Plume: A Writer's Podcast

Team Plume is reanimating, dusting off the last year, and sharing our first podcast in a while. In today’s episode, we bring you a ghosty story circle with writing that taps into the otherworldly… just in time for Halloween and the Samhain season! Featuring writing from (in order of appearance):  * Danielle Hanson – “Ghosts and Mirrors,” poetry  * Melanie Unruh – “Altar Me,” poetry * Dawn Sperber – “Ghost Sisters,” story, with music by Hedia * Sarah Mina Osman – “The Djinn,” story excerpt, originally published in Lunaris, issue 17, 2023 * Elsa Valmidiano – “Marmarna,” story, originally published in Mythos, Issue #7: Something Spooky, 2022 * Lisa Chavéz – “The Customary Kiss,” story Author Bios (in order of appearance): Danielle Hanson strives to create and facilitate wonder. She is the author of Fraying Edge of Sky and Ambushing Water. Her poetry was the basis for a puppet show at the Center for Puppetry Arts. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, and serves on their Editorial Board & as Managing Editor for their imprint Doubleback Books. Previously, she has been Artist-in-Residence at Arts Beacon, Writer-in-Residence for Georgia Writers, and Poetry Editor for Doubleback Books. She teaches poetry at UC Irvine. You can read more about her at daniellejhanson.com [http://daniellejhanson.com/]. Melanie Unruh has an MFA in fiction from UNM. Her writing has appeared in The Meadow, The Boiler, New Ohio Review, Post Road, Philadelphia Stories, Cutthroat, and elsewhere. She’s working on a YA novel, a short story collection, and more weird poems about bones. https://melanieunruhwriter.wordpress.com/ [https://melanieunruhwriter.wordpress.com/] Dawn Sperber is the author of two new books: a poetry collection, My Bones Are Love Gifts (Shanti Arts, 2022), and a flash fiction chapbook, Now, That’s a Trick (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Her work has appeared in PANK, Daily Science Fiction, Bourbon Penn, Hunger Mountain, and elsewhere. You can follow her at dawnsperber.com. [https://dawnsperber.com/]Music included in “Ghost Sisters” is by Hedia (Bryce Hample). https://hedia.bandcamp.com/ [https://hedia.bandcamp.com/]Sarah Mina Osman's work has appeared in the Lunaris Review, Punt Volat, The Huffington Post, and SheKnows among several other publications. She likes sloths and tacos. sarahminaosmanwrites.wordpress.com [https://sarahminaosmanwrites.wordpress.com/]Elsa Valmidiano, an Ilocana-American essayist and poet, is the author of We Are No Longer Babaylan, her award-winning debut essay collection from New Rivers Press, which was an Editors’ Choice selection from their Many Voices Project competition in Prose. Her second essay collection, The Beginning of Leaving, is from Querencia Press. Through the examination of folklore and ritual, she blends memoir and myth, & dreams and reality, where folkloric beings reflect our defiant ancestors and ourselves. For more information, please visit her website slicingtomatoes.com [http://slicingtomatoes.com/]. Lisa D. Chavéz has published two books of poetry, Destruction Bay and In An Angry Season, and her poems have also appeared in Camino del Sol:  Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing and other anthologies. Her essays have appeared in Arts and Letters, The Fourth Genre & other magazines, and she has had essays included in several anthologies, including The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity and An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on their Poor and Working Class Roots.

