Lost Ladies of Lit

Amy Helmes & Kim Askew
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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. 4d ago

    ENCORE: Miles Franklin — My Brilliant Career

    Send us Fan Mail This week we're revisiting an Australian author — and the 1979 film adaptation of her work — which originally captured Kim and Amy’s fancy back in 2024. Published in 1901 and written when author Miles Franklin was only eighteen years old, My Brilliant Career became an instant classic of Australian literature and still delights readers with its feisty heroine, Sybylla Melvin, and its realistic depiction of Australian life and lingo at the turn of the 20th century. In our discussion of the novel and its film adaptation (starring Judy Davis and Sam Neill) we’ll explain why Franklin’s fear of being a literary one-hit-wonder proved unfounded, and why her name today graces one of Australia’s top annual literary prizes. Mentioned in this episode: Miles Franklin My Brilliant Career film My Brilliant Career novel Judy Davis Sam Neill Director Gillain Armstrong Oscar and Lucinda Charlotte Grey Blackwood’s publishing house Anne of Green Gables The Thorn Birds Brent of Bin Bin Up the Country by Brent of Bin Bin Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 128 on Margaret Oliphant Henry Lawson Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons Bring the Monkey by Miles Franklin My Career Goes Bung by Miles Franklin All That Swagger by Miles Franklin S.H. Prior Memorial Prize The Miles Franklin Award The Stella Prize Miles Franklin: A Short Biography by Jill Roe Of Foreign Lands and Peoples by Robert Schumann (soundtrack to film) 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

    34 min

  2. Jun 23

    ENCORE: Jane White —Quarry with Helen Hughes

    Send us Fan Mail We're celebrating summer with another sultry, almost-suffocating novel from our podcast vaults, one clearly written with William Golding's Lord of the Flies in mind. When Jane White’s gripping and unsettling debut novel Quarry was first published in 1967, a review in The Scotsman called it “the most frightening novel of the year.” Joining us is White’s daughter-in-law, Dr. Helen Hughes, of the University of Surrey, who wrote the afterword to the new Boiler House Press edition of Quarry.  Mentioned in this episode: Oxford's summer Lifelong Learning seminar on Josephine Tey Quarry by Jane White Norfolk Child by Jane White The Lord of the Flies by William Golding Proxy by Jane White Beatrice, Falling by Jane White The Neglected Books page on Jane White 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

  3. Jun 9

    ENCORE WITH UPDATE! Ruth Prawer Jhabvala — Heat and Dust with Brigitte Hales

    Send us Fan Mail With Counterpoint Press's new editions of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's work (including her Booker-Prize winning novel Heat and Dust and a new short story collection Disinheritance: The Rediscovered Stories) we're inspired to revisit our 2022 episode on this prolific writer of fiction and films. Pivotal to the success of Merchant/Ivory films like A Room With a View and Howard's End, Jhabvala used her experiences as an "initiated outsider" to tell stories brimming with nuance, humor, truth and beauty. Mentioned in this episode: Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Disinheritance: The Rediscovered Stories by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Brigitte Hales  Disenchanted (2022 film) Merchant Ivory Productions A Room with a View (1985 film) Howard’s End (1992 film) The Householder by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Nissim Ezekiel The Householder (1963 film) Heat and Dust (1983 film) 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

    49 min

  4. May 26

    Nettie Jones — Fish Tales with Hannah Eko

    Send us Fan Mail First published in 1983 after being championed by Toni Morrison, Nettie Jones’s Fish Tales recounts one woman’s trauma-filled, hedonistic quest for personal freedom amidst a “Disco-Era,” drug-fuelled backdrop — one inspired by Jones’s own lived experiences in 1970s Detroit and New York City. Nigerian-American author and Lit Club founder Hannah Eko joins us to discuss the ways power, pleasure and pain converge in Jones’s transgressive work, which was reissued by Farrar Straus and Giroux in 2025 Mentioned in this episode: Fish Tales by Nettie Jones Honey is the Knife by Hannah Eko The Lit Club’s 2026 event calendar Toni Morrison Village Well bookstore Lucumi Oshun Charles Abramson Jean Toomer Longreads article on Nettie Jones by Michael Gonzalez Numa Perrier Zola film Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerny Hunter S. Thompson Anais Nin Gayl Jones The Hitachi Magic Wand Yoruba Art Lost Ladies of Lit Patreon page 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

