Episode #133: Meredith Talusan, author of FAIREST

This episode is produced in collaboration with The Digital Sala, an online Filipinx literary festival which launched in April 2020. 

Meredith Talusan is an award-winning journalist and author. She has written features, essays, and opinion pieces for many publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, VICE, Matter, Backchannel, The Nation, and the American Prospect. She has contributed to several books including the New York Times Bestselling Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxane Gay. Her memoir, Fairest, is forthcoming from Viking / Penguin Random House.

Episode #132: Marianne Chan, author of ALL HEATHENS

Marianne Chan is the author of All Heathens.  She grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. Her poems have appeared in West Branch, The Journal, Poetry Northwest, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, Carve Magazine, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She serves as poetry editor at Split Lip Magazine.

Episode #132: Michelle Lin, author of A HOUSE MADE OF WATER, and Kazumi Chin, author of HAVING A COKE WITH GODZILLA

In this special Episode #132 of The Blood-Jet Writing Hour, we interview not one but two poets who happen to be in loving partnership with each other. Take a listen to this episode where poets Kazumi Chin and Michelle Lin discuss what it is like to begin and move through literary careers together, navigating romantic and professional jealousy, and what it means to build stronger communities together.

Kazumi Chin’s first poetry collection, Having a Coke with Godzilla, was published in 2017 by Sibling Rivalry Press. Their most recent work can be found in Underblong, AAWW’s the Margins, and in AALR’s Book of Curses. They are the co-organizer and host of Kearny Street Workshop’s key reading series and currently a PhD candidate in Cultural Studies at UC Davis.

Michelle Lin is a poet, community arts organizer, and author of A House Made of Water from Sibling Rivalry Press. She is a Kundiman fellow, co-organizer for Kearny Street Workshop’s reading series, and fundraising manager for RYSE Center in Richmond, California, a social justice youth center. You can follow her @sadwitheyebrows.

Episode #131: Erin Entrada Kelly, author of LALANI AND THE DISTANT SEA

 

Erin Entrada Kelly. Photo by Laurence Kesterson.

New York Times–bestselling author Erin Entrada Kelly was awarded the Newbery Medal for Hello, Universe.  Her debut novel, Blackbird Fly, was a Kirkus Best Book, a School Library Journal Best Book, an ALSC Notable Book, and an Asian/Pacific American Literature Honor Book. She is also the author of The Land of Forgotten Girls, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and You Go First, a New York Times bestseller, Spring 2018 Indie Next Pick, Kirkus Reviews Best Book, and School Library Journal Best Book.  Her book, Lalani and the Distant Sea, was released in September 2019.  She grew up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and now lives in Delaware. http://www.erinentradakelly.com

 

Rachelle Cruz with Erin Entrada Kelly

 

Episode #129: MT Vallarta, our newest TBJ co-host!

 

MT Vallarta is a poet and Ph.D. candidate in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside, where they study feminist theory, queer theory, and Filipinx poetics. Their work is published in Nat. Brut, Rabbit Catastrophe Press, Broadly, Apogee Journal, Weird Sister, TAYO Literary Magazine, and others. They were raised and live in Los Angeles, CA.

 

Episode #127: Erika Ayón, poet and author of ORANGE LADY

We’re kicking off National Poetry Month a few days early with an episode with Erika Ayón!  Rachelle and Erika talk about Los Angeles, the color and fruit orange, and migration.  Tune in!

Erika Ayón emigrated from Mexico when she was five years old and grew up in South Central, Los Angeles. She attended UCLA and graduated with a B.A. in English. In 2009 she was selected as a PEN Emerging Voices Fellow. In 2014 her poem “Hibiscus Skies,” was selected as a top ten poem from the Poetry in the Windows VI project sponsored by the Arroyo Arts Collective. Erika has taught poetry to middle and high school students across Los Angeles. She was a 2016-2017 Community Literature Initiative Scholar. Her debut collection of poetry Orange Lady was published by World Stage Press in March 2018. Available at http://www.worldstagepress.org/product/orange-lady.  Erika currently resides in the San Fernando Valley where she lives with her husband and two cats.

Episode #124 – Angela Garbes, author of LIKE A MOTHER, A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy

Episode #124 – Angela Garbes, author of LIKE A MOTHER

Angela Garbes is a Seattle-based writer specializing in food, bodies, women’s health, and issues of racial equity and diversity. Garbes began writing for The Stranger in 2006, and became a staff writer in 2014. Her piece “The More I Learn About Breast Milk, the More Amazed I Am” is the publication’s most-read piece in its twenty-four-year history, and the inspiration for her book, Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy. Garbes is an experienced public speaker, frequent radio and podcast guest, and event moderator. She grew up in a food-obsessed, immigrant Filipino household and now lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

The Blood-Jet is back!

Dear Listeners,

We’re returning after a year-long (!) hiatus with some amazing interview episodes with writer Angela Garbes, author of Like a Mother; the poets of Las Peregrinas; a few throwback episodes, and more.  Please stay tuned!

xo,

The Blood-Jet Crew

Episode #122: Lilliam Rivera, author of THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ

Episode #122: Lilliam Rivera, author of THE EDUCATION OF MARGOT SANCHEZ!

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning writer and author of The Education of Margot Sanchez, a contemporary young adult novel forthcoming from Simon & Schuster on February 21, 2017.

She is a 2016 Pushcart Prize winner and a 2015 Clarion alumni with a Leonard Pung Memorial Scholarship. She has been awarded fellowships from PEN Center USA, A Room Of Her Own Foundation, and received a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her short story “Death Defiant Bomba” received honorable mention in Bellevue Literary Review’s 2014 Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, selected by author Nathan Englander. Lilliam was also a finalist for AWP’s 2014 WC&C Scholarship Competition.

Lilliam’s work has appeared in Tin House, Tahoma Literary Review, Los Angeles Times, Latina, USA Today, Cosmo for Latinas, Sundog Lit, Midnight Breakfast, Bellevue Literary Review, The Rumpus.net, and Los Angeles Review of Books.

She hosts a monthly literary radio show, Literary Soundtrack, on RadioSombra.org. Past guests have included Laila Lalami, Victor LaValle, Matt Johnson, Sonia Manzano, Azar Nafisi, among others. She’s also moderated panels for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, PEN Center USA and more.

Lilliam is represented by Eddie Schneider of JABberwocky Literary Agency. She lives in Los Angeles.

Episode #121: Jade Chang, author of THE WANGS VS. THE WORLD

Debut novelist Jade Chang is the author of The Wangs vs. the World, out on October 4th from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

She has worked as an arts and culture journalist and editor for publications like the BBC, Metropolis, Glamour, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine. She was recently an editor at Goodreads. Her first paying job after college was as a researcher for the J. Peterman catalog. (Yes, where Elaine worked on Seinfeld—it’s real!)

Jade is the recipient of a Sundance Arts Journalist fellowship, the AIGA/Winterhouse Design Criticism Award, and a Squaw Valley Writers Workshop scholarship. She lives in Los Angeles.