This week we visit Kristen Gentry in Louisville, Kentucky.

Kristen is the author of Mama Said, longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. She received her M.F.A. from Indiana University. Her award-winning fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in Electric Literature, Crab Orchard Review, and other journals. She is a VONA and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference alumna, former Director of Creative Writing at SUNY Geneseo, and a member of the inaugural Poets & Writers publicity incubator for debut writers. She lives and writes in her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

For more about Kristen and Mama Said: kristengentry.com

Kristen's Books on the Bed:

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer

Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara

Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts by Crystal Wilkinson

Matt's Gifts for Kristen:

Rattlebone by Maxine Clair

Fifth Born by Zelda Lockhart

This week we visit Gerry Wilson in Jackson, Mississippi.

A seventh generation Mississippian, Gerry Wilson grew up in the red clay hills of the north that she writes about in her debut novel, THAT PINSON GIRL, released by Regal House Publishing in February 2024. A story, “Tell Me Anything,” appeared in Persimmon Tree in June 2024. Another story, “A Language of Their Own,” was runner-up for The Porch Fiction Prize 2024. “Life Line” was a finalist in decembermagazine’s Curt Johnson Prose Award for Fiction and was published in december in the spring of 2023. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous other journals. Gerry is a 2025 Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Artist Fellowship recipient.

Gerry has a new Substack publication, “Stories I’m Old Enough to Tell,” where she writes—well—basically whatever is on her mind, but mostly about her writing journey.

For more about Gerry: gerrywilson.com

Gerry's Books on the Bed:

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Can't Quit You, Baby by Ellen Douglas

Music of the Swamp by Lewis Nordan

A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor

Light in August by William Faulkner

A Curtain of Green & Other Stories by Eudora Welty

Matt's Gifts for Gerry:

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade

Room Swept Home by Remica Bingham-Risher

This week we visit Natachee Momaday Gray in Coyote, New Mexico. Natachee is a New Mexican poet and artist whose work focuses on the melding of art and myth, ancestry and nostalgia, food and prayer, glamour, frivolity, and time. A native of Santa Fe, she has many artistic talents as a poet, hand fashioned bookmaker, fiction writer, Chanteuse, and film maker. In her uniquely creative voice, she draws on her Kiowa and Apache heritage to create compelling stories that transcend designation.

Her debut poetry collection, Silver Box, can be found here and on my Staff Picks shelf at City Lights Bookstore (Sylva, NC).

Natachee's Books on the Bed:

The Ancient Child by N. Scott Momaday

Martin & Meditations on the South Valley by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Historic Cookery: Authentic New Mexican Food by Fabiola de Baca Gilbert

Hazards of Grace by Gary Worth Moody

Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land by N. Scott Momaday

A Book of Days by Patti Smith

Matt's gifts for Natachee:

The Animals of My Earth School by Mildred Kiconco Barya

Moonrise Over New Jessup by Jamila Minnicks

This week we visit Mildred Barya in Asheville, NC. Mildred is a native of Kabale, Uganda and the author of four books of poetry: The Animals of My Earth School, Men Love Chocolates But They Don't Say, The Price of Memory: After the Tsunami, and Give Me Room to Move My Feet. She is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing & World Literature at the University of North Carolina - Asheville.

For more on Mildred's life and work: mildredbarya.com

Mildred's Books on the Bed:

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

The Tarot Companion by Liz Dean

Artful by Ali Smith

Drinking from the River of Light by Mark Nepo

Still I Rise (Poem) by Maya Angelou

Matt's Gifts for Mildred:

The Earth Keeper by N. Scott Momaday

We Are Each Other's Harvest by Natalie Baszile

Episode timeline:

0:00 - 5:15 — Intro

5:16 - 43:15 — Gifts for Mildred and stories of Mildred's life

43:16 - 1:32:11 — Mildred's Books on the Bed

This week we visit Jessie van Eerden in Roanoke, VA. Jessie is a native of Preston County, WV and the author of novels "Glorybound", "My Radio Radio", and 'Call It Horses", and portrait essay collection "The Long Weeping". Her new essay collection "Yoke & Feather" is out now, so go forth and read!

Jessie has taught for over twenty years in college classrooms and adult literacy programs, and she directed the low-residency MFA writing program of West Virginia Wesleyan College for seven years. She is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Hollins University.

