Upstart Crow

Upstart Crow Podcast
  • 5.0 (2)
  • BOOKS

Dedicated to promoting books and culture through engaging and informative podcasts. Our mission is to inspire our listeners to explore the literary arts and appreciate the diversity of ideas within our amazing world. We invite a diverse range of writers, historians, and cultural influences to share their expertise. From established artists to up-and-coming creatives, our guests provide unique perspectives on writing, the literary arts, and culture. Hosted by Ken Budd, Jennifer Disano, and William Miller.

  1. 9H AGO

    Jung Yun - All the World Can Hold

    Jung Yun – All the World Can Hold It is Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001. The Sunday after 9/11. Five days after the Tuesday when hijacked planes are flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in DC, and a field in Pennsylvania. As searchers still comb through smoldering wreckage, a cruise ship that should have left from New York’s Passenger Ship Terminal in Manhattan instead sets off from Boston for a cruise to Bermuda. Aboard are more than 600 passengers, and in Jung Yun’s new novel, All the World Can Hold, we follow three passengers in particular. Three who, as they travel on this voyage that is anything but mundane, undergo experiences that will leave them never the same again. Jung Yun joins host William Miller to talk about the origins of the novel, her writing of it, her own insights into the characters, and how the book is different from yet similar to her previous two novels. Jung Yun was born in Seoul, Korea, and grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. Prior to All the World Can Hold, she published Shelter (2016) a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Great New Writers Award and also long-listed for the Center for Fiction’s First-Novel Prize; and O Beautiful (2021), a New York Times Editor’s Choice book as well as a Times Group Read book, and a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year choice. Currently, Jung Yun lives in Maryland and teaches in the George Washington University creative writing program. Key Takeaways1. Turning personal history into fiction Author Jung Yun discusses how her novel All the World Can Hold was inspired by her own experience taking a cruise shortly after the September 11 attacks. Rather than focusing directly on the tragedy, the novel explores how ordinary people process and move forward after a world-altering event. 2. A cruise ship as a literary “crucible” The story follows three strangers whose lives intersect aboard a cruise ship headed to Bermuda. By placing characters in an enclosed environment where they cannot escape their pasts or their choices, Yun builds tension and explores how people confront regret, ambition, and unresolved relationships. 3. Characters shaped by their own flaws and decisions Yun explains her fascination with flawed characters who carry the seeds of their own undoing. Across her novels—from Shelter to O Beautiful—she often writes about disasters people create for themselves and how those pressures reveal their deepest motivations. 4. Writing about disasters—personal and societal A recurring theme in Yun’s work is how individuals react when systems or circumstances collapse, whether it’s the housing crisis, an oil boom, or national trauma. Her stories focus less on the event itself and more on the human responses that follow. “I’m always writing about disaster… the disasters we create for ourselves and how people respond when you put them into these pressurized situations.” - Jung Yun #JungYun #AllTheWorldCanHold #AuthorInterview #LiteraryFiction #UpstartCrowPodcast Learn more about Jung Yun and her books here. Purchase a copy of All the World Can Hold or any of Jung's other books here. --- Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

