Lost Ladies of Lit

Amy Helmes & Kim Askew
  • 5.0 (79)
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A book podcast hosted by writing partners Amy Helmes and Kim Askew. Guests include biographers, journalists, authors, and cultural historians discussing lost classics by women writers. You can support Lost Ladies of Lit by visiting https://www.patreon.com/c/LostLadiesofLit339. 

  1. MAR 3

    Mary Elizabeth Braddon — Lady Audley's Secret with Kristine Huntley

    Send a text Pass the smelling salts! Readers of the Victorian Era eagerly (or furtively) set scruples aside to read Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s 1862 sensation novel Lady Audley’s Secret — the title of which was enough to tempt even the most puritanical schoolmarm into sneaking a peak. But it was Braddon’s sumptuous prose, eye for drama and sophisticated understanding of social mores which won her the admiration of contemporaries like William Makepiece Thackery, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Louis Stevenson. Booklist reviewer and television writer Kristine Huntley joins us this week to discuss Braddon’s remarkable prowess in navigating scandalous secrets … including her own! Mentioned in this episode: 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction shortlist and longlist Booklist Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon “Abducted by my Teacher” Lifetime movie “Freakish” on Hulu “Mind Games” on ABC “Two Sentence Horror Stories” on the CW The real case that partially inspired Lady Audley’s Secret John Maxwell Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins The Doctor’s Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon The Trail of the Serpent by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Three Times Dead by Mary Elizabeth Braddon Daniel Deronda by George Eliot Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 268 on Rosalind Ashe Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    43 min

  2. FEB 17

    ENCORE and updates! Elizabeth Garver Jordan — The Case of Lizzie Borden and Other Stories with Jane Carr and Lori Harrison-Kahan

    Send a text Her Life in Ink, a brand new biography by Sharon Harris about Elizabeth Garver Jordan, provides a good reason to plunder our podcast vault this week to revisit an episode about this star journalist, editor and mystery author. Jordan’s riveting coverage of the Lizzie Borden trial for The New York World captivated true-crime junkies of the late 19th-century, and her lengthy career as a journalist, fiction writer and literary editor still resonates today. Lori Harrison-Kahan and Jane Carr, editors of a brand new collection of Garver Jordan’s work, join us to discuss her courtroom dispatches, her connection to today’s #MeToo movement and how her “invisible labor” shaped the writing of literary giants like Sinclair Lewis and Henry James.  Mentioned in this Episode ASU/FIDM screening of Virginia Faulkner's "Bridal Suite" followed by a Q&A with Brad Bigelow Her Life in Ink: Elizabeth Jordan, Journalist, Editor and Mystery Author by Sharon Harris  The Case of Lizzie Borden & Other Writings by Jane Carr and Lori Harrison-Kahan Elizabeth Garver Jordan’s work: The Sturdy Oak The Whole Family  The Lady of Pentlands Three Rousing Cheers “Ruth Herrick’s Assignment” “The Cry of the Pack” The Superwoman and Other Writings by Miriam Michelson Heirs of Yesterday by Emma Wolf The New York World Nellie Bly The Lizzie Borden case The Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, Mass. Harper’s Bazaar Harper and Brothers Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    45 min

  3. FEB 3

    Hazel Hawthorne — Salt House with Allison Bass-Riccio and Livia Tenzer

    Send a text “Queen of the Dunes” Hazel Hawthorne was a Cape Cod legend who wrote about The Road nearly two decades before her one-time tenant, Jack Kerouac. A uniquely feminine precursor to Beat literature, her novel Salt House captures Bohemian life amid the sand dunes of Provincetown. Though largely dismissed upon its 1934 publication, the book has been re-plucked from obscurity thanks to a new reissue by Provincetown Arts Press. Guests Allison Bass-Riccio and Livia Tenzer join us to discuss the almost transcendental effect Hawthorne’s life and writing has on those who continue to discover her. Mentioned in this episode: Salt House by Hazel Hawthorne Provincetown Arts Tour the Dunes of Provincetown Peaked Hill Trust Writing Residency Three Women by Hazel Hawthorne Edmund Wilson Mary Heaton Vorse Eugene O’Neill The Provincetown Players On the Road by Jack Kerouac Finding Hazel Hawthorne podcast by Inka Leisma Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 150 on Elizabeth Smart Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    48 min

  4. JAN 20

    From Jane Austen to Zadie Smith — Advice from Women Writers for a More Productive 2026 (Encore Presentation)

    Send a text In this encore presentation, Kim and Amy take stock by dusting off a "New Year’s" episode from 1921, sharing secrets of what makes their writing partnership work and turning to famous women writers — including Nancy Mitford, Isabelle Allende, Anais Nin and more for advice on setting (and more importantly, accomplishing) one's goals. Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    20 min

