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Upstart Crow

Upstart Crow Podcast

Dedicated to promoting books and culture through engaging and informative podcasts. Our mission is to inspire our listeners to explore the literary arts and appreciate the diversity of ideas within our amazing world. We invite a diverse range of writers, historians, and cultural influences to share their expertise. From established artists to up-and-coming creatives, our guests provide unique perspectives on writing, the literary arts, and culture. Hosted by Ken Budd, Jennifer Disano, and William Miller.

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  • 24 episodes
  • fortnightly
  • Avg 49 min
  • English

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  • #31
    Nov 28, 2025 · 40 min

    Library Reads Special Edition – Fairfax Local Author Festival - Fairfax, VA

    Upstart Crow: Library Reads Special Edition – Fairfax Local Author Festival In this special edition of Upstart Crow, host Jennifer Disano visits the Fairfax Regional Library for the Local Author Festival, recorded November 15, 2025 in Fairfax, VA. Jennifer sat down with 16 talented authors and received submissions from 2 additional writers, exploring a wide variety of books, from memoirs and children’s stories to historical fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. Each author shared insights into their creative process and delivered a captivating synopsis of their work. Authors and Featured Books: Carolyn Belefski – Curls, Black Magic Tales (artwork), Adventures of Roxy and Dean Kristen Amundson – Grandparent Effect: Helping Children Thrive Through Love, Support and Connection Rebecca Hayden – Murder of Maggie Slipper, The Second Life of Brencie Jessup Kacy Cooney – Seeking Solace, In the Maze of Imagination Roy Whitehurst – Teaching Media Literacy with Social Media News Karma Shri P Murti – Lanka’s Forgotten Lives, Lully series Kayla Sanders – Mojada: Memoir of a Honduran Immigrant Leslie Lautenslager – My Time with General Colin Powell: Stories of Kindness, Diplomacy, and Protocol Jerry Markowitz – Hugs Poetic Life, Exploring Kindness and Respect Henry Brinton – War Bug Rick Spees – Capital Gains, Capital Losses Eric Smolinski (E.R. Smo) – Accrue's End series: Affliction, Provenance Kat Needham – Shepherd Girl: A Dog Story, Una and the Fox Beka Wueste – The Unsent Letters of Lucy Pryor, Fireflies in a Jar, My Side of the World and Other Tales of Death Keisha Strand – I Need a Friend, What If We Went? Dave Hatcher – Son of the Heartland: On the Way to the Promised Land Deanna Reina – MENtal: A Preposterous Pursuit of Love Janet Macreery – The Falls List of all authors at the festival here. Fairfax County Public Library and the Fairfax Library Foundation made this festival possible, supporting local authors and ensuring the community could engage with these incredible stories. #FairfaxLocalAuthors #LibraryAuthorFestival #CommunityReads #FairfaxVA --- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show:UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Hosted & Recorded by Jennifer Disano Edited & Produced by Jon D PodCom

