October 2024 Dante’s Old South Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, including Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems (2023) and The Absurd Man (2020). He is also the author of A Beat Beyond: The Selected Prose of Major Jackson . A recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, The National Endowment for the Arts, and the R…

September 2024 Dante’s Old South Holly Haworth's essays appear in The New York Times Magazine, Orion, Oxford American, Sierra, Lapham's Quarterly, Terrain.org, Creative Nonfiction, The Bitter Southerner, and at the On Being radio program blog. They have been listed as notable in The Best American Travel Writing and included in The Best American Sci…

Radio Dante incontra i musicisti e le atmosfere di Samādhi, la prima residenza musicale organizzata sull'isola di Procida nel golfo di Napoli. In un'atmosfera incantata nel 500esco Palazzo D' Avalos, sei artisti hanno creato musiche ispirate ai quattro elementi naturali. Durante la tre giorni gli spettatori hanno potuto assistere al processo creati…

August 2024 Dante’s Old South Serene Hakim: Serene Hakim is an agent at Ayesha Pande Literary where she has been since 2015. She represents authors in a variety of genres, from MG fantasy to adult literary fiction to contemporary YA. Serene is interested in both YA and adult fiction that has international themes, highlights a variety of cultures, a…

July 2024 Dante’s Old South Steven Dunn (a.k.a Pothole, cuz he’s deep in these streets) is a Whiting Award winner who was shortlisted for Granta Magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists. He’s the author of three novels: Potted Meat (Tarpaulin Sky, 2016), water & power (Tarpaulin Sky, 2018), and Tannery Bay (FC2/University of Alabama Press, 2024)…

June 2024 Dante’s Old South Marcella Prokop is a Colombian American writer and educator living in the northern Great Plains region of the US. Her work has appeared online or in print in the Brooklyn Review, Ploughshares, The Christian Science Monitor, PANK, and other publications. Blog: marcellaprokop.com TedX: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn63z…

May 2024 Dante’s Kristen Arnett is the queer author of With Teeth: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2021) which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in fiction and the New York Times bestselling debut novel Mostly Dead Things (Tin House, 2019). Her next novel, STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE, will be published by Riverhead Books (March 2025). www…

April 2024 Dante’s Old South January Gill O’Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University, and the author of Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2019-2020, she served as the John and Renée Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi, …

March 2024 Dante’s Old South Chelsey Clammer is the award-winning author of the essay collections Human Heartbeat Detected (Red Hen Press, 2022), Circadian (Red Hen Press, 2017), and BodyHome (Hopewell Publications, 2015). Her work has appeared in Salon, The Rumpus, Brevity, and McSweeney’s, among many others. She teaches online writing classes wit…

February 2024 Dante’s Old South Autumn Nicholas: (she/he/they/them) Autumn Nicholas is a gifted songwriter and performer who has amazed audiences around the country. Autumn is one of Music Forward Foundation's Emerging LGBTQ+ Artists for 2023 and one of Nashville Scene’s Country Music Almanac 2024 Artists to Watch. www.autumnnicholas.com Emily Stra…

January 2024 Dante’s Old South Stuart Dischell is the author of Good Hope Road (Viking), a National Poetry Series Selection, Evenings & Avenues (Penguin), Dig Safe (Penguin), Backwards Days (Penguin), Standing on Z (Unicorn), Children with Enemies (Chicago), and The Lookout Man (Chicago). His newest work is Andalusian Visions (Unicorn), a book of p…

December 2023 Dante’s Old South The Boxmasters (JD Andrew and Billy Bob Thornton): As a touring band, The Boxmasters have cultivated a rabid cult fanbase across the United States and Canada. Opening for the likes of ZZ Top, Steve Miller, George Thorogood and Kid Rock, The Boxmasters have proven to win over large audiences. As a headliner, frequent …

November 2023 Dante’s Old South Richard Blanco Selected by President Obama as the fifth Presidential Inaugural Poet in U.S. history, Richard Blanco was the youngest, the first Latinx, immigrant, and gay person to serve in that role. In 2023, Blanco was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Biden from the National Endowment for the Huma…

October 2023 Dante’s Old South Lizzie Thomas "Thomas is a storyteller. Her interpretations cut to the heart of the lyric." Marilyn Lester, NYC Jazz Record "She brings an interpretive depth to everything." Nic Jones, Jazz Journal UK Lizzie Thomas is an inventive jazz vocalist known for her sultry vocal stylings and deep interpretations of the lyric.…

September 2023 Dante’s Oliver de la Paz is the Poet Laureate of Worcester, MA for 2023-2025. He is the author and editor of seven books: Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby, Requiem for the Orchard, Post Subject: A Fable, and The Boy in the Labyrinth, a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His newest work, The Diaspora Sonnets, is p…

August 2023 Dante’s Old South Jeffrey Dale Lofton hails from Warm Springs, Georgia, best known as the home of Roosevelt’s Little White House but calls the nation’s capital home now. He is a senior advisor at the Library of Congress, surrounded by books and people who love books—in short, paradise. Red Clay Suzie is his first novel, a fictionalized …

