Weekly Shoutout: Cruznotes is back! One email a month to bring you everything happening across the cruzfolio network, join Jaime's newsletter here: cruzfolio.com/cruznotes.

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Hi there,

Today I am so excited to be arts calling author David Winner! (david-winner.com)

About our guest: David Winner is the author of three novels, Enemy Combatant, Tyler’s Last and The Cannibal of Guadalajara, winner of the 2009 Gival Press Novel Award and nominated for the National Book Award. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, Fiction, The Iowa Review, The Millions, The Kenyon Review and other publications in the U.S. and the U.K. He is the fiction editor of The American (www.theamericanmag. com), a monthly magazine based in Rome, a senior editor at Statorec magazine and a regular contributor to The Brooklyn Rail. Most recently, he is the co-editor of Writing the Virus: Work from Statorec magazine. Learn more at david-winner.com

Thanks for this wonderful conversation, David! All the best!

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MASTER LOVERS is now available from Outpost 19!

https://bookshop.org/p/books/master-lovers-david-winner/20232214?ean=9781944853884

ABOUT MASTER LOVERS: While clearing out his great aunt's midtown apartment after her death, author David Winner discovered artifacts of her storied existence: notes from opera stars, love letters and artifacts from the Middle East of the 1930’s. His Aunt Dorle Soria had been a co-founder of Angel Records and a prominent figure in the mid-century classical music world. But the more he learned about her world, the more complicated her story became, a twisted puzzle full of love and fascism, a record of a young woman grappling with her attraction to lovers with hair-raising political ties. A powerful work of family discovery, rooted in a bygone Midtown Manhattan and involving artists and politicians from around the world.

BOOKLIFE STARRED REVIEW! "An engrossing story about the life and times of a singular woman who lived life to the fullest... A fascinating 'fictional memoir' memoir of a trailblazing great aunt and her mysteries."

KIRKUS RAVES! "A fascinating blend of the personal and the historical, and a provocative comment on the ways in which both resist interpretive finality."

Full reviews and advance praise from Ann Beattie, Clifford Thompson and Sean O'Driscoll.

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Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro (cruzfolio.com).

HOW TO SUPPORT ARTS CALLING: PLEASE CONSIDER LEAVING A REVIEW, OR SHARING THIS EPISODE WITH A FRIEND! YOUR SUPPORT TRULY MAKES A DIFFERENCE, AND I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LISTEN.

Much love,

j

Weekly shoutout: New music at Washingtones Records!

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Hi there,

Today I am delighted to be arts calling award-winning writer Georgia Jeffries! georgiajeffries.com

ABOUT OUR GUEST: Georgia Jeffries is a writer of Emmy Award winning drama and critically acclaimed noir fiction. Honored with multiple Writers Guild Awards, Golden Globes and the Humanitas Prize, her work in film has been praised by the Los Angeles Times as “standing ovation television.” The Los Angeles Review of Books described her short stories in the national anthologies, Odd Partners and The Last Resort, as “firecracker tales” and “domestic tragedy brilliantly segueing into comic farce.” She has also written biographical profiles for HuffPost and UC Press, including “The Last Gun of Tibercio Vasquez,” which can be viewed on the KCET-TV website, Artbound. Born in the Illinois heartland, she worked as a journalist for American Film before writing and producing ground-breaking female-driven dramas, Cagney & Lacey, China Beach and Sisters. Her screenwriting career has been distinguished by extensive field research, from patrolling the mean streets of Rampart with the LAPD to crashing a Vegas bounty hunters’ convention to reporting from a Walter Reed Army Hospital surgical bay, each investigation the basis for one of her many docudramas and series pilots for CBS, ABC, NBC, HBO and Showtime. A cum laude UCLA graduate, Jeffries is a professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts where she created the first undergraduate screenwriting thesis program at an American university.

THE YOUNGER GIRL, available from Mission Point Press on October 22nd!

ABOUT THE YOUNGER GIRL: Based on a true crime, The Younger Girl, (Mission Point Press, October 22, 2024) a debut novel by trailblazing, award-winning writer Georgia Jeffries, combines fiction and supernatural suspense to unravel a thrilling tale of family betrayal and redemption. On March 2, 1933, Chicago tabloids trumpeted the death of 20-year-old "town belle" Aldine Younger: "HEIRESS SLAIN, MARRIED MAN HELD." The son of the mayor of Pontiac, a rich farming community south of Chicago, was convicted of manslaughter. But the dead girl's baby brother, Owen, grew up in a broken family and suspected his beloved sister’s killing was orchestrated by their wealthy uncle. In 1996 Owen is an old man desperate to make peace with the tragedy of Aldine’s death. His daughter, Joanna, takes her still grieving father back home to claim his share of his sister's lost inheritance. Together, they are caught in a dark labyrinth of family betrayal crossing three generations. Owen is found raving during a violent thunderstorm and now believes his daughter is his sister, Aldine, returning to him. Joanna races against time to save her father and unearths damning secrets that threaten her own life. The guilty will be exposed at the psychic bridge linking past, present and future. But at what cost? And who will survive the revelations?

“True-crime stories are difficult, and far more so, when the true crime is in your own family. Georgia Jeffries’s triumphant novel tells the story of her aunt Aldine Younger’s killing in 1933—a violent death that has cast a long and complex shadow over the family, the community, and far beyond. Viewing these events through the lens of fiction, Jeffries deploys clear-eyed research and lucid, evocative prose to craft a novel that will haunt long after the book is closed.”

—Howard Rodman, novelist/screenwriter Professor, USC School of Cinematic Arts Vice President, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Thanks for this wonderful conversation, Georgia! All the best!

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Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro at the coalition.