  • #30
    Nov 14, 2025 · 51 min

    Andy Shallal - A Seat at the Table

    Andy Shallal – A Seat at the Table Andy Shallal has been a voice for social causes in and around Washington, DC, so consistently and for so many years that many who stop in at one of his Busboys and Poets restaurants, bookshops and event spaces may think of him more as a social activist than as a restauranteur. But he grew up in a restaurant. His father, who came to the U.S. as a diplomat, bought a pizza restaurant in Northern Virginia when Andy was 13. His father hired someone to run the restaurant six days a week, but on Sundays, Andy, his brother, and his sister helped their father run the place. Andy would do whatever task had to be done and dream of what he would do if the restaurant were his own. Some years later, after working for several other restaurants, he indeed was running his own place. In those days, the food might have come first. Even if the political activism was not far behind as a consideration. Today, 20 years after he opened the first Busboys, Andy now operates eight locations, each of which is a haven for writers, thinkers, performers of the literary and musical arts—as well as people who like well-prepared, congenially served food and drinks. In his memoir, A Seat at the Table, he tells how it all came to be, and how he came to create and helm it. You can get a copy of Andy Shallal’s memoir at any of the bookstores in Busboy’s or from the publisher, O/R Books (orbooks.com). https://orbooks.com/catalog/A-seat-at-the-table/ and is also available in audiobook. Hosted by William Miller “Food is basically a way to bring people together to the table… people remember experiences much more than they remember the actual food.” -Andy Shallal Key Takeaways Andy’s lifelong relationship with restaurants began at 13, helping his father run a small family pizza shop on Sundays. His early experiences as an immigrant shaped his worldview and later inspired his commitment to building inclusive, human-centered gathering spaces. After years of working in different restaurants, Andy opened his own spaces—each blending hospitality with art, community, and social engagement. Busboys and Poets was created as a place where food, conversation, books, and civic dialogue could thrive together. His memoir A Seat at the Table explores not just the creation of Busboys and Poets, but the deeper cultural, political, and personal forces that guided his journey. #BusboysAndPoets #ImmigrantStory #SocialEntrepreneurship -- Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. --- © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

  • #29
    Nov 11, 2025 · 53 min

    Amy Stuber & Rebecca Burke – Sad Grownups

    Amy Stuber wrote the stories and Rebecca Burke edited them to produce the book Sad Grownups that won the 2025 PEN/Bingham Prize for Best Debut Short Story Collection. A big deal in literary circles, the book becomes a milestone for its publisher, Stillhouse Press, a teaching press at George Mason University staffed by students and alums who learn the book business by publishing and selling books. Together, Amy and Rebecca discuss the writing process and editing processes, book production and marketing, the content of this prize-winning collection, and the differences today between major commercial publishing houses and small presses. Sad Grownups is Amy Stuber’s first book of fiction. Her stories have appeared separately in literary journals and magazines, including Ploughshares, Tri-Quarterly, American Short Fiction, New England Review, Idaho Review, Cincinnati Review, Flash Fiction America, Joyland, and others. She received the 2023 William Peden Prize in fiction from the Missouri Review and the 2021 Northwest Review Fiction Prize, and she was runner-up for the 2022 CRAFT Short Fiction Prize. She has a Ph.D. in English, has taught writing, and has worked in on-line education for several years. Rebecca Burke is editorial manager-production for Science Advances, for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she has worked since 2021, not long after finishing her MFA at George Mason. She received her BA from Mason in 2017, majoring in government and international politics with minors in intelligence analysis and international security. She graduated summa cum laude. At Stillhouse, Rebecca has been a consulting editor, submissions and acquisitions manager, and graduate professional assistant. In addition to Amy Stuber’s book, she also edited In Between Spaces: An Anthology of Disabled Writers (November 2022) and was an assistant editor for Catherine Klatzer’s book You Will Never Be Normal (May 2021), Michelle Ross’s Shapeshifting (November 2021), Phil Goldstein’s How to Bury a Boy at Sea (2022), and Josh Denslow’s Super Normal (2023). As a writer, she has published in several outlets, including Peatsmoke 2021 and Homology Lit 2019, where her work was a Best of the Net nominee. rrburkewrites.com Amy Stuber’s book Sad Grownups can be ordered directly from Stillhouse Press. The teaching press was established in 2014 as a way for the students in Mason’s MFA, BFA, MA and BA programs in creative writing and publishing to solicit manuscripts, acquire and produce and market works from independent authors, for the educational benefit of the students and alums and also, as it says on the web site, “in an effort to forge lasting relationships and foster the growth of the greater literary community.” Stillhouse Press is part of the Watershed Lit Center for Literary Arts and Publishing Practice at Mason. The other components are the Fall for the Book festival, the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, the Northern Virginia Writing Project, and the Poetry Daily on-line poetry distribution program. You can purchase a copy of Sad Grownups by Amy Stuber at StillhousePress.org here. “Small presses can take risks big publishers won’t. That’s where some of the most exciting writing is happening.” — Amy Stuber Key Takeaways • Writer Amy Stuber and editor Rebecca Burke walk through the creative evolution behind Sad Grown-Ups, from early drafts to a PEN Bingham Prize–winning debut. • The episode reveals how collaborative editing, motif mapping, and story sequencing strengthened the collection’s emotional arc and overall cohesion. • Amy and Rebecca break down the realities of small press publishing vs. big-house expectations, especially when it comes to debut short story collections. • Several standout stories are explored, including “Day Hike,” “Sad Grown-Ups,” and “Little Women,” touching on themes of loss, reinvention, vulnerability, and identity. • The conversation offers an honest look at marketing a debut, navigating rejection, and the tension between artistic integrity and marketability. #ShortStoryCollections #SmallPressPublishing #LiteraryFictionInsights Hosted by William Miller Be sure to check out our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: UpstartCrow.org Follow us on Facebook here. Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. --- © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

