Reimagining Community: What We're Up to Now
Coming up in 2025: A fresh website and a community (virtual) space
In the last 14 years of witnessing and contributing to the literary and art space, we at Talking Writing know one thing for sure: times change. Organizations and publications have had to adapt to the technological advances social media, and AI as well as changing tastes and trends. Many have decided to pack it in. We’ve been on this precipice ourselves, but somehow, amid editorial departures and role changes, we found the right people and the energy to keep going.
The 2020 pandemic prompted us to think about what TW could offer our readers, contributors, and supporters that they aren’t seeing or getting anywhere else. As an online literary journal in the late aughts, Talking Writing was a haven for first-person stories when they didn’t have as much of a platform as fiction. We also amplified voices and artists in poetry, and experimental and multimedia art—with music especially nurtured by the entry of our now-creative director (who is a touring musician himself), John Vogel.
A new set of editors joined the team bringing a fresh set of eyes to selected submissions. Among them was book editor and writer, Neva Talladen (now our co-host and managing editor). At the same time, founder and publisher Martha Nichols started stepping back into a mentorship role, prompting us to reconsider TW’s format.
At AWP 2021, we had a eureka moment after writers kept asking about “our podcast” (we were called Talking Writing, after all), which hadn’t yet existed. The regular diet of our readers and contributors now included podcasts, audio books, and TikTok. There was also growing interest in what seemed like the perfect lovechild of the newsletter and the blog: Substack. It didn’t take long for us to make a decision to switch gears to become the Talking Writing podcast on Substack.
The editorial interests of the team were changing too. The transition from publication to podcast seemed like a good opportunity for us to shift away from a curatorial focus to a collective drive, one that would offer each voice more ownership in our space. We wanted to encourage each other’s interests, which led to these recurring topics on the show:
Personal lives of artists and how they inform their creative process.
The need for non-transactional spaces and relationships which are essential for creating and sustaining the making of art.
Ways that other writers and artists—whom we call creative lifers—keep creating and sustaining their practice in a world increasingly focused on commodification, productivity, optimization, and utility.
These topics sparked the signature question we ask our guests during the course of the interview: What is the use of art?
Since then, we’ve had more than 40 episodes and as many guests housed on our Substack.
Still, we felt there was a missing piece, another step that would take our podcast discussions further: a TW Community. In the last few months, we’ve been busy behind the scenes laying the groundwork for our reimagining of Talking Writing as a virtual space—free from the pressure of transaction and performativity, where creative lifers can come to share conversations, ideas, and resources.
Here are some things for you to watch out for:
TW website revamp: More community features
We originally moved to Substack as a way to transition from our old Drupal-based website, with the intention—but no clear plan—to rebuild our website using a more manageable framework. Over the past few months, we’ve teamed up with Russell Baker of
to refresh our branding and build out a new and improved digital space. His eye for sustainable, human-led design and his understanding of literary and artistic sensibility made him the right fit for the project.
In addition to a complete overhaul of the visual presentation of the podcast and written pieces, we’re opening up a community platform. It’s a virtual space for our readers, listeners, guests, hosts, and all people who celebrate creativity to gather and discuss the behind-the-scenes aspects of creating art. Here everyone is open to freely talk about the good, the bad, and everything in between throughout their pursuit of an artistic practice.
We’re also looking to get back into in-person events. Our last one was the AWP Conference in 2021, so we are way overdue for an outing. Luckily, the editors live within two hours of each other (depending on traffic), making it possible to plan in-person events for 2025. Here’s a tentative calendar:
Spring 2025:
Musical performance and community kick-off at Tired Hands Brewing Company in Mt. Airy, Philadephia.
October 2025 (Banned Books Month):
Family-friendly reading of banned storybooks (potential tie-up with the Free Library of Philadelphia, New York Public Library, and Literary Craft Society in participation with their Freedom to Read campaign).
Benefit concert (Philadelphia)
Bonus episodes are now open for all
When we started, we kept our bonus episodes behind a paywall. But we’ve decided we want everyone in the community (especially those who have only recently discovered TW) to access the lovely material we’ve put out there. Many of them are readings, some of which are scored with original music, extras that veer into shop talk, and chunks from past interviews that didn’t quite fit into the main episode edit.
