PenDust Radio Authors
Jessica Barksdale
is a Professor of English at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California and teaches novel writing online for UCLA Extension and the Southern New Hampshire University. Her fifteenth novel, The Play’s the Thing, and her second poetry collection, Grim Honey, are forthcoming. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.
Episode: Caught
Deya Bhattacharya
is a freelance writer and former business development manager from Bangalore, India. She started writing fiction during the Covid-19 lockdown. She lives with her husband, who has to remind her every day to eat her vegetables, and their ever-growing family of stuffed animals. Visit her blog to learn more.
Episode: Adrian’s Affinity
Harrison Blackman
is an award-winning writer, editor, and journalist. He is an MFA candidate and writing instructor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and specializes in writing thrilling narratives about science and architecture. He also consults on TV and film projects. Learn more at harrisonblackman.com.
Episode: The Peacock
Sarah Blanchard
Andrea Thornton Bolden
is a former television industry executive. She probably would have continued along the executive path had she not been bitten by the writing bug. She was writers’ assistant on the TV show Lucifer, a staff writer on shows such as Superstition, The Spanish Princess, Tell Me A Story, and L.A.’s Finest. She is currently writing for Nancy Drew. Andrea and her husband, Earl, live in Sherman Oaks, CA.
Episode: Correcting for White People
Emlyn Cameron
is a freelance journalist living in Brooklyn, New York, whose work has appeared in Zenpundit and the Saturday Evening Post. He is a co-founder of The New Junto, a blog of essays and commentary by young writers. His personal blog, the Republic of Letters, publishes essays on politics, policy, and philosophy. He grew up in suburban California. The buildings were low and the temperatures were high.
Episode: Ashes in California
Martha Clarkson
is a writer and photographer who lives in Kirkland, Washington. She has been published in a variety of literary magazines and has had two notable stories in Best American Non-Required Reading. She corresponds with friends on one of five cherished typewriters. Yes, there’s an IBM Selectric, and it is olive, in case you were wondering. Learn more at marthaclarkson.com.
Episode: Her Voices, Her Room: An Encounter with Truman Capote
Eileen Cunniffee
writes mostly nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in four anthologies and many literary journals. Four of her essays have been recognized with Travelers’ Tales Solas Awards. Another received the Emrys Journal 2013 Linda Julian Creative Nonfiction Award. She also writes for Nonprofit Quarterly about the essential role of artists and arts organizations in civil society. Learn more at eileencunniffe.com.
Episode: Everything I Need to Know I’m Still Learning from Mary Richards
Francis Duffy
is a Yank who has lived abroad for decades. He learned in college that “deracination” is how science labels the expat process. “To lose one’s roots,” dictionaries explain, only he doesn’t see the process as one of subtraction but rather addition. His roots are intact, enhanced via exposure to cultures unlike that into which he was born. Francis currently resides on homeland’s periphery — Hawaii. Learn more at duffarelli.net.
Virginia Evans
recently completed her Masters of Philosophy in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin. The Irish Times published her essay, The Winter Place and the Dublin-based literary magazine Sonder published her short story, Fields and Fields of Poppies.
Episode: A Crack Up
Michael Fallon
is a Senior Lecturer Emeritus in the English Department at the University of Maryland. He is the author of four collections of poetry, and his essays and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. His innermost ear is always turned to what the Irish call “the music of what happens.”
Episodes: There is Something I Must Tell You | Finding the Lost River | Red Ferry, Blue Ferry
Amy Ferguson
grew up just outside of Denver, Colorado believing she was destined to be discovered as either a beat poet or a really famous rock star. Her dreams of fame and Gidget beach parties eventually took her to Los Angeles, California in a beat-up 1985 Honda CRX with no air conditioning.
She’s not famous and she isn’t a beat poet or a rock star, but she did eventually get her Gidget beach party and once sat next to Prince at a cafe. She sometimes blogs at fangirlsuperhero.com.
Episode: Kicked Out of the PTA!
