"I was thrilled to come to the University of Iowa and join the awesomely diverse writing communities here (poets! novelists! essayists! comic writers!)"

"Being able to create art or write about something that directly relates to the world around me currently makes me feel like I have a special place in history."

"Translation is a craft that requires a lot of discipline and focus, and I usually try to find large chunks of time (4+ hours) rather than small increments."

On this episode, author Madeline McDonnell shares all sorts of secrets with us from being admonished in Middle English, reading in trees, dramatic countdowns to playing an evil Jack-o-lantern in a 3rd grade play with Mindy Kaling, starting three books at the same time, and the importance of friends.

"For me, the biggest source of inspiration for any translation project I’m working on is the source text itself! Translation forces you to read intimately, and you have to be quite intimate to rewrite the text in a different language."

"...the entire city seemed to glow and support its students. I fell in love with the literary walk downtown and the numerous cafes that undoubtedly housed so many aspiring writers."

"I am a near-daily journal-er; it's my precious, private place. Writing at night is akin to glory for me these days, and I love to light candles and enter my body in an extra-intentional way."

"And then I wake up, open the windows, make my coffee, think about places I’ve been and people I’ve loved. I send good morning messages, sometimes I teach Spanish classes, sometimes I go to the store to buy food for the week."

"... lately I’m getting to discover how useful can be for me to write outside from home. Some days I go to the public library of Iowa City, where I can find the silence I need to edit my texts or keep writing them. Some other days I go to cafés ..."

On this episode, we have bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld in the studio! Curtis talks with us about the perils of boarding school, getting good juju from a used car, how her family really feels about her writing, and her new short story collection Show Don’t Tell.

"If you can make a single sentence do the work of 3 sentences or a paragraph—then, you’ve probably written a compelling sentence. In flash every word communicates."

"This course gives you the opportunity to intensely focus on the visual aspects of writing poetry and how they affect the ways we understand poetry."