    41 min

  2. 4D AGO

    Cristina Jimenez - Dreaming of Home

    Cristina Jimenez – Dreaming of Home The subtitle of Cristina Jimenez’s memoir is, “How we turn fear into pride, power, and real change.” In the book, she defines “home” as a place of self-acceptance, which was not an easy place for her to find after she, her parents and her brother, fled the chaos of her hometown in Ecuador and settled in New York in 1998. She tried to be a “good” immigrant, but because she was undocumented, what is sometimes called an “illegal” immigrant, it didn’t matter how hard she worked, how much she studied, how well she did in school, how observant she was about rules and regulations, she was not accepted, not acceptable. But she kept at it. She endured. She persevered. Dreaming of Home tells the story. Cristina Jimenez is the cofounder and, for a time, was executive director of United We Dream, the largest immigrant-youth-led organization in the country. She played a leading role in getting approval of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. She also received a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, was named to Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people, and became a distinguished lecturer at City University of New York. With host William Miller, she discusses her memoir and the life experiences that led her to write it, including what it’s like to be an unwelcome immigrant, and what compelled her family to go to such a length. Find out more about Cristina Jimenez on her website. Key Takeaways1. The meaning of “home” goes beyond geography. Cristina Jimenez reflects on how immigrating from Ecuador forced her to rethink the concept of home. Over time she came to see home not just as a place, but as a sense of belonging found in community, self-acceptance, and the people who make you feel seen and valued. UC - Christina Jimenez 2. Personal stories are central to social movements. Cristina discusses how undocumented immigrant youth built a powerful movement by sharing their stories publicly, organizing together, and advocating for policy change—including helping push forward protections like DACA. 3. Economic and political forces often drive migration. Her family’s journey from Ecuador was shaped by poverty, political instability, and the influence of international corporate and political decisions that affected working-class families and forced many to leave their homes. 4. The U.S. economy relies heavily on immigrant labor. The conversation highlights the contradiction of industries depending on undocumented workers while those same workers face exploitation, wage theft, and the threat of deportation. #ImmigrantStories #ImmigrationPolicy #DreamingOfHome #SocialJusticeVoices #UpstartCrow #Author Podcast “Home is the place where you can look in the mirror and like what you see.”--- Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved

    51 min

  3. FEB 27

    Shubha Sunder - Optional Practical Training

    Shubha Sundra – Optional Practical Training In 2006, when this novel is set, American immigration law allows students, scholars, trainees, teachers, etc., on temporary visas to have a year of practical training not required by the person’s basic program. Optional Practical Training. The novel covers just such a year in the life of Pavitra, a young woman from Bangalore, India, who has finished her bachelor’s degree in physics and gotten a job teaching at a private high school near Cambridge, Massachusetts. Told through a series of conversations Pavitra has with various people as she shapes her life, the novel provides a more nuanced portrait of the immigrant experience than that often featured in novels. Optional Practical Training (Graywolf Press) is Shubha Sundra’s first novel. It won the 2025 New American Voices Award sponsored by the Institute for Immigration Research and presented at the annual Fall for the Book festival. She also is the author of an earlier short story collection, Boomtown Girl, set in her hometown of Bangalore, India. That book won the 2021 St. Lawrence Book Award. Her individual stories and essays have appeared in Catapult, The Common, New Letters, Crazyhorse, and Narrative Magazine. Her work has received notable mentions in the Best American Short Stories anthology. She teaches in the creative writing MFA program at UMass Boston. Borders are made without our permission and we really don’t have control over border crossing — we’re essentially at the mercy of the border guards.” - Shubha Sunder Hosted by William Miller Find out more about Shubha Sunder on her website. You can purchase a copy of Optional Practical Training from Bookshop.org here. Or you can buy a copy at on independent bookseller near you. Check out the link here. This episode is also available on our YouTube channel. Key Takeaways1. Immigration as a Liminal State The novel explores the precarious “in-between” status of Optional Practical Training (OPT), where identity, stability, and future plans all hinge on visa structures beyond one’s control. 2. Free Will vs. Systems of Power Through the historical case of Bhagat Singh Thind, the book examines how institutions shape identity — and how personal agency often exists within forces much larger than the individual. 3. Home Is Situational — Borders Are Not While home can feel portable and internal, legal borders are rigid realities. The novel powerfully contrasts the emotional idea of home with the political reality of border enforcement. 4. Identity Is Formed in Conversation Structured around pivotal conversations, the novel shows how what others say to us — and assume about us — shapes our evolving sense of self, especially as immigrants navigating unfamiliar systems. #OptionalPracticalTraining #LiteraryFiction #ImmigrationStories --- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

