Authors Unbound

Unbound Edition Press
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Books
  • Updated Biweekly

A podcast connecting passionate writers with passionate readers. Presented by Unbound Edition Press. Hosted by Patrick Davis, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief and Peter Campion, Executive Editor.

  1. 3d ago

    Joel Minor Unbound

    Joel Minor is the curator of Modern Literature and Manuscripts at Washington University Libraries in St. Louis, where he has worked since 2012. Previously an archivist at the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University and at Oglala Lakota College on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Minor has built his career around preserving and illuminating the lives behind significant works of literature. At Washington University, he oversees a remarkable collection of books, manuscripts, correspondence, and archival materials connected to writers including William H. Gass, James Merrill, William Gaddis, Samuel Beckett, May Swenson, Eugene O’Neill, Joy Williams, and others. His work has contributed to exhibitions, conferences, digital humanities projects, and scholarship that make these collections available not only to researchers, but to writers and readers interested in the complicated, often deeply personal process by which literature comes into being. This week on Authors Unbound, we sit down with Joel Minor to explore what it means to preserve a writer’s creative life, not simply the finished books that reach readers. Minor traces the history of Washington University’s Modern Literature Collection from its beginnings in 1964, when the library and writing program began reaching out to emerging writers whose work had not yet found its permanent archival home. From there, the conversation moves into the intimacy of manuscripts themselves: Joy Williams cutting and taping together typewritten drafts, James Merrill’s doodles and surviving Ouija board transcripts, and the correspondence, revisions, false starts, and collaborations that reveal literature as a process rather than a polished object. Minor reflects on the challenge of preserving an increasingly digital writing life, the responsibility of handling materials never necessarily intended for public view, and the strange balance between personal legacy, scholarly value, and the commercial market for writers’ papers. He also discusses the relationships that allow literary collections to grow organically, including William Gass’s influence on the archive and the continuing effort to bring Robert Coover’s papers into a community of writers with whom his work and life were deeply connected. Throughout, Minor offers a generous view of the archive as a living exchange among writers, curators, scholars, students, and readers, each capable of discovering something the others may have missed. Join us for a rich conversation about literary memory, creative process, and the human work of keeping a writer’s life available to future readers. This is Joel Minor Unbound. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https:/unboundedition.com.

    Joel Minor Unbound

  2. Sep 2

    Tomas Unger Unbound

    Tomas Unger is a poet, teacher, and critic whose writing moves between poetry, visual art, and the spaces where the two meet. His essays and poems have appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Paris Review, The New York Review of Books, and The Yale Review. In his writing, Unger is drawn to the ordinary object, the unexpected encounter, and the quiet mystery contained within moments of attention. His poems are marked by a remarkable spareness and precision, allowing familiar things—a piano, a moon, a hotel hallway, a boat—to gather presence and significance without forcing them into explanation. His critical work similarly reflects a wide-ranging curiosity about art and the ways different forms can illuminate one another. This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with Tomas Unger about his debut collection, Odd Hour, a book concerned with memory, silence, encounters, and the strange moments when the familiar world seems briefly unfamiliar. Unger reads several poems from the collection, including “Piano,” “Once,” “Still,” and “Went Away,” and speaks about the experiences and works of art that helped shape them. He recalls the childhood experience of sleepwalking through a hotel hallway in Rio that became the starting point for “Once,” and considers how poetry can transform such an experience without explaining it away. We talk about the influence of poets including A.R. Ammons, Seamus Heaney, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens, as well as the relationship between poetry and photography. For Unger, poetry has a particular ability to give us the human voice: something spare, vulnerable, and capable of carrying us toward a depth that does not require obscurity. The conversation also turns toward visual artists, translation, reading, and the importance of getting outside the habits of one's own art in order to return to it with renewed curiosity. Join us for a rich conversation about silence, attention, memory, and the mysterious ways poetry makes the world newly present. This is Tomas Unger Unbound. Purchase your copy of Odd Hour directly from Unbound Edition Press. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at unboundedition.com.

