Awakeners
Episodes
Gabrielle Bates & Keetje Kuipers
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the poets Gabrielle Bates and Keetje Kuipers, who met when Gabby enrolled in Keetje’s poetry class at...
Nicole Chung & Tajja Isen
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the nonfiction writers Tajja Isen and Nicole Chung, who became colleagues and friends after working tog...
Aditi Machado & Carl Phillips
06 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the poets Carl Phillips and Aditi Machado, who met through the MFA program at Washington University in ...
Tash Aw & Jemimah Wei
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the novelists Tash Aw and Jemimah Wei, who connected when Jemimah signed up for Tash’s fiction master...
Lydi Conklin & Melissa Febos
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On the first episode of Season 2 of Awakeners, Lena speaks with the writers Melissa Febos and Lydi Conklin, who met at the MacDowell artist residency ...
Re-Awakeners: Tiana Clark
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this special bonus episode of Awakeners, Lena speaks with writer Tiana Clark about the person who first told her she was a poet: her late mentor an...
T Bambrick & Jane Miller
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with writers T Bambrick and Jane Miller, who were connected by some fellow poets in Tucson when T found thems...
Firefeet: Olivia Wolfgang-Smith, CJ Hauser, Charlie Beckerman, and Emily Alford
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena gets temporarily inducted into a writing group called the Firefeet by writers Emily Alford, Charlie Beckerman, CJ H...
Adrian Matejka & Austin Araujo
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with poets Adrian Matejka and Austin Araujo. Austin was already a huge fan of Adrian’s work—especially hi...
Kyoko Mori & Abi Newhouse
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with the writers Kyoko Mori and Abi Newhouse, who worked together at George Mason University’s MFA program ...
Rick Barot & Brian Teare
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with poets Rick Barot and Brian Teare, who met at Stanford University as young writers and have collaborated ...
Leslie Jamison & Emmeline Clein
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode of Awakeners, Lena chats with writers Leslie Jamison and Emmeline Clein. Clein studied with Jamison at Columbia University’s MFA pro...
Trailer
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This is Awakeners, a Lit Hub Radio podcast about mentorship in the literary arts. Host Lena Crown interviews pairs of writers, artists, critics, and s...