Animal Riot Podcast

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the Animal Riot Podcast. We'd like to reintroduce Jared Pollen, whose first collection of stories is debuting with Crowsnest, an imprint of Political Animal, a journal dedicated to high-level political discourse. In the vein of writers such as Don DeLillo and Christopher Hitchens, Jared's writing strikes an uncannily subtle brand of literary satire that at opportune moments dips almost imperceptibly into incisive sociopolitical commentary. Along with fellow O.G. George Sawaya, we talk Jared's inspirations, approach to writing, and end with a reading from one of the collection's stories.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

For the twelfth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast we invite Annie Krabbenschmidt, a writer of creative nonfiction and comedy, whether performative or simply written. Annie read her essay, "Apple Cider Donuts," at a recent reading - we were blown away, so much that we invited her on to talk about her work, which is a particle collider of human complexity. She makes it look easy, using nothing but honesty, humor, and precision to tell how difficult it was to discover her sexuality and share it with those she needs most.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

For this eleventh episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, your fearless leader and arbitrarily-selected host, Brian Birnbaum, teams up with his producer(s), Katie Rainey, to welcome Christopher Gonzalez, a writer of fiction and nonfiction, editor at Barrelhouse Magazine, and digital production associate at Macmillan. After dedicating roughly half the episode to Chris's newly exalted status as an oat milk influencer, we move on to the writing community's love affair with Twitter, sexual realization in today's society, and take a moment to hear Chris read a flash fiction piece that will put you in the mood for seafood & sex & sadness. 

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

 

In this tenth episode of the Animal Riot podcast we bring back the OG Animals, Devin Kelly, George Sawaya, and Jared Marcel Pollen, to discuss technological disruption's impact on the future of writing and art. Beginning with House of Cards' origins in big data, your faithful host, Brian Birnbaum, and his gang of perishing bunnies navigate such topics as robot art, big data's potential impact on art, and the creative market's fate in the face of algorithmic advancement -- including the movies such algorithms would personalize for each of us podcasters (#TotalRecall2 #TogetherWeCanDoThis).

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

Episode 9 of the Animal Riot Podcast features two of our favorite writers and reading series co-hosts: Meher Manda is a poet and journalist from Mumbai with an MFA from The College of New Rochelle; Chelsea Asher is a writer of fiction with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and the Editor-in-Chief of Lumina Journal. Both co-host the Angry Reading Series, which takes place at Grill on the Hill right here in NW Harlem. Together, the three of us talk writing, anger, and more, ending with a round of improvised poems addressed, "Dear baby..."

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

In this eighth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, we invite Caits Meissner, Director of PEN America's Prison Writing Program, and Sergio De La Pava, author of three novels, including his latest, Lost Empress, for the second part of our two-part Prison Writing series. Today we'll discuss everything from the state of justice in America to empathy's crucial role in American justice, as well as what we everyday folks can do to help bridge the divide that keeps so many people trapped in the prison industrial complex.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

In the seventh episode of the Animal Riot Podcast, we welcome Caits Meissner, Director of the PEN America Prison Writing Program, and Devin Kelly, co-founder of the Animal Riot Reading Series (OR: Original Animal). While sipping on our earthy Kratom teas, we discuss all things prison writing, the ever-exigent topic of criminal justice and prison reform, and take a few minutes to visit wonderful poems from a couple of writers in Mrs. Meissner's cohort.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

In this fourth episode of our Animals Hit the Road series, the Animal Riot Podcast hosts Ian Anderson, co-founder of Mason Jar Press, a literary imprint headquartered in Baltimore. After discussing Mason Jar's origins, we dive headlong into pro wrestling as the modern iteration of Shakespeare and the hidden genius of the Insane Clown Posse. For our final act, we perform the Olympian mental gymnastics necessary to tie such material back into our literary aspirations.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

It’s our third installment of "Animals Hit the Road" and we’re still down here in Little Rock, Arkansas, talking to local artists about uplifting the arts community. In this episode, Brian hosts three conversations with: Myriah Harrison and Drew Wilkerson; Sam Cooper and Marcus Fisher; and the one and only, Gangie. Through a collage of these conversations, we discuss their experiences living in Arkansas, and how they’ve come to their respective artistic mediums and passions. All the while, Brian faces a neuronal crisis of sorts, brought on by that misnomer down here known as “southern hospitality”.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website. 

With this second installment of Animals Hit the Road, we bring our animal-talents to the house of Sean and Lizzie Casteel, who live in one of Little Rock's sublation of suburbs. Through the hazy lens of Arkansas' own Rocktown Apple Pie Bourbon, the Casteel power couple takes us on a tour of Via, their startup graphic design company, whose early success includes designing the Animal Riot Logo and winning a contract with The Arkansas School for the Deaf Foundation. While taking shots every time a secret southern word is spoken, the conversation winds through the sprawling arts and literature scene in The Natural State's largest city, and we discuss plans to bring Animal Riot to Little Rock and uplifting the artistic culture therein. Ultimately, the conversation turns to the state of art as it relates to commerce and community within not just Little Rock, but Arkansas and the South as a whole.

Transcripts for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing Animals can be found on our website.