N.A. Windsor is the Program Manager of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program and the Co-Regional Advisor of the Los Angeles Region of SCBWI (Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). In both posts, she organizes and produces writing events and conferences. In 2010 she founded the Children’s Book Writers of Los Angeles (CBW-LA.org). Throu…

June 2023 Dante’s Old South Felix Charin was born in Neustrelitz as the son of a German mother and a Russian father. As a child and teenager, he performed at the Landestheater Neustrelitz and in a theater group in Bützow. During his school years, he lived temporarily in Russia and the United States. In 2012, he completed his degree at the HFF (Univ…

Edgar Kunz is the author of the poetry collections Fixer (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2023) and Tap Out (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2019), a New York Times New & Noteworthy pick. He has been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, a Teaching Fellow at Vanderbilt University, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. New poems appea…

Eric Akoto, FRSA, is a British-Ghanaian-American entrepreneur and the founder of Litro Media Inc, publishing platforms such as Litro Magazine and Crayon Magazine to spotlight emerging and established global talents. Akoto is also the founder of Gemini Productions, a production company committed to bringing inspiring narratives to life. Akoto's init…

March 2023 Dante’s Old South Alicia Blue It's difficult to pin down exact musical influences on Alicia Blue's Inner Child Work—and that's exactly how the California singer-songwriter likes it. Although her folk roots are never far from the surface, the album encompasses dreamy indie-rock ("Dog Days in L.A."), delicate pop meditations ("Saline Water…

Kendel Hippolyte was born in Castries, St. Lucia, in 1952. In the 1970s he studied and lived in Jamaica, receiving a BA from the University of the West Indies in 1976. Hippolyte is the author of several books of poetry, including Fault Lines (Peepal Tree Press, 2012), Night Vision (Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2005), and Birthr…

Kendel Hippolyte was born in Castries, St. Lucia, in 1952. In the 1970s he studied and lived in Jamaica, receiving a BA from the University of the West Indies in 1976. Hippolyte is the author of several books of poetry, including Fault Lines (Peepal Tree Press, 2012), Night Vision (Triquarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2005), and Birthr…

December 2022’s Dante’s Old South Jay Clifford, frontman of Jump Little Children: Jump, Little Children is an American indie rock band that was formed in 1991 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States. Known for its unique sound, energetic live performances, and willingness to interact with fans, the band has a devoted following and is a fixt…

November 2022’s Dante’s Old South: Robert Pinsky is one of America’s foremost poet-critics. He earned his BA from Rutgers University in 1962 and his MA and PhD in philosophy from Stanford University in 1966, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in creative writing. Elected Poet Laureate of the United States in 1997, his tenure was marked by ambiti…

October 2022’s Dante’s Old South Dorothy Rompalske is the Director and Chairperson of the Screenwriting MFA program at the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts at Maharishi International University. She is the author of both feature film and documentary screenplays, and her magazine articles and profiles have appeared in numerous publicati…

Rising Appalachia is a folk band with southern roots, founded by sisters Leah and Chloe Smith. Rising Appalachia has toured all over the world, from Italy to South America, to San Francisco and Leah and Chloe’s hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. These multi-talented sisters write their own songs, play several instruments including guitar, banjo, and fid…

Ellen Bass - A Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Ellen Bass’s most recent book is Indigo (Copper Canyon Press, 2020). Among her awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, and The Lambda Literary Award. Bass founded workshops at Salinas Valley State Prison and teaches in at Pacific University’s MFA program. …

July 2022 Dante’s Old South Christopher Moore is the New York Times best-selling author of 18 novels, including Lamb, A Dirty Job, Noir, and Razzmatazz. You can find his web site at chrismoore.com and follow him on Twitter at @theauthorguy. Lynne Kemen is a citizen of Upstate New York. Her chapbook, More Than a Handful, was published in 2020. She i…

June 2022 Dante’s Old South Diane Seuss Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry Winner of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Winner of the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection Winner of the 2021 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry Finalist for the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award “The sonnet, like poverty, teach…

May 2022 Dante’s Old South Todd Boss is a poet, lyricist, and inventor, who sold all his possessions in 2018 to become a nomad. His most recent book of poems is Someday the Plan of a Town, published by W. W. Norton & Co. https://www.toddbossoriginals.com/ Someday the Plan of a Town: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B098LT8TVP/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsc…

April 2022’s Dante’s Old South In this episode we interview the winners of the Southern Collective Experience’s Asian American chapbook contest: 1st Place: Monica Kim is a queer writer and organizer. Born in South Korea, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She won the inaugural Jane Kenyon Chapbook Prize Award for her series of multiverse poems an…

Louis Bayard: In the words of the New York Times, Louis Bayard “reinvigorates historical fiction,” rendering the past “as if he’d witnessed it firsthand.” His acclaimed novels include The Pale Blue Eye, soon to be a Netflix motion picture starring Christian Bale, the national bestseller Courting Mr. Lincoln, Roosevelt's Beast, The School of Night, …