  5. JAN 6

    Virginia Faulkner — Willa Cather Champion, with Brad Bigelow

    Send a text Virginia Faulkner had no family ties to that other famous Faulkner, but she is connected to another icon of classic American literature. A young flapper who made an authorial splash with the New York literati (earning comparisons to a young Dorothy Parker), Faulkner later switched gears, devoting the second half of her life to shaping The University of Nebraska Press into a powerhouse publishing institution. Her dedication to scholarship on Willa Cather helped solidify Cather in the pantheon of great American writers. We’re joined for this discussion by neglected books champion Brad Bigelow, whose biography Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts was recently published by Bison Press. Mentioned in this episode: Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts by Brad Bigelow 2026 Pilgrimage Reading Group Purchase the Pilgrimage Series by Dorothy Richardson Neglected Books website Friends and Romans by Virginia Faulkner Willa Cather A House is Not a Home by Polly Adler University of Nebraska Press My Hey Day (The “Princess Tulip” Stories) by Virginia Faulkner Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott Eugene Meyer Bernice Slote Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 59 on Gertrude Trevelyon Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 116 on Dorothy Richardson Lost Ladies of Lit Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    42 min

  6. 12/23/2025

    Katharine Lee Bates — "Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride"

    Send a text Before penning the lyrics to “America the Beautiful,” Katharine Lee Bates shone a spotlight on the invisible (and not so invisible) labor tackled by an unsung Christmas heroine, Mrs. Claus. Bates’s 1888 poem “Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride” imagines Santa’s spouse setting the record straight about who really does most of the work in preparation for Christmas. In this holiday episode, Amy confesses her own cynical feelings about the Yuletide season and reads this humorous poem with its surprisingly satirical and feminist bent. Listeners who tune in will also receive a special “Lost Ladies of Lit” holiday freebie! Mentioned in this episode: “Goody Claus on a Sleigh Ride” by Katharine Lee Bates Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 237 on Katharine Lee Bates Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    13 min

  7. 12/09/2025

    Djuna Barnes — Nightwood with Margaret Vandenburg

    Send a text Dark and disturbing, yet strangely redemptive, Djuna Barnes’s 1936 modernist masterpiece Nightwood left even its greatest champion, T.S. Eliot, a bit bewildered. Guest Margaret Vandenburg, an expert in modernism, post-modernism and gender studies, joins us to illuminate Barnes’s tumultuous life and help us decipher her "ultimate breakup novel,” a work that casts its spell by turning the world upside down in subversive defiance of fascism. Mentioned in this episode: Nightwood by Djuna Barnes Craze by Margaret Vandenburg An American in Paris by Margaret Vandenburg Djuna: The Extraordinary Life of Djuna Barnes by Jon Macy The Life and Work of Djuna Barnes by Phillip Herring New York by Djuna Barnes (collected journalism) The Book of Repulsive Women and Other Poems by Djuna Barnes Ladies Almanac by Djuna Barnes “The Antiphon” by Djuna Barnes Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 266 on Radclyffe Hall Zadel Barnes Barnes’s 1922 Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    55 min

  8. 11/25/2025

    Malachi Whitaker — And So Did I with Valerie Waterhouse

    Send a text Likened to a fresh Yorkshire breeze, Malachi Whitaker’s year-in-the-life memoir And So Did I, published in 1939, is a quirky spirit-quest juxtaposing wry humor and contemplative observations amidst the impending threat of global conflict. Valerie Waterhouse, a PhD researcher and executor of Whitaker’s literary estate, joins us to discuss the author’s life and work, as well as her own quest to keep Whitaker’s legacy alive, including securing a commemorative blue plaque for her birthplace and writing a forthcoming biography. Mentioned in this episode: And So Did I by Malachi Whitaker The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitker The Oxford Book of English Short Stories edited by A.S. Byatt “Landlord of the Crystal Fountain” by Malachi Whitaker A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf Stevie Smith Elizabeth Bowen Kathleen Raine Gay Taylor “What I Believe” by E.M. Forster “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 3 on E.M. Delafield Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 166 on Alba de Céspedes Support the show For episodes and show notes, visit: LostLadiesofLit.com Subscribe to our substack newsletter. Follow us on instagram @lostladiesoflit. Email us: Contact — Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast

    41 min
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About

A book podcast hosted by writing partners Amy Helmes and Kim Askew. Guests include biographers, journalists, authors, and cultural historians discussing lost classics by women writers. You can support Lost Ladies of Lit by visiting https://www.patreon.com/c/LostLadiesofLit339. 

Information

  • Creator
    Amy Helmes & Kim Askew
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    236
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Lost Ladies of Lit
  • Show Website
    Lost Ladies of Lit

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