After our (longer than anticipated) hiatus, we’re finally, finally back with a brand new episode! Christine Sneed was one of our earliest guests (way back on Episode 9) and we were so pleased to have her back for a conversation about her new no

Episode 51 – Amina Gautier, Hulkamaniac

Mar 18th, 2015 42m 29s

Today we’re making All Write Already! history with our first return guest! Amina Gautier won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction for her debut story collection At-Risk. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals, including An

Episode 50 – Cristina Henríquez, Plus What’s the Price of a Writing Career?

Mar 4th, 2015 43m 43s

It’s our 50th episode! We’re celebrating by talking to Cristina Henríquez, author of the story collection Come Together, Fall Apart, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, and the novels The Book of Unknown Americans and The Worl

Episode 49 – Jac Jemc, Plus Old Writing and New Regrets

Jan 14th, 2015 53m 34s

Jac Jemc’s first story collection A Different Bed Every Time is newly out from Dzanc Books. Her novel My Only Wife was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and winner of the Paula Anderson Book Award. Jac is the poet

AWA Bonus! 2014 Chicago Humanities Festival Recap!

Dec 23rd, 2014 11m 23s

The 25th Chicago Humanities Festival is now over! We saw so many things that made us smarter. After we saw the things that made us smarter, we cornered the presenters and performers and asked them to talk to us some more. On this bonus feature,

Episode 48 – Leslie Jamison, Plus The Most Notable Twitter Rant of 2014

Dec 10th, 2014 53m 4s

Today’s guest, Leslie Jamison is the author of a novel, The Gin Closet, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Prize, and an essay collection, The Empathy Exams, which was a New York Times Best Seller. Her work has appeare

Episode 47 – Rebecca Coffey, Plus How To Waste Time On The Internet

Nov 26th, 2014 42m 20s

Today’s guest, Rebecca Coffey, is a novelist, science journalist, and humorist. She contributes regularly to Scientific American and Discover magazines. She blogs on assorted subjects including sexuality, relationships, social media, and psycho

Episode 46 – Laila Lalami, Plus What Good Are Genres?

Nov 12th, 2014 34m 41s

Today’s guest Laila Lalami was born and raised in Morocco. She is the author of the short story collection Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and the novel Secret Son, which was on the Orange Priz

Episode 45 – Eula Biss, Plus The 2014 Chicago Humanities Festival

Oct 15th, 2014 1h 18m

Eula Biss is the author of three books: On Immunity: An Inoculation, Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and The Balloonists. Her essays have appeared in The Believer and Ha

Episode 44 – Peggy Shinner, Plus “Non-Bro” Misogyny

Oct 9th, 2014 47m 38s

Today’s guest, Peggy Shinner is the author of You Feel So Mortal / Essays on the Body (University of Chicago Press, April 2014). Her work has appeared in BOMB, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, TriQuarterly, Fourth Genre, Bloom, and most re

Episode 43 – James Klise, Plus Millennials Really Do Read

Sep 24th, 2014 42m 58s

We’re back from summer break! We’re tanned and ready to get back to a fall full of new podcasts. Okay, so maybe we’re not tanned, but we can’t think of a better way to kick off fall than with today’s guest, James Klise. Klise is the author of T

Episode 42 – Sum Sum Summertime Reading & Writing Review

Jul 31st, 2014 31m 48s

We’re taking a summer break from our usual format to talk about what we’ve been reading on the beach (or, in Willy’s case, what he’s been reading everywhere but the beach).Karen has been busting through a summer reading list that includes Rox

Episode 41 – Another Essay Fiesta For Your Ears

Jul 9th, 2014 43m 54s

Summer has us in the mood to take a break from our usual format, so today we’re bringing you three stories from the other show we spend our time working on: Essay Fiesta! Regular listeners have heard us talk about Essay Fiesta, but for those wh

Episode 40 – Miles Harvey on How Long Will I Cry?

Jun 26th, 2014 46m 28s

Today’s guest, Miles Harvey, had so many great things to say that we decided to skip our usual top-of-show bantering in order to bring you an extended interview. Miles is the editor of a recently published oral-history collection, How Long Will

Episode 39 – Johanna Stein, Plus Printers Row Lit Fest

Jun 12th, 2014 53m 12s

Today’s guest, Johanna Stein, is a writer, producer, director, and actor. Johanna’s work has appeared on Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, PBS, CBS, HBO, The Oxygen Network, VH-1, The Disney Channel, and all across the World Wide Internets, where he

Episode 38 – Jeff Miller, Plus YA Gets Green-Washed

May 29th, 2014 42m 24s

Today’s guest, Jeff Miller is an expert-level jaywalker from Kent, Ohio, and is a top scorer in coffee drinking. Jeff regularly performs at live lit events all over Chicago. His first novel, The Nerdy Dozen, will be out in June. Jeff stopped b

Episode 37 – Angela Narciso Torres, Plus You’re Really Not That Busy

May 15th, 2014 36m 39s

Angela Narciso Torres’s first book of poetry, Blood Orange, won the 2013 Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry. Recent work appears in Cimarron Review, Colorado Review, and Cream City Review. A graduate of Warren Wilson MFA Program for Write

Episode 5 – Samantha Irby, Plus The Secrets of Successful Blogs

Apr 23rd, 2014 45m 34s

For today’s show, we’re reaching into archives again to bring you an interview with Samantha Irby. When we talked to Sam, it was way back in 2012, and she had only recently started working on her book. That book became Meaty, which came out las

Episode 36 – Kate Harding, Plus Our Best Worst Writing Advice

Apr 9th, 2014 41m 44s

Today’s guest Kate Harding is a co-author of The Book of Jezebel and Lessons from the Fat-O-Sphere and author of the forthcoming Asking For It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture–And What We Can Do About It. As a freelance writer, Kate has publi

Episode 35 – AWA! at AWP 2014

Mar 12th, 2014 38m 1s

On today’s show, we’re talking all things AWP. Each year, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs holds its annual literary conference–the largest in North America–to celebrate authors, teachers, students, writing programs, literary cen

Episode 34 – Ben Tanzer, Plus the Costs of Writing a Novel

Feb 26th, 2014 48m 37s

Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father’s House, You Can Make Him Like You, So Different Now, Orphans and Lost in Space, among others. Ben serves as Director of Publicity and Content Strategy at Curbside Splendor and can be found online

Episode 33 – Gina Frangello, Plus Should You Do What You Love?

Feb 5th, 2014 51m 38s

Today’s guest, Gina Frangello is the author of three books of fiction: A Life in Men (Algonquin 2014), which has been a book club selection for NYLON magazine, The Rumpus and The Nervous Breakdown; Slut Lullabies (Emergency Press 2010), which w

Episode 32 – Megan Stielstra is Still Very, Very Cool

Jan 22nd, 2014 47m 51s

We got carried away talking to today’s guest, Megan Stielstra. No, really. We could not stop asking questions. So we’ve decided to forgo our typical blabbing to bring you an extended interview. Stielstra’s personal essay collection, Once I Was

Episode 31 – Gary Shteyngart, Plus Reliving Old Resolutions

Jan 8th, 2014 29m 56s

Today’s guest, Gary Shteyngart, was born in Leningrad in 1972 and came to the United States seven years later. He is the author of the novels Super Sad True Love Story, which won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and was selected as one of

Episode 30 – An Essay Fiesta For Your Ears

Dec 18th, 2013 36m 59s

Since the fourth Wednesday of December is Christmas Day – and since we know that having to listen to the sound of Willy’s voice would totally ruin Christmas for you and your loved ones – we thought we’d give you an early present, by bringing yo