Advertise on podcast: Arts Calling

Read Anne's essay at Howlround: https://howlround.com/senses-are-present-boycotts-endurance-art-series and her latest at Coalitionist: https://coalitionist.substack.com/p/anne-mason-the-catasterism! -- Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling writer and theater artist Anne Mason! (www.acmcreativeconsulting.com) About our guest: To be more precise, Anne is a life writer, theatre artist, and creative consultant who is passionate about transforming skills and lessons from within the theatre sphere into tools for all facets of community, industry, and humanity. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2014 and strives to turn her experience into lessons of hope and resiliency. When Anne isn’t at the theatre, she can be found reading, enjoying the outdoors, communing at coffee shops, or solving (and creating!) crossword puzzles. Anne lives in Laramie with her cat, Orange Julius Caesar. Connect with Anne: @annecatharine89 – acmcreativeconsulting.com Thanks for this amazing conversation, Anne! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE. THANKS FOR LISTENING! Much love, j artscalling.com

Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling Scott Macklin, of the musical collective Now Defunkt! (www.nowdefunkt.com) About our guest: Scott Macklin is a highly accomplished and innovative leader in higher education with extensive experience developing and implementing transformative programs and strategies. His work focuses on developing narrative-based learning systems and comprehensive strategies to improve education and the ways we can reach and engage our students and constituents. He is dedicated to addressing racial and identity inequity in his research and is deeply committed to creating systems that benefit everyone. Central to his work is the notion of storytelling where stories are forged in the process of deep hanging out; where a story is made in collaboration with a community of practice, where one engages in the act of making the story "with" people from a particular community not just "about" them.  You can see his work in action at:  www.scottmacklin.com JAMCATION! A new album, now available to stream! nowdefunkt.bandcamp.com JAMCATION! VINYL NOW AVAILABLE FROM WASHINGTONES RECORDS! https://washingtonesrecords.myshopify.com/products/jamcation-12-eco-friendly-lp-presale About Now Defunkt: Built on bold love, groovy grooves and a fierce sense of interdependence, Now Defunkt emerged out of lock-down as a creative collective of family and friends producing primordial sound-box of the soul shifts with a twist of lemon. Now Defunkt’s vibe is like a grooving vinyl record spinning round in a raucous room and sometimes it skips like it’s trying to tell you something. It’s got the crackle of time, the echoes of stories left unsaid, and a rhythm that dances like it’s fighting the dark. It’s messy, it’s groovy, and moves like it means it. It’s a music that travels, shifting from one place to the next, without ever truly settling, but always feeling at home wherever it is. Now Defunkt is more than just a band; it's a vibrant collection of individuals—family, friends, and a diverse group of unique personalities—who've found a way to create music together. Bringing together members from different generations, perspectives, and locations.  Our collaboration is a testament to the power of diverse voices and experiences. The older members contribute their seasoned wisdom and the younger members inject a potent burst of energy, resulting in a dynamic and surprisingly effective musical synergy. Now Defunkt's music is a vibrant tapestry woven from diverse voices and perspectives. The music speaks with a gentle, heartfelt sincerity, celebrating the richness and complexity of the human experience. It's a journey, a shared exploration of creative flow and collaborative energy, where differences are celebrated, and harmonies emerge from seemingly disparate strands. Thanks for this amazing conversation, Scott! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE. THANKS FOR LISTENING! Much love, j artscalling.com

Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling author A.M. Sosa! (amsosa.net) About our guest: A. M. Sosa (they/them) is a queer Mexican-American writer from Stockton, CA, and a graduate of UC Irvine's MFA Programs in Writing where they were awarded the 2022 Henfield Prize. They have received support from Tin House, Community of Writers, and the Carolyn Moore Writing Residency. Their debut novel, And I'll Take Out Your Eyes, is being published by Algonquin, and their fiction has been published in Zyzzyva and the Santa Monica Review. Instagram: @unapinchebruja About AND I'LL TAKE OUT YOUR EYES, now available from Algonquin Books! BUY NOW AT: BOOKSHOP | TERTULIA | BARNES & NOBLE | AMAZON Cría cuervos y te sacaran los ojos: Raise crows and they will take out your eyes. A boy wakes up with a knife in his hand. It's the early '90s in Stockton, CA, when Christian is caught sleepwalking in the kitchen by his family--the beginning of a curse unleashed by an aunt. To save Christian and the family from the curse, the family seeks out a curandero who promises salvation, but at a price Christian wishes he didn't have to pay. As Christian grows up the curse follows him. His father emotionally and physically torments him, his mother's health spirals, his relationship with his brother deteriorates; nothing goes his way. Christian finds solace in a group of friends, bonded together by the sufferings that plague their community. As the childhood chaos of ripping and running in order to survive breaks way to an adolescence beyond his local neighborhood and a lifeline in the form of writing, Christian must decide: be consumed and enact the same violence that has plagued him, or break the cycle, once and for all. And I'll Take Out Your Eyes is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the power of memory and the curses we inherit from our family, and how to overcome them. Told in a voice that is clear and unflinching, this is ultimately a story of redemption. PRAISE FOR AND I'LL TAKE OUT YOUR EYES: > And I'll Take Out Your Eyes is a kaleidoscopic wonder of a debut. Never boring, A.M. Sosa seems somehow capable of pulling off any form or point of view. Any sentence might be as explosive, as tender, as breathless, as surprising as life. And there is so much life in this book. If nothing else, it is rare to find a novel as alive as this one. Sosa has arrived with a cannon shot.— Matthew Salesses, author of Craft in the Real World and The Sense of Wonder Thanks for this amazing conversation, A.M.! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE. THANKS FOR LISTENING! Much love, j artscalling.com

Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling humorist, poet, and essayist Kurt Luchs! (kurtluchs.com) About our guest: Kurt Luchs was born in Cheektowaga, New York, grew up in Wheaton, Illinois, and has lived and worked all over the United States, mostly in publishing and media. Currently he’s based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His first poetry publication came at age sixteen in the long-gone journal Epos, right next to a poem by Bukowski. He has also written comedy for television (Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn) and radio (American Comedy Network), as well as contributing humor to the New Yorker, the Onion and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, among others. He is author of the poetry collections Death Row Row Row Your Boat (Sagging Meniscus, 2024), Falling in the Direction of Up (SM, 2021), and the humor collection It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (SM, 2017). His poetry chapbooks include One of These Things Is Not Like the Other (Finishing Line Press 2019), and The Sound of One Hand Slapping (SurVision Press 2022). He won a 2022 Pushcart Prize, a 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize, the 2021 Eyelands Book Award for Short Stories, and the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He is a Contributing Editor of Exacting Clam. About TRIBUTARIES, now available from Sagging Meniscus Press! https://www.saggingmeniscus.com/catalog/tributaries In Tributaries, Kurt Luchs chooses twenty poems that hold vital meaning for him as a reader and writer—many, but not all, recognized as classics—and pays twofold tribute to them. First, he explores each poem with a deep-diving personal essay on how the poet works their magic upon us. Then he gives a tribute poem of his own, in response to, or inspired by, the poem under discussion. The result is a uniquely well-rounded, multidimensional way of honoring great poems, unlocking more of their treasures for both first-time and long-time lovers of poetry. Poets featured are Wallace Stevens, Robinson Jeffers, David Ignatow, Philip Larkin, D. H. Lawrence, Etheridge Knight, Wislawa Szymborska, Lucille Clifton, Gabriela Mistral, H. D., Jorge Luis Borges, Federico Garcia Lorca, Mary Oliver, Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Koch, Homer, Louise Glück, Robert Bly, Charles Simic and James Tate. Thanks for this amazing conversation, Kurt! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE. THANKS FOR LISTENING! Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: A new essay on HowlRound by theatermaker and friend of the show, Anne Mason! -- Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling author Monica Macansantos! (monicamacansantos.com) About our guest: Monica Macansantos is a Filipino writer from Baguio, and is currently a Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellow with the Carson McCullers Center in Columbus, Georgia. She is the author of the essay collection, Returning to My Father's Kitchen (Curbstone/Northwestern University Press, 2025), and the story collection, Love and Other Rituals (Grattan Street Press), 2022. She was a 2024-25 Shearing Fellow with the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV, and her work has appeared in Colorado Review, The Hopkins Review, Bennington Review, River Styx, Electric Literature, Literary Hub, and Katherine Mansfield and Children (Edinburgh University Press), among other places. She earned her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, and her PhD in Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. Her work has been recognized as Notable in Best American Essays 2016 and 2021-2023. RETURNING TO MY FATHER'S KITCHEN, now available from Northwestern University Press/Curbstone Books: Purchase from Northwestern University Press: https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810148390/returning-to-my-fathers-kitchen/ From Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/returning-to-my-father-s-kitchen-essays-monica-macansantos/ Purchase from Book People in Austin, which sells signed copies of the book! https://bookpeople.com/book/9780810148390 Also from Monica, LOVE & OTHER RITUALS, a collection of stories: https://www.monicamacansantos.com/loveandotherritualsselectedstories.html Thanks for this amazing conversation, Monica! All the best! Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE! Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: Check out my friends at FunUsual Suspects! Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling singer songwriter Josh Jensen! (https://linktr.ee/joshjensenmusic) About our guest: Josh Jensen is a singer songwriter based in Seattle that once graced the Bellingham musio stages with his band Sweet Beets. Josh’s honeyed vocals and fingerstyle guitar accompany a wide range of what he dubs as PNW Americana stylings that make up his music. Josh recently released his album This Is Where We Landed’, which was pressed on PET records through Washingtones. THIS IS WHERE WE LANDED, the new album now available through Washingtones Records! https://washingtonesrecords.myshopify.com/products/josh-jensen-this-is-where-we-landed-180g-lp-pre-sale Listen to Eclectic Mementos EP on Bandcamp! Listen on Spotify | Listen on YouTube Music Instagram: @joshjensenmusic | Follow on Youtube Thanks for this amazing conversation, Josh! All the best! Josh Cover Image by @twicebaked.photo. Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE! Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: Ghostlit, poems by Theodora Ziolkowski, now available! Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling literary agent and author Jessica Berg! (https://www.rosecliffliterary.com) About our guest: Jessica Berg is a literary agent, author, and the founder of Rosecliff Literary, where she champions bold, emotionally resonant fiction with unforgettable characters, strong stakes, and a sense of urgency. She is currently closed to fiction. She is especially drawn to upmarket, historical, and supernatural suspense, with a soft spot for haunting atmosphere, richly layered relationships, and characters who carry deep emotional wounds. Give her a protagonist standing at the edge of reinvention, a world on the brink of change, or a past that refuses to stay buried. She loves stories that explore grief, longing, ambition, and survival and the complicated ways they intersect. If your book feels like it belongs in a candlelit room with a storm raging outside, she wants to see it. She earned her MFA from Spalding University and contributes regularly to Writer’s Digest. Jessica serves on the boards of the Women’s National Book Association and the Historical Novel Society, and teaches nationally on querying, comp titles, and the business of authorship, with a focus on building sustainable, long-term writing careers. Her client list includes Vincent Zandri, Lisa Roe, Arizona Bell, and others Visit jessicaberg.me for more information. Thanks for this amazing conversation, Jessica! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN. Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: Check out Lynchpins, our ongoing David Lynch tribute series! Hi there, we're back! Today I am delighted to be arts calling Camille U. Adams once again! (https://www.camilleuadams.com/) About our guest: CAMILLE U. ADAMS, Ph.D. was born and raised in beautiful Trinidad and Tobago. She is the author of the explosive memoir How To Be Unmothered: a Trinidadian memoir, finalist in the Restless Books Prize in New Immigrant Writing 2023. (https://linktr.ee/Camille_U_Adams) Camille is a memoirist, a poet, and a nature writer. Camille has been awarded Best of The Net—nonfiction 2024. She has received five Pushcart Prize nominations and three Best of the Net nominations for her memoir writing. Camille’s work has also received recognition as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2022. Her writing has been long-listed in the Graywolf Creative nonfiction Prize 2022 and selected as a finalist for The 2021 Orison Anthology Award in Nonfiction. Her other honours include an awarded fellowship as an inaugural Tin House Reading Fellow, an inaugural Granta nature writing workshop fellowship, an inaugural Anaphora Arts Italy Writing Retreat Fellowship, a McKnight Doctoral Fellowship, a Community of Writers Fellowship, A VONA scholarship, and a Roots Wounds Words Fellowship. A Tin House Summer Workshop alum, Camille has served as a juried reader for Tin House for two consecutive years and as a moderator for two author panels. She has also received support from Kenyon Writers Workshop, Grubstreet, and others. In addition, Camille has been an associate CNF editor at Variant Lit and an assistant memoir editor at Split Lip Magazine and at The Account. She has long taught English and creative writing, emphasising the importance of strong craft, beautiful prose, and ugly truths. Having earned her MFA in Poetry from City College CUNY and her Ph.D. in Creative Nonfiction from FSU, Camille currently teaches creative writing and literature in New York City. She is at work on her second memoir. Thanks for this amazing conversation, Camille! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN. Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: Check out Lynchpins at the coalition, our ongoing David Lynch tribute series! -- Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling novelist Nancy Kricorian! (https://nancykricorian.net) About our guest: Nancy Kricorian, who was born and raised in the Armenian community of Watertown, Massachusetts, is the author of four novels about post-genocide Armenian diaspora experience, including Zabelle, which was translated into seven languages, was adapted as a play, and has been continuously in print since 1998. Her new novel, The Burning Heart of the World, about Armenians in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War, will be published in April 2025. Her essays and poems have appeared in The Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, Guernica, Parnassus, Minnesota Review, The Mississippi Review, and other journals. She has taught at Barnard, Columbia, Yale, and New York University, as well as with Teachers & Writers Collaborative in the New York City Public Schools, and has been a mentor with We Are Not Numbers since 2015. She has been the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Gold Medal from the Writers Union of Armenia, and the Anahid Literary Award, among other honors. She lives in New York. THE BURNING HEART OF THE WORLD, now available from Red Hen Press! Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon Nancy Kricorian’s The Burning Heart of the World tells the story of a Beirut Armenian family before, during, and after the Lebanese Civil War. Returning to the fabular tone of Zabelle, her popular first novel, Kricorian conjures up the lost worlds and intergenerational traumas that haunt a family in permanent exile. Leavened with humor and imbued with the timelessness of a folktale, The Burning Heart of the World is a sweeping saga that takes readers on an epic journey from the mountains of Cilicia to contemporary New York City. > Like colorful miniatures–from a childhood of elders haunted by the Armenian genocide, to girlhood and adolescence amidst war in Beirut, to marriage and children in New York at the time of 9/11—Nancy Kricorian finds just the right scale to bring her heroine’s passage to vivid, reverberating life. > — Aram Saroyan > An arrestingly beautiful novel of how families draw us together, but also push us apart. Set amidst the backdrop of displacement and war, The Burning Heart of the World illuminates how we carry history deep into even the most forgotten corners of ourselves. Once you start reading about Vera and her family you won’t be able to put this book down. > — Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Author of The Evening Hero Thanks for this amazing conversation, Nancy! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN. Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: coalitionworks issue 10 is now live! -- Hi there, Today I am delighted to be arts calling writer, actor, and producer Sandra Cruze! (sandracruze.com) About our guest: Sandra Cruze was steeled in the uprisings of the 60’s and 70’s, and underground art world of DTLA, where she sang in punk bands, reggae bands and performed in street theater. She believes the "PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD" and picked hers up. Having experienced the transformation of good story telling which has saved her on many occasion, her works traverse the mindfield that is America today. She writes about dangerous women and women in danger. Acting in Films, TV and Stage, Sandra also creates her own content. Her short film, "Physics of Killing", was selected for the Toronto International Women’s Film Festival 2022, and an IMDB writers credit. Her play, "Little Sugar", was a quarter finalist with ScreenCraft in 2022 and 2023. "We're Not Dead Yet", a YouTube web series co-produced by Two Heads are Better Productions, has received multiple awards and selections for both the series and the scripts, winning semifinalist for pilot script. https://www.housetheater.net/ Further accomplishments for film and theater can be found on IMDB and https://linktr.ee/sandracruzeproductions ABBY NORMAL THE MUSICAL FUNDRAISER EVENT AT HYPERION ARTS, LOS ANGELES: CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS APRIL 25 AND 26! Thanks for this amazing conversation, Sandra! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN. Much love, j artscalling.com

Weekly shoutout: Christopher Soriano-Palma (AC23) releases a new poetry collection! -- Hi there, We're back! Today I am delighted to be arts calling musician/producer Mo Milan! (momilan.com) About our guest: Mo Milan is a Las Vegas-based composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, crafting music under two distinct monikers: Cocoa Pastel and Mo Milan. As Cocoa Pastel, she delivers vibrant, synth-driven pop infused with dark wave and electronic influences, centering on resilience, reinvention, and new beginnings. Handling every aspect of production—from songwriting to mixing—she creates dynamic, immersive soundscapes. Under Mo Milan, she explores experimental and introspective realms, blending neo-classical, folktronica, and cinematic elements. A classically trained violinist and skilled multi-instrumentalist, she pairs music with self-directed visuals, amplifying emotional depth. Previously a member of REIGN-A, Atomic Heart Band, Echo Stains, and Angel Groove, Milan is now preparing her debut dual mini-album: two EPs showcasing the energetic pulse of Cocoa Pastel and the cinematic introspection of Mo Milan. Project Premiere March 28th in Las Vegas, NV at SPCKRFT STUDIOS! Instagram: @noitsnotmo LISTEN TO COCOA PASTEL HERE: https://linktr.ee/cocoapastel Thanks for this amazing conversation, Mo! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.

Weekly shoutout: Read Issue 5 of Engine(Idling Lit! -- Hi there, We're back! Today I am delighted to be arts calling playwright/producer Anna Capunay! (annacapunay.com) About our guest: Anna Capunay is a Queens, NY native. Her plays include: A Cat’s Tale (Roy Arias Stages), and Cowl Girl (The Players Theatre). These works were adapted for the screen -- A Cat’s Tale winning Best Director for Comedy and Best Ensemble Cast for Comedy at the San Francisco’s Best Actors Film Festival. The indie feature debuted at the Chelsea Film Festival in NYC, 2016. Cowl Girl was shot as a TV pilot and was included as Best of the Fest finalist at the Chicago International REEL Shorts Film Festival, 2017. Anna’s directorial debut was for the short film she also wrote, Your Silent Face. The short won multiple awards via the film festival circuit, most notably for Best Screenwriting at the Festival of Cinema NYC and Best LGBTQ Film at the L.A. Punk Film Festival, both in 2023. Anna has received multiple grants over the years supporting her projects. Most recently, she was awarded the NYC Women's Fund for Media, Music and Theatre via the New York Foundation for the Arts. This grant has fully funded this stage production of La Gota Fria: The Cold Sweat. Additionally, Anna was awarded a Queens Arts Funds grant (her third) to help produce her short film, Sombras, later this year. Anna’s upcoming project includes writing her first feature film to be produced with her partner, Bill McDonald, called Contigo. ABOUT THE PLAY: LA GOTA FRÍA: THE COLD SWEAT is a dramedy set in 1990s Queens, NY. When the matriarch of the Gonzalez family falls ill, her loved ones rally around her: a blind but hyperaware grandfather, a frenzied daughter and her doting husband. And the meddlesome family friend with a particular interest for the Gonzalez women, including the cat. LA GOTA FRÍA:THE COLD SWEAT is a new sick family comedy that will have you rethink your choices for cancer treatments. So let's go back in time to Queens, NY in the 1990s when you, your family and your friends were dancing to new and classic Salsa, Merengue and Latin Pop! Website: https://lagotafriaplay.com Now playing at The Players Theatre NYC, March 6-23 2025. Get your tix NOW! https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/cal/277/1740805200000 Thanks for this amazing conversation, Anna! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.