In this episode, Sam and Melanie talk with featured writer, Crystal (K.) Odelle, about  flash prose,  trans identity, the blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction, liminal spaces, chapbook publishing, RPG writing, and more! Crystal (K.) Odelle  (they/she) is a queer trans writer, chapbooks editor at Newfound [https://newfound.org/], and author of the novel Goodnight. Their flash stories have appeared in Gertrude, Passages North, Peach Mag, [PANK], Hobart, ANMLY, and elsewhere. Crystal was a Tin House Scholar and has been nominated for Best of the Net, and they write RPGs at Feverdream Games [https://www.patreon.com/feverdreamgames]. Links Crystal's website [https://crystalkeltner.com] Crystal's GoFundMe [https://www.gofundme.com/f/crystals-butterfly-moment] Queer Phenomenology [https://www.dukeupress.edu/queer-phenomenology] by Sarah Ahmed Gloria Anzaldúa [https://bookshop.org/books?keywords=gloria+anzaldua] Oliver Baez Bendorf [https://www.oliverbaezbendorf.com] Joy Castro [https://www.joycastro.com] I Love Dick by Chris Kraus [https://bookshop.org/books/i-love-dick/9781584350347] Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho [https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/L/Look-Who-s-Morphing] The TransLash podcast with Imara Jones [https://translash.org/podcast/] Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz [https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/postcolonial-love-poem] Troubling the Line [https://nightboat.org/book/troubling-the-line/] We Want It All [https://nightboat.org/book/we-want-it-all/]

In today's mini episode, we offer you a brief reprieve from the hellscape of the news in the form of a magical short story by Plume's own Dawn Sperber. "If the River Men Take You" is a lovely tale from Dawn's debut flash fiction chapbook, Now, That's a Trick, out for pre-order now from Finishing Line Books [https://www.finishinglinepress.com]. Preorder your copy [https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/now-thats-a-trick-by-dawn-sperber/] today! We hope you enjoy the reading! Dawn's website: DawnSperber.com

In this episode, we’ve paired two mother-daughter writing duos to talk about how to support (and take seriously!) young writers and their creative endeavors. Sam hosts a conversation between returning-guest Jenn Ghivan and her 10-year-old daughter, Lina, and Ileisha Saunders and her 10-year-old daughter, Odyssey Miranda Mercado. About Our Guests: Jennifer & Adelina Ghivan Jennifer has earned fellowships from the NEA and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices, and published eleven books of poetry, fiction, and craft. Her novels have received glowing and starred reviews in Publishers' Weekly, The Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, and many others. Her honors and awards include The Southwest Book Award and Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, among many others. You can read more about Jennifer's books and what readers are saying at https://jennifergivhan.com/ [https://jennifergivhan.com/].  Adelina has been accepted to the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts program for creative writing, and she fancies herself quite the precocious scholar and adventurer. She’s just written her first novel. Both she and her mama enjoy a good haunting. Ileisha Sanders & Odyssey Miranda Mercado Ileisha is a mom, writer and actress. She enjoys writing plays, poetry and short stories. Odyssey Miranda is a 10-year-old writer and performer. She is an avid reader and wrote her first self-published book when she was 8 years old called The Three Little Mermaids and the Big Bad Shark (https://www.amazon.com/Three-Little-Mermaids-Big-Shark/dp/1693166445 [https://www.amazon.com/Three-Little-Mermaids-Big-Shark/dp/1693166445]) — a re-telling of an old tale. She is currently working on her first novel Morpho Wings. Oh, and she loves pizza with extra sauce. The mother- daughter pair enjoy participating in and watching live theatre. They look forward to writing together.

In this episode, Melanie and Dawn talk with featured writer, Jessamine Chan, about her New York Times bestselling novel The School For Good Mothers, publishing your first novel after 40, writing envy, motherhood, art and social change, “unlikeable” women in fiction, and more! Join our Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/Plumeawriterscompanion] at the $5 Prickly Pear level for access to an upcoming bonus segment from this episode, in which Jessamine talks in more detail about her novel (with spoilers!). CW: forced parent child separation Jessamine Chan’s short stories have appeared in Tin House and Epoch. A former reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, she holds an MFA from Columbia University. Her work has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Wurlitzer Foundation, Jentel, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Anderson Center, VCCA, and Ragdale. Her first novel, The School for Good Mothers, is a New York Times bestseller and a Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club pick. She lives in Chicago with her husband and daughter.   Links JessamineChan.com “Where Is Your Mother?” [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/02/where-is-your-mother] by Rachel Aviv: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/02/where-is-your-mother Writers to Read ChloeCooperJones.com CatherineChung.com RachelJYoder.com Learn more about Plume at PlumeforWriters.org!