Aimee Nezhukumatathil joins me to talk about writing that is guided by love, staying true to ourselves on the page, and creating work we’d want to be remembered by. We discuss the role of the senses, the joy of concrete poetry, and how to write in a way that gently taps readers on the shoulder.

Aimee is the author of seven books books of poetry and essays, including her latest book of poems Night Owl and the bestselling illustrated essay collection World of Wonders.

January Gill O’Neil joins me to talk about community as a sustaining force, the ways place and history might shape a body of work, and how poetry can acknowledge pain to make room for joy.

January is the author of four poetry collections, including Glitter Road. A Cave Canem Fellow, she has also served as executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, chair of AWP, and teaches at Salem State University.

Megan Marshall joins me to talk about writing from fragments—letters, objects, and the traces people leave behind—and how those pieces become a life in narrative form. We discuss the intimacy and responsibility of writing about others, and how that work turns us back toward our own lives.

Megan is a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer and the author of five books, including Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast, and After Lives, out now--a collection of essays that moves between history, memoir, and the enduring question of how we make meaning from the lives around us.

Souvankham Thammavongsa joins me to talk about the discipline of not wasting a reader’s time, the risks of being read as earnest, and the role of wit and irony. We also discuss how time can act as a container for a life on the page—and what it takes to protect one's love of writing.

Souvankham is the bestselling author of the novel Pick a Color, the story collection How to Pronounce Knife, and four books of poetry.

Daisy Alpert Florin joins me to talk about looking back to understand the present, the long path to a first novel, and the power of positive feedback.

Daisy is the author of My Last Innocent Year, an acclaimed novel that explores the enduring echo of early choices and influences, and the moments that solidify to shape our lives.

José Olivarez joins me to talk about how poetry can hold love, humor, and resistance at once. We discuss audience, voice, and the many truths a poem can carry.

José is the author of Promises of Gold and Citizen Illegal, award-winning collections that explore family, migration, and belonging.

Colby Cedar Smith joins me to talk about the long path to publication, the communities (and rejections) that shape us, and the verse novel as a space of compression and expansion.

Colby is the author of The Siren and the Star and Call Me Athena, award-winning verse novels that center women’s voices and the enduring presence of the past.

Kevin Young joins me for a deep dive into the writing life. We discuss the intimacy of the archives, writing through grief, and the evolution of our work over time.

Kevin is the author of multiple award-winning books of poetry and prose, his most recent being Night Watch (Knopf, 2025), and serves as poetry editor of The New Yorker.