34. Remixing Poetry w/ Dan Dissinger

In Episode 34, we turn the interview on the host! Tune in to hear Dan break down his journey as a photographer, poet, and professor. Afterward, be sure to check out his performance of Remix Poetix @Inspired Word (Astoria, NY)!

People, Texts, and Places Mentioned in the Episode

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“There are people in my poems, but everyone’s ambiguous. It’s also much more on a micro level, like capturing a body part or capturing a moment on the body or capturing a moment from the past or the future or the present and staying on it and using, sometimes, the page where there might be a small block of text, and that might act like a photograph.” @ddissinger

“I like silence, so a lot of the times when I’m reading in person, I’ll purposely stop in the middle of the poem…to then just sit in this moment of silence, to hear if I can hear the silence in the room. I want to hook the audience in. If I hear that silence, I know that they’re listening to me.” @ddissinger

“Don’t worry about silence. Sit in it. Let the students feel it.” @ddissinger

“I particularly enjoy that moment where I can softly sit in whatever it is that I’ve created.” @ddissinger

“I lot of how I revise any writing comes from hearing it…If I can’t read it out loud comfortably, then I’ve done something wrong writing it.” @ddissinger

“[Hip hop] helps me understand the way a word’s going to feel to say.” @ddissinger

“I also do this thing…called Remix Poetix, where I have all my poems in binders…Taking inspiration from DJ culture and that idea of digging through the crates, I would take my binders and think: what if they were turntables? What would happen if I took what I had and created an improvised poem?” @ddissinger

This episode was recorded on November 2. Because we recorded via Zoom, there may be occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @WritingRemixPod.

33. Thinking in Different Dimensions of Story (or Choosing Fencing over Law School) w/ Kat Howard

In Episode 33, we talk to award-winning author Kat Howard about doing research for fantasy fiction, retelling familiar stories from new perspectives, collaborating on a comic series, learning from different genres, digging into the revision process, finding inspiration in poetry and nonfiction, and much more!

Kat Howard is a writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror who lives and writes in New Hampshire. Her novella, The End of the Sentence, co-written with Maria Dahvana Headley, was one of NPR’s best books of 2014, and her debut novel, Roses and Rot was a finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel. An Unkindness of Magicians was named a best book of 2017 by NPR, and won a 2018 Alex Award. Her recent short fiction collection, A Cathedral of Myth and Bone collects work that has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award, performed as part of Selected Shorts, and anthologized in year’s best and best of volumes, as well as new pieces original to the collection. She’s currently the writer for The Books of Magic, part of DC Comics’ Sandman Universe. Her next novel, A Sleight of Shadows, is the sequel to An Unkindness of Magicians, and will be out in 2020. In the past, she’s been a competitive fencer and a college professor. You can find her @KatwithSword on Twitter and on Instagram and learn more at her website.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

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  • Books of Magic (DC Comics) by Kat Howard (writer), Tom Fowler (penciler), Marissa Louise (colorist), Jordan Boyd (colorist), Brian Churilla (inker), Craig Taillefer (inker), Todd Klein (letterist), Molly Mahan (editor), Amedeo Turturro (editor), Chris Conroy (editor), Maggie Howell (assistant editor), and Kai Carpenter (cover artist)
  • Becky Krug
  • Fran Wilde
  • Amy Meyerson
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Lightspeed Magazine
  • Marissa Lingen
  • Richard Siken
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré
  • Tana French
  • Bobbie Louise Hawkins

“I had to make sure that I was telling the story that needed to be told, not the story that I wanted to tell.” @KatWithSword

“I never really grew out of that grad school research urge, so even though I write fantasy fiction and things like that, I’m always like, let me make a huge stack of books that I can read and take notes on before I start writing this novel.” @KatWithSword

“All the things that I really loved about reading the works of literature and studying the literature of the medieval period or myths, fairy tales, all the stuff like that, I feel like it’s in my writerly DNA, so it keeps popping up back in my work even when I’m not necessarily doing it consciously.” @KatWithSword

“As the writer, you figure out how to tell the story to your artist. And then your artist figures out how to tell the story to your readers…It’s very much a collaboration in the effort of how do we get this on the page in a way that’s interesting and effective and that takes full advantage of the fact that this isn’t just a written medium…Starting to think in different dimensions of story…was really interesting.” @KatWithSword

“There are definitely still things I do [in short fiction] because it [offers] different possibilities than long form fiction. I think it’s a lot easier to experiment with voice or style…It’s a way to be adventurous.” @KatWithSword

“Drafting isn’t fun, but revision is great.” @KatWithSword

“One of the things I have to do is go back and remind myself that, for most people, literary allusions and conversation is not actually plot.” @KatWithSword

“If I feel like I’m stuck in my own progress, I’ll grab a collection [of poetry] off the shelf and start flipping through it. That jumpstarts things for me.” @KatWithSword

“I find that there’ll be ideas in the nonfiction that work for fiction…I think of it as like being a magpie, collecting a bunch of shiny things…that fit in the back of my head until I need them for stories.” @KatWithSword

“I write better if I’m reading a lot.” @KatWithSword

“I definitely recommend fencing over law school.” @KatWithSword

This episode was recorded on October 26. Because we recorded via Zoom, there may be occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @WritingRemixPod.