Weekly shoutout: Read the latest literary releases from Punk Noir Magazine! -- Hi there, We're back! Today I am delighted to be arts calling author Theodora Ziolkowski! (www.theodoraziolkowski.com) ABOUT OUR GUEST: THEODORA ZIOLKOWSKI is the author of the novella, On the Rocks (2018 & 2020, The University Press of SHSU/Texas Review Press) and the short story chapbook, Mother Tongues (2016 & 2018, The Cupboard). On the Rocks, winner of a 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Award, is now available as an audiobook. Ziolkowski's debut collection of poems, Ghostlit (2025), is now available. Ziolkowski’s work has received support from the Vermont Studio Center, the National Alumni Association (University of Alabama), and Inprint (Houston, Texas). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Writer's Chronicle, Short Fiction (England), and Prairie Schooner, among over sixty other literary journals, magazines, anthologies, and exhibits. In the past, Ziolkowski has served as Poetry Editor for Gulf Coast, Fiction Editor for Big Fiction, and Assistant Poetry Editor for Black Warrior Review. She holds an MFA from the University of Alabama, where she was honored as a ‘30 Under 30’ alum, and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Houston, where she was the recipient of the Inprint Marion Barthelme Prize in Creative Writing. Currently, she teaches creative writing as an assistant professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. GHOSTLIT: A new poetry collection, is now available! BOOKSHOP.ORG | BARNES & NOBLE | POWELL'S BOOKS | AMAZON ABOUT GHOSTLIT: Intimate, urgent, and relentlessly inventive, the poems in Ghostlit reflect upon mythology and feminist pop culture and contemporary ideology as they may become embedded in the psyches and even the bodies of their inheritors. Through visceral and sometimes gothic-inspired images, mythological allusions, and the assemblage of strands of narrative, the poems in this collection chart the ways in which manipulative emotional strategies on individual and cultural levels inflict lingering harm upon minds and bodies. Throughout, the poems peel back the layers of what it means for an abuse survivor to reclaim a sense of self—long after the damage has been done. “It turns out that the years I believed myself lucky/were partly responsible for my thinking/there was something deeply wrong with me” could be understood as a refrain for the speaker in Ghostlit or as a shorthand for a cautionary tale about how many survivors may be encouraged to deny the reality of abuse. Thanks for this amazing conversation, Theodora! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.