    43 min

  4. JAN 27

    Margaret Hutton - If You Leave

    Margaret Hutton – If You Leave With the intrusive, catalytic forces of two wars, World War II and Vietnam, Margaret Hutton’s debut novel, If You Leave, tells of two women who mother one baby girl into her own young womanhood. Each of the three discovers the strength of herself as an individual as well as the strength of unity. Thus does this quietly vibrant story illustrate the way one life impacts others, decisions made either quickly or slowly can have similarly devastating consequences, and the need of the human heart for love competes with the need to find meaning. Margaret Hutton’s short fiction has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The Sun, The South Carolina Review, The Chattahoochee Review, the Antioch Review, and Abundant Grace. She earned an undergraduate degree with honors from UNC-Chapel Hill and an MFA from George Mason University. She is a native of North Carolina and formerly was an environmental reporter. She divides her time between Washington, DC, and her art studio in Chester County, PA. If You Leave was published by Regal House Publishing and is available wherever books are sold. Hosted by William Miller --- Key TakeawaysWar as a Turning Point for WomenIf You Leave examines how World War II and Vietnam temporarily expanded women’s independence and opportunity—while exposing how fragile those gains could be.Art, Agency, and InterruptionThrough Audrey’s life as a painter, the novel explores how women’s creative ambitions are often disrupted, underestimated, or constrained by social expectations.The Power and Cost of LeavingEvery major character is shaped by acts of leaving—home, relationships, or identity—revealing how personal choices ripple across generations.Interiority and Empathy in FictionMargaret highlights fiction’s ability to reveal inner lives, inviting readers to understand characters beyond surface-level judgment. “The novel gives us access to another person’s interior life—and that’s something we never fully have in real life.” - Margaret Hutton#LiteraryFiction #HistoricalFiction #WomenWriters Find out more about Margaret Hutton on her website. Purchase her book here. Follow her on Instagram. --- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2026 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

    51 min

  5. JAN 20

    Linda Chavez - The Silver Candlesticks: A Novel of the Spanish Inquisition

    Linda Chavez – A Novel of the Spanish Inquisition: The Silver Candlesticks Linda Chavez began working on The Silver Candlesticks after appearing on the PBS series Finding Your Roots during which she discovered that members of her family were Converso Jews who fled Spain in 1597. Using details the PBS researchers uncovered as well as her own work on the Spanish Inquisition, she created a fictional weave of love and faith, and the perils of ardent religious faith transformed by the obdurate endurance of a persecution. Earlier, Linda spent decades in politics and the media, having served as a White House official in the Reagan administration and been a syndicated columnist. She is the author of three previously published nonfiction books and individually published short stories. She earned her MFA from George Mason University. “No matter how good you think your life is, it isn’t unless you are actually free.” — Linda Chavez Hosted by William Miller The Silver Candlesticks is published by Wicked Son, an imprint of Post Hill Press. You can purchase a copy on their website here, or anywhere that books are sold. Key TakeawaysHistory brought to life through fictionLinda Chavez discusses how The Silver Candlesticks uses meticulous historical research to humanize the Spanish Inquisition, revealing how fear, power, and persecution shaped everyday lives.Hidden identity and inherited traumaThe novel explores the dangers faced by Jewish converts in 16th-century Spain and how secrecy, forced assimilation, and inherited identity ripple across generations.Villains, morality, and belief systemsChavez unpacks the challenge of writing morally complex antagonists—especially religious figures who commit atrocities while believing they are acting righteously.Personal history as creative catalystThe story is rooted in Chavez’s own family history, uncovered through archival research and her appearance on Finding Your Roots, demonstrating how personal discovery can inspire powerful storytelling. This episode is also available to watch on our YouTube channel: @upstartcrowpodcast Check out more about Linda on her Substack. #HistoricalFictionPodcast #SpanishInquisitionHistory #AuthorInterview #TheSilverCandlesticks -- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