32. Writing about Love & Grief & Also Aliens w/ Marissa Lingen

In Episode 32, we talk to sci-fi and fantasy author Marissa Lingen about writing speculative fiction and how to decide which shape a story should take. Marissa also shares advice for how to submit to short fiction markets, how to discover your process and fix a story that’s stuck, and what not to do with the world’s abundance of concrete. Be sure to check out her latest short story, “Grief as Faithful as My Hound,” out next week in Asimov’s. You can also find more of her work on her website.

People, Texts, and Magazines Mentioned in the Episode

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  • Sheila Williams
  • Asimov’s
  • Kurestin Armada
  • Colin Sullivan
  • Nature
  • Nancy Stohlman
  • Dorothy Sayers
  • Lord Peter Wimsy stories
  • Meghan Nolan
  • Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
  • Orphan Black
  • “Macey” Jennifer Mace
  • Arkady Martine
  • John Chu
  • Django Wexler
  • Emma Goldman
  • Analog

“One of the things about science fiction that I like is that you can do all the things you can do in other genres, but also then you have this kind of extra wiggle room to play with…You can tell stories about love and grief and the human heart, but you can also tell stories about: what if things were different? And I think that’s important for trying to make things different in the world.” @MarissaLingen

“I think one of the things that appeals to me most about science fiction and fantasy is that there’s just that little bit of extra that’s not nailed down that sometimes gives me another angle on what I’m seeing in the real world, so that I don’t have to take on problems head-on; I can kind of come at them sideways.” @MarissaLingen

“Short stories are kind of my instant gratification.” @MarissaLingen

“You grow and you shift with time, and things change about your life circumstances, and your process has to change with it.” @MarissaLingen

“The most successful dystopian or negative premises are the ones that allow people room to say: okay, so what else?” @MarissaLingen

“Voice and implication are the two tools I use most in flash.” @MarissaLingen

“Flash [fiction] is usually just one crystalized idea…and it doesn’t have any moving parts really. Whereas when I’m writing a longer short story, it’s less, hey look at this cool thing, and more, let’s move through an arc of this cool thing.” @MarissaLingen

This episode was recorded on October 19. Because we recorded via Zoom, there may be occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @WritingRemixPod.

31. Exploring Voice & Genre w/ Ellen Wayland-Smith

In Episode 31, we talk to author and professor Ellen Wayland-Smith about her new book, The Angel in the Marketplace. We also talk about teaching students genre expectations and boundaries (and how to step beyond them) as well as how to incorporate voice and personal experience into academic writing.

Ellen Wayland-Smith is an associate professor of Writing at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well Set Table (Picador, 2016) and of The Angel in the Marketplace: Jean Wade Rindlaub and the Selling of America (University of Chicago Press, March 2020). Her essays and reviews have appeared in Signature Reads, Catapult, The Millions, and Longreads.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“That’s one thing that I found interesting in my research was seeing just how much roleplaying there really was [in the 1940s and 50s] and how almost conscious they were themselves that these were not in any way sort of biologically predetermined or predestined roles. They were very much a fiction that they were constructing.” @EllenWaylands

“Exploring different genres and talking about academic writing as opposed to other kinds of non-fiction writing…has made me much more creative, I think, in my approach to [Writing 340] and has helped me expand the kinds of writing that I see as useful…and as something I want to introduce students to.” @EllenWaylands

“There isn’t good writing and bad writing. There’s writing that meets its rhetorical aim and the genre expectations of the audience that you’re aiming it to. And there’s writing that doesn’t, or that does it less well.” @EllenWaylands

“Your voice is part of your argument. Just because you have a voice doesn’t discredit your case. You can use your voice in order to weave a much more compelling and evidence-packed narrative. You can draw on different kinds of evidence. You can draw on the evidence of your body and your experience… That’s going to be actually a more compelling case than just doing this disembodied thing in which there’s no sort of identification between reader and writer.” @EllenWaylands

This episode was recorded on October 12. Because we recorded via Zoom, there may be occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @WritingRemixPod.