Jeff Fleischer
Jeff Fleischer is a Chicago-based author, journalist and editor. His fiction has appeared in more than sixty publications. He’s the author of non-fiction books including Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections, The Latest Craze: A Short History of Mass Hysterias, and the forthcoming A Hot Mess: How the Climate Crisis is Changing Our World.
Episodes: Silver and Gold: A Hollywood Story | Tell O’Toole O’Flaherty is Dead
Carrie Grinstead
Carrie Grinstead lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Daniel, and their dogs, Pickle and Georgette. She works as a hospital librarian and can find just about anything on PubMed.
Episode: I Have Her Memories Now
Tim Jones
is a fiction writer living in Northern California with his wife and two children, and when not writing is engaged in an active business career. His fiction has appeared in The First Line, and he also enjoys working with, and encouraging other writers. Tim grew up in Michigan, and in first grade actually did witness a kid sticking his tongue to a frigid metal pole in the middle of winter.
Episode: Under Overhead Lights
Anna Prawdzik Hull
is a writer, editor, teacher, and a literary translator from the French, Polish, Spanish, and Italian. She was born in Poland but grew up in France, where her family was granted political asylum in the early 1980s. She now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband and their two senior (and grumpy) cats.
Episode: Sandhill Cranes
Sarah K. Lenz
Sarah’s nonfiction has appeared in numerous literary journals. Three of her essays have been named Notable in Best American Essays, and she is a recipient of the New Letters Readers’ award in nonfiction. She’s the founder of the Writers’ Studio – Corpus Christi, a community-based organization devoted to creative writing education. She teaches writing at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she lives with her husband, son, and three cantankerous cats.
Episodes: Lightning Flowers | Driving the Section Line
Roberto Loiederman
has been a journalist, merchant seaman, TV scriptwriter, kibbutz cook, deli owner, documentary film producer and writer, and some other professions he’d rather not remember. He’s had more than 200 articles and stories published in the L.A. Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Penthouse, Jewish Journal, The Forward, and many other literary magazines you probably haven’t heard of. He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2014 and 2015, and is co-author of The Eagle Mutiny, a nonfiction account of the only mutiny on an American ship in modern times. Learn more: www.eaglemutiny.com
Episode: Playing Air Guitar in Paris | Rafael, Titicaca, and How My Son Got His Name
Robin Luce Martin
Recent credits include the co-authored play On the Street Where We Live and the Eyelands 2020 International 3Rock prize, for the novel manuscript, Lizardmaid. Honors for stories and novel excerpts include the 2009 Tennessee Williams Festival Story Prize and Out Like a Lion, shortlisted for the 2017 Del Sol First Novel and the 2014 Dundee International Book Prize. In 2015, co-founded, #YeahYouWrite a monthly author series in New York City.
Episode: Through the Hole
Anne Merino
grew up in Arizona, devoted to horses, hounds, and books. Anne went on to become a professional ballerina and choreographer for notable companies in the U.S. and abroad. Now happily retired from the stage, she writes novels and plays. Married to a filmmaker, she also has two fascinating sons and a retired working dog named Hector. Learn more here.
Sean Murray
is an Analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense. He is a lawyer by training, and previously worked as a Foreign Service Officer for the State Department, in Lithuania, Moscow, and Washington, D.C. He is married and currently lives in the D.C. area.
Annilee Newton
Annilee Newton is a Houston-based writer and high school English teacher. For the last decade, she has been writing about food and memory. Annilee has an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. She drinks Oregon pinot noir with steak, prosecco with pad thai, and has been known to complain about the over-the-top oakiness of California chardonnay to anyone who will listen. Learn more at annileenewton.com.
Episode: Wine Tasting
Lorena Ortiz
was raised by Mexican immigrant parents in the Bay Area of California. During the day she codes health and claims data. During the early mornings, lunch, breaks, evenings, and late nights, she writes the stories of her people. A first-generation Mexican American woman, her work is influenced by her roots and the mysticism of Mexican culture.
