Awakeners Podcast
1) Gabrielle Bates & Keetje Kuipers
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the poets Gabrielle Bates and Keetje Kuipers, who met when Gabby enrolled in Keetje’s poetry class at Auburn University in Alabama almost thirteen years ...Show More
2) Nicole Chung & Tajja Isen
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the nonfiction writers Tajja Isen and Nicole Chung, who became colleagues and friends after working together on an essay for Catapult, a (now sadly shutt...Show More
3) Aditi Machado & Carl Phillips
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the poets Carl Phillips and Aditi Machado, who met through the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis when Aditi began as a student almost fif...Show More
4) Tash Aw & Jemimah Wei
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the novelists Tash Aw and Jemimah Wei, who connected when Jemimah signed up for Tash’s fiction master class on “time and place” in Singapore back in 2015...Show More
5) Lydi Conklin & Melissa Febos
On the first episode of Season 2 of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the writers Melissa Febos and Lydi Conklin, who met at the MacDowell artist residency back in 2011. Melissa had just published Whip Sm...Show More
6) Re-Awakeners: Tiana Clark
On this special bonus episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with writer Tiana Clark about the person who first told her she was a poet: her late mentor and high school teacher, Mr. Bill Brown. Tiana was a...Show More
7) T Bambrick & Jane Miller
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with writers T Bambrick and Jane Miller, who were connected by some fellow poets in Tucson when T found themselves at a crossroads in their writing. Jane had j...Show More
8) Firefeet: Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, CJ Hauser, Charlie Beckerman, and Emily Alford
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena gets temporarily inducted into a writing group called the Firefeet by writers Emily Alford, Charlie Beckerman, CJ Hauser and Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, who have been kee...Show More
9) Adrian Matejka & Austin Araujo
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with poets Adrian Matejka and Austin Araujo. Austin was already a huge fan of Adrian’s work—especially his collection The Big Smoke, a finalist for the Pulitze...Show More
10) Kyoko Mori & Abi Newhouse
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with the writers Kyoko Mori and Abi Newhouse, who worked together at George Mason University’s MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. We discuss the evolution of ...Show More