PBQ is back with the first episode of 2017! In this episode we talk about two poems by Taylor Altman and one by Heather Sagar.

This week, we have a holiday special for you all! Just a few months ago, we had the privilege of hosting an event for Philalalia, a small press festival. We had a great reading at the Pen and Pencil Club in Philadelphia with a superbly talented group of writers, and we know you’re gonna love them as much as we did!

This week’s piece led to a lot of great discussion! While we analyzed our favorite and not-so-favorite moments in this story, our table discussed fiction as a genre: its purpose and the functions it must serve for its readers. With lingering depictions of artwork and thoughts on the process of grief, this story certainly provided conversation. However, did “White” do it for us? Listen and find out!

we’re transported to the sunny beaches of “Bora Bora,” where we find ourselves with some trouble in paradise. We follow that off trying to decipher “The Walrus in the Tea Leaves,” where we’re left with more questions than answers. And finally, we throwback to The Eagles’ “Hotel California” with “Déjà Vu.” Even though we do check in, we’re not so sure if we ever want to leave!

In reaction to the events of November 8, this week’s episode begins with local Philly poet Cynthia Dewi Oka reading “Post-Election Song of Myself.” We first heard it at our Reading at the Black Sheep Pub on Monday, November 12, and we were so moved we had to ask her to share it with you.

In Episode 21 of Slush Pile, we discuss two poems by Harold Whit Williams.
Our small group of three begin the episode with “Hawk Pride Mountain Nocturne,” a piece that Marion feels, “breaks [her] heart from line one.” With an incantatory and rhythmic tone, we are swept back in time to a liminal spot of dreams and melodrama. Our vote was unanimous, but we are requesting a few “gentle” edits.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Episode TWENTY of Slush Pile! We thank all of our listeners, writers, and guest speakers for supporting this podcast and its mission.

We first launched Slush Pile at the end of March at the 2016 AWP Conference. We were thrilled with the enthusiastic response, yet confused at
how many times people asked if we were related to Slush Pile Magazine, also debuting at 2016 AWP! We had never heard of this publication, so we hunted down their booth and were blown away by the ladder and a very tall stack of papers. We had the pleasure of meeting M. Rachel Branwen, Slush Pile Magazine’s founder and editor, and we invited her back to our booth for some boxed wine and great conversation! Then, we convinced her to come on air.

For this episode, we have two “creepy” poems submitted for our Monsters Issue by Sarah Kain Gutowski.
Sarah Kain Gutowski can’t keep succulents alive and is easily distracted by all things blue and shiny. Find her on Instagram @sarahkaingutowski to follow her annual #domesticviolenceawareness project during the month of October, or at her blog, where she keeps a messy, irregular, sometimes profanity-laced record of her life as a writer, academic, and mother of three.

This episode is extra special because we had guest, Erika Meitner, winner of the National Poetry Series and professor at Virginia Tech. She is currently working on a “documentary poetry project” on the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland for Virginia Quarterly Review.

Today we have a very different episode; instead of discussing submissions from our own slush pile, we talk about whether a “slush pile” is even the best way to find writing and writers at all! Joining us is Jim Hanas, author of the essay “Let’s Kill the Slush Pile,” which details how open submissions really work, under what premises, and the advantages of scouting for work over open submissions. In a world where Facebook and Wordpress have made sharing writing easier than ever, does a slush pile still have the value that it once had? Are Editors who strictly pick from submissions nothing more than literary Gatekeepers? We sit down for this episode ready to defend our democratic slush pile as the obvious way to go, but Jim’s arguments left us questioning our own methods (unless you’re Jason).