    Tomas Unger Unbound

  3. Aug 19

    Willard Spiegelman Unbound

    Willard Spiegelman is the Hughes Professor of English, Emeritus, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and the longtime former editor-in-chief of the Southwest Review. The author of numerous books on English and American poetry, as well as two volumes of personal essays, Spiegelman has spent a career writing about literature, art, music, and the ways culture shapes our understanding of ourselves. His most recent work before My Lucky Stars was Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt, published by Alfred A. Knopf. He is also a longtime contributor to the arts and books pages of The Wall Street Journal. A lifelong reader, writer, and teacher, Spiegelman brings to his work a particular attentiveness to language, voice, and the pleasures of cultural life. This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with Willard Spiegelman about My Lucky Stars, his forthcoming collection of essays and unconventional memoir of taste. The book grew from individual essays on figures such as Mabel Mercer, Ruth Draper, Al Jolson, Jack Benny, and Patsy Cline, which gradually revealed themselves as a way of telling Spiegelman’s own story through the people, performances, music, and entertainments that have shaped his life. He reflects on his early love of Gilbert and Sullivan, his discovery of country-western music after moving to Texas, and his enduring fascination with the Great American Songbook and the power of a singer to honor the words of a song. Along the way, he considers the middlebrow—not as something to be dismissed, but as a cultural space capable of offering pleasure, community, generosity, and relief from hardship. He also explores the relationship between listening and writing, the importance of articulation and repartee, and what moments of theater and performance can still offer an audience willing to sit quietly and pay attention.Don't miss this rich conversation about taste, memory, language, performance, and the enduring pleasures of the cultural middle. This is Willard Spiegelman Unbound. Purchase your copy of My (Lucky) Stars directly from Unbound Edition Press. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at unboundedition.com.

    Willard Spiegelman Unbound

  4. Aug 5

    Howard Altmann Unbound

    Howard Altmann is an internationally acclaimed poet whose work has been translated into Portuguese, Hebrew, and German, with original collections published around the world alongside his English-language books. A frequent contributor to The Guardian's celebrated "Poem of the Week" series, his poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, Best American Poetry, Poetry, TLS, and numerous other distinguished publications. A native of Montreal, Altmann holds degrees from McGill University and Stanford University and now lives in Brooklyn. Across his work, he has developed a singular poetic voice that moves effortlessly between the intimate and the historical, illuminating the ways memory, grief, place, and language shape our understanding of ourselves. His poems are celebrated for their musical precision, surprising imagery, and emotional depth, inviting readers into moments that feel at once deeply personal and profoundly universal. This week on Authors Unbound, we sit down with Howard Altmann to discuss Infinite Sky Divided, a remarkable new collection that explores the meeting place of private memory and collective history. Throughout the conversation, Howard reflects on the mysterious beginnings of a poem, describing how each one grows from a fragment of thought "pregnant with emotion" into an act of discovery. Together, we explore poems including "Kyiv," "Homage," "Holding Posture," and "Saudade," examining how they emerged through surprise rather than intention and how they navigate war, mourning, history, travel, and the enduring search for meaning. Howard also shares stories about writing in Lisbon, discusses the influence of poets such as John Ashbery and Wallace Stevens, and reflects on why creating poetry requires patience, spaciousness, and a willingness to remain perpetually surprised. The result is a thoughtful conversation about creativity, language, and the enduring power of poetry to illuminate both the individual life and the larger human story. Join us for a rich conversation exploring poetry, memory, history, and the quiet discoveries that shape a life in language. This is Howard Altmann Unbound. Purchase your copy of Infinite Sky Divided directly from Unbound Edition Press. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://unboundedition.com.

    Howard Altmann Unbound

  5. Jul 22

    Christian Bancroft Unbound

    Christian Bancroft is an acclaimed poet, scholar, and editor whose work bridges creative writing, literary criticism, and archival research. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston and is the recipient of a Michener Fellowship. He is the author of Queering Modernist Translation: The Poetics of Race, Gender, and Queerness and the co-editor of Adelaide Crapsey: The Life & Work of an American Master. His poetry and criticism have appeared in publications including Callaloo, The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Petrichor, and Asymptote. In his remarkable cross-genre collection A Ghost Has No Fantasies, Bancroft draws from archival documents, survivor testimonies, Gestapo records, and historical research to illuminate the lives of LGBTQ+ individuals persecuted under Nazi rule. Through poetry, prose, and innovative visual forms, the book restores humanity to voices too often omitted from Holocaust history, creating a work that is both historically rigorous and profoundly moving. This week on Authors Unbound, we sit down with Christian Bancroft to discuss A Ghost Has No Fantasies, a groundbreaking collection that explores the lives, loves, and losses of LGBTQ+ people targeted during the Holocaust. Christian shares how years of archival research gradually transformed into a deeply personal creative project, balancing scholarship with poetry to preserve stories that history nearly erased. Together, we explore the surprising moments of tenderness uncovered in survivor testimonies, the challenge of writing about trauma without diminishing individual humanity, and the visual language of the book itself—from fragmented typography and archival facsimiles to the influence of artists and composers whose work embraces memory and decay. The conversation also examines the role of the writer as both poet and curator, the responsibility of preserving historical truth, and why remembering these forgotten lives remains urgently important today. Don't miss this thoughtful conversation about memory, history, poetry, and the enduring power of bearing witness. This is Christian Bancroft Unbound. Purchase your copy of A Ghost Has No Fantasies directly from Unbound Edition Press. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at unboundedition.com.

