A book podcast hosted by writing partners Amy Helmes and Kim Askew. Guests include biographers, journalists, authors, and cultural historians discussing lost classics by women writers.
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đ The Secret Poetry of Austria's Empress "Sisi"
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Long before an insatiable press laid siege to Catherine, Princess of Wales, Princess Diana, Meghan Markle and in-law to Americaâs âroyal family,â Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Empress Elizabeth of Austria was the beautiful royal everyone wanted a piece of. Feeling like a prisoner in a gilded cage, âSisiâ âŚ
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Ann Schlee (Rhine Journey) with Sam Johnson-Schlee and Lucy Scholes
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Send us a Text Message. Pack your steamer trunks! Weâre traveling to 19th-century Bavaria this week by way of Ann Schleeâs 1980 historical novel Rhine Journey, newly republished by McNally Editions. This Booker-Prize nominated travel tale features vivid period details, sultry psychological thrills and a protagonist on the brink of a personal revoluâŚ
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Reflecting back on four years of literary âlost ladies,â Amy celebrates our 200th episode with a quirky list of yearbook superlatives to help jog your memory about some of our favorite titles, including the books âMost Likely to Make You Eat Your Vegetables,â âMost Likely to Up Your Selfie Game,â and âŚ
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Send us a Text Message. An Australian author â and the 1979 film adaptation of her work â capture Kim and Amyâs fancy this week on the show. Published in 1901 and written when author Miles Franklin was only eighteen years old, My Brilliant Career became an instant classic of Australian literature and still delights readers with its feisty heroine, âŚ
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Things get weird on the show this week as Amy and Kim commune with some ladies of literature from beyond the veil⌠with a little bit of help from ChatGPT. Check out our âinterviewâ with Restoration-era author and playwright Aphra Behn, then find out what happens when we play around with prompts for ViâŚ
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Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, Lost Lady of Translation â with Jo Salas
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Send us a Text Message. You may think youâve never read anything by Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, but if youâve read any Thomas Mann, thereâs a good chance youâve seen her handiwork. Lowe-Porter was a writer and translator whose greatest (but largely unsung) success came in the form of translating 22 monumental works by the German literary giant. Her EnâŚ
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đ 7 Middagh Street â The House of Literary Misfits
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Writers Carson McCullers and W.H. Auden, literary editor George Davis, composer Benjamin Britten and burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee... once upon a time they all lived together in a house in Brooklyn Heights, an early 1940s version of the sitcom "Friends," only this one populated by an ever-changing mixâŚ
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Elaine May â Miss May Does Not Exist with Carrie Courogen
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Send us a Text Message. Guest Carrie Courogen, author of the acclaimed new bio "Miss May Does Not Exist," joins us to discuss comic genius Elaine May. Known for her groundbreaking work in comedy, screenwriting, directing, and acting, May rose to fame as part of the iconic comedy duo Nichols and May. Despite her significant contributions to films liâŚ
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đ A Urinal, a "Punk" Baroness and a Dinner Party
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Marcel Duchamp created one of the most influential works of art in the 20th century. Or did he? There are some who theorize that a woman â âproto-punkâ poet and Dada-ist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven â is the true genius behind the groundbreaking âFountainâ urinal sculpture that rocked the art world inâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. In this special catch-up episode, we take a breather to share updates and insights from our recent reads, including works by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Radclyffe Hall. Amy introduces a quirky new business idea inspired by silent disco and Shakespeare, and we invite listeners to text feedback using a new âtext usâ feature. PlâŚ
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Inspired by Barbara Comyns, who lived with an unusual assortment of pets over the years, this bonus episode explores female authors who owned pet monkeys. Amy discusses Virginia Woolf and her Nazi-disarming marmoset Mitz, Nellie Blyâs fez-wearing travel companion, McGinty, and other primates who captuâŚ
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Barbara Comyns â Our Spoons Came From Woolworths and The Vetâs Daughter with Avril Horner
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Send us a Text Message. Barbara Comyns was recently called, âthe best English novelist youâve never heard ofâ and her unsettling gothic novels are equal parts enchanting and horrific. Joining us is Avril Horner, author of "Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence," who offers insight into Comyns' unique blend of dark humor and her empathetic portrayals oâŚ
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đ Ina Eloise Young, Lost Lady of Sports Reporting
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Inspired by watching Caitlin Clark play in this yearâs NCAA tournament, Amy is feeling uncharacteristically âsportyâ in this weekâs bonus episode. Sheâll dive into the history of Ina Eloise Young, Americaâs first female sports editor at a daily newspaper whose coverage of the 1908 World Series so imprâŚ
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Enayat al-Zayyat â Love and Silence with Iman Mersal
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Send us a Text Message. Dying by suicide shortly after her novel, Love and Silence, was rejected for publication in 1963, Egyptian writer Enayat al-Zayyat gained brief recognition when the book was finally published four years after her death. Discovering the novel in a Cairo market some 30 years later launched acclaimed Egyptian writer Iman MersalâŚ
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đ The "Ex-pat" Life with Anne Boyd Rioux
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Have you ever wanted to hit the âpauseâ button on your life and simply start over? In 2022, Anne Boyd Rioux did just that, making the bold and audacious decision to leave her job as a tenured English professor, sell all her earthly possessions and embark on a European adventure. In this episode, Anne âŚ
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Kay Boyle â Fifty Stories with Anne Boyd Rioux
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Send us a Text Message. An eyewitness to monumental moments in the 20th century, author Kay Boyle hung out with Left Bank artists and literary giants, chronicled the ravages of WWII, was blacklisted in the 1950s and was jailed for her Haight-Ashbury activism in the late 1960s. An intrepid modernist committed to a âRevolution of the Word,â this two-âŚ
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đ The Viennese Waltz â Dance Revolution!