  • #28
    Nov 7, 2025 · 51 min

    Matthew Davis – A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore

    In his new book, Matthew Davis explores one of the most iconic monuments in America—and perhaps the world. For nearly a century, Mount Rushmore has loomed large in the American imagination, but its origin story is far more complex than most visitors ever realize. From the slow, decades-long path to its creation, to the artistic and engineering challenges faced by sculptor Gutzon Borglum and the 400 men who carved the mountain, the monument’s history reveals layers that extend well beyond its granite faces. Davis argues that Rushmore likely couldn’t be built today—not only because of its sheer artistic ambition, but because of the changing cultural, political, and ethical landscape. How different communities interpret the monument varies dramatically, shaped by beliefs, culture, memory, and contested histories. The Black Hills themselves provoke discussions of land, belonging, and the legacy of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie—issues that continue to influence contemporary conversations about meaning, monuments, and national identity. Matthew Davis is also the author of When Things Get Dark. His work has appeared in leading publications such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Los Angeles Times Review of Books. He has been an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America, a Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV, and a Fulbright Fellow. Davis holds an MFA in nonfiction from the University of Iowa and an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins. He was the founding director of the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center at George Mason University. A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore is published by St. Martin’s Press with an official release date of November 11, 2025. It will be available through Bookshop, independent bookstores, Barnes & Noble, Powells, Target, and Amazon. Key Takeaways Mount Rushmore’s creation was shaped not only by artistry, but by politics, ego, and American mythmaking—its origin far more tangled than most realize. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum was both visionary and controversial, celebrated for his art yet entangled with the Ku Klux Klan and known for a domineering temperament. The history of the Black Hills, including the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie and the U.S. government’s seizure of the land, is central to understanding the monument’s ongoing controversy. Contemporary movements such as Land Back demonstrate that Rushmore’s story is not finished—its meaning continues to evolve through debates about justice, memory, and national identity. Memorials reflect their makers. Comparing Mount Rushmore to community-led memorials like Remembering the Children in Rapid City shows how public memory can shift from domination to inclusion. Links Find out more about Matthew Davis: http://matthewdaviswriter.com/ Read Matt’s Substack “About A Place”: https://matthewdavisj.substack.com/ Purchase A Biography of a Mountain: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250285102/abiographyofamountain/ Quote of the Episode “History isn’t confined to the textbooks in the Black Hills—it’s a living, breathing organism that you really can’t escape.” — Matthew Davis #MountRushmoreHistory #AmericanMonuments #MatthewDavisInterview Hosted by William Miller Be sure to visit our website for more information about our hosts, guests, and ways you can support the show: https://UpstartCrow.org Thank you for listening to Upstart Crow, a part of Watershed Lit Radio. --- © 2025 Upstart Crow Podcast – All Rights Reserved Recorded & Produced by Jon D PodCom

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