Ashley M. Jones is Poet Laureate of the state of Alabama (2022-2026). She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017), dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). Her poetry has earned several awards, including the Rona Jaffe Fou…

January 2022 Dante’s Old South Skye Jackson was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She has served as a poetry editor for Bayou Magazine, French Quarter Journal & Tilted House. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Electric Literature, Green Mountains Review, RATTLE and elsewhere. Her debut chapbook, A Faster Grave, won the 2019 Antenna…

December 2021’s Dante’s Old South Alina Stefanescu Alina Stefanescu was born in Romania and lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her partner and several intense mammals. Recent books include a creative nonfiction chapbook, Ribald (Bull City Press Inch Series, Nov. 2020) and Dor, which won the Wandering Aengus Press Prize (September 2021). Her debut fi…

November 2021’s Dante’s Old South: In this episode, we hear from experts speaking across the earth of art. Please tune in to a great show with the music of Otis Redding and John Coltrane. Our guests include: Charles Jensen (he/him) is the author of the poetry collection Nanopedia and six chapbooks of poems. His third collection, Instructions Betwee…

Jasper Fforde: Jasper began his career in the film industry, and for nineteen years held a variety of posts on such movies as Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro and Entrapment. Secretly harbouring a desire to tell his own stories rather than help other people tell their's, Jasper started writing in 1988, and spent eleven years secretly writing novel afte…

Catherine Mayer is a bestselling author, journalist, and activist. She is the co-founder and President of the Women’s Equality Party. Her books include Amortality: The Pleasures and Perils of Living Agelessly; Charles: The Heart of a King, and Attack of the Fifty Foot Women: How Gender Equality Can Save the World! Her recent memoir, Good Grief: Emb…

August 2021 Dante’s Old South Chen Chen: Chen Chen is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and the forthcoming book of essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God (Noemi Press, 2023). His debut book of poems, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (…

July 2021 Dante’s Old South David Shaw: Acclaimed singer, songwriter, musician, and producer David Shaw’s first-ever solo album (Yokoko Records/C3 Records) finds The Revivalists frontman following the direction of his own internal compass, riling up his raw rock ‘n’ roll impulses as he opens up like never before as a lyricist, poet, and storyteller…

Lyrics Born (Tom Shimura) As the first Asian-American solo rapper to perform at Lollapalooza and Coachella and to release a greatest hits record, LYRICS BORN has broken through countless barriers to cement his illustrious career. In addition to establishing himself among the upper echelon of indie Hip Hop artists, LB has expanded his empire into fi…

May 2021 Dante’s Old South Extended Cut In this episode, I break my usual format and interview one guest instead of several. British novelist Jasper Fforde is a longstanding hero of mine. I’ve been a fan for over a decade. After an hour hearing his methods and thoughts on life, I’m sure you will be too. Jasper Fforde: Jasper began his career in the…

April 2021 Dante’s Old South In this episode we interview winners of the Southern Collective Experience’s LBGTQ poetry chapbook contest. 3rd Place: Ian Spencer Bell Ian Spencer Bell is a dancer and poet in New York City. 2nd Place Andrea Deeken Andrea Deeken was born in rural Missouri and has lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of her adult lif…

Dante's Old South is the official radio show of The Southern Collective Experience, featuring poets, prose writers, musicians - and more! (First broadcast on WUTC in Chattanooga, TN.) Call Me Spinster is anything but ordinary. The closer you look at this trio of sisters from Chattanooga, Tennessee, the harder it is to locate something about their s…

Neal Francis: “I just wanted to be honest about everything, from my musical influences to my story,” muses Neal Francis. After years of dishonest living—consumed by drugs, alcohol, and addiction—such sincerity is jarring from the 32-year-old Chicago-based musician. Liberated from a self-destructive past and born anew in sobriety, Francis has captur…

Kelli Russell Agodon was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1969. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and an M.F.A. from the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. She is the author of Small Knots, finalist for the 2004 Cherry Grove Poetry Prize and Geography, winner of the Floating Bridge Press Chapboo…

November’s Dante’s Old South is Coming in Full Force with Guests: Lee Herrick (www.leeherrick.com) is a poet and professor, born in South Korea, adopted to the United States, now living in Fresno, California. He is the author of three books of poems (This Many Miles from Desire, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and Scar and Flower) and co-editor of a…

In this episode you'll hear about creativity in the time of COVID from poets Melissa Studdard and RJ Jeffreys. In the middle sits Ms. Rebecca Evans, a mother, veteran, author, and advocate who talks about writing as a means of therapy. Putting a bow on the show is podcaster and life coach, Bill Kenower. To ease your transition between these incredi…

Dante's Old South is the official radio show of The Southern Collective Experience's radio show, Dante's Old South, featuring poets, prose writers, musicians - and more! (First broadcast on WUTC in Chattanooga, TN.)