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. In this episode Amy explores the history of the 19th-century dance craze that made political leaders nervous, religious leaders aghast, dance instructors insecure and the masses primed for revolt! From Johann Strauss Jr.'s "pop star" status to popular representations in film, we're covering everythingâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. In this weekâs episode Kim and Amy discuss the life and work of âSperanza,â a.k.a Lady Jane Wilde, a.k.a. Oscar Wildeâs mom! An outspoken, rabble-rousing poet who championed Irish independence, she stirred up members of the Young Ireland movement while writing for Dublinâs radical newspaper âThe Nationâ in the 1840s. Oscar mâŚ
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Whose Line is it Anyway? Elizabeth Taylor vs. Elizabeth Taylor
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Send us a Text Message. In our first-ever "Game Show Edition" of the podcast, McNally Editions editor Lucy Scholes joins us for a lightning-round quiz pitting quotations from Elizabeth Taylor the actress vs. Elizabeth Taylor the author! Test your knowledge and join in the fun! For the full forty-minute episode in which we discuss the author Taylor'âŚ
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đ Elizabeth Taylor Vs. Elizabeth Taylor (Full-length Edition) with Lucy Scholes
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. FULL LENGTH EDITION!!! In our first-ever "Game Show Edition" of the podcast, McNally Editions editor Lucy Scholes joins us to talk about the TWO Elizabeth Taylors! Lucy collaborated with Pushkin Press Classics on the short story collection A Different Sound, in which midcentury British novelist and shâŚ
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Emilie Loring âUncharted Seas with Patti Bender
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Send us a Text Message. Get ready to fall hopelessly in love with Emilie Loring, a New England native whose prolific output of richly-detailed romance novels feature the sort of charming characters and snappy dialogue reminiscent of films like The Philadelphia Story and It Happened One Night. Loringâs 30 years of commercial success continued long aâŚ
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. Fasten on those Harry Winston jewels! With Oscar night approaching, Patreon members get âred carpetâ access as Amy takes a look back at some of the films honored by the Academy over the decades which were written (or co-written) by women. Womenâs representation in screenwriting categories at the OscarâŚ
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Angela Milne â One Yearâs Time with Simon David Thomas
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Send us a Text Message. Blogger, podcaster and consultant for the British Library Women Writers series Simon Thomas returns to the show to discuss Angela Milneâs 1942 novel One Yearâs Time. The book follows a year in the life of a 1930s-era âbachelor girlâ named Liza who lives in London. Milne, the niece of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, was a âŚ
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đ Anna Katharine Green â The Leavenworth Case
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. In this bonus episode, Amy follows the clues to learn more about writer Anna Katharine Green (a.k.a "The Mother of the Detective Novel") whose late 19th-century mysteries inspired the likes of Agatha Christie and last week's "lost lady," Carolyn Wells. Green's 1878 debut novel The Leavenworth Case wasâŚ
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Carolyn Wells â Murder in the Bookshop with Rebecca Rego Barry
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Send us a Text Message. A pioneer of the detective/mystery genre who began writing locked-room mystery novels a decade before Agatha Christie, Carolyn Wells was a turn-of-the-twentieth century celebrity who counted Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and Mark Twain among her many famous friends and fans. Guest Rebecca Rego Barry, whose new book is TâŚ
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đ The Winchester Mystery House and Shirley Jackson
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Subscriber-only episode Send us a Text Message. In this bonus episode, Amy reflects on a recent trip to the Winchester Mystery House, an architecturally-unusual mansion in San Jose, California which helped inspired Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. In addition to exploring the life of Sarah Winchester and her legendary home, Kim and AmyâŚ
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Zelda Fitzgerald â Save Me the Waltz with Stephanie Peebles Tavera
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Send us a Text Message. Zelda Fitzgerald is known as âthe first American flapperâ and an icon of the Jazz Age, but you may be surprised to learn that beneath the glittering facade, there was substanceâand literary talent. Her sole published novel, âSave Me the Waltz,â is a poignant blend of beauty and biography that draws on her complex personal naâŚ
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HiATUS ENCORE: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala â Heat and Dust with Brigitte Hales