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

Hi there,

Today I'm thrilled to be arts calling Audrey Cefaly and Carolyn Messina!

About our Guests: Audrey Cefaly (https://www.audreycefaly.com) is an alumna of the Playwrights' Arena cohort at Arena Stage, a recipient of the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers Conference, and a Dramatist Guild Foundation Traveling Master. She is published by Concord Theatricals, Smith & Kraus, and Applause Books. Cefaly's plays have been produced by Cincinnati Playhouse, Florida Studio, Florida Rep, City Theatre, Penobscot Theatre, Gulfshore Playhouse, Merrimack Rep, Signature Theatre, Barter Theatre, Vermont Stage, Oregon Contemporary Theatre, 16th Street Theater, Capital Stage, About Face, Kitchen Dog Theatre, Circle Theatre, Theatre Three, Aurora Theatre, Quotidian Theatre Company and University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her play Alabaster received an 11-city Rolling World Premiere, the largest in National New Play Network history. Twitter: https://twitter.com/alcefaly

Carolyn Messina is an AEA actor and LMDA dramaturg. She has served as dramaturgical consultant for the National Showcase of New Plays (NNPN) (10-city rolling world premiere), the Southern Writers Festival (Alabama Shakes), Signature Theater's SigWorks, BMCC Showcase (NYC), and About Face Theatre. She has worked in various capacities of dramaturgical support for plays such as Safety Net (Daryl Fazio), Winter Break/Spring Break (Joe Calarco), and perhaps most notably Maytag Virgin, The Gulf, Alabaster, and Trouble, as longtime dramaturg for playwright Audrey Cefaly. For more information, please visit: https://www.carolyn-messina.com.

Thank you both so much for this incredible conversation! All the best!!

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Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro (cruzfolio.com). If you like the show: leave a review, or share it with someone who's starting their creative journey! Your support truly makes a difference! Go make a dent: much love,

j

https://artscalling.com/welcome/

Hi there,

Today I am thrilled to be arts calling Dr. Sarah Etlinger for round two! (sarahetlinger.com)

About our Guest:

Sarah A. Etlinger holds a BA in English from Skidmore College, an MA in English from Syracuse University, and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition (English) from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Scholarly interests include new media studies, first-year composition, feminist literature, the Beatles, and popular culture. Currently, she is Associate professor of Composition and Literature at Rock Valley College where she teaches courses in composition, film, and literature.

A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of two books: Never One for Promises (Kelsay Books, 2018) and Little Human Things (Clare Songbirds, 2020). Other poems can be found in a variety of literary magazines, including The Amethyst Review, Neologism Poetry Journal, Mookychick, _ _The Penwood Review, The Magnolia Review, Brine (where she was September 2018’s featured Poet of the Month) and many others. Interests include cooking, baking, traveling, spending time with her family, and music.

Check out Dr. Sarah's latest collection, The Weather Gods, now available from Fernwood Press! https://www.fernwoodpress.com/2023/01/13/the-weather-gods/

Her previous poetry collection, Little Human Things is now available here!

Dr. Sarah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/drsaephd

Thanks for this wonderful conversation, Dr. Sarah! All the best!

“We need beauty in our lives.”

Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro (cruzfolio.com). If you like the show: leave a review, or share it with someone who's starting their creative journey! Your support truly makes a difference! Go make a dent: much love,

j

https://artscalling.com/welcome/

Weekly Shoutout: Nighthawks Podcast!

Like the podcast? Thoughts/concerns? Jaime would love to hear from you, send him a message!

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Hi there,

Today I am excited to be arts calling writer and educator Wendy Bashant!

About our Guest: Wendy Bashant taught and served as a dean and professor of English for thirty years at schools as diverse as UC-San Diego, Coe College, New College of Florida, Eastman School of Music, and California Western School of Law. Her writing includes scholarly articles, book chapters, poetry, and travel articles. She was a finalist for both the Peter Taylor Prize for Literature and the Gival Press Novel Award. Her memoir, The Same Bright Moon, was a 2023 New York Book Festival winner.

A graduate of Middlebury College (BA) and the University of Rochester (Ph.D.), she currently lives in San Diego with her husband and two cats. She teaches adult literacy through the public library system and volunteers at the San Diego Zoo. She also plays the harp and tries to practice her Mandarin with as much regularity and discipline as she can muster.

Insta: @wbashant1 Twitter: @BashantWendy

THE SAME BRIGHT MOON, now available! https://www.amazon.com/Same-Bright-Moon-Teaching-Generation/dp/B0CDNM82VZ

About THE SAME BRIGHT MOON: In 2019, Wendy Bashant, a burned-out college dean, quits her job to teach two hundred students in the ancient, walled city of Xi’an, China. The year turns extraordinary when tensions between China and the U.S. escalate: first tit-for-tat tariffs; then a worldwide pandemic; finally lockdowns, closed consulates, and expelled journalists. All the while, accusations are lobbed back and forth like flaming arrows launched over the Pacific. Against this background of aggression, Wendy tries to teach a class in American culture. Instead, her students describe the realities of growing up in an emerging global power. Through their experiences and compelling perspectives, the students debate various issues, such as environmentalism, gender, healthcare and political conflict. The Same Bright Moon is a collaborative memoir highlighting the stories of these students through their assignments, discussions and poetry at the height of Covid-19. Their vibrant voices will challenge, inspire, and bring hope for the future.

Thanks for this wonderful conversation, Wendy! All the best!

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Arts Calling is produced by Jaime Alejandro (cruzfolio.com). If you like the show: leave a review, or share it with someone who's starting their creative journey! Your support truly makes a difference! Go make a dent. Much love,

j

https://artscalling.com