The PEN Pod: Reckoning with Aftershocks with Nadia Owusu
“It was really important to me to write about. . . my struggles with depression and anxiety because there is a harmful, dominant narrative that holds that mental illness… More
The PEN Pod: On Myths, Magic, and Intergenerational Narratives with K-Ming Chang
“There is so much that is inexplicable in myth. There’s so much magic and strangeness, and it doesn’t conform to conventional plot oftentimes—things turning into animals, or pumpkins.” More
The PEN Pod: On Race, Place, and Belonging with Sejal Shah
“I’m certainly thinking about kinship. . . What do we owe our neighbors and fellow humans. . . for whom to be alive is a risk?” More
The PEN Pod: Looking Through Time with Rebecca Makkai
“Look at the ways that the American healthcare system, in times of crisis, exacerbates the fissures that are already there, the inequalities that are already there.” More
The PEN Pod: Conveying Collective Trauma with Brandon Shimoda
“We’re in this moment where we’re all collectively undergoing this extraordinary trauma. . . in a way in which it’s not entirely visible.” More
from MW: A Field Guide to the Midwest
What my parents were most silent about was what they hated more than anything. They were professionals afterall, and to be professional means keeping one’s mouth shut. When my… More