Midwest Writers Room

Luella and Ken
  • 5.0 (13)
  • Books

Podcast from the Wisconsin Writers Association. We discuss all things writerly, with an emphasis on the unique flavor of works that originate in the Midwest.

  1. 3d ago

    Chapter Break with Catherine Jagoe

    BIO: Catherine is a writer and translator based in Madison, Wisconsin. She has published ten books and four chapbooks across genres—poetry, criticism, fiction and poetry in translation, and most recently a memoir. Her poetry has aired on National Public Radio’s The Writer’s Almanac and To the Best of Our Knowledge, while her essays have won a Pushcart Prize and a Notable listing in Best American Essays. She is a contributor to Wisconsin Public Radio’s Wisconsin Life audio essay series. SYNOPSIS: UNBELONGING is a memoir in essays about Jagoe’s struggle to define home as a bilingual woman with three nationalities and divided allegiances. Her book spans a childhood of international moves, a career as a linguist, migration to the U.S., decades of traveling back and forth to Spain and England, and reckoning with the colonial legacy of her parents and grandparents. UNBELONGING tells the story of a woman who leaves behind her family and country of origin and longs throughout her life to feel at home in place, in language, and in her body. LINKS: https://www.catherinejagoe.com/

  2. 5d ago

    Season 4, Ep. 17 - Pat Scheckel, September 2026

    BIO: Although he's lived most of his life in Wisconsin, Pat Scheckel recently moved to Minneapolis. His debut novel, Time Stitchers, was published by WWA Press in the fall of 2026.  His short story collection, Frozen Chuck, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2027. His work has appeared in The MacGuffin, The Hemlock Journal, and Macabre Magazine.  LINKS: scheckel.com Instagram: @pat_scheckel

  3. Sep 25

    Chapter Break with BA Williamson, September 2026

    BIO:  B. A. Williamson is the overly caffeinated writer of the award-winning series The Chronicles of Gwendolyn Gray. When not doing battle with the demons in the typewriter, he can be found taming middle schoolers, doing something dramatic in a theatre, reading books, or spending way too much time decorating his house for Halloween. SYNOPSIS: The Chronicles of Gwendolyn Gray is a genre-hopping young adult fantasy series, blending elements of steampunk, faeries, horror, dystopia, and science fiction. It follows Gwendolyn Gray, a girl who can bring her imagination to life and now must learn to control her powers to save the stories of the multiverse from being erased by the Faceless Gentlemen, all while managing her bipolar disorder, saving her parents, and worst of all... growing up. In book 3, the Withering Trials of Gwendolyn Gray, she has saved her own world, but lost her hair, her friends, and even her parents, and has to travel the multiverse again, battling faeries, vampires, and dystopian governments to get them all back.  LINKS: bawilliamson.com

  4. Sep 23

    Chapter Break with Elise Posledni

    BIO: Elise Posledni is a bookkeeper by day and a writer by early mornings. A lifelong Wisconsin resident, she draws on her love of the state’s small towns and breathtaking natural landscapes to create fiction that feels rooted and real, even when the magic starts to surface. Her short stories have been featured in Creative Wisconsin Magazine and the anthology A Wisconsin Harvest of Horror. A New Witch in the Northwoods is her debut novel. Elise is the pen name for Jenna Dickson. She enjoys hiking with her rescue dog, snowboarding, and gardening. SYNOPSIS: When Mary Matherson inherits her late grandfather’s house in a close-knit northern Wisconsin town, she arrives expecting nosy neighbors and small-town gossip — the kind of curiosity she can handle from behind the counter of her coffee shop. What she doesn’t expect is the supernatural world lurking just beyond the treeline, or the unsettling discovery that she herself is a witch. As Mary begins to unravel the secrets her grandfather kept hidden, she finds herself drawn into a world of supernatural politics, an Other realm that is dangerously hard to resist, and a threat that has hunted her family’s magic for generations. Oh, and her new boyfriend? He’s a demon. LINKS: https://www.epwrites.com https://www.orangehatpublishing.com https://www.instagram.com/e.p.writes/

