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*We apologize for the first 25 seconds of this recording. Please be patient and then enjoy the rest of this wonderful conversation!
December 11th, 2025
Heather Swan talks with Sean Hill about exploration of poetic forms, ecopoetry, writing about history, the importance of sound, and the dance between research and writing. He has a new collection coming out from Milkweed in March called The Negroes Send Their Love.
Sean Hill is the author of Dangerous Goods (Milkweed Editions, 2014), which won the Minnesota Book Award in Poetry, and Blood Ties & Brown Liquor (University of Georgia Press, 2008). His poetry and nonfiction prose have appeared in Callaloo, Harvard Review, New England Review, Orion, Oxford American, Poetry magazine, and Tin House, among other journals. He has been awarded fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University.
November 13th, 2025
Heather Swan speaks with Nicholas Gulig, author of the poetry collections The Other Altar, North of Order and Orient. They discuss the importance of listening, trusting the internal music, ideas of how poetry can work against empire and can create a sense of home in writers and readers, as well as the wisdom of some of Nick's poetic ancestors: Lorine Niedecker, Richard Hugo, and John Keats.
October 9th, 2025
Heather Swan and James Crews discuss the writer's journey, writing as a practice of engagement with the world, audience, the coexistence of joy and grief, and how James feels “creating something out of my everyday life that others respond to [is] a magical thing that we get to do.”
James is the author of four collections of poetry, including Telling My Father, winner of the Cowles Prize, and two collections of prose, and has edited several poetry anthologies with Storey Press, including The Path To Kindness: Stories of Connection and Joy. Love is For All of Us, an anthology edited by James and his husband Brad Peacock, celebrates LGTBQ+ writers. His newest collection Turning Toward Grief: Reflections on Life, Loss, and Appreciation will be available in late October.
September 11th, 2025
Heather Swan and Cynthia Marie Hoffman-Studner discuss writing from obsessions, form, and writing for large projects, writing as a way of healing, and much more. Cynthia is the author of five books of poetry and has had essays appear in such places as The Sun and Time Magazine. Her most recent book, Exploding Head, narrates her experience growing up with OCD.
August 14th, 2025
Heather Swan and Nickole Brown discuss poetry as prayer, Nickole's fierce love of the more-than-human world, poetry after disaster, the courage to love in difficult times, and much more.
Nickole is the author of several books of poetry including To Those Who Were Our First Gods and Sister, and is the Executive Director and President of the Hellbender Gathering of Poets.