Episodes

  • First Draft - 12th Anniversary Best Of - Diane Seuss

    First Draft - 12th Anniversary Best Of - Diane Seuss
    Nov 28 2025
    Diane Seuss is the author of the poetry collections Frank: Sonnets, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl; Four-Legged Girl, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open; and It Blows You Hollow. Her work has appeared in Poetry, the Georgia Review, Brevity, Able Muse, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and the Missouri Review, as well as The Best American Poetry 2014. She was the MacLean Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Department of English at Colorado College in 2012, and she has taught at Kalamazoo College since 1988. Her new poetry collection is Modern Poetry. We talked about aging, John Keats, dogs, romance, music, objectivity, grief, coldness, and the snarling, flaming bitch of poetry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 7 mins
  • First Draft - Tracy K. Smith (Returns)

    First Draft - Tracy K. Smith (Returns)
    Nov 24 2025
    Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, memoirist, editor, translator and librettist. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017-2019. Smith is the author of five poetry collections: Such Color: New and Selected Poems, which won the 2022 New England Book Award; Wade in the Water, which was awarded the 2018 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; Life on Mars, which won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize; Duende, winner of the 2006 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets; and The Body’s Question, which received the 2003 Cave Canem Prize. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was a finalist for the 2015 National Book Award in nonfiction. She is the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University, and a Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • First Draft - Stewart O'Nan

    First Draft - Stewart O'Nan
    Nov 17 2025
    Stewart O’Nan’s award-winning fiction includes Snow Angels, A Prayer for the Dying, Last Night at the Lobster, and Emily, Alone. His 2007 novel, Last Night at the Lobster, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize. Granta named him one of America’s Best Young Novelists. His new novel is Evensong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • First Draft - Angela Flournoy

    First Draft - Angela Flournoy
    Nov 10 2025
    Angela Flournoy’s debut novel The Turner House was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the VCU Cabell First Novel Prize and was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and an NAACP Image Award. Her new novel, The Wilderness, was long listed for the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • First Draft- Jonathan Parks-Ramage

    First Draft- Jonathan Parks-Ramage
    Nov 3 2025
    Jonathan Parks-Ramage is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter and journalist. He is also the author of the novel Yes, Daddy named one of the best queer books of 2021 by Entertainment Weekly, NBC News, The Advocate, Lambda Literary, Bustle, Goodreads and more. He is the Co-Creator of the Big Gay Jamboree, an Off-Broadway musical, nominated for five Lucille Lor-tell Awards, three Outer Critics Circle Awards, and four Drama Desk Awards. His new book It’s Not the End of the World was selected by The New York Times Style Magazine as a pick for Best Queer Summer Fiction.​ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    57 mins
  • First Draft - 12th Anniversary Best Of - Ben Okri

    First Draft - 12th Anniversary Best Of - Ben Okri
    Oct 31 2025
    Ben Okri is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. His newest book is a short story collection called Prayer for the Living. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    54 mins
  • First Draft - Jaquira Diaz

    First Draft - Jaquira Diaz
    Oct 27 2025
    Jaquira Díaz was raised between Humacao, Fajardo, Puerto Rico and Miami Beach. She is the author of Ordinary Girls: A Memoir, winner of a Whiting Award, a Florida Book Awards Gold Medal, a Lambda Literary Awards finalist, an American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce Selection, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Indie Next Pick, a Library Reads pick, and finalist for the B&N Discover Prize. Her stories, poems, and essays have been anthologized in The Best American Essays, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, Best American Experimental Writing, and The Pushcart Prize anthology. Her debut novel, This Is the Only Kingdom, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2025 First Novel Prize. She lives in New York and teaches at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • First Draft - Peter Orner (Pete for the 5-Peat)

    First Draft - Peter Orner (Pete for the 5-Peat)
    Oct 20 2025
    Peter Orner is the author of seven acclaimed books including Maggie Brown & Others, Love and Shame and Love, Esther Stories, finalist for the Pen/ Hemingway Award, and Am I Alone Here?, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Best American Stories, and been awarded four Pushcart Prizes. A former Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Orner is chair of the English and Creative Writing Department at Dartmouth College. He lives with his family in Vermont, where he’s also a volunteer firefighter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    51 mins