Episode: Agustine’s Mother
Jennifer O’Neill Pickering
Jennifer’s prose appears in numerous literary journals and is featured in audio recordings at “Writers on the Air” and “Restore and Restory: A Peoples History of the Cache Creek Nature Preserve.” She is the Host of “Prose In the Afternoon” at the Sacramento Poetry Center, a finalist in the New Women’s Voices Competition, and a Pushcart nominee for poetry. She is the author of Fruit Box Castles: Poems From A Peach Rancher’s Daughter.
Episode: Summer of the River Bottom Dragon
Robert Sachs
Robert’s fiction has appeared in The Louisville Review, the Chicago Quarterly Review, the Free State Review, the Great Ape Journal, and the Delmarva Review, among others. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Spalding University. His story, “Vondelpark,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2017. His story “Yo-Yo Man” was a Fiction Finalist in the 2019 Tiferet Writing Contest. Learn more at his website.
Episode: Traces of an Early Summer
Robert Shuster
hasn’t yet encountered one of his characters in the flesh, but they’re roaming around in various places, including his novel To Zenzi (winner of the 2019 AWP Prize), and in stories that have appeared in numerous literary journals, and in the anthologies Micro Fiction and Yellow Silk II. He lives in Westchester County, NY.
Episode: Caro’s Return
Natalie Sierra
is the author of Medusa, a collection of poetry. Her writing has been featured in literary journals and the Los Angeles Times. She is the editor in chief for Disquiet Arts, a gothic literary magazine. She lives in Pomona, CA with her husband, three daughters, four dogs, and their latest addition, a kitty named Angel.
Episode: A Cry in the Night
William Torphy
William’s opinion pieces have been featured in blogs, including Solstice Literary Review and OpEdge. He is a host and frequent reader at LitCrawl in San Francisco where he is an exhibition curator. His fiction has appeared in a number of magazines. He is the author of three books and has written for a number of magazines, including Artweek, Exposee, and Pacific Magazine.
Episode: Hideaway Lounge
Jerry Vis
spent the earliest years of his life in Paterson, New Jersey. He has an M.F.A. in fine art and taught for many years in public school and college. He is the author of Paterson Boy: My Family and Other Strangers: A Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories.
I’m Not Here: A Misfit’s Memoir in 21 Vignettes is a new story collection to be published in 2021 by Rivercliff Books & Media.
Episodes: Bob and the Beatniks | Trash Can Blues
PenDust Radio Authors
Click author name for more info.
Jessica Barksdale is a Professor of English at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California and teaches novel writing online for UCLA Extension and the Southern New Hampshire University. Her fifteenth novel, The Play’s the Thing, and her second poetry collection, Grim Honey, are forthcoming. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband.
Episode: Caught
Deya Bhattacharya is a freelance writer and former business development manager from Bangalore, India. She started writing fiction during the Covid-19 lockdown. She lives with her husband, who has to remind her every day to eat her vegetables, and their ever-growing family of stuffed animals. Visit her blog to learn more.
Episode: Adrian’s Affinity
Harrison Blackman is an award-winning writer, editor, and journalist. He is an MFA candidate and writing instructor at the University of Nevada, Reno, and specializes in writing thrilling narratives about science and architecture. He also consults on TV and film projects. Learn more at harrisonblackman.com.
Episode: The Peacock
Andrea Thornton Bolden is a former television industry executive. She probably would have continued along the executive path had she not been bitten by the writing bug. She was writers’ assistant on the TV show Lucifer, a staff writer on shows such as Superstition, The Spanish Princess, Tell Me A Story, and L.A.’s Finest. She is currently writing for Nancy Drew. Andrea and her husband, Earl, live in Sherman Oaks, CA.
Episode: Correcting for White People
Emlyn Cameron is a freelance journalist living in Brooklyn, New York, whose work has appeared in Zenpundit and the Saturday Evening Post. He is a co-founder of The New Junto, a blog of essays and commentary by young writers. His personal blog, the Republic of Letters, publishes essays on politics, policy, and philosophy. He grew up in suburban California. The buildings were low and the temperatures were high.