30. Opening Doors w/ Dan & Katie

For our 30th episode, we reflect on what we’ve learned from this podcast thirty episodes in and what podcasting as a genre offers academia in terms of embodied scholarship and archived, accessible knowledge production.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“When you publish an essay or when you give a conference talk, you’re coming to that piece having already formulated your ideas, and you’re then sharing them with a public…What I’ve discovered through the course of doing this podcast is that because we’re having conversations…I’m actually formulating those thoughts in the moment, and that dialogue is helping me refine my ideas. So I may come to the episode with some ideas in mind, but it it’s in the course of having that conversation that I can arrive at new ones. I love that collaborative aspect of it.” @KatieARobison

“You and I are creating an archive of academic discourse that anyone can go back in and listen to. Whereas if I go to a conference, if you’re not there, you don’t get to see that.” @ddissinger

“When I think of a podcast as a genre…the genre is archive…It’s an archive of knowledge that just continues to permeate and hybridize each episode.” @ddissinger

“That’s what I love about having these discussions and having this dialogue in the moment…I can then incorporate that into my praxis immediately. My pedagogy has changed fundamentally as a result of doing this podcast.” @KatieRobison

“[Podcasting is] the opposite of gatekeeping. We’re opening doors.” @KatieARobison

“Vulnerability I think for our podcast is key.” @ddissinger

“What I love about podcasting is that we get to bring our full selves to the medium.” @KatieARobison

“We should be academics that actually acknowledge the 21st century reality.” @ddissinger

This episode was recorded on October 5. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there may be occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

29. (Im)Perfecting the Novel w/ Amy Meyerson & Natalie Hallak

In Episode 29, we talk to novelist Amy Meyerson and editor Natalie Hallak about Amy’s latest book, The Imperfects. Along the way, we chat about writing research-based fiction, the author-editor relationship and the collaborative nature of publishing, balancing writing and reading with other responsibilities, writing what you want to know, and when to use the F-word.

Amy Meyerson is the bestselling author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays, which will be translated into 11 languages. She has been published in numerous literary magazines and teaches in the writing department at the University of Southern California, where she completed her graduate work in creative writing. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives in Los Angeles. Her new novel, The Imperfects, was published in May 2020.

Natalie Hallak is an Editorial Assistant at Park Row Books. Prior to joining Harlequin in 2015, Natalie honed her editorial skills during internships at Touchstone, Putnam, and Writers House Literary Agency. She is building her list in literary fiction with commercial appeal across a variety of genres, as well as select narrative nonfiction.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“The sign of a really good editor is that they’re good at pinpointing what’s wrong but give you the space to fix it yourself.” @amy_meyerson

“If you want to be publishing regularly, you always have to have more than one book in your head at a time…I like to be working on one while another one is steeping.” @amy_meyerson

“I think [writing what you know] is true in that granular sense…but for me I’m interested more in writing what I want to know.” @amy_meyerson

“Use what you know to write what you imagine.” @NatalieHallak

“My role [as an editor] is constantly advocating for the book and for Amy in house and just getting people really excited about it…kind of like an in-house champion, if you will. But it’s really a matter of overseeing every step of the process.” @NatalieHallak

“Editors do not read all day. They read on their own time and on weekends, whenever they can. During the day it’s a lot of that in-house advocacy, a lot of talking to the other departments and talking with authors and making sure that [they’re] happy..and that I’m representing [their] needs.” @NatalieHallak

“There’s only one name on the front of the book, but…[it’s] the product of so many more people.” @amy_meyerson

“Always do the writing first.” @amy_meyerson

“I’ve gotten very fast at knowing if a book is for me or not for me…It’s a very subjective industry that way.” @NatalieHallak

“It’s very validating when a book that you put so much time and effort into…when all of that work really pays off and the book takes off and does super well. It’s one of the best feelings.” @NatalieHallak

This episode was recorded on September 28. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there may be occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

28. Self-Care Confessional w/ Dan and Katie

In Episode 28, Dan and Katie talk about self-care and how important it is to prioritize our mental and emotional well-being, especially in the current moment.

