Episode 15: Solomon Mussing on "Letter to My Father"

Explicit content warning

08/08/19 • 61 min

Solomon Mussing, who also goes by the name L'Hussen Toure, an alum of the Summer Workshop for Young Writers at the Kelly Writers House, talks with Jamie-Lee about his piece "Letter to My Father," a memoir in the style of direct-address that he wrote to his father, who died by suicide. They discuss the obvious, unflinching directness of the mode, the way a writer considers his reader in this style, the risks involved in such a piece, and more.

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Episode 14: Anna Strong Safford on "because my memories"

In our Season 2 premiere, Anna Strong Safford, instructor and curriculum specialist at Penn, joins Jamie-Lee and DPS brilliant pal Molly O'Neill to read and discuss her poem "because my memories" from her manuscript bled. Anna's poem inspires a conversation about the use of earthly (and, indeed, worldly) imagery in writing about one's memories of grief, the way parental grief can transfer and shift from one parent to the other, and how found language can inspire our work as writers.

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Episode 16: Molly O'Neill on "Parts of a Life""

Molly O'Neill, a Los Angeles-based yoga instructor, writer, and longtime friend of the Kelly Writers House community reads from her essay "Parts of a Life" from YogaPoetica.com and discusses the piece with Jamie-Lee and DPS brilliant pal Anna Strong Safford. In their conversation, they discuss how teaching and practicing yoga integrated into Molly's grief of her father's death from Parkinson's Disease, and how writing factors in as well.