Episode: Ashes in California
Eileen Cunniffee writes mostly nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in four anthologies and many literary journals. Four of her essays have been recognized with Travelers’ Tales Solas Awards. Another received the Emrys Journal 2013 Linda Julian Creative Nonfiction Award. She also writes for Nonprofit Quarterly about the essential role of artists and arts organizations in civil society. Learn more at eileencunniffe.com.
Episode: Everything I Need to Know I’m Still Learning from Mary Richards
Marth Clarkson is a writer and photographer who lives in Kirkland, Washington. She has been published in a variety of literary magazines and has had two notable stories in Best American Non-Required Reading. She corresponds with friends on one of five cherished typewriters. Yes, there’s an IBM Selectric, and it is olive, in case you were wondering. Learn more at marthaclarkson.com.
Episode: Her Voices, Her Room: An Encounter with Truman Capote
Francis Duffy is a Yank who has lived abroad for decades. He learned in college that “deracination” is how science labels the expat process. “To lose one’s roots,” dictionaries explain, only he doesn’t see the process as one of subtraction but rather addition. His roots are intact, enhanced via exposure to cultures unlike that into which he was born. Francis currently resides on homeland’s periphery — Hawaii. Learn more at duffarelli.net.
Virginia Evans recently completed her Masters of Philosophy in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin. The Irish Times published her essay, The Winter Place and the Dublin-based literary magazine Sonder published her short story, Fields and Fields of Poppies.
Episode: A Crack Up
Michael Fallon is a Senior Lecturer Emeritus in the English Department at the University of Maryland. He is the author of four collections of poetry, and his essays and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines. His innermost ear is always turned to what the Irish call “the music of what happens.”
Episodes: There is Something I Must Tell You | Finding the Lost River | Red Ferry, Blue Ferry
Carrie Grinstead lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Daniel, and their dogs, Pickle and Georgette. She works as a hospital librarian and can find just about anything on PubMed.
Episode: I Have Her Memories Now
Anna Prawdzik Hull is a writer, editor, teacher, and a literary translator from the French, Polish, Spanish, and Italian. She was born in Poland but grew up in France, where her family was granted political asylum in the early 1980s. She now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband and their two senior (and grumpy) cats.
Episode: Sandhill Cranes
Tim Jones is a fiction writer living in Northern California with his wife and two children, and when not writing is engaged in an active business career. His fiction has appeared in The First Line, and he also enjoys working with, and encouraging other writers. Tim grew up in Michigan, and in first grade actually did witness a kid sticking his tongue to a frigid metal pole in the middle of winter.
Episode: Under Overhead Lights
Sarah K. Lenz‘s nonfiction has appeared in numerous literary journals. Three of her essays have been named Notable in Best American Essays, and she is a recipient of the New Letters Readers’ award in nonfiction. She’s the founder of the Writers’ Studio – Corpus Christi, a community-based organization devoted to creative writing education. She teaches writing at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she lives with her husband, son, and three cantankerous cats
Episodes: Lightning Flowers | Driving the Section Line
Roberto Loiederman has been a journalist, merchant seaman, TV scriptwriter, kibbutz cook, deli owner, documentary film producer and writer, and some other professions he’d rather not remember. He’s had more than 200 articles and stories published in the L.A. Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Penthouse, Jewish Journal, The Forward, and many other literary magazines. He is co-author of The Eagle Mutiny, a nonfiction account of the only mutiny on an American ship in modern times. For more info, please visit: www.eaglemutiny.com
Episodes: Playing Air Guitar in Paris | Rafael, Titicaca, and How My Son Got His Name
Robin Luce Martin’s recent credits include the co-authored play On the Street Where We Live and the Eyelands 2020 International 3Rock prize, for the novel manuscript, Lizardmaid.
