SoundPages
SoundPages is produced by Jack Straw Cultural Center as part of the Jack Straw Writers Program. This podcast features interviews and live readings from artists in the Jack Straw Writers Program. Each year a series of twelve episodes is produced featuring the current Jack Straw Writers and curator.-
Creative Cussing - Willie Smith
Poet and a novelist Willie Smith started writing when he was nine. His first love was science, but when he had the opportunity to enter a grade school writing contest, Smith wrote his first short story. From that point forward, Smith was hooked.
In this podcast, you’ll hear Smith talk about his beginnings in writing with program curator Matt Briggs and excerpts from his live performance at Jack Straw Productions.
Music by Christian Asplund, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Under the Radar and Winning Awards - Laurie Blauner
For Laurie Blauner writing is an exercise that helps her to understand her own thoughts and subsequently herself. She began her writing career as a poet and later explored prose where she could spread out. In this podcast, you’ll hear excerpts from her interview with writers program curator Matt Briggs and selections from her live reading at Jack Straw Productions.
Music by Sean Osborn, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Growing Up in Rural Minnesota - Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed experienced a range of living situations in her childhood, from apartment living to camping in rural Minnesota. Her mother told her that these experiences would be “character building,” but she didn’t come to truly appreciate them until adulthood. Now her experiences serve as fodder for her writing. In this podcast, you’ll hear excerpts from Cheryl’s interview with writer’s program curator Matt Briggs and her reading at a live performance at Jack Straw Productions.
Music by Sheila Fox, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Poems For Children - Susan Landgraf
Poet Susan Landgraf wrote a collection of children’s poems inspired by the sea for the Jack Straw Writers Program. In her interview with program curator Matt Briggs, she discusses her childhood love for writing and the freedom she felt in writing these poems for children.
You’ll also hear selections from her live reading at Jack Straw including a special performance with musician Paul Rucker.
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Poetic Rants - Anna Maria Hong
Poet Anna Maria Hong began her writing career in her 20s and was instinctually drawn to poetry after several years of working in journalism. In this podcast, you’ll hear Maria talk about the apparent anger in her poems, which program curator Matt Briggs characterizes as “mean”, and also her recent manuscript which touches on the myths we’re taught growing up and the process of shedding those as an adult.
You’ll also hear selected poems from Hong’s reading at Jack Straw Productions.
Music by Ed Petry, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Lit Games - Doug Nufer
Doug Nufer is a specialist in literary constraints, a technique that applies certain conditions to or establishes a pattern within writing. In this podcast, you’ll hear excerpts from his interview with 2007 Jack Straw Writers Program curator Matt Briggs and highlights from his live reading at the Jack Straw May Reading Series.
Music by Emma Zunz, a duo featuring Cristin Miller and Annie Lewandowski, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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The Bricolage of Kotagaeshi - Howard W. Robertson
Howard W. Robertson, rebelling against the expectations of his upbringing in a rural Oregon mill town, became a poet. In this podcast, Robertson talks with Writers Program curator Matt Briggs about teaching himself how to type and discovering a need to write poetry and stories along the way. You’ll also hear an excerpt from his live reading at Jack Straw Productions featuring unpublished work and a poem from his new book The Bricolage of Kotagaeshi.
Music by the Bird Tribe Orchestra, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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Beginning with bogus Byron - Charles Potts
Poet and publisher Charles Potts was the driving force underneath The Temple Bookstore, The Temple magazine, and The Temple School of Poetry. He received the Distinguished Professional Achievement Award in 1994 from the Alumni Association and the College of Arts and Sciences of Idaho State University. He founded Litmus Inc. in Seattle and Berkeley which published 18 first editions including Charles Bukowski’s Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8-Story Window in 1968. In this podcast, Charles Potts discusses his evolution as a poet with Writers Program curator Matt Briggs, and you’ll also hear an excerpt from his live reading at Jack Straw.
Music by Jim Knodle and Pamela Moore Dionne, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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The Gift of Heresy - Corrina Wycoff
Plain-spoken and earnest, Corrina Wycoff writes stories about characters who struggle to survive in an alternate America, a place where drug addicts, teenage mothers, and religious cultists live obliviously to the lure of 401k plans and weekends at the cabin. In this podcast, you’ll hear a portion of her interview with Writers Program curator Matt Briggs and an excerpt from her live reading at Jack Straw Productions.
Music by Elizabeth and John Falconer, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
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On Chick-Lit - Kathryn Trueblood
Does the term “chick-lit” marginalize legitimate feminist writing?
Novelist Kathryn Trueblood addresses this question in her interview with Matt Briggs, Jack Straw Writers Program curator. Also in this podcast, Kathryn reads from her latest book, The Baby Lottery, which examines the personal politics of choice. Five women, friends at college, find their interlocking relationships strained when one of them, in her late thirties, decides to have an abortion after delaying the decision in the h opes that her husband will change his mind. The novel records the voices of her four friends as they struggle to bridge the gap between what they think they should feel and what they do feel.
Music by James Knapp, produced as part of the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