Weekly shoutout: Subscribe to Flash Perspectives from author Tommy Dean! -- Hi there, We're back! Today I am delighted to be arts calling writer/performer Jen Ponton! (jenponton.com) About our guest: JEN PONTON (writer/performer SUGARCOATED) returns triumphantly to the New York stage with Sugarcoated, her autobiographical solo show, in its New York premiere. Last seen off-Broadway in Halley Feiffer’s How To Make Friends and then Kill Them (Rattlestick, 2013), Jen has spent the past decade building a vibrant career in film and television. Highlights include Dietland, 30 Rock, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orange is the New Black, Law & Order: SVU, and Blue Bloods, among many others. Jen also starred in Ash Christian’s Love on the Run alongside Frances Fisher, Annaleigh Ashford, and Steve Howey. She has since appeared in Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me and Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog opposite Greta Gerwig and Kieran Culkin. Off-screen, Jen is a passionate creator. Her works include the storytelling podcast All the Fucks with co-host Lillian Bustle_, a nostalgia-packed puppet sitcom, and her TEDx Talk, “Hollywood’s Fatphobia Problem.” Her collaboration with _Sugarcoated director Tessa Slovis began with Tessa’s film Pizza Party, wherein the two found an immediate connection through their commitment to bold activism through storytelling. Explore more about Sugarcoated at jenponton.com. Maiden Mother Crone: an evening of poignant storytelling as two extraordinary solo shows, THE LONGER MY MOTHER IS DEAD THE MORE I LIKE HER by Deborah Unger and SUGARCOATED by Jen Ponton, take center stage at The Pete at The Flea from February 12–23, 2025. ABOUT SUGARCOATED: Jen Ponton takes audiences on a visceral journey through the polished facade women are often forced to wear. With biting humor and profound vulnerability, Sugarcoated strips away societal expectations, revealing raw truths about trauma, survival, and self-empowerment. Best known for her role on AMC's Dietland, Ponton has made waves in TV, film, and theater. Sugarcoated, which premiered at the Denver Fringe Festival, is a testament to her fearless approach to storytelling and her commitment to exploring the untold narratives of women. MAIDEN MOTHER CRONE plays the following schedule through Sunday, February 23: Preview Performances: February 12 & 13 at 7 PM Opening Night: February 14 at 7 PM February 15 (2 PM & 7 PM, with matinee talkback) February 16 (2 PM) February 19–21 (7 PM) February 22 (2 PM & 7 PM, with matinee talkback) February 23 (2 PM) Tickets are $40 and can be purchased at maidenmothercroneshow.com or in person at the theater ½ hours before the performance. Venue: The Pete at The Flea, 20 Thomas Street, New York, NY 10007 Running Time: 2h15 mins (with intermission) Website: maidenmothercroneshow.com Thanks for this amazing conversation, Jen! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.

Weekly shoutout: New classes and projects from friend of the show, playwright Sarah Congress! -- Hi there, We're back! Today I am delighted to be arts calling author Em J Parsley! (emjparsley.com) About our guest: Em J Parsley (they/he) is a fiction writer, poet, educator, and environmentalist who received their MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and makes their home in rural Kentucky with their beautiful devil-cat, Griffin. He is a 2024 Artist-In-Residence at Wormfarm Institute and Art Farm, and their work has been published or is upcoming in Silk Road Review, Screen Door Review, ANMLY, Birdcoat Quarterly, The New Flash Fiction Review, and various other places in print and around the internet. Their poetry chapbook, the anonym gospels, won the 2023 Apogee Poetry Award and is available through April Gloaming Publishing. You can follow him on instagram @emjparsley. You, From Below: Now available from Split/Lip Press! https://www.splitlippress.com/you-from-below About You, From Below: When an Appalachian holler town is suddenly swallowed into the earth, its sole survivor embarks on a journey up a nearby mountain to get answers. With a mysterious envelope in their pocket that they know they must deliver, the narrator encounters a faceless beekeeper, an undying woman, and a righteous schoolteacher of a town that was raptured overnight while confronting their own past and the death of both the town and people they left behind. Em J Parsley’s You, From Below burrows into the ecological, economic, and emotional state of Central Appalachia to examine its past, present, and the nature of reciprocity through this speculative, introspective, fable-like exploration of collapse and regeneration. Thanks for this amazing conversation, Em J! All the best! -- Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro. HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.