For more on Jessie: jessievaneerden.com

Jessie's Books on the Bed:

The Murmuring Deep by Avivah Gottlied Zornberg

Barrabas by Par Lagerkvist

Houskeeping by Marilynne Robinson

The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day

Deepstep Come Shining by C.D. Wright

Rose by Li-Young Lee

Matt's gifts for Jessie:

Fire Sermon and A Life by Wright Morris

Episode timeline:

0:00 - 6:47 — Intro

6:48 - 52:35 — Gifts for Jessie, discussing Jessie's life and work

52:36 - 1:33:09 — Jessie's Books on the Bed

CHARLES BAXTER is the author of the novels "The Feast of Love" (nominated for the National Book Award), "First Light", "Saul and Patsy", "Shadow Play", "The Soul Thief", and "The Sun Collective", and the story collections "Believers", "Gryphon", "Harmony of the World", "A Relative Stranger", "There’s Something I Want You to Do", and "Through the Safety Net". His stories have appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and The O. Henry Prize Story Anthology. He has won the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Baxter lives in Minneapolis.

Charles Baxter | Penguin Random House

Conversation location: Minneapolis, Minnesota

Charles' Books on the Bed:

"The Night of the Hunter" by Davis Grubb

"The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov

"If I Survive You" by Jonathan Escoffery

"The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter"

"So Long, See You Tomorrow" by William Maxwell

"The Widow's Children" by Paula Fox

Matt's gifts for Charles:

"The Librarianist" by Patrick deWitt

"The Mountains Have Come Closer" by Jim Wayne Miller

Episode timeline:

0:00 - 4:05 — Intro

4:06 - 31:47 — GIfts for Charles, Backstory to "The Soul Thief", and discussing Charles' new book "Blood Test"

31:48 - 1:24:51 — Charles' Books on the Bed

Jim Minick is the author or editor of eight books, including Without Warning: The Tornado of Udall, Kansas (nonfiction), “The Intimacy of Spoons” (poetry), Fire Is Your Water, (novel), and The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. Minick’s work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Oxford American, Orion, Shenandoah, The Sun, Conversations with Wendell Berry, Appalachian Journal, Wind, and The Sun. He serves as co-editor of Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel.

Minick’s honors include the Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian Writing and the Fred Chappell Fellowship at UNC-Greensboro. Minick has also won awards from the Southern Independent Booksellers Association, Southern Environmental Law Center, The Virginia College Bookstore Association, Appalachian Writers Association, Radford University, and elsewhere. His poem “I Dream a Bean” was picked by Claudia Emerson for permanent display at the Tysons Corner/Metrorail Station. He’s garnered grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Augusta University, Georgia Humanities Council, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

To learn more about Jim: jim-minick.com

Interview Location: Smyth County, Virginia

Jim’s Books on the Bed:

The Meadow by James Galvin

I Am One of You Forever by Fred Chappell

Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evers by Frank X Walker

The Mountains Have Come Closer by Jim Wayne Miller

Harper Single Volume American Literature, Third Edition

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Matt’s gifts for Jim:

The Song of Everything by Glenis Redmond

The Good Lord Bird by James McBride

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

Jim's Bedside Books:

Our Southern Birds by Emma Bell Miles

The French Broad by Wilma Dykeman

Waking by Ron Rash

Divine Right’s Trip: A Novel of the Counterculture by Gurney Norman

The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

Episode timeline:

0:00 - 6:45 — Introduction

6:46 - 41:10 Matt's gifts for Jim and Jim's story

41:11 - 1:55:05 — Jim's Books on the Bed

Glenis Redmond is the First Poet Laureate of Greenville, South Carolina. She is a Kennedy Center Teaching Artist, and a Cave Canem alumni. She has authored six books of poetry: Backbone (Underground Epics, 2000), Under the Sun (Main Street Rag, 2002), and What My Hand Say (Press 53, 2016), Listening Skin (Four Way Books), Three Harriets & Others (Finishing Line Press), and Praise Songs for Dave the Potter, Art by Jonathan Green, and Poetry by Glenis Redmond (University of Georgia Press).

Glenis was born on Shaw AFB in Sumter, South Carolina. She presently resides in Greenville. She was the founder of the Greenville Poetry Slam in the early 90’s. She received her MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College while touring full-time as a poet and mother-of-twins, Amber, and Celeste Sherer. She is now a Gaga to three grandchildren Julian and Paisley and newborn, Quinn.

Glenis has spent almost three decades touring the country as a poet and teaching artist. Since 2014, she has served as the mentor poet for the National Student Poets Program through Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. In the past she has prepared these exceptional youth poets to read at the Library of Congress, the Department of Education, and for First Lady Michelle Obama at The White House.

For more about Glenis: glenisredmond.com

Interview location: Greenville, South Carolina

Glenis' Books on the Bed:

Generations: A Memoir by Lucille Clifton

The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010

Gullah Spirit and Gullah Images by Jonathan Green

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

In Search of Color Everywhere by E. Ethelbert Miller (Editor) & Terrance Cummings (Illustrator)

June Jordan's Poetry for the People

Matt's gifts for Glenis:

Call It Horses by Jessie van Eerden

Searching for Dr. Harris by Margaret Humphreys

Episode timeline:

0:00-4:52 — Intro

4:53-58:19 - Glenis' story

58:20-1:58:28 - Glenis' Books on the Bed