    41 min

  6. JAN 13

    W. Ralph Eubanks - When It's Darkness on the Delta

    W. Ralph Eubanks – When It’s Darkness on the Delta Some today would cross off the Mississippi Delta as a backwater beyond redemption or a region where bad history happened, but W. Ralph Eubanks drives the area roads and small-town streets, meets the people who live and work there, some of whom strive hard to make it more than it is, and through his evocative writing he portrays not just the economic oppression but also the area’s resilience. In his newest work of nonfiction, Eubanks, a son of Mississippi, looks at the region with a clear, if not dispassionate eye. Seeking further knowing about this particular area, he finds insights into the soul of America. Slavery got turned into sharecropping. Civil rights were cruelly suppressed under Jim Crow. Poverty became so entrenched, it has resisted any number of efforts to eradicate it—even the spending of millions of dollars. He finds the pervasive inequality that hinders the expansive possibilities. As he writes, “The story of the Delta is not just a Mississippi story. Nor is it just a Southern story. At its very core, the Delta’s story is an American story. The idea of American exceptionalism has rendered the Delta and other places like it invisible since the story of the Delta is exceptional in only disturbing ways. By reckoning with the story of the Delta, we as Americans, can also begin to confront the other disadvantaged places like it that dot the American landscape, from sea to shining sea.” W. Ralph Eubanks is a faculty fellow and writer in residence at the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, where his work focuses on race, identity, and the American South. He is the author previously of two other works of nonfiction, Ever Is a Long Time and The House at the End of the Road, as well as A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape. He has been a Guggenheim fellow and a Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellow, as well as a recipient of the 2023 Mississippi Governor’s Arts Award for excellence in literature. “To change what we see on the landscape, we have to change what we know about it.” — W. Ralph Eubanks Hosted by William Miller Key Takeaways: The Mississippi Delta is not an isolated regional problem but a national mirror, reflecting economic, racial, and political systems found throughout the United States.Race in America operates as an economic construct, with policies after slavery preserving inequality by separating political rights from economic power.Romanticized narratives of the Delta obscure the structural forces that created generational poverty, allowing poverty to be blamed on individuals rather than systems.Lasting change depends on sustained local leadership and historical truth-telling, not outside saviors or short-term philanthropic fixes. #MississippiDelta #AmericanPoverty #RaceAndEconomics You can also watch this episode on our YouTube channel here. Find out more about Ralph Eubanks and his books, you can visit his website here. His books for sale here. Follow and connect with him on Instagram, and Facebook. --- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Edited & Produced by Jon D PodCom

    1h 2m

  7. 12/23/2025

    Mary Kay Zuravleff – American Ending

    Mary Kay Zuravleff – American Ending Mary Kay Zuravleff is the author most recently of the novel American Ending, a story inspired by the experiences of her grandparents, Old Believer Russian Orthodox emigres. She combined those experiences to tell the story of immigrants recruited into the dangerous work America needs to have done but which workers are reluctant to do. The book seems entirely appropriate to our times. Her characters live in the Appalachian mining town of Marianna, Pennsylvania, during the early years of the twentieth century. The narrator of the novel, Yelena, wants more for herself than the limited life patterned out for her. This is a place where the girls are married off by the age of 14, soon start to have babies and try to manage their households with limited incomes and young husbands who themselves dropped out of school to go work in the coal mines. Their story is one of compromised goals and dreams, and grasping at whatever opportunities come along. The title suggests a simple divide that may not always be so visible in the world: In the American ending, stories end happily. The prince rushes in, slays the dragon, and he saves the princess. That’s versus the Russian ending, where things are not so happy. There is at least compromise, loss, diminishment. The prince might rush in and slay the dragon but he might find the princess is beyond saving in some way. Mary Kay Zuravleff is the award-winning author of the previous novels Man Alive, which was a Washington Post notable book; The Bowl is Already Broken, which the New York Times called a “tart, affectionate satire of the museum world’s bickering and scheming;” and The Frequency of Souls, a story of love, electricity and life after death. She has won the American Academy of Art’s Rosenthal Award, the James Jones First Novel Award, and multiple artist fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts. “If your people aren’t on the shelf, you need to write that book.” Key TakeawaysImmigration stories are American stories. American Ending explores the lived experiences of Russian immigrants in early 20th-century coal towns and how questions of belonging, labor, and citizenship echo into the present.Identity is shaped by place and pressure. Though Elena is born in America, her sense of self is constantly challenged by family, religion, labor systems, and cultural expectations.Historical fiction requires restraint and rigor. Mary Kay discusses how deep research—rather than limiting creativity—opened new narrative possibilities while grounding the story in reality.Community memory matters. The novel has sparked powerful conversations in book clubs and communities across the country, revealing how many families still carry untold immigrant histories. #ImmigrantStories #HistoricalFiction #AmericanIdentity Connect with Mary Kay Zuravleff: Website Book Instagram LinkedIn --- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show:UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Hosted by William Miller Edited & Produced by Jon D PodCom