    46 min

  5. May 12

    Josephine Tey — The Daughter of Time with Jennifer Morag Henderson

    Send us Fan Mail Considered one of the greatest crime novels of all time, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time flipped 450 years of British history on its head by re-examining Richard III’s purported involvement in the murder of his two young nephews, the Princes in the Tower. How did a shopkeeper’s daughter-turned-high-school gym teacher become one of the 20th century’s greatest writers of mystery, literary fiction and theatrical plays? Tey’s biographer, Jennifer Morag Henderson, joins us to discuss the double life that allowed Tey to rocket to stardom while also flying under the radar in her home town of Inverness, Scotland. Mentioned in this episode: Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey Kif: An Unvarnished History by Josephine Tey The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey Claverhouse by Josephine Tey Richard of Bordeaux by Josephine Tey Josephine Tey: A Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson Daughters of the North: Jean Gordon and Mary, Queen of Scots by Jennifer Morag Henderson Jofrid Gunn by Jennifer Morag Henderson Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers The Richard III Society Anstey Physical Training College Richard III: The King in the Car Park documentary 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

    44 min

  6. Apr 28

    Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry—The Tale of the Rose with Sara Kippur

    Send us Fan Mail Though her high-flying literary husband took center-stage, Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry was more than just the metaphorical “rose” in his novella The Little Prince. She was a writer and artist in her own right, with a gift for storytelling that’s evidenced in the now out-of-print novel Oppède. Following her death, an undiscovered memoir she wrote about her marriage to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry surfaced among her belongings and was published to great acclaim in 2000 as The Tale of the Rose. Wellesley professor Sara Kippur joins us in conversation to discuss the glittering life and literary merits of this often-overlooked 20th-century figure. Mentioned in this episode The Tale of the Rose: The Love Story Behind The Little Prince by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry Oppède or Kingdom of the Rocks by Consuelo de Saint-Exupéry New York Nouveau: How Postwar French Literature Became American by Sara Kippur The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry José Vasconcelos Enrique Gomez Carrillo Nelly de Vogüé Alain Vircondelet José Martines Fructuoso Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 117 on Zelda Fitzgerald André Gide André Breton Oppède Website with photos of Consuelo’s art Varian Fry Elsa Triolet Tropisms by Nathalie Sarraute The Sea Wall by Marguerite Duras The Volcano Daughters by Gina Maria Balibrera 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

  7. Apr 14

    María Amparo Ruiz de Burton — Who Would Have Thought It? with Quite Literally Books

    Send us Fan Mail The first Mexican-American woman novelist to be published in English, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton chose a surprising subject matter—East Coast high society—for her first novel, Who Would Have Thought It? She was uniquely qualified to skewer the hypocrisy of Northern abolitionists, lampoon corrupt politicians and even mock Abraham Lincoln as a figure she deems more “party-boy” than presidential. Bremond Berry MacDougall and Lisa Endo Cooper, founders of Quite Literally Books, join us to discuss their new reissue of this 1872 book and why it still resonates so loudly in the era of Donald Trump. Discussed in this episode: María Amparo Ruiz de Burton Who Would Have Thought It? By María Amparo Ruiz de Burton Quite Literally Books Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 246 on Jessie Redmon Fauset Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 79 on Frances Harper’s Iola LeRoy Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs Henry S. Burton Mary Todd Lincoln Abraham Lincoln Varina Davis James Baldwin Dr. Jessie Alemán 1863 Habeas Corpus Suspension Act The Squatter and the Don by María Amparo Ruiz de Burton on Project Gutenberg 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

  8. Mar 31

    Juanita Harrison—My Great, Wide, Beautiful World with Cathryn Halverson

    Send us Fan Mail Determined from a young age to escape the Jim-Crow South and see new places, Mississippi native Juanita Harrison managed, as a working-class Black woman, to cultivate her own version of a grand world tour, paying for her globe-trotting by picking up piecemeal work as a maid, nanny or cook in far-flung places. My Great, Wide, Beautiful World, her remarkable written account of this eight-year international adventure became a bestseller in 1936 and was the most commercially successful book by a Black author at that time. Cathryn Halverson, author of a brand-new biography on Harrion, joins us this week to discuss this “born writer,” whose sheer pluck and adventurous spirit helped her take the world by storm.  Mentioned in this episode:  My Great, Wide, Beautiful World by Juanita Harrison (free online version). A Born Writer: Juanita Harrison and Her Beautiful World by Cathryn Harrison Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 210 on Mary Maclane Lost Ladies of Lit Episode No. 246 on Jessie Redmon Fauset Chimene Jackson Mildred Morris Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers Anthony Bourdain Era Bell Thomson 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

    51 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
    245
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Lost Ladies of Lit
  • Show Website
    Lost Ladies of Lit

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