We hope you’ll dig into them and let us know which ones you enjoyed.
Upcoming guests
We are looking forward to our podcast’s formidable lineup for the holiday edit:
Maris Kreizman
Bringing together pop culture and literary prowess, Maris started the Tumblr blog Slaughterhouse 90210 (later turned into a book) splicing together photos from television and celebrity culture with quotes from classic literature, mutely examining the tension between high and low culture. Maris has also contributed regularly across the publishing landscape, often writing in depth on topics relating to Gilmore Girls, 90210 and the like. This is low-hanging fruit for other 90210 obsessives, and much of this conversation stems from John’s own deep feelings for Brandon, Brenda, Dylan, Donna, David, and the rest of the gang. Maris has an upcoming essay collection coming out with HarperCollins, I Want to Burn This Place Down, and has been running the podcast turned Substack publication
since 2019.Jianna Heuer
A licensed therapist and published writer, Jianna had words and writing in her blood for as long as she can remember. But it took a series of major life events (including a foray as a bookshop owner along with her graphic designer husband, Jason) for her to finally unleash her voice in creative nonfiction and through her Substack (Such A Good Listener by
). This interview was recorded in October, but the conversation on writing and submitting, the ups and downs of publication and rejection, and being more comfortable with one’s identity as a writer is both timely and timeless.Laura Hartenberger
This interview is part of our founder and publisher Martha Nichols’ series exploring the relationship between AI and writing. Her conversation with Laura, a writer and professor at UCLA, focuses on teaching writing in an AI world, partially stemming from Laura’s 2023 essay in Noema Magazine, “What AI Teaches Us About Good Writing.” This is the third interview on AI that Martha has hosted for the podcast, and we invite you to check out the previous episodes with Naomi Baron and Sean Michaels.
Naomi Cohn
We highly recommend listening to this geek-out session with author Naomi Cohn on her writing process, technique, and the choices (both intentional and unintentional) a writer makes about what eventually makes it into the story. Her hybrid memoir, The Braille Encyclopedia (Oct 2024, Rose Metal Press), is a good holiday gift—especially for the bookish person in your life who is just old enough to remember the joy of perusing massive volumes of encyclopedia. Instead of an array of facts about everything under the sun, Cohn writes an alphabetical albeit un-chronological account of her adult-onset blindness and the new lexicon she still navigates as someone who lives with limitations. Whatever the generational affiliation of the reader, the collage-like themes and snapshot-precision of Cohn’s writing style will translate, much like the author’s love for reading and writing did across the sighted spectrum.
Mary Carroll Moore
After an extensive career in food writing,
realized that she missed writing fiction. Our interview hones in on her third novel, Last Bets, an Amazon Bestseller about a painter who returns to an island beach in hopes of reclaiming her spiraling life. The book highlights two of Mary’s longtime interests—scuba diving and painting—while adding in elements of gambling and the paranormal. Our conversation touches on the book, Mary’s path to writing fiction, self-publishing, and tactics for finding personal authenticity in marketing.On a personal note: John Vogel
Almost a month ago, my wife Olivia gave birth to our second child, Rosalie (Rosa for short). Although I tried my best to set things up so that this wouldn’t cause an interruption in all my various projects, the idea is clearly laughable, as anyone who has had children could readily point out. And seeing as I’ve already been through this once, I should have known better.
We’re just recovering slightly from the initial chaos of adjusting to a family of four, and we’ve actually started cleaning a bit. My laundry backlog has reached new heights. We’ve been very lucky to have friends bringing us lots of food, so there hasn’t been a huge need to cook yet.
But now as I’m getting back into a place where I’m trying to make room for all the stuff I have to do, I’m remembering the delicate balance of trying to get things done with a child. The easy answer is: “Don’t even try,” but it can also be a necessity and there is a chance there to make some (slower) progress. After all, I did record most of Weird Music during Henry’s naps. And right now I’m writing this while wearing Rosa in a baby carrier.
We’re of course beyond psyched to bring her into and through this world, and for the next five years or so she’ll probably be in the background of everything I do, photobombing my meetings and interviews, and scattering my attention to the wind. So look out.
Wow congratulations on a new baby! And that top photo is in my neighborhood:)