Episode 1: An Evening of Whales
My Dear Literary Animals,
Welcome to the first episode of The Literary Animal Project Podcast. This episode is a live video recording of an event that took place in partnership with Kew & Willow Books [https://www.kewandwillow.com/event/virtual-evening-whales-literary-animal-project] on December 12, 2023 with this pod of literary animal luminaries: Talia Lakshmi Kolluri, Rajiv Mohabir, and Shruti Swamy.
In “An Evening on Whales,” we discuss umwelt, cultural loss, resilience, communication and poetry in whales, and how we portray them on the page. There was so much brilliance and wonderful insights from these panelists, and I am excited to share this with all of you.
Here are a few snippets:
Rajiv Mohabir on hearing whale song for the first time in the waters around Hawaii:
I was in the water, and they were shooting through my body with their sounds and songs, which was a kind of magic… And from then…I was captivated. I wanted to know all the stories, all our human stories. I wanted to know our scientific stories. I wanted to know our cultural stories. I wanted to know our sacred stories. I also had to consider what it meant to then be a poet, taking a human translation and then translating my own kind of worldview or umwelt actually, into what that means.”
Talia Kolluri on the importance of portraying animal joy on the page:
We as a modern culture are often moved by suffering. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't wait until something was suffering before we started to care? I love the idea of prioritizing depictions of joy and thriving because it shows what's possible. I think it will be a great, wonderful development to see in the arts.
Shruti Swamy on communication and cultural loss:
“What are the ways that we are in community and in communication with whales right now?
“I feel curious in cultural capacity…how have these whale cultures made sense of what they've gone through and what they've survived and what are they passing on?
Links and Resources
Like Water In Water: Dispatches from A Sub-Sub Librarian in preparation of this Whale Event [https://literaryanimal.substack.com/p/like-water-in-water].
Kew & Willow Books [https://www.kewandwillow.com/event/virtual-evening-whales-literary-animal-project] Whale Event Page— Buy books here!
* What We Fed to The Manticore [https://tinhouse.com/book/what-we-fed-to-the-manticore/] by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri
* Whale Aria [https://fourwaybooks.com/site/whale-aria/] by Rajiv Mohabir
* “Blue Whale Transmissions [https://www.amazon.com/The-Other-Animals-audiobook/dp/B07WGQPHLF]” Audio Story by Shruti Swamy
Whale Library Referenced by Panelists:
* Fathoms: The World in the Whale [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fathoms/Rebecca-Giggs/9781982120702] by Rebecca Giggs [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fathoms/Rebecca-Giggs/9781982120702]
* Hunt [https://wordworksbooks.org/product/hunt/] by Jessical Cuello [https://wordworksbooks.org/product/hunt/]
* How To Speak Whale: A Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication [https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/how-to-speak-whale-a-voyage-into-the-future-of-animal-communication-tom-mustill?variant=40255777341518] by Tom Mustill [https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/how-to-speak-whale-a-voyage-into-the-future-of-animal-communication-tom-mustill?variant=40255777341518]
* Whale Song (Object Lessons) [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/whale-song-9781501329265/] by Margaret Grebowicz [https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/whale-song-9781501329265/]
* When the Whales Leave [https://milkweed.org/book/when-the-whales-leave] by Yuri Rytkheu and Translated by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse [https://milkweed.org/book/when-the-whales-leave]
* Moby Dick [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/312533/moby--dick-by-herman-melville-with-an-introduction-by-elizabeth-renker-and-an-afterword-by-christopher-buckley/9780451532282/] by Herman Melville [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/312533/moby--dick-by-herman-melville-with-an-introduction-by-elizabeth-renker-and-an-afterword-by-christopher-buckley/9780451532282/]
* Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal [https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662]
* War of the Whales [https://warofthewhales.com/] by Joshua Horwitz [https://warofthewhales.com/]
* Wild Blue Media [https://www.dukeupress.edu/wild-blue-media] by Melody Jue [https://www.dukeupress.edu/wild-blue-media]
* An Immense World [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616914/an-immense-world-by-ed-yong/], by Ed Yong [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/616914/an-immense-world-by-ed-yong/]
* Undrowned [https://www.akpress.org/undrowned.html] by Alexis-Pauline Gumbs [https://www.akpress.org/undrowned.html]
Whale Song Recordings
* Song Lines: Songs of East Australian Humpback [https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/songlines-songs-east-australian-humpback-whales-mark-franklin-oceania-project]
* Songs of the Humpback Whale [http://Songs of the Humpback Whale, by Produced by Dr. Roger Payne]
Other News
I was recently on the Our Hen House Podcast talking about The Literary Animal Project. You can listen here. [http://ourhenhouse.org/ep728] Members of the Our Hen House Flock have access to bonus material, including me reading some excerpts from my forthcoming book.
Guest Bios
Talia Lakshmi Kolluri [https://www.taliakolluri.com/] is a mixed South Asian American writer from Northern California. Her debut collection of short stories, What We Fed to the Manticore (Tin House 2022), was a finalist for the 2023 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and the 2023 Northern California Book Award for Fiction; was longlisted for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2023 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the 2023 Pen/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection; and was selected as a 2023 ALA RUSA Notable Book. Her short fiction has been published in Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, The Common, One Story, Orion, and others.
A lifelong Californian, Talia lives in the Central Valley with her husband and two cats.
Poet, memoirist, and translator, Rajiv Mohabir [https://www.rajivmohabir.com/] is the author of four books of poetry including Whale Aria (Four Way Books 2023), Cutlish (Four Way Books 2021) which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and recipient of the Eric Hoffer Medal Provocateur. His poetry and nonfiction have been finalists for the 2022 PEN/America Open Book Award, the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry and in Nonfiction, the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction, and both second place and finalist for the Guyana Prize for Literature in 2022 (poetry and memoir respectively). His translations have won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets in 2020. He is an assistant professor of poetry at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Shruti Swamy [https://www.shrutiswamy.com/bio] is the author of the story collection A House Is a Body, and a novel, The Archer. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Elizabeth George Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Council, and Vassar College, and is a 2024 Rome Prize Fellow in Literature. Shruti’s work has appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeny's, AFAR Magazine, and the New York Times, and twice won the O. Henry. Her introduction to Ursula K Le Guin’s masterpiece Always Coming Home appears in the novel’s 2023 reissue, and her story "Blue Whale Transmissions" is included in the Audible Original anthology The Other Animals. She is a Kundiman Fiction Fellow, and lives in San Francisco.
Sangamithra Iyer [http://www.sangamithraiyer.com] (moderator) is the founder of The Literary Animal Project [https://literaryanimal.substack.com/], for which she was awarded a grant from the Culture and Animals Foundation. She is the recipient of a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and a Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship at the New York Public Library for her first book forthcoming from Milkweed Editions.
Yours for the Animals,
Sangamithra
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit literaryanimal.substack.com [https://literaryanimal.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]