Honors for stories and novel excerpts include the 2009 Tennessee Williams Festival Story Prize and Out Like a Lion, shortlisted for the 2017 Del Sol First Novel and the 2014 Dundee International Book Prize. In 2015, co-founded, #YeahYouWrite a monthly author series in New York City.
Episode: Through the Hole
Anne Merino grew up in Arizona, devoted to horses, hounds, and books. Anne went on to become a professional ballerina and choreographer for notable companies in the U.S. and abroad. Now happily retired from the stage, she writes novels and plays. Married to a filmmaker, she also has two fascinating sons and a retired working dog named Hector. Learn more at here.
Sean Murray is an Analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense. He is a lawyer by training, and previously worked as a Foreign Service Officer for the State Department, in Lithuania, Moscow, and Washington, D.C. He is married and currently lives in the D.C. area.
Annilee Newton is a Houston-based writer and high school English teacher. For the last decade, she has been writing about food and memory. Annilee has an MFA in Creative Writing from Lesley University. She drinks Oregon pinot noir with steak, prosecco with pad thai, and has been known to complain about the over-the-top oakiness of California chardonnay to anyone who will listen. Learn more at annileenewton.com.
Episode: Wine Tasting
Jerry Vis spent the earliest years of his life in Paterson, New Jersey. He has an M.F.A. in fine art and taught for many years in public school and college. He is the author of Paterson Boy: My Family and Other Strangers: A Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories.
I’m Not Here: A Misfit’s Memoir in 21 Vignettes is a new story collection to be published in 2021 by Rivercliff Books & Media.
Episodes: Bob and the Beatniks | Trash Can Blues
Lorena Ortiz was raised by Mexican immigrant parents in the Bay Area of California. During the day she codes health and claims data. During the early mornings, lunch, breaks, evenings, and late nights, she writes the stories of her people. A first-generation Mexican American woman, her work is influenced by her roots and the mysticism of Mexican culture.
Episode: Agustine’s Mother
Jennifer O’Neill Pickering’s prose appears in numerous literary journals and is featured in audio recordings at “Writers on the Air” and “Restore and Restory: A Peoples History of the Cache Creek Nature Preserve.” She is the Host of “Prose In the Afternoon” at the Sacramento Poetry Center, a finalist in the New Women’s Voices Competition, and a Pushcart nominee for poetry. She is the author of Fruit Box Castles: Poems From A Peach Rancher’s Daughter.
Episode: Summer of the River Bottom Dragon
Robert Sachs’ fiction has appeared in The Louisville Review, the Chicago Quarterly Review, the Free State Review, the Great Ape Journal, and the Delmarva Review, among others. He holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Spalding University. His story, “Vondelpark,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2017. His story “Yo-Yo Man” was a Fiction Finalist in the 2019 Tiferet Writing Contest. Learn more at his website.
Episode: Traces of an Early Summer
Robert Shuster hasn’t yet encountered one of his characters in the flesh, but they’re roaming around in various places, including his novel To Zenzi (winner of the 2019 AWP Prize), and in stories that have appeared in numerous literary journals, and in the anthologies Micro Fiction and Yellow Silk II. He lives in Westchester County, NY.
Episode: Caro’s Return
Natalie Sierra is the author of Medusa, a collection of poetry. Her writing has been featured in literary journals and the Los Angeles Times. She is the editor in chief for Disquiet Arts, a gothic literary magazine. She lives in Pomona, CA with her husband, three daughters, four dogs, and their latest addition, a kitty named Angel.
Episode: A Cry in the Night
William Torphy’s opinion pieces have been featured in blogs, including Solstice Literary Review and OpEdge. He is a host and frequent reader at LitCrawl in San Francisco where he is an exhibition curator. His fiction has appeared in a number of magazines. He is the author of three books and has written for a number of magazines, including Artweek, Exposee, and Pacific Magazine.
Episode: Hideaway Lounge
Author Interviews
Check out our interviews with authors about their short stories.
Sean Murray
Jeff Fleischer
Harrison Blackman
Anna Prawkzik Hull