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Send us a Text Message. As Merchant Ivory super fans, we were surprised (and chagrined!) that weâd been unaware of Ismael Merchant and James Ivoryâs longtime collaborator, novelist and Academy Award winning-screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. Hollywood screenwriter Brigitte Hales joins us to discuss Jhabvala and her Booker Prize-winning 1975 novel, âŚ
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HIATUS ENCORE: Edna Ferber â So Big with Dr. Caroline Frick
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Send us a Text Message. New full-length episodes beginning Jan. 30. Edna Ferberâs So Big was the top-selling novel of 1924 and it won a Pulitzer Prize, yet itâs little known now! Wildly popular in its day, So Big was adapted for film three times, the second of which (in 1932) starred Barbara Stanwyck and featured a young Bette Davis in one of her eâŚ
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HIATUS ENCORE: The Woman of Colour: A Tale with Leigh-Michil George
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Send us a Text Message. Published anonymously six years prior to Jane Austenâs Mansfield Parkâyet largely ignored for two centuriesâthe Regency-era epistolary novel The Woman of Colour: A Tale is the only one of its kind to feature a racially-conscious Black heroine at its center. Dr. Leigh-Michil George, a lecturer in the English Department at GefâŚ
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Hiatus Replay: Maud Hart Lovelace â The Betsy-Tacy High School Books with Sadie Stein
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Send us a Text Message. New episodes beginning January 30. Ready for some Edwardian Era YA? Set in Minnesota at the turn of the 20th century, Maud Hart Lovelaceâs delightful Besty-Tacy series is closely based on the authorâs idyllic midwestern childhood. In this weekâs episode weâre discussing the four books that span Betsyâs high school years (190âŚ
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Hiatus Replay: Lucia Berlin â A Manual for Cleaning Women with Mimi Pond
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Send us a Text Message. Back with new episodes on January 30. Lucia Berlin has been called one of America's "best kept secrets.â Weâll be discussing Berlinâs engrossing short short story collection A Manual for Cleaning Women, published posthumously in 2015 and soon to be adapted for the screen by Pedro Almodovar. Joining us is a longtime friend ofâŚ
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Hiatus Replay: Amy Levy â Reuben Sachs with Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith
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Send us a Text Message. Weâre back January 30, 2024 with all new episodes. Did you know there was a controversial, now-forgotten 1888 novel written in response to George Eliotâs Daniel Deronda by a writer who has been described as âthe Jewish Jane Austen?â Until recently, neither did we. Join us as we talk with Dr. Ann Kennedy Smith about author AmâŚ
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Hiatus Replay: Jane and Mary Findlater â Crossriggs with Julie and Shawna Benson
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Send us a Text Message. Weâre back January 30, 2024 with all new episodes. Sisters Jane and Mary Findlater were literary celebrities in their day and counted the likes of Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and Rudyard Kipling among their admirers. Weâll be discussing one of their joint efforts, Crossriggs, which is considered their finest work. Joining uâŚ
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Hiatus Replay: Hilma Wolitzer â Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket
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Send us a Text Message. We're back with all new episodes on Jan. 30, 2024. Join us for a wonderfully funny and poignant conversation about life, death, and motherhood with award-winning writer Hilma Wolitzer. Her short stories, most of them originally appearing in magazines in the 1960s and 1970s, were re-discovered by her daughter, bestselling autâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. Join us as we discuss Mary McCarthyâs best-known work, The Group, published in 1963. An instant hit, it remained on the New York Times bestseller list for two years and follows eight friends over the course of seven years following their graduation from Vassar College in 1933. It was banned in Australia, Ireland, and Italy fâŚ
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Lydia Maria Child and the âThanksgivingâ Poem
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Send us a Text Message. In this weekâs bonus episode, we dig into the poem âThanksgivingâ by lost lady Lydia Maria Child. AND we remain ever thankful for you, our listeners! Discussed in this episode: Lydia Maria Child: A Radical American Life by Lydia Moland âThe Thanksgiving Poemâ The Paul Curtis House The Frugal Housewife by Lydia Maria Child ThâŚ
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Alba de CĂŠspedes â Forbidden Notebook with Joy Castro
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Send us a Text Message. Novelist and university professor Joy Castro returns to the show to discuss the 1952 novel Forbidden Notebook by Cuban-Italian writer Alba de Cespedes. In a New York Times review of a 1958 English edition of this novel, de CĂŠspedes was called âone of the few distinguished women writers since Colette to grapple effectively wiâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. Last week, with guest Kathleen B. Jones, we discussed Christine de Pizan and her Book of the City of Ladies. Could a woman's hand have been behind any of the beautiful illustrations in this medieval work? Given what we know about women's involvement as artists in the medieval manuscript making process, it's certainly possiblâŚ