    53 min

  8. 11/28/2025

    Library Reads Special Edition – Fairfax Local Author Festival - Fairfax, VA

    Upstart Crow: Library Reads Special Edition – Fairfax Local Author Festival In this special edition of Upstart Crow, host Jennifer Disano visits the Fairfax Regional Library for the Local Author Festival, recorded November 15, 2025 in Fairfax, VA. Jennifer sat down with 16 talented authors and received submissions from 2 additional writers, exploring a wide variety of books, from memoirs and children’s stories to historical fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Each author shared insights into their creative process and delivered a captivating synopsis of their work. Authors and Featured Books: Carolyn Belefski – Curls, Black Magic Tales (artwork), Adventures of Roxy and Dean Kristen Amundson – Grandparent Effect: Helping Children Thrive Through Love, Support and ConnectionRebecca Hayden – Murder of Maggie Slipper, The Second Life of Brencie JessupKacy Cooney – Seeking Solace, In the Maze of ImaginationRoy Whitehurst – Teaching Media Literacy with Social Media NewsKarma Shri P Murti – Lanka’s Forgotten Lives, Lully seriesKayla Sanders – Mojada: Memoir of a Honduran ImmigrantLeslie Lautenslager – My Time with General Colin Powell: Stories of Kindness, Diplomacy, and ProtocolJerry Markowitz – Hugs Poetic Life, Exploring Kindness and RespectHenry Brinton – War BugRick Spees – Capital Gains, Capital LossesEric Smolinski (E.R. Smo) – Accrue's End series: Affliction, ProvenanceKat Needham – Shepherd Girl: A Dog Story, Una and the FoxBeka Wueste – The Unsent Letters of Lucy Pryor, Fireflies in a Jar, My Side of the World and Other Tales of DeathKeisha Strand – I Need a Friend, What If We Went?Dave Hatcher – Son of the Heartland: On the Way to the Promised LandDeanna Reina – MENtal: A Preposterous Pursuit of LoveJanet Macreery – The Falls List of all authors at the festival here. Fairfax County Public Library and the Fairfax Library Foundation made this festival possible, supporting local authors and ensuring the community could engage with these incredible stories. #FairfaxLocalAuthors #LibraryAuthorFestival #CommunityReads #FairfaxVA --- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show:UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Hosted & Recorded by Jennifer Disano Edited & Produced by Jon D PodCom

    41 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
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About

Dedicated to promoting books and culture through engaging and informative podcasts. Our mission is to inspire our listeners to explore the literary arts and appreciate the diversity of ideas within our amazing world. We invite a diverse range of writers, historians, and cultural influences to share their expertise. From established artists to up-and-coming creatives, our guests provide unique perspectives on writing, the literary arts, and culture. Hosted by Ken Budd, Jennifer Disano, and William Miller.

Information

  • Creator
    Upstart Crow Podcast
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Upstart Crow Podcast
  • Show Website
    Upstart Crow