“Carving out some time that is protected–for yourself, for you to be with your family or friends, or to walk your dog, or whatever it is–that’s a baby step that can help a lot and is really important…The work will always be there.” @KatieARobison

“Now, more than ever, it’s so easy to get burned out. We’re in the middle of a crisis the likes of which we’ve never experienced. I don’t think we even fully comprehend how emotionally draining this is and all the uncertainty that we’re facing and trying to process every day. I think we just need to be kind to ourselves as well as our students, and I think that’s what will make us better professors and more able to actually help our students. If we’re not taking care of ourselves, how can we help anyone else?” @KatieARobison

“I have to revise the way I approach my own humanity.” @ddissinger

“We are not just teachers. We are sometimes a therapist. We’re sometimes a social worker. We’re sometimes a shoulder to cry on. We’re sometimes an activist. We take on so many different roles.” @ddissinger

This episode was recorded on September 21. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

27. Speaking Against Racism w/ Taiyaba Husain

In Episode 27 we talk to Professor Taiyaba Husain of the USC Writing Program about recent incidents of racism in our community and how to empower students to challenge racism in the classroom, the university, and everywhere they find it.

People and Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“We’re not all a monolith in how we think about [things], and I think that’s important to acknowledge.” @TaiyabaHusain

“I’ve always said to my students, you know, part of this process, if we’re going to do this together, actually is forgiveness…We are going to maybe speak in ways that are unintentionally oblivious, that maybe are unkind or unknowing…If we are to keep having these difficult conversations, there has to be some ability to forgive.” @TaiyabaHusain

“If we are, from semester to semester, class to class, if we’ve been complacent…dropping the same joke, doing the same thing, this is an opportunity…to actually do new things, to respond to the moment.” @TaiyabaHusain

“I asked them [students] what do you want from me? To your mind, what is my role as your instructor? How can I help you become a better writer? A better thinker?” @TaiyabaHusain

“If we have expectations of [students]…what are [their] expectations of us?” @TaiyabaHusain

This episode was recorded on September 14. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

26. Office Hours w/ Katie and Dan

In our first “Office Hours” episode, we discuss questions, comments, and concerns from our listeners about teaching and learning online this semester. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question. Keep them coming on Twitter  @writingremixpod!

Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“[Students] are asking to be engaged with. They are asking to be heard.” @ddissinger

“Everything that I’m doing this semester…is trying to understand how much more can I humanize the academic experience.” @ddissinger

“How do we switch gears and start thinking about higher education as a higher plane of intellectual curiosity and self-actualization?” @ddissinger

“I’m just trying to give [students] opportunities to connect and feel like we’re in a community.” @KatieARobison


“We’re starting at a negative when students are coming in already fearing the reputation of the class.” @KatieARobison

“I want them to love writing, and if we’re punishing them for their papers, that’s not going to foster any kind of love.” @KatieARobison

This episode was recorded on August 31. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.

25. Teaching through Contingency w/ Michelle Meyers & Ryan Leack

In Episode 25 we talk to Professors Michelle Meyers and Ryan Leack of the USC Writing Program about the issues facing part-time/contingent faculty–especially during a global pandemic and a time of tremendous economic uncertainty.

Michelle Meyers is a lecturer in the Writing Program at USC and a member of the Diversity Committee and the Community Engagement Committee. She teaches creative writing for the Prison Education Project as well and received her MFA in Fiction from the University of Alabama.

Dr. Ryan David Leack teaches in the Writing Program at the University of Southern California, and received his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Riverside. There he studied the productive intersections between rhetoric, quantum mechanics, philosophy, composition, and poetry. Ryan’s academic work has appeared in Composition Forum (2019), and in the edited collection Romantic Ecocriticism: Origins and Legacies (2016). His creative work has appeared in journals such as Chiron Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Pif, and Westwind, as well as in Pomona Valley Review, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for seven years. His music is available on Apple Music, Spotify, and like services, and is featured in films available on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and like services internationally.

Texts Mentioned in the Episode

Some links may be affiliate links, which at no additional cost to you help to fund The Writing Remix. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand how the neoliberalization of the university has impacted the tenure-track position…It’s more competitive now to get a tenure-track job at a community college than it was to get a tenure-track job at an R1 thirty to forty years ago.” -Ryan Leack

“I can’t help but care about whatever institution I’m involved with, and I want to be part of it. I want to be doing things that I think are important…I think [service work] also gives me more knowledge and more opportunities to then bring to my students and to improve their learning experience as well ” -Michelle Meyers

“At the end of the day, what keeps me going when all of these external stresses are happening, is that I do love teaching, and I do love trying to create the best classroom environment for my students.” -Michelle Meyers

“To me, to be a good teacher of writing means to constantly be invested in educating myself and to keep my knowledge sharp and cutting edge in the field.” -Ryan Leack

This episode was recorded on August 4. Please be aware that, because we recorded via Zoom, there are occasional audio hiccups. Our theme song is “4 am” by Makaih Beats. You can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher and follow us on Twitter @writingremixpod.