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Christine de Pizan â The Book of the City of Ladies with Kathleen B. Jones
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Send us a Text Message. A widow who turned to her pen to support herself and her family, Christine de Pizan was described by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex as the first âwoman to take up her pen in defense of her sex.â Published in 1405, The Book of the City of Ladies is Christineâs history of Western civilization from the point of viewâand iâŚ
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Cita Press & Sui Sin Far with Juliana Castro VarĂłn and Victoria Namkung
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Send us a Text Message. Learn more about the feminist open source publisher cita press and An Immortal Book: Selected Writings of Sui Sin Far, a curated collection of short fiction and nonfiction by the pioneering writer, Sui Sin Far (also known as Edith Maude Eaton), one of our past "lost ladies." A journalist and writer of Chinese and British desâŚ
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Meridel Le Sueur â The Girl with Rosemary Hennessy
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Send us a Text Message. Originally drafted in 1939, the Prohibition-era gangster novel The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur remained unpublished for nearly 40 years. Le Sueur used the intervening decades to transform her work into a beautifully-written, powerful narrative, focusing on the lives of marginalized women in Depression-era America. Joining us isâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. In this weekâs mini, Amy shares some of the lesser-known spots she visited on her August trip to England (which included meetups with a few past guests from the show!). From Cotswolds beauty to bizarre curiositiesâas well as a few lost ladiesâyouâll be wishing she had packed you along in her suitcase! CORRECTION: Leonora CarâŚ
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Mary Wollstonecraft â A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with Susan J. Wolfson
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Send us a Text Message. Joining us to discuss Mary Wollstonecraft's extraordinary life and her seminal work, A Vindication on the Rights of Woman, is Dr. Susan J. Wolfson, a professor of English from Princeton University whose scholarship focuses on British Writers of the Romantic period. Her latest book, On Mary Wollstonecraftâs A Vindication of tâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. In this weekâs mini, weâre sharing some of our favorite verbal faux pas and mondegreens. The term mondegreen, which was coined by Sylvia Wright in a 1954 essay for Harper's Magazine, refers to instances where phrases are misheard or misinterpreted, giving them new and often humorous meanings. Amy challenges Kim to identify câŚ
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Sylvia Townsend Warner â Lolly Willowes with Sarah Watling
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Send us a Text Message. Sylvia Townsend Warner's "Lolly Willowesâ (1926) holds a coveted spot on The Guardian's list of the top 100 English language novels and acclaimed director Greta Gerwig is also a fan. Author Sarah Watling joins us to discuss how the novel critiques societal constraints placed on single women and its connection to Townsend WarâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. From Dark Academia trends inspired by Donna Tartt's âThe Secret Historyâ to other campus novels like Kingsley Amis' âLucky Jimâ and Philip Roth's âThe Human Stain,â we delve into the quirks, challenges, and intrigues of university professor characters and campus settings for this weekâs mini. We also touch on classics like DâŚ
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Susan Taubes â Divorcing with Rosemary Kelty
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Send us a Text Message. When 'Divorcing' was first published in 1969, the critic Hugh Kenner penned a review for the New York Times that dismissed its author, Susan Taubes, as 'a quick-change artist donning the garments of other writers.' Tragically, merely days after the review's publication, Taubes took her own life. However, in recent years, theâŚ
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Send us a Text Message. In support of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, this weekâs mini is focused on lost lady screenwriters. In the early days of Hollywood, more than half of all screenplays copyrighted were written by women, who were pioneers in this field. Discussed in this episode: Anita Loos Frances Marion June Mathis Go West, YoungâŚ
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Ismat Chughtai - The Quilt and Other Stories with Tania Malik
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Send us a Text Message. Ismat Chughtai was one of the boldest and most outspoken writers of her day. Her cleverly-crafted short story âThe Quiltâ sparked a years-long obscenity trial, but it also helped establish her as a writer who wasnât afraid to shine a light on taboo subjects and speak frankly about womenâs experiences both in the traditional âŚ
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