UIndy’s Potluck Podcast: Season 5
Check out season episodes on Spotify or by searching UIndy Potluck Podcast on your favorite podcast app.

UIndy’s Potluck Podcast – Season 5 – Episode 1 – Donna Gordon
In this episode of the UIndy’s Potluck Podcast, where we host conversations about the arts, ENGLISH 479 students Sophia Atkinson, Abby Bailey, Sierra Durbin, Desteni Guidry, Sam Jackson, Alex Philips-Hedge, Ethan Thurston, and Dylan Torres interview the 2022 Whirling Prize winner. Etchings Press, a student-run publisher at University of Indianapolis, awards The Whirling Prize in Prose to a book that demonstrates an excellent and compelling response to a theme selected by students. The 2022 theme was Young Adults Exploring the Mysterious, and in this podcast, the student judges have a conversation with novelist Donna Gordon, author of the winning book, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me. Special thanks to Music Technology majors Jesse Wallace and Mikayla Crider for editing this episode’s audio.
Donna Gordon is a fiction writer and visual artist from Cambridge, Massachusetts. In addition to her debut novel What.Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me, her short stories have appeared in Tin House, Ploughshares, The Boston Globe Magazine, Story Quarterly, and other magazines. Her work with former political prisoners culminated in “Putting Faces on the Unimaginable: Portraits and Interviews with Former Prisoners of Conscience,” exhibited at Harvard’s Fogg Museum.

UIndy’s Potluck Podcast – Season 5 – Episode 2 – Elissa Washuta
In this episode of UIndy’s Potluck Podcast, where we host conversations about the arts, ENGL 478 students Desteni Guidry, Emma Knaack, and Sophia Atkinson interview writer, Elissa Washuta, a guest of the Kellogg Writers Series, which is a series that brings writers of distinction to the University of Indianapolis campus for classroom discussions and free public readings. Special thanks to Music Technology majors Mikayla Crider and Jesse Wallace for editing this episode’s audio.
Elissa Washuta is a Native American author from the Cowlitz people of Washington State. She is the author of White Magic, My Body Is a Book of Rules, and Starvation Mode. With Theresa Warburton, she is co-editor of the anthology Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers. Washuta is an assistant professor of creative writing at the Ohio State University.

UIndy’s Potluck Podcast – Season 5 – Episode 3 – Matt Bell
In this episode of UIndy’s Potluck Podcast, where we host conversations about the arts ENGL 478 students Desteni Guidry, Emma Knaack, and Sophia Atkinson interview novelist Matt Bell, a guest of the Kellogg Writers Series, which is a series that brings writers of distinction to the University of Indianapolis campus for classroom discussions and free public readings. Thanks to the Department of Music, Dr. Brett Leonard, and audio editing students Mikayla Crider and Jesse Wallace for editing this podcast.
Matt Bell is the author of the New York Times Notable Book Appleseed and the craft book Refuse to Be Done, a guide to novel writing, rewriting, and revision. He is also the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur’s Gate Il. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Tin House, Fairy Tale Review, American Short Fiction, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.

UIndy’s Potluck Podcast – Season 5 – Episode 4 – Natasha Roe
In this episode of UIndy’s Potluck Podcast, where we host conversations about the arts, ENGL 478 students Desteni Guidry, Sierra Durbin, and Sophia Atkinson interview poet, Natasha Rao, a guest of the Kellogg Writers Series, which is a series that brings writers of distinction to the University of Indianapolis campus for classroom discussions and free public readings. A big thank you to Ulndy Music major Mikayla Crider for editing this podcast.
Natasha Rao is a poet and educator from New Jersey. She holds a BA from Brown University and an MFA from NYU, where she was a Goldwater Fellow. She is the author of the collection, Latitude, and her work appears in Poetry Northwest, The American Poetry Review, Narrative, The Offing, and elsewhere, and she was a finalist in Narrative’s 30 Below Contest. She is a managing editor of American Chordata and lives in Brooklyn.

UIndy’s Potluck Podcast – Season 5 – Episode 5 – Erin Belieu
In this episode of UIndy’s Potluck Podcast, where we host conversations about the arts, ENGL 478 students Desteni Guidry, Aaliyah Hughes, and Ethan Thurston interview poet Erin Belieu, a guest of the Kellogg Writers Series, which is a series that brings writers of distinction to the University of Indianapolis campus for classroom discussions and free public readings. A big thank you to Undy Music major Mikayla Crider for editing this podcast.
Born in Nebraska, Erin Belieu earned an MA from Boston University and an MFA from The Ohio State University. Belie’s work focuses on gender, love, and history, filtering wide-ranging subject matter through a variety of theoretical frameworks. She often addresses feminist issues and uses poetic conventions and street talk. Belieu is the award-winning author of many books of poetry, including Come-Hither Honeycomb; Slant Six; Black Box; One Above, One Below; Belieu coedited, with Susan Aizenberg, the anthology The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women.
We thank you for listening to UIndy’s Potluck Podcast, which is hosted by students and faculty of the University of Indianapolis. We would like to thank our guests and the Shaheen College of Arts and Sciences. To learn more about UIndy’s Potluck Podcast and hear other episodes, please visit etchings.uindy.edu/the-potluck-podcast. Thank you for your support.
For audio transcripts, please contact etchings@uindy.edu.