Just Checking In

Writers with pets in solariums

Rachel catches up with poet and literary activist, E. Ethelbert Miller, and they talk about going to the Grammys, collaborations, life after COVID, and the depressing uniformity of critically-acclaimed literature, all on this month’s episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Just Checking In with E. Ethelbert Miller

Rachel catches up with short story writer, Rion Amilcar Scott, and they talk about visiting historical plantations, squeezing writing between kids and work, and the intrigue of the Titan submersible, all on this month’s episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Just Checking In with Rion Amilcar Scott

Courtney catches up with poet, Jose Padua, and they talk about gaining perspective through travel, connecting the absurd to the everyday, and Barry Manilow, all on this month’s episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Just Checking In with Jose Padua

Courtney catches up with writer and professor, Kyoko Mori, and they talk about their mutual love of animals, Jo Ann Beard’s Festival Days, and how writing is more like birds than cats, all on this month’s episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Just Checking In with Kyoko Mori

Rachel catches up with writer, Anna Qu, and they talk about getting back to writing after the whirlwind of book publication, the brain teaser of switching from nonfiction to fiction, and tomatoes versus zucchini, all on this month’s episode of Just Checking In, a series of informal chats with some of our favorite writers.

Just Checking In with Anna Qu

The Inner Loop board member Leeya Mehta catches up with Kris O'Shee, a professional counselor, choreographer, and writer. The pair talk about ideal times and locations for writing, O'Shee's new writing projects about family and dance, and the joys of her dancing dogs. They ask: what needs to be destroyed so something new can be created? All the metaphors are here to get your creativity going.

Just Checking In with Kris O'Shee

The Inner Loop board member Leeya Mehta catches up with “Carousel Court” author Joe McGinniss for her new sub-series of Just Checking In: Writers in Solariums with Pets. The pair check in with the dogs and another secret pet (!), talk about the difference between the creative process of fiction and nonfiction, and discuss how writing nonfiction can offer a specific sort of peace. Joe says that “the reality is there is no reality,” especially in the thrilling, immersive, and terrifying experience of writing.

Just Checking In with Joe McGinniss

The Inner Loop board member Leeya Mehta catches up with author Linda Chavez for her new sub-series of Just Checking In: Writers with Pets in Solariums. The pair discuss Linda's parrot, her writing project involving a surprising discovery in her past, and some mischievous pet stories.

Linda Chavez is the chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity in Falls Church, VA. She served as director of public liaison in the Reagan White House and as staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She served on the Sub-commission on Human Rights of the U.N. Human Rights Commission from 1992-1996. She is the author of three books, including the memoir An Unlikely Conservative, and numerous articles on public policy, which have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times, among others. Chavez wrote a weekly syndicated column on politics and public policy from 1987-2017. She earned a B.A. from the University of Colorado in 1970 and an M.F.A. from George Mason University in 2012. Her short stories have appeared in Commentary magazine, Red Rock Review and Persimmon Tree. Her forthcoming novel, Guiomar’s Secret is the story of a young woman in 16 th Century Spain who discovers her family are Converso Jews living in the shadow of the Inquisition.

Just Checking In with Linda Chavez

In this Just Checking In sub-series, Writers with Pets in Solariums, Leeya Mehta chats with Amanda Newell about balancing writing with life, her latest collection: Postmortem Say, and what horses have to teach us about life.

Amanda Newell lives on a farm in southern Maryland with a cat named Kit Kat and two horses, Eko and Ed. She's close enough to the Chesapeake to hear the waves breaking against the shore. She grew up riding and showing horses and still finds mucking stalls therapeutic. She also loves the other animals on the farm, including the foxes and deer, who sometimes dine together. 

Newell is the author of Postmortem Say, published in 2024 by Cervena Barva Press. Her chapbook, I Will Pass Even to Acheron, was a 2021 winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of fellowships and/or scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Frost Place, and The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. A graduate of the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers, Amanda is currently an associate editor for the contemporary poetry journal Plume. She is currently working on a hybrid memoir about reconstructing her identity in the aftermath of the suicide of her ex-husband, a former prosecutor and judge. Her website is: www.amandanewellpoet.com

Just Checking In with Amanda Newell

Welcome to the Inner Loop Radio in our latest segment of Just Checking where we bring you our sub-series by Leeya Mehta: Writers with Pets in Solariums.

In this fifth and last edition for the year, Leeya Mehta talks with her friend, non-fiction writer Rashmi Sadana. We are calling this episode: Maybe We Can All be a Little Like Luna: a Conversation with Rashmi Sadana.

Dr. Rashmi Sadana is an urban ethnographer and Berkeley-trained cultural anthropologist who has been writing about the city of Delhi for the last twenty years. Her most recent book is called “The Moving City” and tells the story of Delhi’s new subway system from the perspective of the people who ride it. It’s a story about the radical possibilities and concretized inequalities of the city. It’s also the author’s love letter to the city. Rashmi teaches at George Mason University and is otherwise at the beck and call of a gray tabby called Luna.

References to Books:
Rashmi Sadana, “The Moving City”
Rashmi Sadana, “English Heart, Hindi Heartland: The Political Life of Literature in India” 
Dinaw Mengetsu, “SOMEONE LIKE US”
Yahica Dutt, “Coming Out as Dalit: A Memoir”
Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste”
BR Ambedkar, “The Annihilation of Caste”

Just Checking in with Rashmi Sadana

Rachel Coonce and Courtney Sexton bring you creative writing inspiration, literature and craft discussions, and commiseration on the writing life with interviews, inspiration takeovers, and chats with poets and authors of fiction and nonfiction.

Just Checking In with Kris O'Shee

The Inner Loop Radio: A Creative Writing Podcast