    Christian Bancroft Unbound

  6. Jul 8

    Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt Unbound

    Angie Estes is an acclaimed American poet whose work is celebrated for its luminous language, intricate musicality, and remarkable ability to weave together art, history, memory, and desire. Across more than three decades, her poetry has explored the ways beauty, spirituality, and human experience intersect, creating poems that feel at once intellectually expansive and deeply intimate. She is the author of numerous collections, including The Uses of Passion, Voice-Over, Tryst, Chez Nous, and Last Day on Earth in the Eternal City, and her work has earned widespread recognition, including the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, Audre Lorde Prize, and fellowships from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts. Joining her for this conversation is celebrated poet, critic, and scholar Stephanie Burt, whose thoughtful introduction frames The Swallows Come Out: Selected Poems, 1995–2025 and offers readers a rich perspective on Estes's extraordinary body of work. This week on Authors Unbound, we sit down with Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt to celebrate the release of The Swallows Come Out: Selected Poems, 1995–2025. Together, they reflect on the process of assembling a selected collection that spans thirty years of writing, uncovering unexpected continuities across Estes's work and the themes that have quietly shaped her poetry from the beginning. Their conversation explores the transformative influence of visual art, medieval architecture, travel, and fellow poet Jorie Graham, as well as the ways love, language, and spiritual longing evolve across a lifetime of writing. Along the way, Estes reads several poems from throughout the collection, including "St. Francis Preaching to the Birds," "Rhapsody," "You Had Me at Premier Cru," and the title poem, while Burt reflects on the beauty of Estes's metaphors, her distinctive use of simile, and the remarkable way her poems invite readers to discover unexpected connections between the sacred and the everyday. The episode concludes with a glimpse at new work from Burt and a thoughtful discussion about how a selected collection becomes not simply a retrospective, but a new portrait of a writer's creative life. Don't miss this rich conversation exploring poetry, art, memory, and the enduring power of language. This is Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt Unbound. Purchase your copy of The Swallows Come Out: Selected Poems, 1995–2025 directly from Unbound Edition Press. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at https://unboundedition.com.

    Angie Estes and Stephanie Burt Unbound

  7. 10/29/2025

    David Wojahn Unbound

    David Wojahn is an acclaimed American poet, essayist, and educator whose work weaves personal memory with the larger currents of history and culture. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1953, he earned degrees from the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. His debut collection, Icehouse Lights, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award and the William Carlos Williams Award, launching a career marked by critical acclaim and emotional depth. His later works—Interrogation Palace, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and World Tree, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize—cemented his reputation as one of America’s most powerful poetic voices. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, Wojahn is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches in the MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with acclaimed poet and essayist David Wojahn about his new collection, Secret Addressee: Essays on How Poetry Matters, out this fall from Unbound Edition Press. In this powerful conversation, Wojahn reflects on poetry’s role in times of political upheaval and cultural uncertainty—how it both sustains us and resists easy consolation. He discusses the writers who shaped his thinking, from Yannis Ritsos to Elizabeth Bishop, and shares the intimate connection between his prose, his teaching, and his poetry. Wojahn also reads two striking new sonnets that mirror America’s shifting ideals across generations.  Don’t miss this thoughtful and deeply felt discussion about art, conscience, and the enduring necessity of poetry. This is David Wojahn Unbound. Purchase your copy of Secret Addressee: Essays on How Poetry Matters on our website: https://www.unboundedition.com/product/addressee-david-wojahn-literary-nonfiction/

    David Wojahn Unbound

  8. 10/01/2025

    Aimee Parkison Unbound

    Aimee Parkison is an acclaimed American author, educator, and innovator in experimental fiction. Her work, shaped by a deep commitment to exploring gender, violence, and the unspoken dimensions of trauma, blurs the boundaries between story and confession. Her fiction has appeared in North American Review, Bellingham Review, and Feminist Studies. A recipient of the Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize, the Kurt Vonnegut Prize, the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, and a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship, Parkison currently teaches in the MFA/Ph.D. program at Oklahoma State University. This week on Authors Unbound, we talk with Aimee Parkison to discuss her forthcoming collection Body of Evidence, arriving October 2025 in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Rooted in personal witness and crafted with precision, the book confronts the realities of domestic violence while also creating space for healing and remembrance. Parkison shares insights into her writing process, the discoveries she makes in revision, and the responsibility of giving voice to experiences too often left unspoken. Don’t miss this moving conversation on resilience, storytelling, and the power of breaking silence. This is Aimee Parkison Unbound. Purchase your copy of Body of Evidence on Amazon or directly from Unbound Edition. For more from Unbound Edition Press, visit us at Unbound Edition.

    Aimee Parkison Unbound
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

A podcast connecting passionate writers with passionate readers. Presented by Unbound Edition Press. Hosted by Patrick Davis, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief and Peter Campion, Executive Editor.

Information

  • Creator
    Unbound Edition Press
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    47
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Unbound Edition Press
  • Show Website
    Authors Unbound

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