did a few specific things, which they listed in their first issue: 1. Intentionally created a community of its own 2. Focused on frequently marginalized voices, non-Western perspectives, transgressive ideas, etc. 3. Functioned between media and academia, both putting out the content and discussing it critically. Then they realized: they could make that magazine. The Kismet is what resulted. We talk with Editor-in-Chief M.J. Woods, Co-Founder and Developmental Editor Bry Best, and Managing Editor and Oracle Sarah Johnson LaBarbera about the story of its founding, what they hope to accomplish, and why developmental editing is such an important part of their mission.