  5. Sep 18

    Chapter Break with Gary Goodman, September 2026

    BIO: Gary Goodman is a former rare book dealer from Stillwater MN, whose first book, The Last Bookseller, chronicled his life in the secondhand book trade. His new book, Longships and Sod Houses, focuses on his Icelandic ancestors, one of whom was a notorious Viking warrior and stone-cold killer sometimes called Egil the Bastard. SYNOPSIS: Gary Goodman first heard that his 24x great-grandfather was a tenth-century Viking pirate and mercenary at a family reunion, when a cousin told him that they were the direct descendants of an Icelandic poet and cold-blooded killer named Egil Skallagrímsson. Also known as “Egil the Bastard,” Goodman’s forefather was the subject of Egil’s Saga, one of the great Icelandic epics from the early Middle Ages. Spurred by this revelation of his family’s lineage, Goodman set out to discover the route his ancestors had traveled from Iceland in the 800s to the North Dakota plains in the later 1800s. LINKS: www.thelastbookseller.com

  6. Sep 11

    Chapter Break with Keith Pilapil Lesmeister, September 2026

    BIO: Keith is the author of the story collections Ask Me About the Money and We Could’ve Been Happy Here. A graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars, his work has received support from the Anderson Center, Iowa Arts Council, and Springboard for the Arts. His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, december magazine, Gettysburg Review, New Stories from the Midwest, North American Review, Redivider, Terrain, and elsewhere. He’s a founding editor of Cutleaf and teaches at Northeast Iowa Community College. SYNOPSIS: A collection of stories that tracks everyday moments, decisions, and complications with money. A father-and-son duo investigate a bad check. A husband and wife drive thirty miles to use a free beer coupon. One character, living in a motel, is offered unsavory work opportunities. With profound empathy, searing details, and propulsive scenes, these stories introduce situations at once simple and profound, strange and familiar—lives upturned because of a misstep, a miscalculation, or a blatant act. Money takes center stage, but these stories include a host of other themes: family and relationships, Midwestern woes, and racial identity.  LINKS: https://keithlesmeister.com

  7. Sep 11

    Chapter Break with Shoshauna Shy, September 2026

    BIO: In the last several years, Shoshauna Shy’s stories have been included in Brilliant Flash Fiction’s anniversary contest anthology, were long and shortlisted in two Bath Flash Fiction Award anthologies, and received finalist standing in Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Writing Awards. One of her poems took second place in the Wisconsin Writers Association Jade Ring contest, and two of her poetry collections have won Outstanding Achievement awards from the WI Library Association. She is also an editor for 101 Words, helping authors ready their stories for publication, and is employed as a copy editor by Four Way Books in New York City. SYNOPSIS: In Shortcut to Thief River Falls, persona poems and personal lyric expresses the need for belonging, the ties that bind, and the yearning for connection when those ties are relinquished by adoption, divorce or estrangement.   LINKS: https://poetryjumpsofftheshelf.com/

  8. Sep 8

    Chapter Break with Kevin Del Principe

    BIO: Kevin Del Principe is a writer and film director. I Animal, published by Tumbleweed Books, is his debut novel. He directed and co-wrote the feature film Up on the Glass. He has also written for television and is the owner of the production and publishing company Dog Heart Land.  The son of a snowplow truck driver and a school nurse, Kevin grew up outside of Buffalo, New York. Later, he worked in Los Angeles and taught screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University. Now, Kevin is a Lecturer in Screenwriting at the School of Film, Media & Theatre at Georgia State University in Atlanta.  He earned his MFA in Writing for Screen and Television from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts.  SYNOPSIS: I Animal introduces readers to Tommy, a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who flees Los Angeles to return to Buffalo when his mother’s health declines. What begins as a reluctant homecoming quickly unravels into a raw, restless journey through family ties, old neighborhoods, and the gnawing realization that the instincts we bury never really die. With a voice that is biting, self-deprecating, and brutally honest, Kevin Del Principe explores the collision of memory and mortality, identity and instinct. Tommy navigates old friends and enemies, dysfunctional relatives, and a city that never really let him go, all while wrestling with the growing animal urge inside him—part metaphor, part transformation, wholly unsettling. LINKS: kevindelprincipe.com

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5
out of 5
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About

Podcast from the Wisconsin Writers Association. We discuss all things writerly, with an emphasis on the unique flavor of works that originate in the Midwest.

Information

  • Creator
    Luella and Ken
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    155
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Midwest Writers Room
  • Show Website
    Midwest Writers Room